A pathocrat on the world stage

I was asked, thus, my answer: “I hope US President Donald Trump continues to be a source of embarrassment to the American people so that those who believed he was God’s gift to them and voted for him would wake up from their stupor.” I blurted that out when asked what I thought of Trump’s behavior while face-to-face with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the Oval Office. How he humiliated the latter while the world was watching. It was a moment to remember, a denouement of sorts that would lay bare the kind of man Trump is—pathetic, infantile, a bully—in the presence of a warrior-statesman fighting to save his country from Russia’s aggression.

Thank God, the cameras were rolling. It was an unraveling expected of the man 34 times a convicted felon, a liar, accused of sexual misconduct, and involved in tax schemes, etc. A stain on America’s “star-spangled banner,” a disheveled scarecrow standing on America’s fields of “amber waves of grain.”

Even without someone asking, my answer has been welling up inside me that it just had to be expelled, expectorated, if you may. Such was my disgust and dismay.

Trump’s (and US Vice President JD Vance’s as well) behavior beat that of former Soviet prime minister Nikita Khrushchev banging his shoe on the table at a United Nations Assembly in 1960 at the height of the Cold War, that is, long before the Soviet Union’s disintegration.

“From sea to shining sea,” a tsunami of reactions from near and far, from high and low has been filling up the airwaves, social media, nooks and crannies in cyberspace.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada and President Alexander Stubb of Finland stepped forward and eloquently and respectfully showed how it was to speak to Zelenskyy face-to-face at a summit meeting.

Finland, Stubb said, was once endangered because it shares a border with Russia and even lost part of its territory. “If we now allow Russia to do what it is doing and stop the existence of Ukraine, it means everyone’s loss. You cannot trust (Vladimir) Putin, you cannot make a deal with Putin because it is also making a deal with China. If Russia gets what it wants now, trust me, it will not stop with Ukraine.”

He proposed a three-step process and stressed that “it is not Russia who decides membership in the EU (European Union) and the Nato (North Atlantic Treaty Organization).”

Trudeau: “Thank you, Volodymyr, for hosting today’s summit and for your courageous leadership as the duly elected leader of this great nation.” This was obviously to belie Trump’s false remark that Zelenskyy was unelected, a dictator.

“Since the start of Russia’s full-scale illegal aggression three years ago, you’ve shown remarkable personal bravery, resilience and resolve, a defiant spirit mirrored by the unbreakable Ukrainian people. You continue to inspire me and tens of millions of my fellow citizens back home in Canada. Let us be frank, you and the Ukrainian people shouldn’t have endured a single day of this unjustified brutal war … This is a war for one reason only, Russia’s desire to erase Ukraine from history and expand their empire … We cannot go back. We cannot return to an era that might makes right.” Trudeau promised military aid to Ukraine to defend itself.

Now back to Trump. Not a few have remarked that Trump is a Hitler in the making while romancing with Putin. His behavior and orders are dictatorial, he is throwing many Americans under the bus, rendering them suddenly jobless through the Department of Government Efficiency and with fellow billionaire Elon Musk as his sidekick. Two weeks ago, I wrote about the abrupt and “catastrophic” USAID cuts that saw church aid groups and even journalists protesting.

All these come with Trump’s obvious unseemly behaviors that are symptomatic of a personality disorder. Any student of psychology can tell that this man’s behavioral displays are not simply borderline. During his first term as president (before President Joe Biden) at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, he suggested at a briefing aired on TV that disinfectants be injected into those infected with the virus. He kept at it while the world watched.

See Also

Law enforcers as lawbreakers

With Trump in control, the U.S. of A. could soon be a pathocracy. If we go by rhyme and rule, there is democracy, autocracy, theocracy, aristocracy, and plutocracy. But pathocracy? Pathocracy, like the word pathology, comes from the Greek word pathos or suffering. “Cracy” is from the Greek word kratos or rule. Pathocracy is therefore a form of government where absolute political power is held by a psychopathic or demented leader.

Hitler’s Nazi regime is a glaring example of pathocracy, but he did not have a monopoly of murderous rule. There were the likes of Stalin, Idi Amin, and Pol Pot, to name some.

Trump, as a pathocrat, is in a class of his own but just as dangerous. He bears watching.