Daniel Davis Wonders ...

 ... as do we all: WHO is in charge? 

How many persons does he have in his head? I already posted famous FBI profiler Candice Delong speaking on the issue of narcissists and their alternative universes in which they control the universe, due to their (perceived) greatness. But here is the deal: apart from being absolutely shallow in terms of practical geopolitics, Trump simply has no class--this is now a definitive feature of the political class in the West. This derives from being highly uncultured and proud of it. When it combines with narcissism--it is an explosive mix. As one old anecdote goes about this class:

--Honey, I just bought Rembrandt!

--How much horsepower does it have? 

Yes, we are at this junction now. 

Here is mechanism:

Pathological narcissism is a defense mechanism intended to isolate the narcissist from his environment and to shield him from hurt and injury, both real and imagined. Hence the False Self - an all-pervasive psychological construct which gradually displaces the narcissist's True Self. It is a work of fiction intended to elicit praise and deflect criticism.

The unintended consequence of this fictitious existence is a diminishing ability to grasp reality correctly and to cope with it effectively. Narcissistic Supply replaces genuine, veritable, and tested feedback. Analysis, disagreement, and uncomfortable facts are screened out. Layers of bias and prejudice distort the narcissist's experience.

Yet, deep inside, the narcissist is aware that his life is an artifact, a confabulated sham, a vulnerable cocoon. The world inexorably and repeatedly intrudes upon these ramshackle battlements, reminding the narcissist of the fantastic and feeble nature of his grandiosity. This is the much-dreaded Grandiosity Gap. To avoid the agonizing realization of his failed, defeat-strewn, biography, the narcissist resorts to reality-substitutes. The dynamics are simple: as the narcissist grows older, his Sources of Supply become scarcer, and his Grandiosity Gap yawns wider. Mortified by the prospect of facing his actuality, the narcissist withdraws ever deeper into a dreamland of concocted accomplishments, feigned omnipotence and omniscience, and brattish entitlement.

The narcissist's reality substitutes fulfill two functions. They help him "rationally" ignore painful realities with impunity - and they proffer an alternative universe in which he reigns supreme and emerges triumphant.

It is also known as a small dick complex. 

Why Would I Post This Here?

Very simple, I periodically watch all types of crime shows which have a twist in characters entangled in all kinds of mischief--did it for many years. But it is one thing to post what I know, totally another--you don't have to go beyond the first case in the video--when a very famous FBI profiler Candice Delong explains to you what I am trying to convey for a long, almost Delong (yeah, I know--dad's joke) time. 

So, while Candice talks about deadly types in real everyday life, listen to what she says about narcissists--they are insecure. Narcissism and insecurity, complex of inferiority are the two sides of the same coin. It is not a theorem--it is an axiom. Lying becomes their MO and narcissists eventually drift into the alternative reality. Trump personally is not a deadly type, but his narcissism is severe, if not in its severest form. Bad news--huge swaths of West's elites (especially in the US) are afflicted by this social and mental disease, and let me quote incomparable Michael Brenner again:

Americanism provides a Unified Field Theory of self-identity, collective enterprise, and the Republic’s enduring meaning. When one element is felt to be in jeopardy, the integrity of the whole edifice becomes vulnerable. In the past, American mythology energized the country in ways that helped it to thrive. Today, it is a dangerous hallucinogen that traps Americans in a time warp more and more distant from reality. There is a muted reflection of this strained condition in the evident truth that Americans have become an insecure people. They grow increasingly anxious about who they are, what they are worth and what life will be like down the road.

Remember Alexis De Tocqueville?

All free nations are vain-glorious, but national pride is not displayed by all in the same manner. The Americans in their intercourse with strangers appear impatient of the smallest censure and insatiable of praise. The most slender eulogium is acceptable to them; the most exalted seldom contents them; they unceasingly harass you to extort praise, and if you resist their entreaties they fall to praising themselves. It would seem as if, doubting their own merit, they wished to have it constantly exhibited before their eyes. Their vanity is not only greedy, but restless and jealous; it will grant nothing, whilst it demands everything, but is ready to beg and to quarrel at the same time. If I say to an American that the country he lives in is a fine one, “Ay,” he replies, “there is not its fellow in the world.” If I applaud the freedom which its inhabitants enjoy, he answers, “Freedom is a fine thing, but few nations are worthy to enjoy it.” If I remark the purity of morals which distinguishes the United States, “I can imagine,” says he, “that a stranger, who has been struck by the corruption of all other nations, is astonished at the difference.” At length I leave him to the contemplation of himself; but he returns to the charge, and does not desist till he has got me to repeat all I had just been saying. It is impossible to conceive a more troublesome or more garrulous patriotism; it wearies even those who are disposed to respect it. 

See the pattern? Trump is the product of the American elite whose lust for praise and flattery eventually drove the country into the ground. Trump is just the more extreme case. An insecure man, who is merely a symptom, running an insecure country ... into the ground. And don't even start me on Machiavelli and why these types get to power. Somebody noted in the discussion boards (astutely) that Trump got himself into the dick measuring contest with Putin. He lost already by the virtue of trying to compare to Putin. We all saw the "parade", didn't we?

I Wanted To Go Into Studying Music...

 ... in a very basic way. But if you followed my writing and speaking you will recall how many times I spoke about rare but warranted occasions when parallels between countries and individuals, between their traits, could be drawn. Judge for yourself. 

Do I need to comment on why I increasingly delve into the issue of narcissism? In my last book I referred to a number of psychology studies (e.g. Bill Clinton), when describing state-level dysfunctions.

"It Is Not My Fault"(c).

Excellent introduction into narcissists' reaction when they get figured out.  

But while human world and the world of geopolitics are distinct, geopolitics is driven not by geography but human reaction to geography and other aspects of natural surrounding which do provide nations and alliance with characters relatable to human behavior. Needless to say, in this excellent intro to narcissists' losing control over their victims present character, that of the losing control narcissist, of the combined West absolutely shines through. 

In related news, Welt in Germany opened "second front" today against... and you have guessed it.. Masha and the Bear. 

Die Zeichentrickserie „Mascha und der Bär“ ist ein russischer Exportschlager. Die Handlung ist vollgestopft mit russischer Kultur. Aber ist Mascha auch putinesk, wie schon behauptet wurde? Und ist der Bär Propaganda? Wer genau hinsieht, wird ein mulmiges Gefühl nicht los. 

Translation: The animated series "Masha and the Bear" is a Russian export hit. The plot is packed with Russian culture. But is Masha also Putinesque, as has already been claimed? And is the bear propaganda? If you look closely, you won't get rid of a queasy feeling.

Generally speaking, they don't know how else to make Russia "suffer" and European Commission joined "intellectual" forces with IAE and came up with a plan:

IEA: Drive And Fly Less, Work From Home To Cut Reliance On Russia 

Here is the summary.  

Excellent. Once Masha and the Bear are defeated and EU core nations begin to stink to heavens due to not taking proper showers, full victory over Russia will be declared. Somebody posted in the discussion thread the video of Alex Christoforou lamenting EU committing a suicide, but the issue here is extremely simple--it is not some "weak Scholz" or just "elites", truth is, these are Europeans themselves, especially this so called "middle class", who made sure that people like von der Leyen or Macron are kept in place to finish off the European Civilization. Just watch France, which will finish herself off on April 24 (in three days) and the deal will be sealed. Not that it would have been much different if Le Pen would have won. Not really. 

 

The United States gets its lunch consisting of EU and its industries but that too doesn't change much since the United States suddenly discovers that it barely has enough for itself, especially in terms of what matters the most--energy--and even coming trashing of Democrats at mid-terms changes very little in terms of overall national economic and political health, because the realities on the ground in Ukraine are such that the US made a very wrong bet. It is not surprising, American "elites" are as incompetent and ignorant as their European counterparts. 

 

Per Azov Steel--good decision by Kremlin. Not only Russia saves the lives of her soldiers but makes sure that somebody inside the plant is (are) convinced by hunger, thirst and the onset of Kubler-Ross paradigm to come out and surrender. Or die. Not only Mariupol is liberated but it is the fact that it was the most heavily armed and trained grouping of VSU and Nazi brigades which was supposed to repeat Stalingrad which was annihilated. The plan for defense of this festung was developed in Pentagon and, naturally, it failed. Somebody is hiding there, somebody interesting. Who could this be, hmm? I wonder. Will this or those hiding there commit a suicide in order to not surrender to those nasty Rosskies or will they decide that they may have a chance to be "exchanged" into their native countries? We'll see. It is getting curioser and curioser.  

Everything One Needs To Know.

In many respects America's fate, even despite an economic calamity of a gigantic scale, was contingent upon bringing justice to those who unleashed unprecedented, historically, witch-hunt and mass-psychosis campaign. Anyone with an average IQ and even fleeting acquaintance with principles on which law operates knew and know where and who all those Russia, Ukraine and other "Gates" originated from. Well, it doesn't matter, evidently. 

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Attorney General William Barr said on Monday he does not expect a Justice Department review of the FBI's handling of 2016 election interference to lead to criminal investigation of former President Barack Obama or former Vice President Joe Biden. "As to President Obama and Vice President Biden, whatever their level of involvement, based on the information I have today, I don't expect Mr. Durham's work will lead to a criminal investigation of either man," Barr said.

Sad, but totally expected, to be honest.  Barr, however, made some clarifications:

Barr did not rule out the possibility of others being criminally investigated, without offering specifics.

We'll see about that, which, I am a bit on a shaky ground here, since Barr's statement is not born out by the reality:

Barr added that the election should be decided strictly on policy debates, and that any investigation of a political candidate would need to be approved by him personally. "We cannot allow this process to be hijacked by efforts to drum up criminal investigations of either candidate," Barr said.

Well, sure, we all know that Biden sonny's, Hunter, tenure with Ukrainian Burisma had nothing to do, like really-really nothing, with the fact of his senile cretin-father being Ukraine's Gauleiter not only on Obama's orders (Obama always was an amateur in foreign relations, not that there are any professionals in them in D.C. nowadays, but still) but on his own volition, being also an architect of a bloody coup and war there, having blood of thousands of innocent people on his wandering hands. This is not to mention that this coward is now hiding from exposure for his sexual exploits and, once those 2020 "elections" begin to delve into, quoting Barr, "policy debate" (Good ol' Joe cannot, fvcking orient himself in space-time continuum, let alone have "policy debates") we all can be 100% sure that sexual history of Joe will hit the "printing presses" of partisan media. So much for the "policy debate". But, as we all know, the land of the "laws" doesn't really hold up that well under the closer scrutiny. Evidently prosecuting corruption (sedition and treason is also not biggy anymore, evidently) in the US nowadays is contingent merely on who holds and how much power and influence. As Larison reports:

The president announced on Friday that he was firing Steve Linick, the State Department’s Inspector General. One possible reason that Linick was removed may have been that he was conducting an investigation into the bogus emergency declaration that the administration used to expedite arms sales to Saudi Arabia and the UAE last year. 

Say it ain't so! Come on, we all know that Mike Pompeo... oh, wait:

If Linick was investigating the bogus emergency declaration, he would have come across reporting that showed how a former Raytheon lobbyist serving at the department was instrumental in pushing through the plan to expedite arms sales that benefited his old employer. He would have discovered that there was no genuine emergency that justified going around Congress. Once his investigation was concluded, it would have found that the emergency declaration was made in bad faith and that the law was abused so that the administration could proceed with arms sales that Congress opposed. Another reason for the firing was to protect Mike Pompeo from an investigation into the Secretary’s abuses of government resources for personal purposes.

We all know that a person who openly states that he "lied, cheated and stole" for a living as CIA's big honcho, is being truthful. How can anyone doubt Pompeo's truthfulness? Reality of the American political discourse, however, is such that one cannot stop wondering if any normal, not damaged mentally, people are left in D.C. I am sure many people around the globe ask the same question. American political "elites" today represent a gruesome picture. All politics, everywhere is a dirty business, always was and often it did attract people with serious psychological, if not psychiatric, problems. There is an excellent work titled The Psychological Assessment of Political Leaders: With Profiles of Saddam Hussein and Bill Clinton. It is long and, at times, tedious read including delving into this proverbial psychobabble, but it is unequivocal in singling out narcissism as one of the main features of Western politicians. Lust for power and narcissism. It is in the foundation of the explanation to the phenomenon of American politics driven by non-stop lowbrow "election cycle" circus. 

Once "look good" triumphs over all other considerations, the political class and its subservient media are doomed and so is the nation this political class pretends to lead. I am on record for years, that the only things US political class knows how to do is to "look good", unless they are caught in corruption or sexual scandal. And that is the problem--they are not caught often enough and this is everything one needs to know about present moment.