SPECIAL ME

American Flag Photo by Lisa Setrini-Espinosa

There are nine signs of narcissistic personality disorder (NPD). If a mental health professional finds 5 of the 9 signs in a person then that person is diagnosed as having NPD. The nine signs spell out SPECIAL ME.

Sense of self-importance
Preoccupation with power, beauty, or success
Entitled
Can only be around people who are important or special
Interpersonally exploitative for their own gain
Arrogant
Lack empathy
Must be admired
Envious of others or believe that others are envious of them

After reading these 9 signs, I immediately thought of President Donald Trump. Now I am not a mental health professional and I am not certain that with a professional evaluation we can find 5 signs of NPD (or more), but I think President Trump has some of the signs, at least from what I have seen from his public persona.

What concerns me more than whether he has NPD or not is that he is authoritarian with his actions. Now I appreciate several things that President Trump has done but not always in the way he does it. I am a social conservative and a fiscal conservative. However, I believe he has issued several executive orders that are unconstitutional. They are still winding their way through the courts, so it is not certain which ones (if any) are unconstitutional. He is trying to expand the powers of the executive branch and that is upsetting the checks and balances in doing so. I understand that he wants to get stuff done and he can not guarantee Congress will do what he wants and the Judicial Branch is slow and methodical. But I believe the checks and balances of the three branches of government are what has made America great. It prevents one branch from grabbing too much power. The three branches have to work together. President Trump’s authoritarian actions threaten that. He also demands loyalty to him and his policies. This is not good for the country.

I believe that he feels that he personally must succeed and be a success, so his authoritarian tendencies and his loyalty requirements flow out of that need. I also believe that his continued focus on the 2020 presidential election is because he cannot believe he lost. He still claims there was widespread fraud in the 2020 election and I have yet to see any conclusive proof. His own Attorney General William Barr said there was no widespread fraud in the election. One of the biggest accusations of voting fraud was with the Dominion Voting machines. Right before the defamation trial was to start, Fox News settled the defamation lawsuit with Dominion for $787.5 million. No evidence appeared in the pre-trial discovery supporting the claim of fraud. Instead after the settlement, Fox News gave a statement that “certain claims about Dominion to be false”. And Mike Lindell who had made big claims about having proof of election fraud did not in his defamation trial offer any proof of election fraud. And yet today President Trump continues to claim fraud in the 2020 election.

He recently said in regard to Space Command moving from Colorado to Alabama, “The problem I have with Colorado, one of the big problems, they do mail-in voting. They went to all mail-in voting, so they have automatically crooked elections.” There is no proof that Colorado has crooked elections. They are very careful with their mail-in ballots. I think the elected Colorado Republicans would say that their elections were not crooked. It seems he still claims there is still widespread election fraud in the country. Without proof of widespread election fraud, I do not think these claims are good for the country.

And President Trump’s administration has gone after many of those who in the past have criticized or investigated Donald Trump. It looks like he is taking action against those who have opposed him. It seems to be personal for him. I am concerned about the precedents being set. These actions are not good for the country.

This post has been more opinionated and subjective than I would have liked, but I am concerned that President Trump has been too authoritarian and too focused on himself. I am concerned that President Trump is not presidential material, because of his narcissistic tendency.

I will end with one story to illustrate my point. The Trump administration has been working to bring peace to the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan. That is a good thing. They have produced a framework for peace and one key part of the deal is the creation of the “TRIPP corridor” or the “Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity”. It will be “a transport and trade route designed to connect Armenia and Azerbaijan more directly while integrating the South Caucasus into broader international shipping and energy networks.” The peace treaty is not a done deal yet and I hope that peace happens, but this does illustrate the narcissistic tendency of President Trump. There really is no need to name the corridor after President Trump, except for his ego.

And some advice for you, Mr. President, look to Jesus and not to yourself. Jesus has been very good to me. I am a broken sinful person, who is loved and forgiven by God because of all Jesus has done. Receive that love of God! Do not reject it!

USA Debt

Do you know that the American federal government spends more money paying the interest on the federal debt than it spends on defense? Did you know that last fiscal year over a quarter of federal spending was with borrowed money? We have a debt problem, and Congress seems unable to even come close to balancing the budget. Every day we spend $2.6 Billion on interest. That is more than $30,000 per second for just interest. It has been 24 years since the federal government has had a surplus.

In the last 24 years the federal debt has greatly increased, from $5.8 Trillion to $36.7 Trillion (or now 122% of the GDP). There are several factors for the increase. The obvious cause is not enough revenue coming in for the spending, and experts blame that on the aging population and the rising cost of healthcare. I believe some other factors are the two tax cuts (G.W. Bush and Trump), the Great Recession, and the Pandemic. And I believe Congress has not had the will power to address the deficit, and that is due to we the people wanting lower taxes and still wanting all the benefits.

Ever since I have been able to vote, I have been concerned with the federal government’s debt. And I have been saying we need to raise taxes and cut spending. It is an unpopular idea, however the Trump administration is actually raising taxes (tariffs) and cutting spending (DOGE). Tariffs are an indirect taxation on us, though the Trump administration does not characterize it that way. Unfortunately, by making the former Trump tax cut permanent, the Trump administration is also cutting taxes. When I said raise taxes and cut spending, I did not have in mind the way the Trump administration is doing it.

I would have taken more time to cut spending, much like how the Clinton administration did it. The Clinton administration over a five year time period cut more than 250,000 federal jobs, consolidated more than 800 agencies, and eliminated over 100 programs. It was much less disruptive than the chainsaw approach of DOGE. And I would also have let the former Trump tax cut expire, or at least let it expire on those making more than a million dollars, and thus bring in more revenue. And I would use tariffs sparingly. Note, I believe that making the former Trump tax cut permanent undermines what they are doing and may cancel out the tariffs tax increase. Yes, cutting taxes does improve the economy and could bring in more tax revenue, but results over the last 50 years show that the net result of cutting taxes is to increase the deficit.

Congress needs to make some hard decisions. They do not need to balance the budget right away, though that would be a good thing to do. They do need to significantly reduce the deficit. The deficit for fiscal year 2024 was $1.83 Trillion. The federal government spent $6.75 Trillion and collected $4.92 Trillion in revenue. That meant that the government spent 27% more money than it received. Over a quarter of federal spending was with borrowed money! This is shocking! Yes, this will make those interest payments even higher. How long can we keep doing this?

According to the Congressional Budget Office, fiscal year 2025 is estimated to have a deficit of $1.9 Trillion and in fiscal year 2035 the deficit estimate is $2.7 Trillion. We are still digging ourselves into a much deeper fiscal hole. This is not good. We need to prioritize reducing the deficit and work towards balancing the budget. We need to raise taxes and cut spending, and we need to do it in a way that is less disruptive than the current methods.

Fake News

Newspaper Boxes (photo by David Resseguie)

There is money to be made with fake news. You set up a website and make up stories with headlines that catch eyeballs and watch the advertising dollars flow in. These fake stories spread mainly on social media (faster than real news) and the social media giants also rake in the advertising dollars. Election time is approaching and these fake news stories seem to ramp up right before elections. Remember back in 2016 when there was a news story that the Pope endorsed Donald Trump. That was fake news. It did not happen, but that fake news spread like wildfire on social media.

The problem is us. We like news that confirms our biases and shocking news is what draws us in. It is not just a few outlier websites with extreme news. Though better, mainstream news will tailor their news to their audience. In the mainstream news there has tended to be a liberal bias, so Fox News got its start to deliver the news with a more conservative slant. However, Fox News got into big trouble after the 2020 election. Dominion Voting Systems sued Fox News for continuing to spread falsehoods about their voting systems throwing the election even after they knew the stories were false. Fox News was concerned that they would lose a large percentage of their audience if they stopped reporting the fake news. So right before going to trial, Fox News settled with Dominion Voting Systems for $787.5 million and acknowledged that “certain claims about Dominion to be false”. I think that was a large price to pay to try to keep their audience.

So you need to ask yourself where do I get my news? Who do I trust to keep me informed? Is it social media posts? Is it blogs? Is it the websites of various organizations? Is it cable news interview shows? Is it radio talk shows? Is it cable news? Is it mainstream broadcast TV news? Is it newspapers? I put these questions in a rough order from what I consider to be in general untrustworthy to trustworthy? However, even a trustworthy news source can show a slant or end up getting the facts wrong. I consider it less likely for a newspaper to get the facts wrong than a social media post. There is still the issue of slant. The reporter has their own bias that they may or may not be aware of. They decide what the important facts are that will go into the story. And the editor must decide which news to publish. What news do they feel is newsworthy, and what news will their audience like? Those are decisions that can put a personal bias into the news.

You have your own personal biases and that can create some blind spots. Do you believe news because you want it to be true, and not because it is true? Fake news preys on people’s desire for the facts to align with their wishes. You need to be aware of your own biases, and you need to verify the truth of the stories, especially the ones that seem too outrageous to be true. Remember Pizzagate. On December 4, 2016, a guy entered a pizza joint armed with an AR-15 style rifle looking to rescue children from Satanic ritual abuse and a child sex ring. He had a blind spot and he acted on fake news. Fortunately no one was hurt, but he spent some time in jail because of the fake news.

So who do we trust to deliver the news that is truthful and where do we find the most unbiased news? There is a lot of distrust today. But I find that professional journalists have standards that most of them hold too, and there is enough competition that they will correct each other’s false statements. It is in their interest to get the facts right. They are more trustworthy than a talk radio show host. If the content of the article or video is sensational and/or the content is getting you emotional then I would guess that there is a strong bias in the content with possible false statements.

What are your news sources? Is there a strong bias? Are they accurately reporting the facts? There is a company that scores news organizations on their bias and their reliability/accuracy. You can check it out and see where your news sources fall. I like AP News and Reuters, because they are in the business of selling news stories to news organizations. Their audience is broad so their bias is small and they tend to be quite accurate in their reporting.

This post was inspired by the book “Beyond Fake News” by Justin P. McBrayer.

Distrust!

It seems like there is a lot of distrust in America these days. In my conversations, I have been surprised at how much distrust there is. There is a lot of distrust on both sides of the political divide, and I believe distrust is tearing the country apart. From my perspective, there are a lot of reasons to trust societal authorities, the government, police, journalists, etc. So my default mode is to trust, not distrust, the authorities. This post is about why I trust, and not distrust, societal authorities even though they all have their problems.

I believe behind much of this distrust is today’s Postmodern culture. The culture makes us suspicious of the facts because we recognize that there is always a bias (no matter how small) in how the facts are presented. Unfortunately, we have a tendency to believe only the stories that we want to agree with. We are not properly discerning the facts and are falling prey to the spin that promotes our preferred perspective on how things are. There is no self correction, because we, as autonomous individuals, make ourselves out to be the only authority. We alone can discern the truth. All other authorities are suspect, spinning the facts to put their perspective out front. (And today’s culture also allows us to spin the facts the way we want.)

Is it true that the government, police, journalists, churches, etc. put a spin on the facts? Yes, everyone has a bias. That includes you and me, but I believe that American society has built in safeguards to hold people accountable for falsehoods. It does not always work but in general I believe we can trust the societal authorities. There is no need for the institutional disrespect we see today. Yes, we need to hold people and institutions accountable, and there may be biases that need to be dealt with, but in general I believe we should trust our societal institutions.

Let us first take a look at journalists. Their job is to report the news. I believe conspiracy theories are due to not trusting the journalists and the news sources. A journalist would win a Pulitzer Prize if they could prove one of the conspiracy theories to be true. It is that motivation and competition that keeps the journalists honest. So whether the conspiracy theory is one of the 9/11 conspiracy theories or the “Stop the Steal” conspiracy theory or a different conspiracy theory, the likelihood that the theory is true is very unlikely. The “what if” possibilities in the conspiracy theories are not evidence of facts. You may want it to be true but it does not make it so. I believe it is the distrust of societal institutions and the journalists reporting that allows these conspiracy theories to flourish. Journalists and the institutions supplying them with information are not perfect, but in America the journalists do a pretty good job. There are biases of varying degrees, but you need to discern those biases. I find the Reuters news service to be pretty unbiased.

(Yes, many of you believe the “Stop the Steal” story, but why were almost all the lawsuits dismissed and why did the Attorney General William Barr say “To date, we have not seen fraud on a scale that could have affected a different outcome in the election” if the “Stop the Steal” story is true? Maybe you want it to be true, but I believe it is not.)

Many people distrust the police. Some would want to ban police departments, or cut the funding for the police way back. I believe that the vast majority of police officers are good and honest. There are few bad apples that need to be removed, and some department policies need to be reworked so that accountability can be enforced, but in general the American police are in good shape. What happens if there are no police? We have an example from Seattle, WA, June 2020, where for 23 days protestors occupied a few blocks in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Seattle. The police vacated the area, leaving their precinct station. The protestors started with high hopes. It was to be a police-free, self-governing utopia. Seattle’s mayor Jenny Durkan said the zone could herald a “summer of love”. Unfortunately, it turned out not to be an utopia, and after 23 days and two deaths later, Seattle’s mayor called in the police to end this utopian experiment. The problem as I see it is that we all are sinners and we need the police to enforce some boundaries (i.e. laws) for our good. The police are a necessary part of society. We need them but we also must hold them accountable.

There is a lot of distrust of the government, whether it be federal, state or local. Again, like the police, I believe the vast majority of them are good honest officials, and worthy of our trust, even if we disagree with their policies. Again there are just a few that are “bad apples”. We need to find and remove those. Those who distrust the government, many times say that the deep state or civil servants are hindering government change. Both Trump and Obama supporters have been concerned about deep state interference. My take is the federal government is a huge organization and I see making change to be like trying to quickly turn a massive oil tanker. It will take time.

And today, churches tend to be ignored more than being distrusted. However the sexual abuse scandals have affected the trust in churches. Again I believe the vast majority of clergy and church workers are good and honest, but churches are human institutions, and all humans are sinful so it is no surprise that scandals also are found in churches. And yet we can put our trust in God. He is the trustworthy one, a solid rock that can not be moved, and his love is amazing!

These societal institutions are not perfect, but in America I believe they are worthy of our trust. They do need to be held accountable for their failings. In America, one should default to trusting the authorities. That is where I stand. As a Christian, I take comfort that God has all this in his control. Bad things may happen because of our sin but in the end God will fix all the brokenness.

Where is the Unbiased News?

There is no such thing as completely unbiased news, however, some sources are much more biased than others. Ideally we want news sources where the reporters and editors are trying to deliver unbiased news. The reporters and editors can not be completely unbiased because they have to make decisions on what to write about or print. An unimportant detail to them may be important to you. Yet even with a bias the facts are usually there in the article or video to inform you.

So how do we determine biased and unbiased news? First is the video or article written to provoke emotion? If so, it is biased. If you become angry or fearful because of what you watched or read then it is likely it is biased. It appears to me that the newer the news medium the more likely there is an emphasis on the sensational. That is a very broad generalization, but I believe in general it is true. That means that newspapers are more likely to be reliable than cable news or social media posts. You need to remember that the news industry wants to get and keep your attention so they can sell more advertisements, so there is pressure on them to make the news sensational.

Where are the reliable sources? I would go with the traditional news organizations like broadcast TV (ABC, CBS, NBC) and the news services (AP News, Reuters) that supply the newspapers. Here is a site that tries to rank the bias. I don’t completely agree with their rankings but I believe it provides a good starting point. You need a baseline so that you can check out the accuracy of the article/video. And remember even the most reliable news sources are not always right. Note talk shows that discuss the news usually add a bias. They are not meant to be news sources.

So when we read an article or watch a video from a reliable source we should ask ourselves if we can see a bias. One way is to read/watch more than one article/video on the topic from reliable sources. You can then see what has been left out or what was differently emphasized between the reliable sources. This will help you be accurately informed.

Also be careful to note your own bias. What you read may be totally factual but not something you want to hear. You need to be willing to accept unwanted news. Or you may read/watch something totally false yet it fits with what you want to believe. You need to question your bias. To give an extreme example, remember Pizzagate. Here is a guy back in 2016 who travels from North Carolina to a pizza parlor in Washington D.C., armed and ready, to rescue children who were sex slaves. They were supposed to be held in that pizza parlor for the Democratic elite. He walked into the place and found out that he was totally wrong. He believed the fake news from an unreliable alt-right source. The sad thing is a modified version of that conspiracy theory still lives on with QAnon.

Nowadays what you share on social media makes you a news source. Be careful in what you post or repost. I remember reading about a guy who tweeted something he saw that had national importance. The tweet spread like wildfire. A few hours later he realized that he had been wrong. He posted a retraction that went nowhere. Unfortunately, social media promotes sensational stories and not retractions. Make certain what you post or repost is accurate news and not fake news, so that you do not have a part in spreading a lie.