Donald Trump must go to prison
First a disclaimer. I am not a psychologist nor have I been employed in any capacity in that field. My qualifications are the same as anyone’s. I have a reasonable grasp of the English language and access to relevant diagnostic materials, specifically, the well-known and highly effective psychological diagnostic tool known as the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual 5, or DSM 5.
Second, it’s considered by some to be bad form, unprofessional or even unlawful to diagnose a sociopathic public figure from afar. In fact the opposite is the case. Thanks to the DSM 5, public figures are imminently diagnosable. It’s in private diagnoses that sociopathic patients try to deceive the therapist. Public diagnoses are best, and known patterns of behaviour are all we really need from public figures to make a reasonably accurate diagnosis. Any reasonable person can do it.
Which brings us to Donald Trump. “Sociopath” is no longer a bona fide diagnosis but is instead a catchall for a range of disorders. Trump’s best fit is probably the twin diagnosis of narcissist and antisocial personality disorder (ASPD). Because ASPD is the most consistent with trouble with the law, that is the one I am going to focus on here, because Trump is in trouble with several laws just now.
What follows is a representative smattering of diagnostic criteria for ASPD. For example, “Failure to obey laws and norms by engaging in behaviour which results in criminal arrest, or would warrant criminal arrest.” Trump is instantly recognisable in this criterion from the start. In fact, Trump seems to seek out opportunities to break the law when alternative paths involving not breaking the law are both safer and even
more profitable.
“Lying, deception, and manipulation, for profit or self-amusement,” is another criterion. Again, if Trump is renowned for anything it’s his willingness to lie. Even some of his supporters are aware of and embarrassed by his capacity to lie.
Another is, “Irritability and aggression, manifested as [the patient] frequently assaults others, or engages in fighting.” Trump’s fights are always verbal. Very few days go by that Donald Trump doesn’t engage in combative verbal behaviour with one or more persons.
“Blatantly disregards safety of self and others,” and “Lack of remorse for actions,” were manifest during the coronavirus pandemic when he repeatedly ignored the health of the American people and often engaged in cruel PPE resupply brinkmanship with so-called “blue states.” Trump has never shown the slightest remorse for the death and suffering he caused during the pandemic. In fact his one comment on it was, “It is what it is.”
Clearly Donald Trump has Antisocial Personality Disorder. He deserves incarceration for the dangerous and illegal things he’s done. That’s a diagnosis anyone can make, anyone who can read and understand straightforward English.
But that’s just a cold, clinical evaluation, a diagnosis. There’s more to it, much more. A diagnosis of Trump’s pathology doesn’t exonerate him from moral responsibility. To understand all is not to forgive all. Donald Trump is also an intentionally toxically evil human being. Were it otherwise then he would occasionally do good, if only by the law of averages.
Everything he does is ultimately bad for the American people. That’s always by design, never by accident. Trump never intends good. He always intends evil. Whenever he does anything that’s remotely good it’s an accident, an aberration, something he will quickly move to “correct.”
This is why Trump and his kind are pure evil, why they behave like cartoon villains. The Trumps, the Jim Jordans, the Marjorie Taylor Greenes of our political world don’t always get it wrong because they have phenomenally bad luck, they always get it wrong because they intend to, they want to, because they’re pure evil and pure evil is part of their reward.
They aren’t going to persecute Hunter Biden with one hand and solve inflation and the price of gas with the other. Oh no, they are only going to persecute Hunter Biden. Their goal is to do evil and nothing besides. They lied about the good they intend to do in order to get power from the suckers who voted for them.
That’s why Trump must go to prison. Anything less will enable him to continue to have influence in the world. The most evil people in the world, the people Trump concerns himself with, intend to harm us. They are in power to enrich themselves to our pain, sorrow and disadvantage, not in spite of it. Trump must go to prison. And, as ever, ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, comrades and friends, stay safe.
Robert Harrington is an American expat living in Britain. He is a portrait painter.