The Psychopathology of Power & The Decline of Democracy in America

Abstract

An endemic psychopathology is eroding freedom and the ability to live freely in a society of freedom. To see and understand it, we must look to both the largest order, a nation, and the smallest, an individual, and how the two orders interpenetrate each other. They come together in a singular way in the President of the United States. President Trump and his closest staff illustrate the nature of the psychopathology that threatens American democracy; the pathology reveals itself in both how he gains and maintains public support and how he operates in office. This essay uses the President to illustrate the disease and reveal its symptoms, show the cultural forces that foster it, and indicate the cultural forces that can resist and heal it. The object of the study is not to “psychoanalyze” the President; that task would require intimate knowledge of his life. The object here is to examine the nature and workings of a pathology that he publicly exposes and openly reveals before our eyes. Donald Trump is a means for understanding the concept; the concept is a tool for understanding his Presidency.