Tag: trump

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.

  1. Sense of self-importance
  2. Preoccupation with power, beauty, or success 
  3. Entitled
  4. Can only be around people who are important or special
  5. Interpersonally exploitative for their own gain
  6. Arrogant
  7. Lack empathy
  8. Must be admired
  9. 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

American Flag Photo by Lisa Setrini-Espinosa

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.