Trump's 'damaged psyche' heading for a 'crackup': NYT columnist
President Donald Trump has put the world on a trajectory toward a "crackup" that would be as predictable to the nation's founders as it was to ancient philosophers, according to a new column.
New York Times columnist David Brooks argued the world was in the midst of four unravelings – postwar international order, domestic tranquility, democratic order and the unspooling of Trump's mind – and he said the last one was driving all the others.
"Narcissists sometimes get worse with age, as their remaining inhibitions fall away," Brooks wrote. "The effect is bound to be profound when the narcissist happens to be president of the United States. Every president I’ve ever covered gets more full of himself the longer he remains in office, and when you start out with Trump-level self-regard, the effect is grandiosity, entitlement, lack of empathy and ferocious overreaction to perceived slights."
Trump has grown quicker to resort to violence in his second presidency, Brooks wrote, and he argued this tyrannical degradation should be familiar to ancient philosophers.
"Tyrants generally get drunk on their own power, which progressively reduces restraint, increases entitlement and self-focus and amps up risk taking and overconfidence while escalating social isolation, corruption and defensive paranoia," Brooks wrote. "I have found it useful these days to go back to the historians of ancient Rome, starting with the originals like Cato and Tacitus. Those fellows had a front-row look at tyranny, with case studies strewed before them — Nero, Caligula, Commodus, Domitian, Tiberius. They understood the intimate connection between private morals and public order and that when there is a decay of the former, there will be a collapse of the latter."
Trump's lust for power personifies their warnings from the past, wrote Brooks.
"Those historians were impressed by how much personal force the old tyrants could generate," he wrote. "The man lusting for power is always active, the center of the show, relentless, vigilant, distrustful, restless when anything stands in his way."
Trump's psychiatric crackup has seeded the destruction of the post-World War II international order, Brooks wrote, but he expressed confidence that the U.S. would avoid a Rome-style collapse.
"Our institutions are too strong, and our people, deep down, still have the same democratic values," wrote. "But I do know that events are being propelled by one man’s damaged psyche. History does not record many cases in which a power-mad leader careening toward tyranny suddenly regained his senses and became more moderate. On the contrary, the normal course of the disease is toward ever-accelerating deterioration and debauchery."