Monday 1 May 2017

NationofChange/Michael Payne: Trump’s presidency: a thunderous WAKE UP call for all Americans

This Trump presidency should generate a thunderous wake-up call for all Americans who truly love their country and do not want to see it continue on this twisted path.

By Michael Payne -
April 30, 2017 | Op-Ed
NationofChange

As we witness the Trump presidency continue to rapidly accelerate down the wrong road, here’s a message to send out all across America:  Never, ever, make this same kind of monumental mistake again; allowing someone like the current totally incompetent, irrational occupant of the White House to assume this degree of power.

Those many Trump loyalists, the main reason why he was elected as president, need to be the first ones to wake up and realize the grave mistake they made. Perhaps they had the best intentions and desperately wanted meaningful change. However, the reality of the situation is that they were extremely naïve and were easily duped into believing in someone who never intended to follow through on his promises.

While it’s still early in his presidency there are no signs of any kind that he intends to actually “drain the Washington swamp” or that he will take steps to create millions of new jobs; that he has any viable plan to replace Obamacare with a more effective healthcare system or one for repairing this nation’s deteriorating national infrastructure.

A really competent leader would have, upon taking office, created a list of no more than five key priorities that he and his advisers would immediately start working on such as those referred to above. A leader who would be right in the middle of the action, holding intensive meetings, bringing in experts on key issues, motivating participants, monitoring progress, all intended to address solve this country’s many festering problems.

Well, he hasn’t even come close to that. He, quite obviously, has totally different objectives. He has completely failed to get the members of his own party to quickly repeal Obamacare because he, instead of using leadership and political diplomacy, attempted to try to ram the legislation through Congress. It was a colossal failure.

Instead of speaking directly to the American people on key issues, he sends out a continuous stream of controversial tweets full of insults and putdowns of others, outright lies, distortions and misinformation. He uses his Twitter account as his version of what is called the “Bully Pulpit”, a means of communication by which presidents in the past spoke directly to the people to keep them informed on objectives and progress.

And boy did he go in the exact wrong direction? It didn’t take him long to order that missile attack on a Syrian government military facility followed by the launching of that massive “Mother of all bombs” on “suspected” enemies in Afghanistan. Next, he ordered a U.S. naval “armada” into the Korean Peninsula to threaten the slightly deranged leader of North Korea with some kind of pre-emptive military attack if he continued to launch missile tests.

He strongly supports the combined U.S./Saudi Arabia attacks on the tiny nation of Yemen that is bringing great destruction upon that country and is causing the deaths of a great many of its people. By the way, those attacks are not only illegal but are immoral.

He is threatening to cancel the critically important agreement that was negotiated by the U.S. and its allies to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear bomb. From all indications this agreement is working as intended but Trump, for some totally nonsensical reason, seems hell bent on destroying it. That is irresponsibility of the highest degree.

The American people, unfortunately, continue to watch as he and his minions take many destructive actions such as doing away with emission controls. He has absolutely no intention to do anything about the threat of climate change; he still wants to build that ridiculous wall on the Mexican border. This man is not a creator or a builder; he takes delight in destructive acts, it’s apparently a part of his psyche.

Well, his continued often bizarre and reckless behavior, together with associated actions, have not gone unnoticed by a rapidly increasing number of high-level psychiatrists who are now sounding the alarms about his mental state.

These professionals are fully aware of what is called the Goldwater Rule, a psychiatrists’ code of ethics which states that it is unethical for psychiatrists to give a professional opinion about public figures they have not examined in person. Ordinarily they follow that code to a T but in this case they have clearly stated that when they feel that the safety and security of the nation and, possibly the world, is at stake, they cannot and will not remain silent.

Here’s what some of the top psychiatrists in that profession are saying about his mental condition:

    Here’s an article reporting on the recent Yale medical school conference on Trump’s mental state.
    Also check out this article from Business Insider entitled, “37 mental health experts sign a letter warning of Trump’s ‘grave emotional instability.”

Their general conclusion: “We believe that the grave emotional instability indicated by Mr. Trump’s speech and actions makes him incapable of serving safely as president. Mr. Trump’s speech and actions demonstrate an inability to tolerate views different from his own, leading to rage reactions. His words and behavior suggest a profound inability to empathize. Individuals with these traits distort reality to suit their psychological state, attacking facts and those who convey them (journalists, scientists).

There are numerous other similar opinions coming from other psychiatrists on the internet that have arrived at the same conclusion; that Trump’s words and actions indicate that he possesses some serious mental/emotional problems that severely impact his ability to lead this country.

In this article about an AP interview with Trump the reporter Alana Satlin describes the interview as follows: “You can read it in full here, but beware: It’s a doozy. Note the observation that “Donald Trump is unintelligible”, referring to the 16 instances where the AP marked parts of the transcript as “unintelligible.”

It’s strange that we haven’t seen Trump issue a blistering Twitter attack on these psychiatrists, accusing them of professional incompetence. It may be that this is an area that he doesn’t want to touch, that the last thing he wants to do is to start a huge discussion about his mental state which is fully understandable.

By the way, do we ever hear the media speaking out about the dangers of having someone that with this kind of mental state in charge of the most powerful military in the world; one who could initiate a massive world war if he would lose control?  Absolutely not. More and more it is becoming evident that this lapdog media has been beaten into submission by Trump and it’s not going to dare to talk about his mental condition.

There are many reasons why this Congress must remove Mr. Trump from office and concerns over his mental condition should be at the top of the list, followed by his increasingly aggressive orders to launch all sorts of military strikes against other countries.

Then there is the fact that he continues to refuse to disclose his federal tax returns which would, no doubt, reveal many conflicts of interest. He has not completely separated his business interests from his current presidential responsibilities, a definite conflict of interest. His children, who he has allowed to enter into government matters, also have apparent conflicts of interests. Trump is someone who has determined that laws involving conflicts of interests may apply to others but not to him or his family.

So, yes, this Trump presidency should generate a thunderous wake-up call for all Americans who truly love their country and do not want to see it continue on this twisted path. This is also a wake-up Congress. If there ever was a time in history when Republicans and Democrats must put aside their political differences and do what is critically important for this country, that time is now!

And here’s the message that all Americans, including all his zealous supporters, should send to Trump as he continues down the road to nowhere that is positive and constructive: “Fool us once shame on you, fool us twice then shame on us. And know what? You will never get the chance to fool us ever again.”

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