The Antisocial Personality Disorder is characterized by a pervasive pattern of disregard for the rights of other people that often manifests as hostility and/or aggression. Deceit and manipulation are also central features. People with Narcissistic Personality Disorder have significant problems with their sense of self-worth stemming from a powerful sense of entitlement. This leads them to believe they deserve special treatment, and to assume they have special powers, are uniquely talented, or that they are especially brilliant or attractive. Their sense of entitlement can lead them to act in ways that fundamentally disregard and disrespect the worth of those around them.
Per the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders – 5th Edition, updated 2022 (aka DSM 5 TR) published by the American Psychiatric Association. In the United States, the DSM serves as the principal authority for psychiatric diagnoses.
Democrats have a slew of issues that seem to resonate with voters: abortion rights, autocracy rising, the acceleration of income/wealth inequality, lack of reasonable limits on assault weapons, censorship, fighting laws against the LGBQT+ community, reinforcing the notion of one citizen/one vote, corporate profit increases as the leading driver of price increases to consumers, equal application of the laws, the explosion of tuition and student debt, Supreme Court justices’ ability to accept lavish gifts from biased political benefactors, healthcare and soaring costs, housing affordability combined with exorbitant insurance premiums and the disastrous failure to contain the exploding devastation from climate change.
Aside from “deep state” conspiracy theories, bogus data on “rising crime’ rates, alleged profligate government spending, the subtext of stopping “the erosion of traditional white Christian power and values,” the MAGA GOP is laser-focused on the “invasion” of mostly Hispanic immigrants/asylum seekers (considered non-white) at our southern border. US gun laws have fueled the smuggling of US-made assault weapons to cartels in Latin America, creating narco-states facing mega-corruption and de facto civil war. These factors, added to the devastation of subsistence farmers from decimation of their farmland from climate change – combined with inconsistent US asylum policies – have led to that immigrant border surge.
The January 25th The Economist summarizes the hard numbers: “There were nearly 250,000 attempts to cross the southern border in November alone. Most of the newcomers will have sought asylum and been released into America to wait years for their claims to be adjudicated. Since Mr Biden became president, over 3.1m border-crossers have been admitted. That is more than the population of Chicago. At least a further 1.7m have come in undetected or overstayed their visas. Republican governors have paid for migrants to go to places run by Democrats, forcing the problems of the southern border northward. Their experience helps explain why voters trust Republicans to deal with border security by a margin of 30 points. It is the party’s biggest lead on any issue…
“Mr Trump’s [2015 campaign] language about Mexico sending rapists across the border and his cruel separation of children from their parents as a deterrent, along with his plan to build the wall, radicalised some Democratic policymakers on immigration. They thought public opinion was on their side. Voters did indeed revolt against Trumpism and while he was in office support for immigration reached a new high. When the new Democratic administration took power its instinct was to do the opposite of whatever Mr Trump had. Work on the border wall stopped. Democrats ditched the remain-in-Mexico policy, which obliged asylum-seekers to stay south of the border until the authorities decided on their applications. Predictably, illegal immigration surged.
“Since the midterms in 2022, Mr Biden has quietly adopted some of Mr Trump’s policies. He has agreed to fill gaps in the wall. Asylum-seekers who try to cross undetected will, with a few exceptions, automatically have their applications rejected. They must apply online before showing up. Yet Americans are unaware of these efforts, partly because Mr Biden is loath to draw attention to his triangulation, lest his own side turns on him.
“The president’s room to do one thing while saying another is running out. The House of Representatives has paired a stringent immigration bill with funding for Ukraine’s war. The administration resents this, because support for Ukraine makes economic and strategic sense for America regardless of the country’s policy on immigration. That is an error. Instead, in a system in which both parties use the leverage available to them, Mr Biden should see this as an opportunity.”
The Economist believes that the immigration issue alone could cost Biden the November election… and the United States a government predicated on democracy. But building on his oft-ignored statements to assume a presidency based on retribution, a dictator on day one, willing to use the military and DOJ to round up and arrest his political opponents, his total annihilation of other GOP candidates and his vision of massive detention camps for undocumented and even documented immigrants, Trump began a series of genuine threats and Trumpian mandates.
After threatening fellow Republicans and political donors with excommunication if they did not immediately join in unquestioned support of Trump and his policies, on January 25th, Trump ordered GOP members in Congress to reverse an imminent bi-partisan budget compromise that included a hard-found border/immigration compromise (details not released publicly). His rationale: it would be a piece of legislation that could make Biden look good in an election year. Would the measure still pass? The edict was so outrageous that the conservative Wall Street Journal – a Murdoch-owned publication – issued the following statement by its editorial board:
“Public frustration over border failures is coming to a boil, and Mr. Trump is hoping to ride this back into the White House. Meanwhile, Speaker Mike Johnson is down to a hairline majority in the House, and he lives under daily threat of defenestration by members of his own party. Some House Republicans are demanding nothing less than their own preferred border bill, known as H.R. 2. That measure commanded no Democratic support in the House, and it won’t miraculously win over the Democrats needed to clear the Senate.
“Yet giving up on a border security bill would be a self-inflicted GOP wound. President Biden would claim, with cause, that Republicans want border chaos as an election issue rather than solving the problem. Voter anger may over time move from Mr. Biden to the GOP, and the public will have a point. Cynical is the only word that fits Republicans panning a border deal whose details aren’t even known.
“The GOP would also abandon the best chance in years to fix asylum law and the parole loophole that Mr. Biden has exploited. Mr. Trump while President in 2018 complained that such dysfunctions precluded him from fully restoring order to the border.” Trump sincerely believes he has found the one issue that guarantees his appointment as America’s first emperor.
Indeed, following the rants of someone manifesting the hallmarks of serious mental illness (per the above psychiatric standards), for his obvious benefit but at the detriment of the country, requires a maniacal and irrational cult following, which Trump clearly has. But does this cult define the entire Republican Party, or are there limits? Does Texas’ defiance of a direct US Supreme Court border ruling mandating border access and control to federal authorities augur badly for what a Trump administration would bring to the nation?
I’m Peter Dekom, and does the above, combined with Trump’s passionate belief that, as President, he has clear immunity from all legal restrictions, suggest that of necessity, a Trump victory in November represents the end of American democracy?
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