Donny Does Diplomacy

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Ah, the sickly smell of pathocracy in the morning. And afternoon. And evening.

Our Killer King Donny is doing his best to exceed his daddy’s expectations of him, and continues his raging bull rampage through the Jiina shop of the world. It is his Jiina shop now and he can do with it whatever he wants, just in case there were any doubts.

The White House leakers, may they be blessed, leaked the contents of Donny’s, erm, conversation with Australian PM where he:

(…) blasted Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull over a refu­gee agreement and boasted about the magnitude of his electoral college win, according to senior U.S. officials briefed on the Saturday exchange. Then, 25 minutes into what was expected to be an hour-long call, Trump abruptly ended it.

At one point, Trump informed Turnbull that he had spoken with four other world leaders that day — including Russian President Vladi­mir Putin — and that “this was the worst call by far.”

So there.

After the story made the news, Trump tweeted with his usual combination of bombast, inanity, and sadism, trying to mitigate the damage from the leak and pretending that he was in control of these developments. As if.

We also learned that he threatened to invade Mexico and somehow punish Iran. All that in the span of just a few days, in addition to all his other “accomplishments,” a productive leader — and true to his word — that he is. And he is just getting started, in case you  wondered.

Meanwhile, pundits continue not to get it as evidenced by their commentary:

Trump’s behavior suggests that he is capable of subjecting world leaders, including close allies, to a version of the vitriol he frequently employs against political adversaries and news organizations in speeches and on Twitter.

Oy.

It is not that he is capable of bullying and sadistically tormenting foreign leaders as well as domestic adversaries, it is that he is incapable of anything else. His character defect makes him rigid, inflexible, and unable to learn, as well as sadistic. So, for better and for worse, with Donny you get what you see and you see what you get.

Yes, he can, and does on occasion, try to fake civility and a semblance of concern for anything other than himself, but those laughable attempts do not fool — or shouldn’t fool  — anyone. The man is congenitally incapable of empathy and sows chaos and destruction the way others breathe. His red made-in-Jiina campaign hat should have read, “Inherently Destructive,” which is a far more accurate slogan than MAGA.

Kellyanne Goebbels denies that the leak came from the White House, but Australians say it did. Who are you going to believe, mate, Mrs. “Alternative Facts” Goebbels or the harmless Aussies?

The presence of leakers suggests that there may be some normal people left in the administration — or perhaps those are the members of his cabal who despise him and his closest handlers enough to try to muck up their game.

In any case, it is certain that the Trump’s White House is mired in rage, chaos, and intrigue, as those are the effects that malignantly narcissistic and psychopathic leaders always have on their closest circle as well as their countries and the world.

Mrs. Goebbels also said something remarkable a few days ago (among a slew of similarly remarkable things):

We turn the other cheek. If you are part of team Trump, you walk around with these gaping, seeping wounds every single day, and that’s fine.

Oh, the martyrdom of Trump and his cabal.

Just as there is no force more destructive in the human universe than narcissistic rage, no pain can compare to that of a narcissist — in her or his own mind.

Theirs is the grandest, most profoundest suffering imaginable. They are not just paragons of all virtue, turning their other cheeks and heroically accepting their sorrowful fate, gaping, seeping wounds ‘n all, but they do so for the good of humanity — even as they destroy the said humanity with every deed of theirs. That’s because they are the ones inflicting pretty much all gaping wounds and traumas on others, on an individual and social scale.

The spectacle of Mrs. Goebbels whining about being scrutinized by the press, scrutiny that’s a routine part of her job and privileged position in life, acquires an especially darkly ironic tone coming right after her blithe dismissal of the suffering caused by Trump’s immigration ban. When talking about the refugees and immigrants affected by it, she minimized their uncertainty, fears, and very real dangers to their lives by calling them “travel headaches” and comparing their plight with her own inconvenience of going through the airport security.

Her behavior is as illustrative of narcissistic pathology as Anders Breivik’s complaints that he did not get a band-aid for his finger cut (caused by a jammed gun) right away from the emergency personnel summoned to deal with his massacre of 69 (77 altogether) people in Norway in 2011. This hero of alt-righters everywhere moans even today about his cruel and unusual punishment, now in his confinement. Apparently he does not always get pens and meals of his choice.

Narcissistic psychopaths are remarkably alike in crucial respects, most of all in their “natural” objectification and dehumanization of others, and perpetually aggrieved entitlement: to power, glory, and sex, the order of those goals varying in different circumstances.

They always reveal their pathology — in their deeds of course, but also in what they say and how they say it. Their casual dehumanization of people slips out in ways, subtle and not, they talk about them — for example, using that for who (e.g., Immigrants that refuse to cooperate, instead of Immigrants who refuse to cooperate, etc.).

Or see Kellyanne Goebbels’ interview with Chris Wallace, where she offers a positively chilling example of such objectification:

It’s a routine screening process that they’ll go through.  If they’re not dangerous, if they’re not a threat, then they will be disposed of on a case by case — their situations will be handled on a case-by-case basis.

Another revealing instance is Tom “Soft Sensuality” Barrack’s remark about exporting (around 7:13) refugees as if they were things.

That’s no accident, since to individuals with an impaired or absent conscience other people are no different from things — and it shows in the way they talk.

No matter how much they may try to cover their lack of conscience with a flowery language full of “proper” expressions of emotion, their callousness and casual disregard for the suffering of others always surface (e.g., see Barrack’s When we’re talking about refugees going everywhere, which is the saddest situation in the world — around 6:55 — the glibness of the first clause invalidates the purported “sadness” expressed in the second; the remark about refugees being exported, which follows, confirms the tendency to objectify others and the superficiality of emotion). Barrack’s mild-mannered and cultured demeanor, so very different from that of his boss, along with a patina of reasonableness and a diplomatic way of ingratiating himself with his audience (and opponents) do not make up for his missing conscience.

And these are the people in charge of running our country and the world today (and not only).

Leonard Cohen, who passed away the day before American election, titled his last album, released shortly before his death, “You want it darker.” The chorus in the title song goes,  “You want it darker … we kill the flame.” Yes, we do that.

While on the subject of Donny’s brand of diplomacy, we must mention his outreach to those foreigners known as African Americans. He had a “listening session,” where he subjected a group of representatives of that mysterious demographic to tales of his glory, interspersed with perfunctory nods to some big names, including a guy named Frederick Douglass, apparently a famous football player. During that hellish session, Donny was accompanied by his favorite (and only) African Americans: Ben “Brain surgery is definitely NOT rocket science” Carson and the resplendent Omarosa Manigault, his “Apprentice” alumna.

Omarosa’s pre-election words of narcissistic threat promise are worth bringing up again:

Every critic, every detractor, will have to bow down to President Trump. It’s everyone who’s ever doubted Donald, who ever disagreed, who ever challenged him. It is the ultimate revenge to become the most powerful man in the universe.

You want it darker — we kill the flame. Don’t say you haven’t been warned.

Updated 2/5/17.

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