You know, history isn’t written the day after an event. News reports are. History is written 10 or 20 or 30 years later, when there is a wider pool of dispassionate information, and when enough time has passed for actual, qualified historians to ignore the reputations and the popular opinion of the time. It is meant to be factual, dispassionate, and bullshit free.
In one blazing moment tonight, Lawrence O’Donnell on MSNBC made it crystal clear as to how history will actually portray King Donald when history is finally written. It will portray Donald Trump as an obsessive, delusional, narcissistic personality incapable of dealing with any reality that did not portray him as a winner. And they will do this on the best possible testimony, medical expertise.
Look, doctors of all stripes have an ironclad rule. They never, ever publicly diagnose a patient they have not personally examined. But a mere 31 days after Trump’s inauguration, clinical psychiatrists were appearing on MSNBC and CNN to sound the alarm about the President of the United States. And it’s not like the network had to go out hunting for them.
By that time, more than 30 clinical psychologists and clinical psychiatrists had banded together to write individual, professional profiles of the mental health of Donald Trump, and openly published them. They did so for one reason, and one reason only. Because Trump had been such a lifelong media whore, they had more than 30 years of open public audio and video statements for them to be able to study Trump under all kinds of circumstances and conditions. And they were led by the best possible source of all, Trump’s own niece, Mary Trump, a board certified clinical psychologist who had spent her entire life around Uncle Donald.
This is the kind of stuff that historians live for. Cold, dispassionate, clinical research with a professional diagnosis. If the historians believe the medical professionals, then it will by necessity color their perceptions of every decision that Trump made during his four disastrous years as President. They will see them not as the decisions of a sane, moral, normal President doing the best he can in tension filled situations, but rather those of a delusional, narcissistic sociopath looking out only for himself. And that will be an accurate assessment.
I will almost certainly long ago have taken up the sport of dirt surfing by the time that the first historical portrayals of Trump come out. But I ask that my younger readers keep an eye out, and see whether I was right or not. I’m betting that I will be.
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The Washington Post’s Phil Graham is said to have called the news the first rough draft of history. Not a bad way to think of it, at least when the news is provided by competent professionals trying to adhere to old-school journalistic standards. However, every once in a while that first draft isn’t all that “rough.” It’s simply a first draft, and over time as with almost all good writing it will go through multiple drafts and discussions (fights even) with editors to become a polished product. But as I said, once in a while what we initially see/hear is a passable first draft.
I think a fair amount of stuff on Trump including and especially his malignant narcissism isn’t that rough – it’s a first draft that’s a fair start for historians to work with. And it might not take thirty or forty years to get enough perspective for a definitive narrative from multiple respected historians. In eight to ten years we will have learned almost all the shit that’s still to be learned. And in another ten I think a fair picture of the long-term consequences of the Trump Presidency and the rise of MAGA will be pretty clear. So there’s a chance we might see some seriously good historical analysis before we turn up our toes. (We’re close to the same age I think)
delliott
Yes, I think you nailed it
A much larger and even more interesting question for historians will be how somebody like that was ever elected president of the United States in the first place.
He dismantled the group set up to monitor & work with virologists in China. He was briefed by Israel in 2019. He was RECORED in February 2020, (already vaccinated), clearly admitting to Woodward the virus was deadly & easily spread. He then lied, deflected, gaslighted the country night after night. Didn’t set up any system of testing or protective equipment. He ridiculed mask wearing. He continues TO THIS VERY DAY to support the liars that resist free vaccines & mask wearing. He was not responsible, in any way for the first vaccines, developed in Europe. In other words, as the most powerful man on earth at the time, he IS DIRECTLY responsible for 650,000 deaths in a year+, & people are still dying. He is, IN FACT, the worst serial killer in the history of the USA. Yet, he walks free. Poor Ted bundy. Poor Charlie Manson. Poor BTK. Poor Gacy, Jeffrey dahlmer, the green river killer, etc. All those evil bastards are lightweights. Oh. & he did this while playing golf over 300 times costing the taxpayers over 100million, spent at his properties. I can hardly stomach this fucking hypocritical shallow evil culture of ours. America. Home of the incarcerated. Land of deluded hypocrites. Our children deserve better.
With all the evil he has done, I don’t see how he can still be roaming free and amazingly even considering a second run for president.