This is odd for me, but things are so bizarre, it is hard to even know what to say about it.

[NewHendoLib]

Wondering how many others of you try to start a post, open it up - then delete - because words just don't seem adequate to capture the situation since election day. The suggestions for cabinet pick seem more out of Mad Magazine than reality.

I keep wondering what his goal is - he has round the clock attention, he has his own cult, he has all of the media normalizing him, he has money - why does he seem to want to just destroy everything and take it all down with him?

Well, I guess I did say something. But my mind just seems paralyzed to make any sense at all out of this shit.

[dalton99a]

1. Our Caligula needs daily entertainment

The ever-increasing chaos and destruction energize and amuse him greatly

[MadameButterfly]

41. i too have thought he was closer to Caligula

than Hitler or Putin. Because he has dementia and it's getting worse, and some kinds of dementia turn even nice people into monsters. Besides the malignant narcissism which perhaps all 3 have/had.

[BOSSHOG]

2. He takes any slight personal to the extreme

Everything is mine, don’t stand in my way. It’s a sickness. We should be wearing masks.

[wnylib]

21. Yup. Trumo is not just any type of narcissist.

He is a malignant narcissist. They are sadistic. Not only is everything about them, it is about destruction of everything that is not about them and sadistically enjoying the power to do it.

It is hard for normal people to understand that there really are people who are wired that way. But there are. One of them is about to become president again in order to finish the destruction of norms that he started the first time around.

[DENVERPOPS]

49. Don't the Germans have a word for it?

Something like sharenfrued?????? We have no word in the english language meaning the same thing.

As I recall, it means taking glee in hurting others, way beyond sadism.......

[wnylib]

54. You are refering to schadenfreude.

It is not as sadistic as you suggest. It is passive, as in laughing at or ridiculing someone else's misfortune. Example: the glee here on DU over the falling prices of the Truth Social stock.

Malignant narcissism is active, not passive. It is doing deliberately sadistic things to hurt people and enjoying every moment of doing it, like taking children from their migrant parents and putting people in cages.

[DENVERPOPS]

55. Thank you!

[Phoenix61]

3. You can't make sense of bat shit crazy.

It’s just chaos. TSF likes people fighting for his favor. Like other small men it makes him feel big. With any luck, this administration won’t be any different than the last, chaos on steroids, which will make it difficult for them to accomplish much of anything.

[MadameButterfly]

42. No, last time there were actual professionals trying

to convince him to obey the law and telling him there were things he can't do.

[yellow dahlia]

4. Agreed.

I have the same feeling. I have too many words and yet I feel almost speechless. It is a strange phenomenon for me, as well.

[LSparkle]

23. I often feel like I imagine Joe did in the June debate

I’m flabbergasted, gobsmacked, my mind is racing in panicked disbelief, unable to withstand the firehouse of lies and bad news.

[niyad]

46. Thank you for saying that.

[DENVERPOPS]

50. How about

the technique used by Trump on Biden is a well known way, in a debate, of making your opponent speechless/dumbfounded.

It is called "Gish Gallop"

Google it........

It is old, and a well known technique. Why didn't Biden's debate crew prepare him for it????????/

[yellow dahlia]

70. All those things.

I was waiting to exhale...but, no.

[niyad]

44. Welcome to our DU family.

[yellow dahlia]

69. Thank you.

It is a good family to be in right now.

[niyad]

71. That it is. It has been my family for nearly 22 years!

[CentralMass]

5. It is all very surreal. I actually felt that were were going to lose the top spot

But I didn't expect losing both Houses. I'm also somewhat surprised that I know so many stupid bastards who voted for tRump.

[Blue_Tires]

6. Donnie (and the GOP) have never gotten over the fact that

There was a black man elected president...

[MerryBlooms]

7. Oh yes, beyond bizarre. I'm toying with drinking hard alcoholic beverages.

[MadameButterfly]

43. Beyond toying here

[J_William_Ryan]

8. "I keep wondering what his goal is..."

Simple.

To surround himself with boot-licking sycophants – blind partisan Trump Cult members who will be loyal only to Trump, not the Constitution and not the American people.

[Jeebo]

13. One of the cultists was just on Lawrence O'Donnell's show.

Rep. Troy Nehls, R-Tex, said, "If D****d T***p says scratch your head and jump three times, we all scratch our head and jump three times. ... Because we all know, D****d T***p is never wrong."

Holy shit, these people really are members of a cult.

— Ron

[Justice matters.]

25. So never wrong, he will order to nuke a hurricane...

Just because he wants to be proven right.

Of course one nuke will not do anything so the convicted felon will order a second one, then a third one...

[Seinan Sensei]

27. Uhm ...

I soooo want to reply to this
but words totally, TOTALLY fail me
I got nuthin’
A Munch-ian scream might be a start
…….

[Faux pas]

9. Because he

is EFFING NUTS. That is all.

[Woodwizard]

10. I can relate.

I go on mental health bike rides, and go hiking with my wife. It helps.

[GoodRaisin]

11. About his cabinet picks, it is clear that he wants them all to be as ignorant

about their jobs as he is about his. God help us.

[LSparkle]

28. He's chosen people who have contempt for the depts ...

They’re being nominated to lead.

It’s a big fuck you to all of us.

“Yeah, nice experiment this democratic republic. You like it? Well guess what? It’s mine now and I’ll tell you what I’m gonna do with it. Burn it all down. Tee hee hee.”

Followed by that creepy nastyass smile that makes my skin crawl. His smile creeps me out more than the scowl ...

[Captain Zero]

35. Something tells me Defense Dept guy got eased out of the service

And he has a burr up his ass over it.

His highest rank was Captain?
This doesn't seem like a West Point guy, so my guess is he was ROTC.
If they get their wish to fire generals, I am betting the first general to go is the one who eased him/his unit out the door.

[GoodRaisin]

58. You fire generals when you need the military to be loyal to you

instead of the constitution. It makes one wonder what he is planning.

[Lonestarblue]

59. I believe he is planning to never leave office.

He can neuter Congress easily and he has the SC on his side, and if they should rule against him he will just ignore them because they need the DOJ to enforce the law, and that will not be happening with Trump’s toady Gaetz in charge. The current military leaders have made it clear that their oath is to the Constitution. If they remained in place and Trump cancelled the 2028 election, they would be the last safeguard to remove him from office physically. So he will simply replace the experienced, principled military leaders with his own unprincipled sycophants who will aid him in his becoming president for life.

[MadameButterfly]

45. He's too ignorant to understand ignorance.

He has never learned any kind of expertise, he's always been ordering skilled people to do stuff for him and he pretends to know what he's doing (or thinks he does when he doesn't). The concept of professional training and years, decades of experience and expertise is foreign to him. So he thinks he can just pick people he likes.

This is why Russia has no economy: loyalty is the only required trait for the people in power. They have no knowledge or expertise to actually make things run.

[Diamond_Dog]

12. You aren't alone!

I am just speechless over what seems like living in the Twilight Zone.

[H2O Man]

14. Recommended.

The shock is recent. The feces is still hitting the fan, with announcements regarding Gabbard and Gaetz. People need to take their time, practice situational awareness in public, rest up, and be patient with themselves. This is a bad time. But we will not give up the struggle. We'll survive, then win.

[MadameButterfly]

47. He keeps doing what I expected him to do but

that is so shocking that I keep hoping i'm wrong. I'm surrounded by people who are acting like it won't be much different. And if he keeps doing what I expect...

So I wonder how we will survive and win. I don't see a way out.

Except that tyrants have a way of sabotaging themselves, and Trump is in visible decline. These guys are exceptionally stupid. That must give us some hope.

[blogslug]

15. I get it

I'm just resting, collecting my thoughts, recharging my batteries and trashing a lot of OPs.

[Dan]

16. I think it's like the violent partner in a domestic abuse situation

He enjoys inflicting pain, in his case - on the nation. He’s wondering how much pain can he inflict before he’s stabbed.

[wnylib]

24. Very true. I was once married to a malignant narcissist.

He enjoyed using psychological, financial, and physical abuse to own and control me. For him, it was all about asserting his self image and authority rights as a man. He enjoyed the sense of power that it gave him.

When, with the help of friends, I successfully got out of the marriage and evaded his attempts to kill me for leaving, he decompensated completely. He spiralled downward into heavy drug use and died a few years later. I did not mourn when I got the news.

[SoCalDavidS]

26. Congratulations On Your Loss

Never thought I'd say something like that, but sounds like he deserves everything he got.

[wnylib]

37. Thank you. I am an old woman now. It was 50 years ago

that I got free of him. When I look back and recall some of the situations and events, I am astonished that some sort of intuition guided me at times and that the right people were present for help when I needed it.

[Dan]

56. Their are men that make you ashamed of being a man.

I am glad that you not only survived but got out that situation.

Stay well

[wnylib]

57. Thanks. I had help from people, both men and women, in getting

out of that situation.

[blm]

17. He'll use these carnival barkers to deflect attention from the plundering of the Treasury

they intend to pull off over the next 4years.

[dalton99a]

19. +1

[3Hotdogs]

18. Psychosis is the explanation that works for me.

Crazier than a shithouse rat.

[Elessar Zappa]

20. It feels like some kind of bad joke, a bad dream.

[kerry-is-my-prez]

22. He is diagnosed as a malignant narcissist or psychopath.

An article I read was making the case for him having psychopathy with additional narcissistic traits - which I tend to think is correct - (being a counselor). It is not curable and they really don’t understand what causes it. If a violent criminal is a psychopath, the best thing to have happen is to lock them up and throw the key away.

[wnylib]

33. Agree completely. Speaking from experience as

the ex wife of a malignant narcissist.

I am forever grateful to a pair of cops who recognized and assessed the danger that I was in and gave me a stark reality check, along with some concrete advice on how to survive getting away. They did not use terms like narcissism or psychopathy, but they described his behavior in terms that I now recognize after learning about malignant narcissism.

I am also forever grateful to friends and relatives who stood by me in getting away from him. I could not have done it alone.

My ex was never officially diagnosed as a malignant narcissist, but when I later learned about NPD and its various categories, I had a flash of instant recognition. He checked every box.

[kerry-is-my-prez]

64. Psychopathy is really a more extreme diagnosis, worse than narcissism.

It difficult to tell a narcissist from a psychopath and they have a lot of traits in common with each other. Trump definitely has traits that point him out to have narcissistic tendencies but I believe that he actually has a more extreme version of mental illness.

[wnylib]

67. I've been following Dr. Ramani Durvasula

online for insights and better understanding of what I was dealing with.

She has one video that describes the difference between malignant narcissism and psychopathy. One difference between them that she points out is that a psychopath has absolutely no conscience while a narcissist can have a a bit of conscience in recognizing when they do something wrong. They don't feel empathy for their victims, but they can recognize wrongdoing while the psychopath has no concern for or recognition of right or wrong.

[ecstatic]

29. he's the living embodiment of a troll

A real life evil troll that just wants to hurt people.

[slightlv]

30. Someone above mentioned Caligula... I second that thought.

Beyond this, the man is just plain demented... both psychologically from the time he was a child to now, and in the present tense with senile dementia. Every time he opens his mouth, I hear words that were coming from my Mom when we made the hard choice to put her in a memory home. Even the aggression, revenge, racism, etc. Understand, my mom was the sweetest person you could know when she was in her prime. She had a hugely hard life growing up, and she married too early and had kids too early. She never had a chance to see what her life could be on her own terms. But when she hit about 68, she was over the moon scary. No inhibitions whatsoever. Completely paranoid. Didn't even recognize my husband any longer, though she'd been living with us for 2 years. I see the same things in trump. trump is not really the problem. Oh, what he does will be problematic, revengeful, hurtful, and will kill people right and left. The main problem is the foundational republican mafia that has arisen. The Heritage type think tanks that began back when FDR created the New Deal. They've been working all these decades behind the scenes to make this day happen, and they're not about to back down now.

They tried to implement their plan in Iraq and Afghanistan during the war, but it didn't work there. Thing is, it's not going to work ANYWHERE because people fundamentally want to be free... people want the right to be left the f*ck alone. They're belief is that Conservativism can't fail - only people can fail conservatism. They believe this so strongly because their billions depend on it. If they want the riches of the world, they can't believe anything else.

The ballot box is gone. Republicans will see to that. You think gerrymandering is bad now? Just wait. Democrats will never have a chance to have a majority again. And, even if they could the minority will never let them express it. It's time to face up to the truth and make some hard decisions. We can't live with these people. Period. So, do you want to fight, shoot, and kill them? Or give up land and move people around to create two countries? That's the only way this old lady from a red state sees hope now.

[ReRe]

31. Same here

Where did Democracy go wrong? How is it possible that this convicted criminal was ever a proper candidate to begin with back in 2016? I have never in my long life had bloodshot eyes, but I woke up with them on Nov 6th. Not from weeping but because I couldn't stop rubbing my eyes the night before. We can only hang in there and hope that the Constitution & Democracy will come through before this thug takes office. That's all I can say for now. Just know that there's a gazillion of us feeling the same as you.

[usonian]

39. It was probably Putin-planned.

The GOP play the racism and misogyny card.

It works way too often. He must be extremely blackmailed by Putin. Not pee tapes, we're immune to that, but probably a black mass or two or twenty, and some beyond-Epstein and sacrilegious beyond the imagination stuff.

[BobTheSubgenius]

32. A Fox "News" personality for Sec Def???

That wouldn't survive first reading in the writers room of movie of political satire. It's just too bizarre to be real. Isn't it?

[calimary]

38. Yeah. How 'bout THAT one, 'eh?

You couldn’t write a horror movie this unnerving. I’m still shocked.

And it’s downright disturbing. THIS is our country’s “leadership” for the next four years?

And never mind the four years part. I bet he’s working on a plan to formally end the election process. He DID say, a while ago, that after this time, we’d never have to vote again.

[littlemissmartypants]

34. Sadism

Sadism is taking pleasure in humiliating someone or causing them pain.

The DSM-5 lists sexual sadism disorder as a condition that involves sexual arousal linked to the idea of causing a non-consenting person unwanted pain. But sadism itself is not a mental health diagnosis, nor is it always sexual.

People with sadistic tendencies may:

●enjoy hurting others
●enjoy watching others experience pain
●derive sexual excitement from seeing others in pain
●spend a lot of time fantasizing about hurting other people, even if they don’t actually do so
●want to hurt others when irritated or angry
●enjoy humiliating others, especially in public situations
●tend toward aggressive actions or behavior
●behave in controlling or domineering ways

[kerry-is-my-prez]

63. A psychopath often has sadistic qualities

• The primary aims of the sadistic aggression within the construct of psychopathy were two- fold: First, to enhance the sadistic psychopath’s grandiosity and omnipotent control over his victims, and, second, to protect his vulnerable and fragile psychological self safe and sound and also to defend against the pain and humiliation they suffered in their childhood.
• Sadistic aggression was conceptualised in terms of revenge agains people who did not suffer in the patient's mind what he suffered in the past
• Qualitative results appear to indicate that there is a strong identification with violent and sadistic father (or parental) figure

https://www.hra.nhs.uk/planning-and-improving-research/application-summaries/research-summaries/sexual-sadism-and-trauma-in-psychopathy/#:~:text=Qualitative%20results%20appear%20to%20suggest,fragile%20psychological%20self%2C%20and%20defend

[littlemissmartypants]

66. Why are you telling me?

I've been calling him a psychopath since the day after he was elected the first time.

I quoted scholarly articles and standard accepted psychological disorders and descriptions ad infinitum, repeated them regularly and everyone thought I was looking for a debate.

Why folks insist upon side stepping and denying his blatant psychopathology while insisting he has anti social this or narcissistic that has almost been hilarious. If it wasn't so stupid and sad it would be.

Tell NewHendo. He's the one asking.

But thanks for your reply, kerry-is-my-prez. Maybe someone who's able and reads it will have a light bulb moment. Me? I'm already gone. ❤️

[dchill]

36. I feel you. But really, you pretty much just said it.

[usonian]

40. It's his nature and that of all bullies to push limits beyond the extreme

until someone smacks them down.

That's the only illogic to the amateur hour clown show going on.

[KS Toronado]

48. Putin wants to destroy this Country

and his PAWN will follow his instructions to a T because he's scared shit-less of Putin.

[hay rick]

51. He's in a spiteful baby "owning the libs" phase.

He is who we thought he is.

[lucca18]

52. He is very vindictive and cruel.

I feel as if I'm in a bad nightmare and can't wake up.
On and on he goes, getting away with so much evil.
I don't get it.

[poli-junkie]

53. It's a fricken reality show.

Mocking them is our duty 🫡🇺🇸🤘🏼

[Mike 03]

60. Replies to posts too

Dozens of times I've wanted to reply to a post, sometimes writing at length and ultimately deleting it. I'm having trouble determining what is meaningful or helpful under these circumstances, or simply articulating something that seems worth saying.

[Martin Eden]

61. Everything stems from his gigantic but fragile ego

He has the emotional maturity of a child, lashing out at anyone who opposed or criticised him. Wielding power gives him pleasure, especially when it makes not only specific people suffer but entire demographics he hates based on race and culture.

He is a sociopathic malignant narcissist whose cognitive capacity is degenerating with age, which is eating away at him on at least a subconscious level. This will increase his impulse for cruelty and spite. On top of that he is woefully ignorant of how government and the military function. His intent is not to serve or govern, but to rule like a mob boss -- but a real mob boss is more competent and subtle, serving his own interests without attracting attention.

He craves the attention and adulation that feed the insatiable need to keep filling the bottomless pit of his ego. If people are destroyed in the process, all the better. In his world, there are only winners and losers. He HAS to be perceived as the biggest winner, but his mental pathologies are such that he is more widely hated than loved. Deep down he knows this, and that increases his desire to make others suffer.

[Ruby the Liberal]

62. The US Treasury haan't been drained yet

And still too many "useless eaters".

[Hekate]

65. I do a lot of deleting these days. Write, edit, rewrite -- delete.

[patricia92243]

68. It looks like a SNL skit. Unfortunately, it is not.