Does anybody else think Trump might be suffering from the classic "old age" dementia????

[Aron9000]

Just here me out for a second, this is a man who has always had tremendous self confidence. Very rarely is he wrong, at least in his mind. He does have a track record of success(and underhanded business dealings to cover up failures), and hell his self confidence to bounce back from failure is part of his success.

Maybe now that he's entering old age, he has become self delusional, that part of himself that kind of checks his ego/id has slid to the wayside. He just acts on impulse, the part of him that is "judgement" has kind of started to take a back seat.

Just as an example, a classic slide into dementia is to remember how things were in the past. He was good buddies with the Russians in his business dealings, they financed his deals. Now that he's put in a different role and in a different time(post Crimea/Ukraine invasion), he can't clearly see that Putin is an evil manipulator.

I also see this as sometimes Trump does the classic politician thing and talks out of both sides of his mouth. He's done this with "REPEAL OBAMACARE" but "oh hold on we now need TRUMP CARE", same thing with the Russians, he's praised Putin, then turned around the next day and condemned him.

Maybe it isn't dementia, its an addiction to twitter and being so damn compulsive that he can't form a cohesive message on a lot of issues.

 

[rareboy]

His behaviour is not at all consistent with dementia.

It is entirely consistent with a sleep deprived sociopath with narssistic personality disorder.

And he has behaved like this for decades.

 

[TickTockMan]

And he has behaved like this for decades.

Right here says it all. This is not new with age. He is just being covered more in the "news".

 

[gsdx]

that part of himself that kind of checks his ego/id has slid to the wayside. He just acts on impulse, the part of him that is "judgement" has kind of started to take a back seat.

There has never been a part of him which checks his ego and id. It has never existed. It has never needed to exist. 'Judgement' has never been part of him. He has never needed it.

The id (at least according to Freud) is part of every newborn. The id guides the baby to get what it wants, what it needs. Hungry? Cry. Dirty diaper? Cry. Scared? Cry. The id usually takes a back seat and disappears entirely when the child finds other ways to communicate its needs and wants. The ego takes over and character develops. Mr. Trump's problem is that the id is still in full force, and he uses it to get what he needs and wants, and his ego has grown to take full advantage of that and make it acceptable. Hence 'Trump Tantrums', lawsuits, insults, attacks, and such. The 'judgement' you speak of, the one which checks the id and ego is called the 'superego'. It does not exist in Mr. Trump. It was never allowed to grow.

Freud was wrong about a lot of things, but not about the id, the ego, and the superego. I believe he would have had a lot of fun getting Donald Trump on his couch for even an hour.

 

[cocksucker4use]

Have to agree with the assessment of NPD. A succinct definition: http://thenarcissisticlife.com/malignant-narcissism/

"Narcissism is a disorder of the personality (Narcissistic Personality Disorder or NPD). The narcissist has a marked sense of entitlement, has a pronounced lack of empathy, and is exploitative of others. Many narcissists claim to have skills or possessions that others do not have, or to have the ‘right connections’ in high places. It does not matter that these statements are not true. According to the DSM-IV, “narcissists expect to be catered to and are puzzled or furious when this does not happen… they expect to be given whatever they want or feel they need, no matter what it might mean to others… and they may react with disdain, rage or defiant counterattack” if questioned or refused."

After 70 years of being privileged and entitled and 45 or so years of being the Boss/Owner/Final Deciderer [sic, a malapropism from Dubya], the President has always gotten is own way. Spoiled and indulged child, businessman/entrepreneur beholden to no one, the President has never had to achieve consensus or earn approval. Even when he fucked up, which he has done numerous times, his bankruptcy and tax lawyers (eg, the presumptive Ambassador to Israel) have made the situation a win, a tribute to his own imagined brilliance. Winning the election is a prime example. Trump was Trump...all Trump. And, despite it all and in the face of ignoring advisers, he pulled it off. He won being himself..the antithesis of what a successful candidate for the village council should be to hope to win. His skill set, if you want to call it that, combined with the pathology of his NPD and realistically, the ravages of time, leave the guy somewhat less than ill prepared for the role in which he finds himself. In the Presidency, the inability to not internalize and the need to obsess and react to every negative comment and criticism is crippling. Ironically, with each social media battle and unconsidered retaliation, he just ends up looking weaker, meaner and overall much worse than had he let it go. For this President, there is no high road.

 

[kallipolis]

This is a long, and informative read worth spending time on from a blog that I follow for its uplifting thoughts. I am not as pessimistic as some posting here, but I am very conscious of Trump's personality challenges.

https://tonyequale.wordpress.com/2017/02/06/an-imperial-people/

My thesis is this: vast numbers of the American People embraced Donald Trump’s narcissistic definition of the meaning and purpose of American power as self-aggran*dize*ment — the control of others: Imperialism — as essential to maintaining our way of life. The American People are an Imperial People — the inheritors of the post-war American Empire that has meant wealth for ordinary working people beyond anyone’s wildest dreams. We have come to believe that such wealth is our “right,” earned by our merits, a natural superiority falsely linked to race, culture and religion, and something we are entitled to hold onto. Trump supporters are not the only ones who believe that. All Americans have more than a touch of it, and like any self-exal*ting self-deception, we all have to work at controlling it or it will devour us

 

[heir-to-the-wind]

Trump was born an asshole, like his lapdogs - Pence, Priebus, Spicer, etc.

 

[Benvolio]

Have to agree with the assessment of NPD. A succinct definition: http://thenarcissisticlife.com/malignant-narcissism/

"Narcissism is a disorder of the personality (Narcissistic Personality Disorder or NPD). The narcissist has a marked sense of entitlement, has a pronounced lack of empathy, and is exploitative of others. Many narcissists claim to have skills or possessions that others do not have, or to have the ‘right connections’ in high places. It does not matter that these statemere not true. According to the DSM-IV, “narcissists expect to be catered to and are puzzled or furious when this does not happen… they expect to be given whatever they want or feel they need, no matter what it might mean to others… and they may react with disdain, rage or defiant counterattack” if questioned or refused."

After 70 years of being privileged and entitled and 45 or so years of being the Boss/Owner/Final Deciderer [sic, a malapropism from Dubya], the President has always gotten is own way. Spoiled and indulged child, businessman/entrepreneur beholden to no one, the President has never had to achieve consensus or earn approval. Even when he fucked up, which he has done numerous times, his bankruptcy and tax lawyers (eg, the presumptive Ambassador to Israel) have made the situation a win, a tribute to his own imagined brilliance. Winning the election is a prime example. Trump was Trump...all Trump. And, despite it all and in the face of ignoring advisers, he pulled it off. He won being himself..the antithesis of what a successful candidate for the village council should be to hope to win. His skill set, if you want to call it that, combined with the pathology of his NPD and realistically, the ravages of time, leave the guy somewhat less than ill prepared for the role in which he finds himself. In the Presidency, the inability to not internalize and the need to obsess and react to every negative comment and criticism is crippling. Ironically, with each social media battle and unconsidered retaliation, he just ends up looking weaker, meaner and overall much worse than had he let it go. For this President, there is no high road.

No. It might be narcisissm ,but it is not a disorder unless he is unable to function well. Don't try to go there. He just got himself elected president. So yes he functions. All politicians are necessarily narcissistic; how else could they put up with the abuse.

 

[rareboy]

^ Try to make excuses as we know you must.

But the president of the United States has a serious mental disorder. And it is a severe case of narcissistic personality disorder.

He is not the first or last leader to have it...most of history's bloodiest tyrants and dictators have suffered from the same disorder.

I have worked with several people over the years who had the same condition...it is chilling, particularly when you see them conning their way through life, leaving behind wreckage wherever they go.

All we can hope is that the legislative and judicial branches of government and the push-back from the majority of people who did not vote for him are all strong enough to contain his damaged psyche.

 

[smokeshadow]

There could be something much simpler wrong with the Donald that is causing so much chaos at the WH

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/58a1cf81e4b0e172783a9eae?ref=yfp

 

[rareboy]

^ There's no question that there is also something seriously lacking in his intellectual capacity. I would also guess that he is functionally illiterate. We have a friend who has been a fairly successful businessman, but who cannot read beyond a grade 4 level.