advisors, persisting in giving impossible military orders and refusing to acknowledge defeat. He ordered non‑existent divisions to counterattack, denied the Soviet advance, and insisted on staying in Berlin even as its fall was inevitable. I think we are seeing the same kind of reaction from Trump. Not that I think Trump is as evil as Hitler or as crazy as Hitler was in his final days, but then again there is not as much at stake for Trump as there was for Hitler. I think we are seeing a similar type of delusion.
If the Hitler comparison is too strong, recall the gentler story of the young boy who pointed out the king was not wearing clothes. In the story, the emperor is obsessed with new, flashy clothing and spends his treasury on them. Two impostors claim to weave fabric invisible to anyone who is “simple in the head” or unfit for their job. The emperor orders the “clothes” woven, and the weavers pretend to create the clothing. Ministers and officials, afraid to be seen as foolish, pretend to admire the “clothes,” and the emperor himself, also vain, pretends to be dressed, then parades through the city. The townspeople go along, afraid to appear incompetent, and then a small child, free from fear of judgment, shouts that the emperor is wearing nothing at all. The crowd realizes the truth, and the emperor tries to maintain dignity by continuing the procession despite being naked.
For at least ten years, maybe for his whole life, people have sucked up to Trump and stroked his ego and worked to flatter and please him. He has had bankruptcies and business failures but was never forced to face his own limitations and the possibility that he was not the greatest of all time. I don't know that one can accurately diagnose someone from a distance, but Trump is clearly not normal. Many psychologists and commentators have suggested that Donald Trump displays behaviors consistent with narcissistic personality disorder (NPD), including grandiosity, a need for admiration, and limited empathy.
I don't think anyone thought that Trump would graciously accept the midterm results if he lost. Before the election, he tried to put his fingers on the scales, first by mid-decade redistricting, then by trying to force states to use his voter ID list, then by trying to pass the SAVE Act, and then by trying to get the US Postal Service to not deliver mail-in ballots, and various other ways. Most of what he attempted failed, and some, like redistricting, actually backfired.
I am so glad that Trump lost the midterms by such a large margin. If the loss had been by only ten or fifteen votes in the House and Republicans had held the Senate, I fully expected Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act in places and to seize ballots and voting machines and for the House to refuse to seat the newly elected representatives. I do not expect that chaos now. Democrats won by a margin too large to deny. Trump is still in denial, however.
This morning Trump posted on Truth Social, "Does anyone really believe this "Election" was honest?" He said some voting "dumps" were so large that Republicans could not win no matter how many people voted.
I know there are some Trump cultists who will believe him. We should not be surprised that some will. Some people believe chemtrails are a real thing, that 9-11 was an inside job, that Katrina was a government-engineered disaster to kill Black folks, that the true assassin of JFK has never been revealed, that the French Foreign Legion somehow in cahoots with Israel really killed Charlie Kirk, and that the moon landing was faked. Some people are somehow wired to believe the craziest things, and the more bizarre they are, the more strongly they believe them.
For those in touch with reality, the claim by Trump that this midterm election was rigged is just bizarre. I know Trump could still do something to blow up the world, and a cornered animal can be dangerous. However, Trump is the lamest of lame ducks. Once hearings start on the Trump corruption and his malfeasance in office, I expect more and more people to abandon Trump. People can turn on a bully mighty quickly when his power starts to wane. While I detest Trump and want his crimes to see the light of day, at this point he is almost to be pitied, much the same way you might pity Hitler moving imaginary division around on a map of Europe.
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