Donald Trump’s narcissism and his sociopathy and his sadism have been dominant in his political life as president. It is this psychopathology that underlies his yearnings for power and control and greed. He has felt empowered and emboldened to push the limits on the guardrails of democracy. As Philip Rotner writes in his 2019 Bulwark piece, “Americans have spent generations during which the largest threats to our political system were external. Today, the threat is coming from inside the house.”
For four years Republican-elected officials have been complicit by allowing Trump to attack and diminish the Constitution, the rule of law, and our democracy. And they have permitted him to totally mishandle and botch the coronavirus pandemic. The truth is Trump could have been stopped in his tracks had Republicans had the spines and integrity to put country over their own political calculations. As Alex Shephard writes in 2019, Republicans’ silence has been “deafening.” Their silence has been condoning.
Trump has shown little interest or intent in following our Constitution. He breaks norms and rules and laws at will. He has gutted most federal agencies. He has undermined any attempts at oversight or accountability. He refuses to recognize that the three branches of our government are co-equal. He speaks and acts as if the executive branch has absolute power. But our democracy is not based on the executive branch having total power.
Trump has crossed boundaries and politicized the Justice Department. He now has an attorney general who functions as his personal attorney rather than the top judicial official for the country. Trump has done this so that he can stop any criminal investigation into his own behavior. This allows his corruption to run amok. That’s not how the judicial branch of government is intended to function in our democracy.
A free press is guaranteed in the first amendment of the Constitution. But Donald Trump has systematically tried to undermine our free press from the very beginning. The press’ role is to be a watchdog of government and to provide information to the public. Trump despises the press because he does not want to be watched, examined, scrutinized, or challenged. Whenever he does not like a story, he calls it “fake news” in order to minimize its importance to the public. Trump hates journalists, calls them “the enemy of the people,” and believes he has the right to jail them. A free press is vital in a democracy. It is intended to keep our elected officials honest and earnest.
The right to peacefully protest is protected in the Constitution as well. Violent protests are against the law, but non-violent protests are a part of our country’s heritage and are clearly protected In the first amendment. I wish Congressman John Lewis were still here to talk to us about the importance of peaceful protests in the civil rights movement. But Trump has not been able to tolerate peaceful protests against him or his policies. In fact, he has sent federal troops into American cities to provoke hostile conflicts with protestors so that he could flex his presidential muscle. The right to peaceful protests must be protected at all cost in our democracy. Yet Trump has forgotten about that part of our Constitution. He cannot personally endure dissent against him; it threatens his fragile ego and triggers his sadistic impulses. Peaceful protests are about upholding democracy, not about satiating Trump’s unquenchable thirst for adoration.
Presidential corruption is antithetical to our democratic way of life. Trump’s associates are now convicted felons because of their activities in his administration. Trump himself is an unindicted co-conspirator. He is probably facing other criminal charges after he leaves office. Criminality in our president chips away at our democracy. It is despicable. It must not be tolerated. And let’s not forget that Trump was impeached in late 2019 for his corrupt behavior.
We live in a representative democracy. We elect our representatives at the voting booth. Trump is up for re-election. He has fueled a campaign of voter suppression that is anti-democratic in its intent. All Americans have the right to vote. But Trump is in favor of limiting polling booths, having restrictive rules, and not allowing mail-in voting. His latest ploy is to cripple the Post Office so that mail-in votes will be delayed or not counted at all. Trump will steal this election if he can. And his voter suppression tactics are unconscionable in a democracy.
Trump views the presidency as a way of marketing his brand and skimming money. He is not abiding by the emoluments clause in the Constitution. His golf properties and Washington hotel have made him huge profits. And there is the allegation that his Inaugural fund in 2016 was skimmed by family members. Trump wanted to be president in order to profit financially. A president in our democracy is supposed to be the model public servant, not a greedy opportunist.
To top it all off, Trump’s total botching of the Coronavirus pandemic has resulted in 178,000 American deaths and counting. His denials, his inaction, his anti-science stance, and his magical thinking have allowed COVID-19 to surge and spread even to this day. He has no idea how to suppress and contain this deadly virus.
Republicans must be compelled to speak out loudly and boldly against Donald Trump. They had their chance to impeach him in February. They could have invoked the 25th Amendment at anytime along the way. Even now they could force him to resign just like they did with President Richard Nixon.
Time is running out for Republicans to finally act. They are about to let their party implode into flames and ashes on the back of Trump’s repudiation by the American people. It will not be pretty. Complicity of a power-hungry, Constitution-defying, greed-seeking, corruption-endorsing narcissist has a serious price.
November 3 is fast approaching. Will members of the Republican Party ultimately end their complicity of this undeserving and destructive president? The light of history is shining upon them.
And the clock is running.
Alan D. Blotcky, PhD, is a clinical psychologist in private practice in Birmingham, Alabama.