Joe Bennett: Trump sick in the head, a malignant narcissist

US president Donald Trump won't succeed in turning the world's most influential democracy into a corrupt authoritarian state like Russia but he's done lasting damage, says Joe Bennett. Photo / AP

A DOG'S LIFE

COMMENT:

Idly he reaches up to the shelf of rarely used but nevertheless-useful things and pulls down and dusts off his crystal ball. This will not take long. Here's Trump's future in plain text.

Anyone still supporting Trump is either mad or blind or vile or cruel or stupid or some combination of the above. Trump has done all he can to turn the world's most influential democracy into a corrupt authoritarian state like Russia. He won't succeed but he's gone a long way and done lasting damage.

Of course many do still support him and they send me frothing, abusive emails. I keep every one of them - my, how the file bulges - and when Trump is finally dealt to I shall publish a column consisting only of emails from Trumpsters, verbatim. (Why is it, I wonder, that no Trump supporter can spell or punctuate, let alone reason?) So please keep the ruderies coming.

Trump is sick in the head. His sickness is clearly defined. He is a malignant narcissist. Look up the definition of malignant narcissism and you will find a description of Trump.

Now, if Trump had tertiary syphilis we would happily predict the future. We would say without hesitation that his nose would rot, his eyesight fade, his liver shudder and dissolve. Why can't we do the same with his psychological illness? Well, we can. Trump is utterly predictable.

Because Trump lies he accuses the media of lying. Every time Trump accuses anyone of anything it is a projection of his own guilt. His tweets are a window on his fear of exposure. Photo / AP

The key to understanding Trump is self. To Trump the world and his self are the same thing. He is loyal only to the promotion of his self. He cares about nothing and nobody else - not his country, not his wife, not the state of the planet, nothing. Only himself. Keep that in mind and everything he does makes perfect sense.

Trump lies. He lied on his first day in office, claiming that his inauguration crowd was the biggest ever. Everyone knew it wasn't, but Trump's psychological condition required it to be. So he lied. And he's continued to lie since. Only this week he announced that when he became president the US military, the most potent army the world has ever seen, "had no ammunition".

Trump's lies will continue. But they will be subject to diminishing returns. More and more people will see through them and the consequent loss of status will be unacceptable to him. So he will have to concoct even more extreme and absurd lies to protect his sense of self-worth. This process is already under way. He recently tweeted of his own "unmatched wisdom". Quite soon he will reach the point where nothing he says bears any relation at all to reality, and people will stop paying attention. And he will find that literally unbearable.

At the same time as he continues to lie he will continue to betray. He requires others to be loyal to him, but he offers no loyalty in return because his psyche will not allow him to. He can be loyal only to himself. He has fired dozens of henchmen who have disagreed with him and thereby threatened his sense of supremacy. Already he is left only with the toadies and the cynics and he will stab them in the back too when necessary. The future for Trump is isolation.

Donald Trump's presidency will end with him all alone in the White House screaming for the nuclear football and vowing vengeance at the furniture. Photo / AP

And as he becomes isolated he will continue to confess his crimes. Somewhere in that seething rotten skull he knows what he's done. But obviously he cannot acknowledge it. So he projects it onto others.

Because he is crooked he calls Hillary Clinton crooked. Because he is guilty of nepotism he accuses Joe Biden of nepotism. Because he lies he accuses the media of lying. Because he is a sociopath he calls Adam Schiff a sociopath. Every time Trump accuses anyone of anything it is a projection of his own guilt. His tweets are a window on his fear of exposure.

Trump's condition will worsen. As the walls close in he will panic. He will find impeachment and removal from office and exposure as a fraud quite literally too much to take. His psyche will require him to see himself as the victim. He will wail like a toddler. He will be such a pathetic spectacle that even the craven self-serving yellow-bellied hypocrites in the Republican senate will be obliged to distance themselves from him.

After that, the end will come fast. Trump will try to take everything down with him because a world that rejects him cannot be allowed to exist. His presidency will end with him all alone in the White House screaming for the nuclear football and vowing vengeance at the furniture.