Donald Trump represents a clear and present danger to the sacred and central institutions of our democracy, a clear and present danger to our Constitutionally guaranteed freedoms, and to our national security.

He wantonly attacks the impartial administration of justice, seeking to bend justice to become his personal instrument of retaliation against perceived enemies.

He openly assaults the freedom of the press enshrined in our Constitutional guarantees of our freedoms.  In Trump’s assaults on the freedom of the press, he assaults the very construct of truth, of an objectively defined reality.

Trump assaults our national security.  He recklessly provokes a nuclear confrontation with North Korea.  The absence of self-restraint in sending provocations comparing the “button size” of Donald Trump to that of a North Korean lunatic is substantially concerning from a President of the United States.

Donald Trump is openly an “asset” of the KGB and Vladimir Putin.  He takes no steps to protect our election system from future hacking and interference from foreign powers. He creates chaos and dismantles the functioning of American government.  He withdraws America from world leadership, allowing Russia and China to advance their agendas worldwide, unimpeded by any American counter-influence.

He challenges the fundamental independence of the United States’ justice system, openly calling into question the impartial administration of justice by judges, and denegrating the professionalism of investigations conducted by the top law enforcement agency of the United States; the FBI. 

He questions the findings and conclusions of our national security apparatus in favor of assertions offered to him by his KGB “handler” Vladimir Putin.  If his “handler” Vladimir Putin says the Russians didn’t try to interfere in the U.S. elections, well that’s good enough for Trump.  Never mind what the United States security apparatus says.

The ultimate danger with pathological narcissism is it’s potential collapse into delusions, particularly paranoid and persecutory delusions.

“Everyone is against me.  My trusted political advisors were disloyal.  The FBI is disloyal.  My Secretary of State is disloyal.  My Chief of Staff is disloyal.”

The psychological danger is a collapse into paranoid and persecutory delusions.

From Millon (2011)

Under conditions of unrelieved adversity and failure, narcissists may decompensate into paranoid disorders.  Owing to their excessive use of fantasy mechanisms, they are disposed to misinterpret events and to construct delusional beliefs.  Unwilling to accept constraints on their independence and unable to accept the viewpoints of others, narcissists may isolate themselves from the corrective effects of shared thinking.  Alone, they may ruminate and weave their beliefs into a network of fanciful and totally invalid suspicions.” (Millon, 2011, pp. 407).

“Among narcissists, delusions often take form after a serious challenge or setback has upset their image of superiority and omnipotence.  They tend to exhibit compensatory grandiosity and jealousy delusions in which they reconstruct reality to match the image they are unable or unwilling to give up.  Delusional systems may also develop as a result of having felt betrayed and humiliated.  Here we may see the rapid unfolding of persecutory delusions and an arrogant grandiosity characterized by verbal attacks and bombast.” (Millon, 2011, pp. 407-408).

Having a delusional President is of deep concern.

When the psychological characteristics become a matter of concern in general political discourse, knowledge of psychological factors becomes protected political speech.

Donald Trump represents a clear and present danger to the United States, to our democracy, to our Constitution, to our freedoms, and to our national security.

A time comes to speak.  That time is arrived.

Craig Childress, Psy.D.