Another analysis of Trump from the view of professional psychiatrists

Absent a thorough neuropsychiatric evaluation of the president, we may not know for years whether Trump asserts untruths out of a profound psychopathic personality structure or the intractable but historically successful habit of the chronic used car salesman or carnival barker. What we do know is that, if he falls in the former category, the public should be aware of the dangerous implications of his staying in power another two years.

  Boston Globe

And, there is usefulness in attempting to analyze someone without the benefit of a rigorous clinical evaluation. Imagine what might have happened to you in your own life if you hadn't been able to pass judgement on people with whom you have come in contact absent a psychiatrist's certification.

In Trump’s situation, we have a lot more information about his dangerousness than almost any of the patients we have seen, given the voluminous high-quality data on him, including numerous personal accounts as well as observations in real time. For example, multiple sources generally agree that the president has lied an astounding 7,645 times during 710 days in office.

We know, at least, that his lying is of a pathological level. Pathological lying may arise in individuals who feel intolerably inadequate, and the ability to gain an “upper hand” by cheating others fulfills the need for power and denial of the painful feelings of smallness and weakness. [...] We indirectly glimpse his insecurity in his thin-skinned defensive protests about his “big brain,” “best memory,” and assertion “I’m a technology expert,” etc. These are tips of a much larger iceberg that likely reaches a depth unfathomable for most normal people.

[...]

The repeated, tireless, and unhesitating practice of lying, each lie compounding and somehow eclipsing the one before, buttresses the liar’s inflation, his conviction that he defines reality, not just for him but for his enablers and acolytes, not to mention the “losers” gasping in futile outrage.

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It is certainly true that Trump isn’t a man of rigor. He doesn’t make an effort to learn what is true. He doesn’t read briefing memos, he doesn’t tolerate advisers with alternate perspectives, he is happy to have his reality spoon-fed him by Fox News. He is an incredibly lazy man who reportedly does not believe in exercise, takes golf carts around summit meeting locales, gorges on steak and ketchup while weighing in at an alleged (and widely doubted) “239 pounds.” As undisciplined and self-indulgent as he is, his ride down a gold escalator into the presidency was exquisitely symbolic. He does not trouble himself over uncomfortable realities — what is ultimately true though complex, difficult, and nuanced. And it is equally true that his fear of his own inadequacies would have prevented him from serious study of any subject, which would require acknowledging that there are things he does not know and for which he must rely on others, not on his “gut."

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“Does Donald Trump know he is lying? Is he just a great actor playing a clever role at a fortuitous time, or does he believe his lies and so can deliver them smoothly, without an internal hitch?” We have a good guess as to where his delusions end and his conscious fights for survival of the self begin, but only a full neuropsychiatric evaluation by appropriately trained professionals, hopefully with the help of standardized scales, will help us to qualify and quantify these manifestations.

What we can say beyond doubt, however, is that he is unimpeded by empathy, duty, or shame and is wedded, in dangerous ways, only to what nurtures his exaggerated self-image. If he merely trafficked in condos and apartment buildings, he would threaten only credulous buyers. As things stand, his disregard for truth imperils our country and the world.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.