Thread by @alfiekohn

1/10 Trump’s breathtakingly cruel new #ImmigrationPolicy that excludes the neediest is essentially a codification of his personal inability to feel compassion or empathy. Thus, one man’s psychological deficits will become the law of the land...

2/10 In fact, many of Trump’s positions are best viewed through a psychological (vs. political/economic) lens. Ex. A: the hyperpatriotism he fell back on to reframe his racist “go back” sneers to four minority Congresswomen (is.gd/1hIX2K)...

3/10 A social scientist quoted in that article: “As president, he now sees America as an avatar for himself – it must be great because he’s great. From this perspec, to allow that America has faults wd be to allow that Trump has them, something he has never been willing to do”...

4/10 Ex. B: Trump clearly has no understanding of how tariffs work or who pays for them. His ruinous trade war may excite his xenophobic supporters, but mostly it reflects his need to feel powerful and his perpetual fear that others are disrespecting & taking advantage of him...

5/10 Ex. C: He won’t allow the GOP to protect our elections from Russian interference b/c to do so would threaten his precarious sense of self-worth by raising doubts about his (Electoral College) victory. Our votes may be hacked b/c of 1 man’s desperate emotional insecurity...

6/10 Last yr, Dr. Bandy Lee, a forensic psychiatrist at Yale Med Schl, was interviewed about Trump for a book. She described how “any form of challenge to his inflated self-image can inspire vengeful retaliation”; how, in a crisis, he’ll likely be psychologically unable…

7/10 ...“to consider the safety of the U.S. independent of its benefit to him”; how his extreme volatility reflects his constant readiness “to enter into attack mode if his fragile self-image is threatened.” [Note: It’s not unusual for self-image to be both inflated & fragile.]

8/10 Based on 20 yrs of work w/ violent criminals, Dr. Lee recognizes “the depth of unacknowledged humiliation & shame. [Such people] do anything to hide this weakness, *especially* to themselves, & may even have perfected their projection of an image of…

9/10 “...strength or ‘hyper-health,’ but...in truth the person is usually quite craven & fragile.”
And if he’s reelected? “Since no amt of adulation will suffice to fill an internal void, the length of time he has experienced power will worsen his symptoms. A 2nd win would…

10/10 “...exacerbate his state by removing constraints to his pathology, giving him more fantastical ideas of unltmtd power...[which] wd not bode well for our freedom & safety.”
Future scholars will need the tools of psychology to make sense of what happened to our democracy.//