Trump’s mind and the big picture

One of the few times Trump has spoken the truth occurred when he admitted he would do nothing about (alleged) climate change (about which, of course, he is appallingly ignorant, of a piece with his inexcusable ignorance of science or indeed about any field of organized inquiry and knowledge as represented, for example, by the natural and social sciences) if that meant affecting corporate profits (and the avaricious accumulation of money and wealth generally). So, even when he is honest, we get a frightening glimpse into his manifestly irrational and a-rational beliefs and the workings of his mind, a mind long mired in denial, self-deception, and wishful thinking, exacerbated so as to cause a surfeit of all manner of harms, given his narcissistic megalomania (or exemplification of all—or virtually all—of the diagnostic symptoms of Narcissistic Personality Disorder), rendering his beliefs in the form of phantasies, illusions, and delusions. This is profoundly disturbing on its own. It is made even more troubling, confounding, and frustrating when we realize that the President has instinctively loyal and perfervid enablers and supporters in the White House, in Congress, among right-wing talk radio hosts and TV personalities, and throughout the general population, including the vast majority of the Republican Party, erstwhile conservatives, capitalist titans of industry and finance, groups like the NRA, conservative evangelical Christians (a small number of evangelical Christians, namely those who have read the synoptic Gospels and taken the parables and sayings of Jesus to heart, are on the Left), white supremacists, proto-fascists and fascists…, all of whom are in active or implicit, de jure or de facto cooperation, collusion and complicity with the regressive politics and policies of the Executive Branch, including those of the Cabinet and federal agencies, politics and policies that are regressive not only with regard to our ecologies and the environment, but in light of whatever progress we have made to date and the possibilities and hopes we entertain for the democratically inspired and constrained pursuit of generalized welfare, well-being, and fulfillment (or eudaimonia).