Abu Hena : In the most consequential U.S. presidential election in decades, the Republican Party nominee Donald Trump is about to face the same fate as Michael Dukakis , the 1988 Democratic Party nominee who had to release his medical records to counter reports that he had undergone psychiatric treatment. Now in the midst of a decisive presidential election due on 8 November, an online manifesto has been signed and posted by 2,200 mental health specialists against ‘Trumpism’. The psychiatrists, who have tagged Trump with “an assortment of personality problems, including grandiosity, lack of empathy, and malignant narcissism”, feel that ‘they’re saving the nation from a terrible fate.’ William Doherty of the Minnesota University said, “What we have here is a threat to democracy itself.” The therapists who signed the manifesto characterize ‘Trumpism’ as reinventing history, never apologizing, demeaning critics and inciting violence. “One can talk about his public behavior without knowing whether he is fully that way with his children, his wife, his friends “,Dr. Doherty said.” We are careful not to make a clinical diagnosis here, to say Donald Trump has narcissistic personality disorder”, said Dr. Steven Buser , co-editor of a new book, “A Clear and Present Danger: Narcissism in the Era of Donald Trump”, adding ,”We are focused on the image he projects, on TV, in tweets, in quotes.” Meanwhile, fifty noted Republican security advisers, many of whom were top aides or cabinet members of George W. Bush, signed a letter declaring that Donald J. Trump ” lacks the character, values, and experience” to be the president and, “would put at risk our country’s national security and well-being.” Donald Trump, the officials warned, “would be the most reckless president in American history.” The letter questions Trump’s knowledge of and belief in the Constitution, and states that he has little understanding of the nation’s vital national interests, its complex diplomatic challenges, its indispensable alliances and the democratic values. In his first campaign appearance with Hillary Clinton in Pennsylvania, Vice President Joe Biden warned that Donald Trump, even as a candidate, had elevated the dangers confronting American allies and military personnel overseas. He added that if his son Beau, who died of brain cancer last year, were still serving in Iraq, he would advise him that the danger had increased “a couple clicks” because of Trump’s remarks ,which included the suggestion that President Obama was the ‘founder’ of the Islamic State. “This guy’s shame has no limits “,he said, suggesting that he has demonstrated a fondness for brutal leaders and ‘he would have loved Stalin’. In an outright blistering attack on Trump, he said, “he is already a security risk and he can’t be trusted with nuclear codes. He has no clue what it takes to lead this country.” Affronted by the diagnostic analyses of the psychiatrists, security concerns of the Bush advisers and the warning of the U.S. Vice President, Donald Trump in a speech in Ohio on 15 August, defiantly made the incendiary pronouncement: “I will be your single greatest champion.” His declaration resembles the decree of Louis XIV, who took sole control of France with the motto, ” I am the state,” and saw to it that all state decisions were his to make. During four years of his rule,he was, according to the laws of the kingdom, not only the master but the owner of the bodies and property of 19,000,000 French subjects. His harshness, despotism, prodigious pride, passion and megalomania knew no limits. Like Louis, the Republican presidential aspirant may someday ask his people to salute him as “a visible divinity.”Trailing behind Clinton by 14 points in some national polls, Trump at last showed his true color. Lashing out at the ‘disgusting media’ who flashed the news that he had made $39 million when his casino failed, Trump boastfully said, “I made lot of money. That’s my job. I am a business person.” Referring to the invasion of Iraq ,he asked, “What was the purpose of this ?”Moments later he made his intention clear, “We should have kept the oil in Iraq.” He combined old vows to seize Middle Eastern oil fields with the announcement of a series of proposals to change America’s battlefield tactics. Asked to comment on Trump’s suggestion to keep the Iraq oil, General Clark, former Supreme Commander of NATO remarked, ‘that’s crazy.’ The second biggest job he wants to perform as president is to fight radical Islam , as an ideological warfare in the same manner as the United States fought communism. But unlike the Cold War, Trump promises to fight this war ‘viciously’, being deliberately cruel and violent, like a wild and dangerous man. If elected he will suspend immigration from “most dangerous and volatile regions of the world,” which may include France, Germany and Belgium. He would introduce “extreme vetting” of immigrants that would include requiring them to respond to a questionnaire with an ideological test.Donald Trump appears to be planning for the kind of Islamic terrorism-centric foreign policy that President George W. Bush adopted after the September 11, 2001 attacks. The kind of attacks on the Islamic State, he advocates-along with taking and holding the oil fields, which is a violation of international law-would require a massive presence by American and allied troops in the Gulf region. The war wary Americans may not like to subscribe to the Trump belligerency which means engaging in another full scale war immediately after the U.S. military personnel have returned home from the battle fields of Iraq and Afghanistan completing their mission. Overall, his anti-Muslim rhetoric might demoralize the moderate Muslim voice which America seeks to empower and alienate the Islamic countries, friendly to the United States. [Writer was elected MP in the 7th and the 8th Parliaments]
