DO I HAVE "TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME"

CHARACTER, CORRUPTION AND INCOMPETENCE

Republicans accuse me of suffering from “Trump Derangement Syndrome,” which, they say, reflects an irrational hatred of the President.

It’s a familiar charge against many of Trump’s critics; some, like my podcast partner James Carville, welcome it.

Two Republican congressmen even have proposed a National Institute of Health study of the “psychological and social roots” of that phenomenon.

I volunteer for any trial.

To be clear, I am a passionate critic. Trump is the worst President of my lifetime and fear my children and grandchildren will still pay a price after he’s gone.

It has little to do with his policies, though I disagree with many. Nor is it about ideology. No one confuses him as a conservative in the Ronald Regan or William F. Buckley mold.

It is about character, corruption and competence.

He is a chronic liar. Many politicians and others exaggerate or distort. No one should call any President of the past 50 years a congenital liar. Trump is; even some supporters acknowledge his lack of integrity but they like his policies.

He enjoys hurting people. Once he imitated, with flailing gyrations, a reporter with physical disabilities. Last week, criticizing Gavin Newsom’s dyslexia, which he equated with being dumb, he said no one with disabilities should be President.

Historians believe George Washington and Thomas Jefferson probably had dyslexia. So did Albert Einstein and Steve Jobs.

When Robert Mueller, the highly regarded former FBI director, and special prosecutor of the Russian interference with the 2016 Presidential race, died last weekend, Trump said: “Good. I’m glad he’s dead.”

For years he pushed the lie that Barack Obama, a Black man, wasn’t born in the United States. Recently he put out a social media video depicting Barack and Michelle Obama as apes.

He has contempt for the rule of law, as former federal judge Michael Luttig -- an arch conservative on the bench -- has pointed out since 2020. The Justice Department follows his orders and revenge against his perceived enemies. Fortunately, with their gross ineptitude they have been slapped down by the courts and even grand juries.

A Department press release announced “Trump’s Justice Department...” No General Bondi, it’s the people’s Justice Department.

He has contempt for institutions. Other Presidents have had disagreements with the independent Federal Reserve. None tried to criminalize this disagreement with a fraudulent charge against the Chairman. The John F. Kennedy Center changed the cultural face of the nation’s capital attracting the most distinguished artists in the world, supported by the last ten Presidents. Trump renamed the Center after himself, tapped a cultural hack to run it and plans to shut it down for two years.

He leads a cesspool of corruption. Fueled by his crypto currency scam, his net worth, according to Forbes, has increased by 27%, or $1.4 billion in the past year. Presidential pardons are being peddled left and right. Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner was the U.S. negotiator on the Middle East crisis, simultaneously seeking money from the Saudis for his private equity firm.

“I don’t know what’s technically permissible but this seems to me to be fundamentally wrong,” suggests Richard Haass, a top State Department official in the Bush administration and former President of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Let’s check my supposed syndrome with other Republican Presidents - Reagan, Bush 41 and Bush 43. I disagreed with their tax cuts and most of their judicial appointments. I agreed with William F. Buckley who told my wife that Bush 43’s Iraq War was such a disaster that “if he’d invented the bill of rights it wouldn’t get him out of his jam.”

There were a few notable achievements. Reagan, at a time when scholars were questioning whether America was governable, proved with a strong conviction and good advisers it was. Bush 41 skillfully managed the challenges with dissolution of the Soviet Union and end of the Cold War. Bush 43’s $100 billion Global AIDS program (PEPFAR) has saved tens of millions of lives around the world.

There were appealing personal stories about each of these Republicans. They could convey compassion, provide comfort during tragedy and didn’t make everything about themselves. While all were basically conservatives -- especially Reagan -- they weren’t haters.

Trump possess none of these qualities. So I guess like my partner, Carville, I’m afflicted with the syndrome too. Except it’s neither irrational nor deranged.