First, I saw a link to this blog from someone else’s blog, and I’m glad I decided to click and check your blog out – I plan to follow as soon as I’m done with this comment! Second, although my first comment in here is not going to be a solid agreement with what you wrote, I like what I’ve read, and agree with much of your writing and all of the spirit you put into it 🙂

I disagree with what you wrote about the mental health aspect of Donald Trump, though. Yes, I think he has a lot in common with someone who labors under the delusions of clinical narcissism … at the same time, though, I’m not aware of a publicly available diagnosis made by a qualified professional who has actually had Trump in for an assessment, and without that, I’m not really qualified to judge him with regards to whether or not he is mentally ill. What I specifically disagree with is the idea that he gives people with mental illness a bad name … in the end, he gives only himself a bad name. Thriving on his own ego is one thing … hate, fear, confusion and other negative tactics of his are things that you don’t have to be a clinical narcissist (or any other kind of mentally ill) to take advantage of, as so-called ‘normal’ and ‘healthy’ people have been doing it for thousands of years. Using these tactics makes someone a bit of a jerk … and jerks exist in all corners of human society, healthy or not, as do non-jerks. Narcissism in politics is also hardly limited to blow-hards like Donald Trump – other current candidates also exhibit a few narcissistic traits.

Since I live outside the US, I’ve thankfully not had to follow the election process as closely as those living in the US. I had to shake my head as I read recent news excerpts about how one campaign likely failed in part to not having bombarded the poor Iowans hard enough with advertisements early in the process. It’s not as though those advertisements are particularly friendly to begin with … a year of negative energy, coursing through television, radio and everywhere else must be a horrible thing! What I have seen of almost all the candidates, I don’t like very much … Trump, among them all, I like the least. I find it worrying that, the more he wins, it seems like the more the media starts reporting about his more ‘cerebral’ and sensible sides … winning does not make someone ‘right;’ and I find it alarming that the institution that is supposed to remind people of this the most, has begun to fail so utterly. There is a scene from a Russel Crowe movie, called ‘Gladiator,’ that I think is apropos here, in which two Senators are discussing the despotic Emperor Commodus. They disagree with one another, one saying that Commodus doesn’t understand Rome, while the other points out somewhat sagaciously that Commodus understands Rome just fine – he understands that Rome is ruled by mob mentality, and by winning the mob, Commodus would be able to rule Rome. Emperor Commodus, as a historical note, has often been described as a megalomaniac – the old word for clinical narcissists – and was, in fact, assassinated via strangulation in his bath by a wrestling partner named Narcissus. It’s this mob mentality, though, that Trump seems to be tapping into rather effectively. What does this say for the will of the American people, that he gains so much support with hate-laced rhetoric … what does this say for the massively polarized and ineffective leadership that set the stage for Trump to walk onto? With clinical narcissism, there are environmental factors that are believed to contribute to the condition … what conditions have contributed to Trump’s rise in US politics? How might these conditions be treated? Who would deprive Trump of the victory he seeks will not only need to be a good leader, I suspect such a person will also need to have some good therapeutic skills, as well – Trump has made it quite clear, America needs healing.

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