IS DONALD TRUMP EVIL?
Donald Trump appears to be a very troubled man. 27 mental health professionals wrote a book, The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump, in which they claim he is a toxic narcissist, a sociopath, an anti social personality, among other disorders.
A toxic narcissist has an elevated state of grandiosity. A sociopath has no empathy or concern for others & is highly manipulative. An anti social personality is destructive & has no regard for established social norms.
Ordinarily mental health professionals are prohibited by their organizations from making diagnostic statements about people they haven't actually worked with. They are prohibited by medical confidentiality from making such statements about people they have treated.
But they also have The Duty to Warn. If they observe behavior where someone may harm themselves or others, they have a duty to report it. Certainly an unstable president with access to nuclear weapons fits that category.
Many are concerned Trump's apparent pathological lying indicates a detachment from reality that can be a symptom of psychosis.
Many are also concerned Trump's apparent memory problems may be indicative of cognitive decline indicating dementia..
Trump appears incredibly selfish & self centered. He appears oblivious to the effects of his actions & the harm he is causing others.
But is Trump evil? Mental health professionals tell us the word "evil" is a pejorative moralistic term that does nothing to help us understand behavior & potentially modify it.
Evil, from our human perspective, is something that harms us or people & things we care about. It also involves the concept of intentionality. An earthquake or tornado may kill people & destroy things. We may say that's bad, but we don't say they're evil.
If enemies we have otherized are harmed in a war, we don't usually say that is evil or even bad, because we don't care about those people. Trump supporters have otherized immigrants at the border. They don't care if they are harmed.
Trump has mobilized the dark demons of our nature--racism, ethnic hatred. He said neo-Nazis & KKK members marching in Charlottesville were "good people". This evil genie will not be easily put back in the bottle.
So do you believe Trump is not just sick, but EVIL???
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10 comments
Feel free to reply to any comment by clicking the "Reply" button.Considering the varying interpretations of the word "evil", I believe that if evil exists, trump exemplifies it.
BitFlipper
Level 8
Sep 6, 2019
2
Leaving aside religious connotations, I would say evil is intentionally doing harm to us or people & things we care about for selfish & self centered reasons. We might differentiate between an evil act & an evil person.
Someone may do an evil act in a truly desperate situation, say when their life is threatened, but that doesn't necessarily make them an evil person. Evil people do evil acts habitually & unprovoked. They take no responsibility for the consequences of their evil acts & blame others.
Does this sound like Trump?
Donald Trump is stupid evil -- he commits acts of evil with little thought or planning beyond the low grade level at which he thinks. Mitch McConnell is smart evil -- he thinks deeply and at length about the atrocities he commits. Both are evil regardless of how much intelligence is behind their contemptible activities and they both belong in a prison cell, not running the fucking country.
Sgt_Spanky
Level 8
Sep 6, 2019
2
I agree. Some people do evil things because they are stupid & some because they are smart. To my mind, Trump is a puppet of Putin, who is using his vanity & greed to manipulate him.
Moscow Mitch also knows where his bread is buttered. He lifted sanctions against Putin oligarch Oleg Derapaska's aluminum co, then Derapaska made a 200 million "investment" in Kentucky, McConnell's home state. What else did Derapaska do for Moscow Mitch?
Stupid or smart, both these suspected traitors belong doing hard time in the slammer.
IT says. "A toxic narcissist has an elevated state of grandiosity. A sociopath has no empathy or concern for others & is highly manipulative. An anti social personality is destructive & has no regard for established social norms."
So how does that make him different from anyone who runs for public office ?
And sadly this is not intended as a joke, not altogether anyway.
Fernapple
Level 9
Sep 6, 2019
1
I think it is a matter of degree. Anyone who runs for public office, especially high public office, requires a powerful ego & so may be said to be narcissistic. Narcissism runs on a scale from mild to toxic. If they're smart they hide their narcissism behind a pretended concern for the public.
But they are usually not really too concerned for the public & are highly manipulative, which means they are somewhat sociopathic. Such people can appear very charming & many people are attracted to them. They say when you met Hitler or Stalin in person, they were very charming.
But they are generally not anti social. When they are running for office, they may talk about shaking things up if it helps them get elected, but once they are in office, they generally are very concerned about preserving the status quo, as doing so preserves their power.
Donald Trump is on w whole other order of magnitude from most leaders in world history. The only ones I would compare him to are those like Caligula, Hitler, & Stalin. It's true he hasn't killed millions of people yet, but give him time, as he has nuclear weapons
The term 'evil' is problematic because of its religious roots. However, if it is stipulated that the term is being applied within a secular context, I would say yes, DT is evil. But then the question is, what is the meaning of 'evil' within a secular context? Is it someone who indulges and revels in their perversity? Is it someone who is devoid of empathy, and leverages that indifference as they engage in depraved actions?
racocn8
Level 9
Sep 6, 2019
2
Many of us noticed this stuff Decades ago, helllooooooo
AnneWimsey
Level 9
Sep 5, 2019
1
Mitch McConnell is evil.
Trump is an ignorant, cruel, lying, sociopath, narcissist, sexist and racist bully.
LiterateHiker
Level 9
Sep 5, 2019
5
trump really can't help who he is. This is not to excuse what he says and does. He just doesn't have the intelligence, talent, or personality traits to be President. mitch knows what he is doing. mitch thinks about this shit. trump just reacts. trump does evil. mitch is evil.
He's no more evil than the rest of us, if you want to try to split up human behavior into groups like good and evil.
MarkiusMahamius
Level 7
Sep 5, 2019
0
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