Thread by @HoarseWisperer

Been a while since I've written a "Mind of Trump" thread on Commander Babyfingers' narcissistic personality disorder so let's catch up... 1/

Sorry for the light publication cycle. Been moving, coaching soccer, yadda yadda... but obviously there is much to talk about. 2/

If you've been following me since way back when my pinned thread first touched on Trump's severe mental health impairment... 3/

...you may recall that way back in the day, I suggested that Trump would eventually recede into a quasi-lame duck president. 4/

Meaning, he's run without running and simply stop even trying to do the real "presidenty" stuff and would largely shirk the job. 5/

We're there.

As I always say, Trump is driven by only two impulses: seek adoration; flee shame. That's all there is to the man. 6/

Trump has reached the entirely predictable point where he is so boxed in by his own failures and incompetence, that he can do neither. 7/

He cannot earn adoration and he can't avoid being publicly shamed over and over and over for his endless utterly impulsive eff-ups. 8/

Left in that position, a person with narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) would ordinarily feel compelled to flee the scene. Fast. 9/

Trump, however, cannot handle the ego hit of stepping down... yet... That will change but for now, he's essentially trapped. 10/

What's left for him is only to quit without quitting... To play a sh**load of golf, avoid the real work, and merely go thru the motions. 11/

For Trump, going through the motions means sending out a boatload of incendiary tweets about all manner of nothingness to look busy. 12/

If the news is talking about what Trump did today, he appears to be working when he actually just played 4 straight days of golf. 13/

In fact, the bigger the pseudo-drama he kicks up, the more he thinks he is fooling people into thinking he's working hard. 14/

That leads to whirling dervishes of lunacy like we saw from Donnie Duncecap this morning. It's noise for noise's sake. 15/

So, by and large, Trump is retreating from the office and merely parodying himself... He's pretending to be the same Trump he was in Feb.16/

Beneath that larger phenomenon, there are a few other subtexts but they're largely standard fare for Trump and his NPD. 17/

First we have the Tillerson and Corker dramas. Nothing more than a man with a fractured porcelain ego lashing out at critics. Std. fare. 18/

Next, we have the whole NFL drama. There's a whole lot of backstory and subtext there but the most important aspect is surface-level. 19/

By picking his fight with the NFL, among at least some people, Trump has managed to put himself inside the same circle as them. 20/

Meaning, he has managed to create a good guy/bad guy scenario where some people see him as all good and see others as all bad. 21/

While some people obviously oppose him, he created the NFL skirmish at a time when he was getting zero active love from ANYONE. 22/

He was getting beat up in the polls and wasn't able to do his usual narcissistic fuel-up rallies... or they were going badly (i.e AL) 23/

He was feeling nothing close to love flowing his way and was catching plenty of negativity and judgment... so he manufactured an enemy. 24/

A narc like Trump would rather have some people love them and others hate them than have no one love them at all. 25/

While it sounds incredibly dysfunctional (because it is) a severe NPD only has two settings when it comes to people anyway. 26/

They idealize or devalue people. People are all wonderful or all awful in their eyes. (that's called "splitting" btw). 27/

So while a normal person wouldn't choose to make some people hate them more on purpose to make other people like them, Trump does. 28/

To Trump, the haters are evil and awful and worthless anyway, so kicking up controversy merely unlocks the passionate love of his base...29/

...without costing himself anything (in his mind at least).

So, the NFL drama is little more than a way for Trump to stoke some love. 30/

Anyway, this is getting long and rambling, so let me wrap it up with this:

We're seeing a president disinterested in the job. 31/

We're seeing a president who cannot face the fact that he is utterly incompetent and who can do nothing more than pretend he isn't. 32/

The outcome here was always preordained - Trump will not last through his term - but as we wait for his ouster, this is what we'll see. 33/

Trump is lame-ducking himself by fleeing the Oval Office and will continue to do so while lobbing manic, meaningless tweets for cover. 34/

Trump's tweets have never been more toothless and unworthy of your emotion than they are now. He is little more than a bot now. 35/

As the mindfulness saying goes "observe with detachment".

Trump has been reduced to sound and fury signifying nothing.

Just noise. <end>