I am a helper. I am an empath who feels the pain of others, and do what I can to alleviate it, if I am able. I also come from a mental health services background. I was a counselor for five years, and continue to help and advocate for those with mental illness to the best of my ability.
That being said, it’s not unusual for me to feel betraying feelings of pity for the man who currently pretends to be president, as much as I abhor everything he is and stands for. The man is clearly mentally ill, dealing with at least one personality disorder, a mood disorder with possible psychosis, and the early stages of dementia. He is not well.
But he’s also an asshole. He is a bad, bad man. And that’s why neither I, nor you, nor anyone has to feel badly for a man who is losing it in front of us. This is a man who mocks the disabled, who admits to repeated sexual assault, who treats women, the poor, and minorities as commodities, pawns in his twisted game of life, expendable in every way. He cares about no one but himself, narcissistic personality disorder aside. He is greedy, a liar, more than likely a rapist, and takes great joy in inflicting pain upon others. He is a bad man, and while even bad people go “crazy” and lose touch with reality, that doesn’t mean that all people suffering from these illnesses deserve a free pass.
However, with all that in mind, I can’t help but think that Trump’s enablers are even worse people than Trump himself. They KNOW he is bad, they KNOW he is ill, and whether it’s Republicans, his staunchest supporters, or even his own asshole children, they still stick by him, not out of loyalty, but out of sheer greed.
Opportunistic assholes who are so greedy to push their agendas, make THEIR causes heard and turned into law, that they will use the asshole who cracked up to get their way, sucking the life out of him like any good parasite. The worst of these, in my mind, are his own children, because if they truly loved their father, fucking treasonous, bigoted, racist, misogynistic asshole that he is, they would tell him to give up, let it go, throw in the proverbial towel.
His aides should do the same thing, but they don’t. They let him flounder, embarrass himself and the entire country, put millions in danger, just to piss off some liberals, and get some massive tax breaks, or turn discrimination into law. Their need for power rivals Trump’s, and they’ll stop at nothing to get it, including using a senile asshole to get what they want.
Do I feel sorry for Trump? No. He is a horrible person, and while he is declining, I can’t say that I am sorry about that. Karma is a bitch, and so is the aging process.
But I’m no longer of the opinion that he is The Worst in all of this. He’s the fucked up, disgusting figurehead, for sure, but his enablers? The racists, xenophobes, bigots and misogynists who cheer him on, the aides that cover up his every faux pas, the children who pretend they are his biggest fans, when they’re just waiting for daddy to crack up enough to give them a cushier lifestyle than they already grew up in, the foreign adversaries who employ him as their puppet – all of them, ALL OF THEM, are as sick – or sicker ≠ than he is.
Our country is deeply infected with this horrible virus, and it’s sickening to watch the whole thing unfold. I have never been more embarrassed, more ashamed of what this country has become, but as exhausted as all of this makes me, I will continue to fight. It’s bad enough that my own body attacks itself and I have to fight back daily.
I’ll be damned if I let my home be rotted through with the filth that threatens it.
—kimberly a. morales
Flommist Kimberly A. Morales is a food and wellness blogger, and patron saint of cats. Copyright © 2017 Kimberly A. Morales.
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