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In reply to the discussion: 'The president's insane': book by CNN's Jim Acosta charts Trump war on press [View all]Boomer
(4,168 posts)Technically, it's categorized as a "personality disorder", but at the extreme end where Trump resides, it's akin to mental illness.
He is literally incapable of controlling his emotional reactions, which are basically just ego defenses. All of his energy is focused on propping up his self-image as the greatest in everything. That's not just the bombast of a con artist; he really believes this. Any threat to that self-image has to be eliminated, and any event that casts doubt on his exceptional abilities much be reworked into a more acceptable reality: people are wrong, people are lying, people are out to get him because they are jealous.
It's that recasting of reality that makes him so dangerous in a position of power. He is incapable of understanding facts that do no support his limited world-view in which he is the hero, and he will fight like a cornered rat to preserve his view.
He's also uninterested in anything that is not about himself. He is the center of the universe and everyone else is part of the audience. They are useful only to the degree that they show their adoration of him.
I hold the people who support him as accountable. He is unfit for the presidency, but they are either unwilling to face that fact or they think he can be manipulated. Trump really can't help being himself, but everyone around him could make the decision to stop treating him like a sane person.