CommentsONE MAN’S OPINION-As many now believe or suspect, Trump did not plan on becoming President.
He joined the GOP circus of candidates to enhance his assets, e.g., “The Apprentice,” in his negotiations with the network. Then, like Dorothy and her little dog Toto, he was swept up in a whirlwind which plopped him down in the Oz we call Washington D.C.
Trump’s Mental Disorders Were Clear During the 2016 Campaign
Diagnosing a mental aberration from afar ranges from the difficult to the impossible with a few exceptions. Perhaps the most notable exceptions are Personality Disorders, especially Histrionic and Narcissistic (DSM 5 - 301.50 and 301.81, respectively). The reasons these disorders do not require personal interviews or psychological testing is that these individuals habitually exhibit their diagnostic features in public. (Psychopaths, i.e. Antisocials, are more adept at concealing their pathology.) We’ve already discussed Trump’s Personality Disorders.
Why did We Elect a Mentally Ill Person to be President?
Significant events are over-determined. In other words, there is more than one cause and if one or more of the causes were removed, the election might have turned out differently. Thus, it may be more fruitful to ask why Trump even had a chance of being elected. Much deeper currents brought Trump to the surface of our political life.
Submerged Factors Which Made Trump President
The transfer of American wealth from the part of the population who actually created wealth to the top 1% held significant dangers for the nation. Older white middle-class voters including union and former union members grew up in post-WW II where prosperity was fairly divided. Starting about 1970 with the Equity Funding Scandal, the nation turned away from benefitting the average American and focused on shifting wealth to the top 1%. Despite the Savings and Loan scandals of the 1980s, we did not appreciate the tidal wave of change that was swamping the middle class with debt while heaping un-earned riches upon the 1%.
The Wall Street-financed cultural wars in the 1980s and 1990s distracted the nation and made Group Rights the central theme of both the GOP and the Dems. People did not focus on the growing corruptionism and how the U.S. Supreme Court was making the nation much more friendly to corruption. The Court basically required an absurdly explicit Quid Pro Quo close to: “Investigate Hunter Biden or I will not release the $391 million in military aid.” By 2010, we had Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission 588 U.S. 50, which allows unlimited cash in secret campaign donations. While we made laudable advances in affirming inalienable rights for Gays and females (#MeToo), we remained blind to the economic crimes that were endangering the country.
Bad Things Happen When You Rob Your Own People
Americans closed their eyes to the ravages of corruptionism which resulted in the Crash of 2008, making the 1% vastly more wealthy at the expenses of everyone else. Thanks to a few decades of dismantling effective ways to prosecute economic felons, no Wall Street architect of the Crash went to prison, but Obama gave trillions of dollars to the banks, while allowing them to foreclose on American homeowners.
The New Urbanism, the Biggest Scam in World History
Since the 1% own the media and Americans are easily distracted by cultural wars especially when they are gussied up as Group Rights. People are unable to see the greatest real estate scam in world history. The New Urbanism is not limited to Los Angeles or even to America. Even Canada is impacted.
The scam is simple:
(1) The 1% buys the city council.
(2) The city council allows extreme density in certain core areas where the 1% have bought property. Density increases real estate values as a 100 x 100 lot with a 10-story office complex is worth more than a 100 x 100 lot with a 2-story building.
(3) The city council then destroys zoning which limits density. In LA this is done through spot zoning which proceeds by extortion and bribery but in a criminogenic city corruption is king.
(4) Densification of the cores steals land wealth from landowners far from these centers. Since people cannot trace the Quid Pro Quo, they cannot comprehend how a 25-story building in DTLA is land theft from middle-class people in Granada Hills.
(5) Transform homeowners into renters. Owning a home is the main way Americans accumulate wealth, but the New Urbanism has no use for homeowners. Rather they want people to live in small apartments in city cores and forever pay outlandish rents to the 1%. The hundreds of thousands of dollars in mortgages which would have otherwise become a part of a family’s assets end up in pockets of the 1%.
Trump and American Impeachment Process
Trump’s Histrionic and Narcissistic Personality Disorders were clear before the election. Pelosi, the other Dems, and the moderate GOP knew that it would be political malpractice to allow a mentally impaired person to remain in the White House. We forget that the GOP leadership saw Trump as a disaster for the GOP. Pelosi, however, figured that if Trump remained President, the Dems would sweep the 2018 elections and she’d be Speaker of the House. For her, the GOP disaster was her personal boon.
We saw how American impeachment actually works with Richard Nixon. The bipartisan leadership visited Nixon and told him that they had the votes to obtain not only the House’s impeachment but also the Senate’s conviction. In January-February 2017, had Pelosi allowed the House Dems to join with the moderate GOP, which still existed then, they, along with the military and certain members of Trump’s family, could have had that Nixon Visit with Trump. It did not require a super patriot to realize that allowing a mentally disturbed person to remain President was a very bad idea.
The vast corruptionism which metastasized throughout America since the 1970s has betrayed the American Dream. Millions to turn to a buffoon as long as he indiscriminately and relentlessly attacked the betrayers from both political parties. Trump is the revolt of the Id. The same corrupt forces which ushered Trump to center stage made certain that he remained President in hopes that his insanity would aggrandize their power. Now they think impeachment is wise?
(Richard Lee Abrams is a Los Angeles attorney and a CityWatch contributor. He can be reached at: [email protected]. Abrams views are his own and do not necessarily reflect the views of CityWatch.) Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.
