Here we are in the silly season, when political campaigns begin ramping up and candidates strive to present their best sides and demonstrate their good qualities.
Alas for unpresident Donald Trump, who has neither a good side nor any good qualities. He lacks jollity, folkishness, charm, and he sure as hell lacks presidentialness.
All evidence suggests he has only one emotion: anger. He seems incapable of responding to anything positively. He can bring anger out of an audience like a camp meeting preacher can bring out the spirit.
The problem is, you can't build on anger. Anger builds on itself with no mitigation, manifests as hate, and will ultimately always end in violence, the last resort of the incompetent.¹
We should be concerned about where that anger goes. It obviously gets poured out on those around him--the press, his staff, even COVID-19, which he hates because he can't control it. He carries so much anger that he radiates it.
Some of that anger must surely be turned inward, and that is Freud's definition of depression. If Trump is angry with himself and has become depressed he is far more dangerous than your everyday angry man.
On July 3 and 4 he delivered similar speeches at gatherings meant to observe Independence Day. They were, of course, campaign speeches and were of such hyperbolic demagoguery as to stagger the mind.²
Both presentations were belligerent in nature, effectively declaring war on his newest shadow enemy, the "Fascist Left." In both speeches he reached astounding new heights of hypocrisy, reflecting his acts and policies back on this ghost entity, shamelessly blaming the left for his own bad deeds, and attributing the effects of his policies, his racism, and his xenophobia to this phantom fifth column.
The Hypocrite-in-Chief has finally found a speechwriter who can make him sound almost knowledgeable about American history. He merged bellicose harangues with attempts to show his understanding of American history and diversity, peppering both addresses with names of African Americans and women, gracing a few with his only adjective, "great."
Military power was a major focus of both speeches, as he read off lists of America's increasing military arsenal. All that was missing was a parade of weapons, à la Soviet May Day parades.
Lacking the intellectual capacity to channel his anger into something non-destructive, a depressed Trump is likely to strike out at virtually no provocation, and he has lots of weapons to play with.
We should be very concerned indeed.
--- Diogenes, July 5, 2020
¹ Attributed to Isaac Asimov.
² July 3 transcript: https://www.rev.com/blog/transcripts/donald-trump-speech-transcript-at-mount-rushmore-4th-of-july-event
July 4 transcript: https://www.rev.com/blog/transcripts/donald-trump-salute-to-america-speech-transcript
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