Don’t Take Your Eyes off the Ball

  As this new U.S. presidency has shown from day one, there will be all kinds of conflicts, discussion points, and issues to sift through. With POTUS DJT, the most important factor to remember – more than policies, tweets, economics, and fighting between groups – is that he has is a Narcissistic Personal Disorder (NPD). If you have dealt with NPD’s, you will know. You can also read through the descriptions on the MayoClinic website and see for yourself. NPD's can do some good, and they are beloved by many. But they are self-promoting and genuinely believe they are the best thing that could happen to others fortunate enough to know them. I urge you to keep your eye on that ball throughout this presidency.

  NPD’s are also manipulative, deceptive, and ruthless without remorse towards people they perceive to be opposed to them. DJT’s similarity to Bane (villain in “The Dark Knight Rises”) is just as much due to his ruthlessness towards enemies as it is to a striking resemblance between Bane's speech and DJT's inauguration speech. (For clips of Bane’s ruthlessness, click here.) Related is how NPD’s lure others into fighting each other, by tossing out half-truths, accusations, criticisms, responsibility-deflections, or claims that divert attention from their own manipulative ambitions.

  Reality also includes the fact that DJT was elected by enough of the U.S. citizenry for him to win through the Electoral College system. NPD’s have remarkable insight into leveraging arguments and systems to their own advantage – and the DJT campaign won the election. Now we as U.S. citizens, along with the rest of the world, will live with that. Many people are happy about DJT’s promise to “Make America Great Again,” including some U.S. Christian leaders who see God’s protecting hand of blessing at work. Some analysts are saddened by “The [Exceptional] America We Lost When Trump Won,” e.g., through the election’s "sheer, profound vulgarity." For myself, more than ever I see the United States of America as a contemporary economic, military, and cultural power that resulted from just one more colonial rebellion. That independence movement was part of a reshaping (in some parts unhealthy) over the past half-millennium of the Trans-Atlantic world – including the peoples and overall environments of West Africa, Western Europe, and pre-European “America.” We Caucasian U.S.-Americans who wish to continue to reap the benefits and inherited privileges of that transformation may unwittingly have helped bring into power a man who simply adores himself beyond all else.

  While this 45^th U.S. Presidency holds forth encouraging promise to many in financial and business senses, it also portends to wreak havoc through a self-serving NPD whose decisions and policies will only be made more harmful by DJT’s lack of international political experience and sensitivity. Running the U.S. Government like a for-profit business empire may help some people’s livelihoods and most corporations’ bottom lines improve, at least in the short-term. However, I fear for women and for those in the U.S. who fall outside DJT’s and his electorate’s racial-nationalist circles. I also fear for those many parts of the world that do not see eye-to-eye with a leader who would rather ruthlessly compete with them, in a game-like business that has military consequences, rather than cooperate toward the greater good. Kyrei eleison.