A Johns Hopkins psychologist sees Trump suffering from “malignant narcissism<\/a>“.\u00a0 A Norwegian historian, \u00d6ystein Morten, in a detailed analysis of Norwegian king crusader Sigurd Jorsalafare (1103-1130)–clearly crazy–has a Norwegian psychiatrist diagnose him as suffering from “bipolar depression”, manic-depressive. Is Trump only manic?<\/p>\n This column early on saw Trump as suffering from “autism”, living in his own bubble<\/a>, speaking his babble with no sense of reciprocity, the reaction of the other side.\u00a0 The column stands by that.<\/p>\n However, this column drew a line between his words and deeds; denouncing his rhetoric as grossly insulting and prejudicial, but pinning some hope on his deeds.\u00a0 Wrong<\/em>, and sorry about that.\u00a0 After one week, Trump clearly means every word he says, and enacts them from Day 1; even what he once retracted in a New York Times<\/em> interview.<\/p>\n Combine the two points just made: autism and immediate enactment.\u00a0 He acts, and from his bubble does not sense how others will react, and increasingly proact. He assumes that others will accept his orders, obey, and that is it.\u00a0 It is not.\u00a0 His orders may even backfire.<\/p>\n As many point out, terrorism in the USA after 9\/11 is almost nil.\u00a0 But his actions may change that.\u00a0 Some Mexicans may hit back, not only against the wall but the border itself, drawn by USA grabbing 53% of Mexican territory in 1846-48, then soaking Mexico in debt and violence importing drugs and exporting arms, even unaware of the harm they do.<\/p>\n Take the seven countries targeted by Trump for collective punishment: Iraq, Iran, Libya, Syria, Sudan, Somalia, Yemen; the old seven with state central banks targeted by Bush, with Yemen substituted for Lebanon. All mainly Muslim. Imagine them reacting by cooperating, learning from China to raise the bottom up, starting building a West Asian community with links across the Red Sea, and “Saudi” Arabia soon joining?<\/p>\n If their governments do not do that, imagine the Islamic State doing exactly that? What a gift to the Islamic State\/Caliphate!<\/p>\n As a minimum, the 7 might reciprocate and block US citizens\u2019 entry for the same period.\u00a0 How would that affect US military operations?\u00a0 Would it force Trump to use force? In fact, are his demands on other countries so extreme, not only in words but in deeds, that there are no more words and deeds left short of force?\u00a0 Does his extremism limit his range of options, making war as probable as under Hillary Clinton?<\/p>\n And yet what he has done so far, firing and backfiring, is little relative to what other US presidents have done of harm.<\/p>\n Take FDR spending much of his presidencies on beating Japan, scheming to provoke Japan into war, defeat and permanent occupation to eliminate Japan as a threat to US economy and polity.\u00a0 That policy is still being enacted, now as “collective self-defense.”<\/p>\n Take JFK getting USA into the Vietnam War in 1961.<\/p>\n Take Eisenhower eliminating Lumumba, maybe Hammarskj\u00f6ld.<\/p>\n They caused devastation of Japan, of Vietnam and set back Africa on its way to freedom, autonomy, independence.\u00a0 Trump is retracting, contracting, away from others, but not expanding into them.\u00a0 So far.<\/p>\n The reaction inside the USA has been from judges challenging the legality of the orders and launching court suits. The market has been ambiguous but generally down with heavy protests from Silicon Valley. Trump claims the orders are working.\u00a0 What else will happen?<\/p>\n It is difficult to imagine that there will not be a CIA response, being challenged and provoked by Trump, not only for accusing Russia of intervening to his advantage.\u00a0 There are probably at this moment countless meetings in Washington on how to get rid of Trump.\u00a0 Yet, he has command over not only his Executive, Congress and the Supreme Court, but also over the overwhelming number of states in the union.<\/p>\n US presidents have been assassinated before Trump when the forces against are sufficiently strong.\u00a0 Could somebody from the Travel ban 7 be hired to do the job, making it look as a foreign conspiracy?<\/p>\n Another and more hopeful scenario would be nonviolent resistance.\u00a0 Difficult for border officials.\u00a0 But inside the USA people to be deported may be hidden, protected by their own kind and by others–with care though, Trump also has some good points.<\/p>\n More constructive would be alternative foreign policies by cities, at present not by the federation, nor by most of the states. Reaching out to the seven and above all to Mexico for dialogue; searching for better relations than at present and under Trump. Preparing the ground for something new, under the Democratic Party or not. Not a third party, impossible in the USA it seems, but as general approach. The relation between New York and Baghdad, Tehran, Damascus, Tripoli, Khartoum, Mogadisciu and Sana’a as an example.\u00a0 Still some space!<\/p>\n There is no greatness in what Trump does, he makes USA smaller. Trying rebirth instead of rust, canceling stupid deals like TPP: OK. But retracting into a self-glorifying strong state is not greatness, it is isolation.\u00a0 Greatness is not in what you are but in how you relate.\u00a0 And Trump relates very awfully.<\/p>\n ____________________________________________________<\/p>\n Originally published<\/a> on 6 Feb 2017 – #466 – <\/em>TRANSCEND Media Service<\/p>\n Johan Galtung (24 Oct 1930 \u2013 17 Feb 2024), a professor of peace studies, dr hc mult, was the founder of <\/em>TRANSCEND International<\/a>, <\/em>TRANSCEND <\/a>Media Service<\/a>, and rector of <\/em>TRANSCEND Peace University<\/a>. He was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize numerous times and was awarded among others the 1987 Right Livelihood Award, known as the Alternative NPP.<\/em> Galtung\u00a0has mediated in\u00a0over 150 conflicts in more than 150 countries, and written more than 170 books on peace and related issues<\/em>, 96 as the sole author. More than 40 have been translated to other languages, including <\/em>50 Years-100 Peace and Conflict Perspectives<\/a> published by <\/em>TRANSCEND University Press<\/a>. His book, <\/em>Transcend and Transform<\/a>, was translated to 25 languages<\/em>. He has published more than 1700 articles\u00a0and book\u00a0chapters and over 500 Editorials for <\/em>TRANSCEND Media Service<\/a>. More<\/em> information about Prof. Galtung<\/em><\/a> and <\/em>all of his publications<\/em><\/a> can be found at <\/em>transcend.org\/galtung<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" There is no greatness in what Trump does, he makes USA smaller. Trying rebirth instead of rust, canceling stupid deals like TPP: OK. But retracting into a self-glorifying strong state is not greatness, it is isolation. Greatness is not in what you are but in how you relate. And Trump relates awfully.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[133,334,335,332,70],"class_list":["post-303875","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-editorial","tag-cia","tag-mexico","tag-muslims","tag-policy","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303875","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=303875"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303875\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":303877,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303875\/revisions\/303877"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=303875"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=303875"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=303875"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/galtung-johan-e1758950271126.png\")
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