At age 87, it is likely that this may be the last time I will cast my vote to elect a President of the United States. Therefore, my participation in the electoral process this time has a special meaning.
I’m not in a dilemma making a choice between the two political parties. While both sides create a heated, emotion-charged election environment, the two factions have positives to offer for the benefits of the electorate in spite of their polarizing philosophical differences. The differences in personalities of the two candidates for the presidency, however, add a sense of urgency and obligation to my choice-making.
For the past four years, party loyalties marginalized cooperation and jeopardized our nation’s security and well-being. America’s Constitution was circumvented by Trump party loyalists in the Senate’s impeachment trial. Trump’s inaction allowed the virus pandemic to overwhelm the capacities of our health care system and inflict a tragic, mind-boggling loss of lives. A quarantine shutdown of the nation crashed the economy.
In the current election race, the opposition challenges Trump’s fitness for America’s presidency on the basis of his ineptness to carry out the duties of a President, his abrasive conduct, and his inflammatory rhetoric. But Trump’s psychological status is not mentioned in the political arena.
All of Trump’s objectionable behaviors in the past four years are an extension of his lifelong pattern. They have been in his self-interest, not for the good of our country, and not for the good of our people. His characteristic pervasiveness of self-centeredness and compulsion for aggrandizement are psychodynamics listed in the criterion for a diagnosis of narcissistic personality disorder.
Adjunct to his narcissism, Trump lacks compassion, empathy, and exhibits a disdain for others. He stands in opposition to all in his social field, and strives to subjugate everyone. Such personality traits define the antisocial personality disorder. In the past, a person with such traits was called a sociopath.
Decades of work in the mental health field and a master’s degree in Counseling Psychology have infused me with an ability to discern pathological behavior patterns. With her book Too Much and Never Enough, the President’s niece, Mary L. Trump, PhD, validates my concerns about Donald Trump’s psychological status, and highlights the urgent necessity to remove him from the White House.
Currently it’s too late to institute psychological vetting of presidential candidates. But it’s not too late to deter the disaster of a continued leadership by a person seemingly afflicted with an altered sense of reality.
With the election impending, I’ll make my choice not only on the basis of conservatism or liberalism, and not merely on the basis of socialism or capitalism. I’ll vote against ruthless disrespect, slander, defamation, and a lack of ethics.
My choice for President and his affiliate party will demonstrate a capacity for empathy, compassion, and caring for humanity. The candidates must demonstrate a desire to serve the people, not themselves. Above all, the occupant of the Oval Office must be mentally and psychologically fit.
I call the readers to join me in thinking at least twice before casting our ballots.
