How Trump's grandiose narcissism can help turn around the dark days of democracy's death, by Hal M. Brown

 

As we enter the dark days of democracy's death there are several positive things I can think about Trump's grandiose narcissism that can derail his quest to establish his ruthlessly cruel dictatorship. The obvious one is that some of his plans will fail so egregiously that some of his supporters in Congress will turn against him. Then, by the next election the Democrats may win control of one or both houses of Congress.

There's something else that can happen much more rapidly.

This is that he will frequently make himself available to be questioned in person by members of the Washington press corps. 

In his feverish juggernaut to undo everything Biden did he's already withdrawn from The World Health Organization and the Paris Climate Accords. He eliminated Biden's cap on some prescription drug prices.

These are all things that even some of his supporters don't support. They need to see how he justifies these actions and others.  This is where his willingness, even his eagerness, to face reporters comes in.

He's a narcissistic showboater. He loves to be on TV and thinks he so much smarter than anyone that he doesn't think it's possible for a reporter from what he calls "the fake press" to ask a gotcha question that he can't come up with a convincing answer to.

Consider, though, his feeble response to a question from NBC's Peter Alexander:

Alexander asked, “You would agree that it’s never acceptable to assault a police officer?“

Trump answered ”sure."

Alexander followed up: “Among those you pardoned was D.J. Rodriguez. He drove a stun gun into the neck of an officer who was abducted by the mob that day. He later confessed on video to the FBI and pleaded guilty for his crimes. Why does he deserve a pardon?”

Trump said: “Well, I don’t know. Was it a pardon? Because we are looking at commutations and we’re looking at pardons.”

Alexander said that it was a pardon.

Trump responded “OK, well we’ll take a look at everything,” 

Then Trump then went off-topic, falsely claiming that murderers in some cities “aren’t charged. But I can say this: Murderers today are not even charged. You have murderers that aren’t charged, all over. You take a look at what’s gone on in Philadelphia. You take a look at what’s gone off in L.A., where people murder people and they don’t get charged.”

Alexander's question was well-crafted because it set Trump up to contradict his vice president. He was also able to say that Rodriguez was pardoned and didn't recieve clemency.

The next time Trump goes before the press hopefully he will be asked how he justifies actions like being one of the few nations not signing the climate accords, which even China  and Russia signed along with 194 countries and the EU are a part of.  He should be asked how he explains pulling out of WHO, which also has 194 members. He should be asked to summarize what WHO has done and what its role is in public health.

On the subject of health, he should be asked that now that he's undone Biden's prescription cost cutting what he'd say to the millions of seniors that now have to choose between life saving medication and paying the rent.

On deportation, I'd like to see him asked what he would say to young children children terrifed and confused because they, and their parents who are in chains, are being led onto an airplane or vehicles to be deported (below).

What would Trump say if he was asked whether he'd authorize the military using lethal force to stop people trying to cross the border who posed no threat to them? Consider:

Frustrated with a record number of people seeking asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border this spring, President Donald Trump at one point asked in a private meeting with close aides whether the U.S. could shoot migrants below the waist to slow them down. Reference.

If he offered this as an answer the reporter should be prepared to explain that bullets from assault rifles are so powerful that even shots in the legs, let along to the abdomen, are often lethal.

If Trump is still threatening military action against Greenland and Panama reporters can ask how far Trump would go authorizing the military to use their massive firepower against our allies. Both countries have a right to self-defense and the United States would be an aggressor. Trump should be reminded of this if this subject is brought up.

The hits keep coming. 

Yesterday Trump pardoned the creator of a Dark Web website serving for charges which included selling narcotics. Trump needs to be asked how he justifies this and what message it sends to other criminals trafficking in narcotics.

Trump realizing that he looks inept with his defensive and ridiculous answers to reporters questions wouldn't be in his nature. This aspect of his narcissism would be good for us. The more he goes before reporters who won't be intimidated by him the better.

Of c0urse it is possible that Trump will revoke the press conference privileges of anyone who poses difficult questions. This is where all the objective media have to act as one. If any of them are denied press privileges they should all engage in a well-publicized boycott. This would leave only a few reporters from Trump-world media in a near-empty room. They would pose softball questions and viewership would go way down.

As long as Trump, who loves conflict with adversaries as long as he convinces himself he always is the winner, the public will have a chance to hear how he rationalizes, justifies, avoids, and goes off on irrelevant tangents, to make his transgressions, some of which go beyond stupid to being downright cruel, look not just great, but glorious. For Trump, it's just no fun unless everyone sees his cruelty.

I post my Substacks (formerly blogs) on several platforms.  They are on Substack where, if you want to submit your email, you can be notified of all new blog posts. They are on HalBrown.org. They are also on Stressline.org  I also post them on Medium because this enables them to be easily found on internet searches.

Trump attacks bishop for her sermon at National Prayer Service saying to "have mercy" on his constituents, specifically naming LGBTQ people and immigrants and Gays for Trump is still online, by Hal M. Brown

I'm surprised that Trump didn't call the bishop who called on him to be compassionate a Devil worshipper. This is the man who couldn't be bothered to place his hand on two Bibles held by his wife when he was sworn in to be president. Perhaps he thought that if he took the oath without his hand on the Bibles it didn't count.

Here's the background person who Trump called a so-called bishop:

Mariann Edgar Budde (born December 10, 1959) is an American prelate of the Episcopal Church. She has served as Bishop of Washington since November 2011. Before being elected Washington's first female diocesan bishop, she served 18 years as rector of St. John's Episcopal Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Wikipedia

Here's more from Wiki:

In June 2020, amid the George Floyd protests in Washington, DC, Budde criticized the use of police and National Guard troops to forcibly clear protestors from the grounds of Lafayette Square ahead of President Donald Trump's pose for a photo op in front of St. John's Church, enabling its use "as a backdrop for a message antithetical to the teachings of Jesus."^{[9][10][11][12]}

On January 21, 2025, the day after the Trump's second inauguration as president, Budde delivered the homily at the interfaith prayer service traditionally held at the Washington National Cathedral after each presidential inauguration.^[2][13]Also in attendance were the new Vice President, JD Vance, House Speaker Mike Johnson, and Pete Hegseth, Trump's nominee for defense secretary.^{[13][14][15][16][17]} In the sermon, Budde addressed Trump, who was sitting in the first pew, urging him to show mercy and compassion to vulnerable people.^[15][2] saying: "Millions have put their trust in you. And as you told the nation yesterday, you have felt the providential hand of a loving God. In the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy on the people in our country who are scared now."^[18][19] Budde specifically cited the LGBTQ+ communities, immigrants, and refugees fleeing from war in their countries.^[2][15]

Trump responded by personally disparaging Budde, calling her a "so-called Bishop" and "Radical Left hard line Trump hater" on his social media profile Truth Social.^[20][21] Trump called the service "very boring" and demanded an apology from her.^[13] Trump allies also attacked Budde; evangelical pastor Robert Jeffress condemned the bishop for having "insulted rather than encouraged our great president"^[13] while Republican congressman Mike Collins said that Budde (who is a U.S. citizen) "should be should be added to the deportation list."^[22]

This is the Truth Social post that has made the news about this: 

This is what Trump posted:

The so-called Bishop who spoke at the National Prayer Service on Tuesday morning was a Radical Left hard line Trump hater. She brought her church into the World of politics in a very ungracious way. She was nasty in tone, and not compelling or smart. She failed to mention the large number of illegal migrants that came into our Country and killed people. Many were deposited from jails and mental institutions. It is a giant crime wave that is taking place in the USA. Apart from her inappropriate statements, the service was a very boring and uninspiring one. She is not very good at her job! She and her church owe the public an apology! t

This Newsweek article has a video of what Trump said when asked what he thought of it:

Donald Trump Hits Out at Bishop Who Confronted Him: 'Very Ungracious'

Excerpt: Trump criticized the service, calling it "boring and uninspiring," and demanded an apology from Budde and her church.

I won't go into Trump who hasn't had a gracious moment in his life calling the bishop ungracious.

Here's an article about this with a video:

I have no way to determine how many members of the LGBTQ+ community support Trump or are members of Gays for Trump. I don'reven know if the organization even exists as an organization per se. Here's the Wikipedia page about it.

What I do know is that Gays for Trump has this actively updated website praising Trump.

Here's a sample:

There may be something seriously mentally wrong with gay people who are able to twist their minds into some kind of pretzel so thay can support a president who ran on, among other things considered woke, being anti LGBTQ+. Perhaps they think that they are superior to trans people who bore the brunt of Trump's attacks. If so all I can say with distain for them is "nice" followed by /s (see what this means).

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I post my Substacks (formerly blogs) on several platforms.  They are on Substack where, if you want to submit your email, you can be notified of all new blog posts. They are on HalBrown.org. They are also on Stressline.org  I also post them on Medium because this enables them to be easily found on internet searches.

My Washington Post subscription cancellation just got a temporary reprieve. It's still on probation. By Hal M. Brown

 

There he was. Jeff Bezos, the owner of both Amazon and The Washington Post, along with Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, and the less familiar owner of Google, Sundar Pichai, in Billionaires Row at the inauguration. 

If he only owned Amazon, all things considered with Trump's affection for oligarchs, it would make sense for him to be there. However, my outrage is that he owns one of the two most important and influential newspapers in the country. He's the one who spiked the editorial board's endorsement of Kamala Harris and a cartoon by Ann Telnais which was highly critical of him and these Trump butt kissing oligarchs. 

The owner of a newspaper, any newspaper, does not belong as a guest at the inauguration of a president. 

Rupert Murdoch was there, but -- well -- of course he was there. Jeff Bezos does not own a propaganda rag. I wonder if they talked to each other. If they did I'd like to see a photo.

I still have my subscription to The Washington Post. I have been vacillating on whether or not to keep it. I'd like to send my own infintensibly small message. However, I still find that it has opinion columnists who I admire, for example Alexandra Petre, Eugene Robinson, Phillip Bump, Catherine Rampell, Karen Tumely, Jonathan Capehard, and Ruth Marcus.

 (I have subscribed to Jennifer Rubin, who resigned in protest, and Norm Eisen's Substack "The Contratian.") They have put together a group of lesser known excellent opinion writers. I can only read so much so I can see a time when I do cancel my subscription.

This is what The Washington Post website looked like this morning:

Scrolling down to look at the opinion section this Editorial Board opinion is what I was eager to read. I was surprised that it wasn't on top of the opinion section. A column about Trump's crypto coin scheme is hardly more important than the opinion of the editorial board.

You can click above to enlarge the image.

I thought "okay, Bezos and Post, this is your last chance with me." I wanted to see if this was an exercise in Trump ass-kissing. It wasn't. Quite the opposite, it was an objective critical analysis. If you are one of who I expect are the few subscribers reading this you can read it here.

Some of the piece was straight reporting describing what Trump said. Below is the excerpt which was critical of Trump.

Trump on Monday also planned to sign a dizzying array of troubling executive orders. His administration will seek to end birthright citizenship in an attempt to empower his government to deport people living illegally in the United States who have citizen children, an affront to the 14th Amendment. He declared an emergency at the southern border to authorize sending troops there, and he will reinstate the “remain in Mexico” policy from his first administration, which forced asylum seekers to wait in squalid and dangerous tent cities south of the U.S. border as their claims were processed. Together, these policies threaten to do great harm, not only to migrants and their families but also to the American economy.

For the second time, Trump plans to pull the United States out of the Paris climate accord, again making it one of the only countries in the world not party to the global commitment to reduce carbon emissions. He also positioned himself in favor of loosening barriers to carbon-emitting projects, promising to “drill, baby, drill.” At the same time, he made clear his active opposition to clean energy. He was expected to pause all offshore wind leases, a step that might portend a broader ban, which would stop the United States from competing in this burgeoning industry.

It pays to remember that there is a limit to what any president can accomplish immediately. Trump’s attempt to end birthright citizenship, for instance, will face strong court challenges, because the concept is written into the Constitution. His “remain in Mexico” policy can work only with cooperation from Mexico. And though Trump might no longer be subject to the moderating pressure that comes from wanting to be reelected, he is not immune to political reality. His legacy and his party’s future electoral success will depend not only on what he can manage to get done in the next four years — but also on how popular those accomplishments will be.

If you look at the illustration on the top of this page you will see this in the lower corner:

I wouldn't have seen this because it was in the Letters to the Editor section and it was nowhere on the main website page. 

All of the letters, with the exception of the last one, were highly critical of Trump. This is what that one said:

Weather forecast: scattered storms, mostly sunny for the next four years.

Tom Cutrofello, Woodside, New York

Some of the letters were long. Here's a shorter one which was critical of Trump:

If voters had been taking Donald Trump seriously all along, they would not be surprised by how he hit his targets with absolute precision in both speeches Monday. Either folks have been in denial that he is the authoritarian he said he would be on Day 1, or they are okay with it. Either way, it’s a poor outcome for the United States, and for our democratic republic. Mary Koller, Grand Haven Michigan

I found them because of the message on my computer screen. If I didn't get this I doubt I would have found them since they aren't anywhere on the main page. If you can find them click here and let me know where they are.

Today my subscription to The Washington Post is on probation. It still has many opinion columnists I like to read, for example Alexandra Petri, Eugene Robinson, Phillip Bump, Catherine Rampell, Karen Tumelty, Jonathan Capehard, and Ruth Marcus. If Bezo tries to make the paper into "The Trump Tribune" I expect more of their writers will quit and then I'll be cancelling my subscription. I'll keep my NY Times subscription and perhaps use the savings to subscribe to The Atlantic, Forbes, or Rolling Stone.

I post my Substacks (formerly blogs) on several platforms.  They are on Substack where, if you want to submit your email, you can be notified of all new blog posts. They are on HalBrown.org. They are also on Stressline.org  I also post them on Medium because this enables them to be easily found on internet searches.

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Every freedom loving American should be thinking of this alliteration,, by Hal M. Brown

 

I was thinking of using "Democracy's Dark Dark Day" as the title for this but it seemed to be too obvious. 

Here's the quote from Mary Trump that prompted me to write this:

"Tomorrow (meaning today) will be a very dark day—there is no pretending otherwise. But I do take comfort in the knowledge that so much of what they intend is already out in the open. They no longer feel the need to hide their criminal intent. They plan to strip America for parts and they will do so in broad daylight. And we will be watching. We will counter corporate media’s grotesque assumption that all of it—the racism, the criminality, the greed, the breathtaking cruelty, the fascism—are already baked in and therefore of no consequence," she wrote. "We know this is not true. We will be the keepers of the flame and, as Emma Lazarus’ poem says of the Statue of Liberty, we we lift our lamps—as a beacon to those who feel lost, betrayed, and frightened, yes. But also to shine our light, continually, on what they try to get away with. We will keep the flame burning as long as it takes. I take comfort in that, too." (Reference)

She is holding onto her optimism. I  agree with what John Stoehr wrote in this RawStory column:

It's time for liberals to abandon MSNBC's 'sweet little lies'

While the title is about MSNBC, the network only represents the denial by many liberals of the dire situation that Stoehr writes about:

He begins:

At this point, I think it needs to be said that there’s a feeling among liberals and Democrats, and I would suggest especially affluent white liberals and Democrats, that liberal democracy isn’t really dead.

I would say there’s a deep sense of denial among these folks. They tell themselves that the dearly departed is much too dear to be truly departed. I would say there’s also a good deal of magical thinking in this denial, as if the criminals who shot their beloved will come to justice, and once they do, their beloved will rise again, good as new.

I think this needs to be said because liberals and Democrats keep telling themselves that democracy itself depends on the integrity of democratic institutions and democratic norms, and that without them, the country will manifest the founding fathers’ fear of despotism.

Trump hasn't been shy about telling the country what he intends to do. I listened to the 20 second clip of him speaking to his rally yesterday. It was a call to arms against everyone he's been demonizing. He was like Hitler, only with a more resonant voice, but he expressed the same malevolence and threat. 

There is psychology operating with all of the people who want to normalize Trump. Nobody want to feel helpless and terrifed. Denial in its many forms is a useful defense mechanism. Even those in the media who are terrified and who understand how close the country is to losing her democracy, many of them don't want to scare their audience. 

As an example, Joe and Mika went to see Trump at Mar-a-Lago and normalized him by essentially telling their audience that he wasn't as bad as he's been made out to be. They are performers. They should not have been taken in by another performer. They should have explained how he can come across as amiable and reasonable when he needs to do so, but that he is still intent on implementing Project 2025.

We shouldn't have to keep reminding people about the famous George Santayana quote "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

Mary Trump who, with her education in clinical psychology, should know better. She reminds us of the aspirational Emma Lazarus poem about the Statue of Liberty.

As someone who was a practicing therapist for 40 years, and is also Jewish, I want to remind you of the poem "First They Came" by Martin Niemöller. The shorter version in on a tablet at the Boston Holocaust Memorial.

Here's the full version:

First they came for the Communists

And I did not speak out

Because I was not a Communist

 

Then they came for the Socialists

And I did not speak out

Because I was not a Socialist

 

Then they came for the trade unionists

And I did not speak out

Because I was not a trade unionist

 

Then they came for the Jews

And I did not speak out

Because I was not a Jew

 

Then they came for me

And there was no one left

To speak out for me

Here's the rub with Trump and his minions. 

While Trump is ignorant about history, many of those who plan to implement his policies are not. They know their history. They know about the ultimate failures of despots like Hitler. They know about the mistakes they made. Hitler, for example, thought Japan could take on the United States and thus Pearl Harbor brought us into the war. Later he decided to open the Russian front. I'm not a historian, but it makes sense that had the U.S. and Russia stayed out of the war the Nazi's would have prevailed.

The lesson for Trump and his enablers who want to succeed is not to bite off more than they can chew. We can only hope that in the long run their arrogance will be their undoing.

Addendum: Check out the Ann Telnais cartoon for today. She has a fat red-faced Trump in a rocking chair screaming “I am your retribution” but, alas while true in some ways since he is old, he is really on a throne.

I post my blogs (aka Substacks) on several platforms.  They are on Substack where, if you want to submit your email, you can be notified of all new blog posts. The are on HalBrown.org. They are also on Stressline.org  I also post them on Medium because this enables them to be easily found on internet searches.

Vomitaurguarion Day will challenge half the country to find something else to do, by Hal M. Brown

 

What is happening in Israel may bump some of the coverage of tomorrow's inauguration off non-stop TV coverage. Even if it does, somewhere around the half of the country who might be inclined to watch at least the high point of any inauguration would find watching Trump sworn in too upsetting. 

The actual hand on the Bible with Trump uttering a tissue of lies when he takes the oath is so historic that only a 9.6 Richtor Scale earthquake just off the California coast would force the networks to cut away. 

That is with the possible exception of Fox News. They probably don't think that the biggest natural disaster since the Chicxulub impactor, the plummeting asteroid or comet that is said to have killed all the dinosaurs and 75% of life on earth, destroying California is a tragedy. 

Trump's entertainment line-up certainly won't draw viewership in the evening the way the star-studded cast Kamala Harris would have had would. 

Our plan is to treat Monday as a mostly normal day. As far as TV watching goes we'll watch some of the comedy series Younger alternating with a crime series we've yet to decide on after just finishing watching Dalgliesh. I expect we'll check in periodically with the commentary being offered online by The Contratian. This is the new substack started by Jennifer Rubin and Norm Eisen which is off to an amazing start.

The inauguration, for so many of us, will be like what I depicted in the AI cartoon illustration of Trump surrounded by vomit. Watching it might lead us to our own medicine cabinet to find some Pepto Bismal.

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I post my blogs on several platforms.  They are on Substack where, if you want to submit your email, you can be notified of all new blog posts. The are on HalBrown.org. They are also on Stressline.org  I also post them on Medium because this enables them to be easily found on internet searches.