Expert: Donald Trump’s psychological makeup makes defeat a humiliation he cannot abide — at any cost

The United States has now exceeded 15 million confirmed cases of Covid-19, with casualties at the rate of one Pearl Harbor attack per day.  Over 100,000 have been hospitalized, overwhelming medical systems, and this is still before the spike of Thanksgiving weekend, when over 1 million traveled by air.

Meanwhile, Donald Trump has not attended a coronavirus task force meeting in 6 months.  Rather, in the past week, he sent out 145 “tweets” lashing out at the results of his lost election.  According to news reports, he “barely shows up to work, ignoring the health and economic crises afflicting the nation, and largely clearing his public schedule of meetings unrelated to his desperate bid to rewrite the election results.”

“They cheated and they rigged our presidential election, but we will still win it,” he declared at a Georgia rally over the weekend, which tightly packed crowds without masks, repeatedly chanting, “Four more years!”

Donald Trump’s psychological makeup makes defeat a humiliation he cannot abide—at all cost.  This is why a projected half-million deaths by the end of winter only causes him to withdraw from any reminders and to demand that his followers risk their lives even further.  This is also why, the closer we get to inauguration and his defeat becomes undeniable, the more dangerous and extreme his efforts to disrupt will become.  A mentally incapacitated president is dangerous not only for his incapacities, but for the efforts he will make to cover up his incapacities.

To prepare for this period, I wrote my “Profile of a Nation,” which is full of interventions.  But please also consult us at dangerouscase.org, or visit me at bandylee.com (Dr. Lee does not take payment for her book or other services related to this topic).