By Donald A. Collins | 7 December 2020
Church and State
A key advisor, Dr. Jerrold Post, to President Jimmy Carter in giving him the psychological insights to successfully negotiate the key 1979 peace accord between Egypt’s Sadat and Israel’s Begin died of COVID 19 on November 22nd but not before leaving us a cogent professional psychiatric opinion on Donald Trump in a 2019 book entitled “Dangerous Charisma”, co-authored with Stephanie Doucette.
President Carter recently gave Post accolades for his assistance in helping him achieve the Mideast piece accords. Carter “basically said ‘I spent two weeks with these men and I wouldn’t change a word of [Post’s] assessments.’”
Post’s life story, chronicled perfectly in the Washington Post’s 12/6/20 Metro section by Sydney Trent, can be read in full here.
CIA psychological profiler who labeled Trump "dangerous" dies of covid-19 at 86 https://t.co/wHOL7rx0KB
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) December 5, 2020
Trent deserves an accolade for this splendid piece about a truly Renaissance Man. You can email her your appreciation here. Sydney.Trent@washpost.com.
But in this final book “Dangerous Charisma” the authors give us perhaps the most illuminating analysis of Trump yet offered.
As Trent reports, in a December 2019 interview Post said, “The dangerous, destructive charismatic leader polarizes and identifies an outside enemy and pulls his followers together by manipulating their common feelings of victimization.”
Were he to lose the election, Post said a year ago, “I think we can be assured that he will not concede early. Trump may not even recognize the legitimacy of the election.”
Sadly, as Trent tells us, “After the book’s publication, Post’s health took a downward turn. His kidneys had already been failing, forcing him to go for dialysis several times a week, when he suffered a stroke in July. After several months in a rehabilitation facility, Post spent his final weeks of life surrounded by family at home. On Sunday Nov. 15, he began having trouble breathing. Carolyn called 911 and an ambulance rushed him to the hospital, where he tested positive for the coronavirus. He died exactly one week later.”
With far too little recognition for this preceptive genius in my view.
My recent piece on a possible Trump role in the assassination of Iran’s nuclear chief, received many comments in agreement including this one:
As far as we know — yes. It seems Trump’s modus operandi is to kill as many people as he can before leaving office since he has the legal power to do so — and he is determined to make the most of it while he can exert power.
Now he’s decided that one of the most important things he can do is to ramp up the killings of everyone on death row — and ensure that they are executed in the most heinous way possible (for no reason except to exert his power).
The people Trump admires the most and has tried to befriend are the dictators of the world. He’s been studying the way the Nazis killed their victims — and he’s getting excited to do the same — to change the form of execution to the worst. Trump is the white supremacist, and everyone else deserves to die if he has the power to do it. Similar to someone?
You can read my prior op ed piece again here.
Was Trump Behind the Insane Assassination of Iran’s Nuclear Chief? https://t.co/txstKgCWNw via @ChurchAndStateN
— Church and State (@ChurchAndStateN) December 4, 2020
Will any of the 74 million who voted for Trump be swayed in the future by this canny Jerrold Post analysis?
How about the Republicans who gave Trump control of their party? You may recall my piece on that subject.
We may get answers after a competent government takes office in January so see if any Republicans in Congress step up to help repair the damage Trump has wrought.
But Jerrold Post’s little marked legacy stands tall as a beacon of truth caught in the brambles of lies still spilling from the mouths of Trump and his doxies.
Former US Navy officer, banker and venture capitalist, Donald A. Collins, a free lance writer living in Washington, DC., has spent over 40 years working for women’s reproductive health as a board member and/or officer of numerous family planning organizations including Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Guttmacher Institute, Family Health International and Ipas. Yale under graduate, NYU MBA. He is the author of From the Dissident Left: A Collection of Essays 2004-2013.
From the Dissident Left: A Collection of Essays 2004-2013
By Donald A. Collins
Publisher: Church and State Press (July 30, 2014)
ASIN: B00MA40TVE
Kindle Store
Jerrold M. Post, “Narcissism and Politics”
‘The Dangerous Case Of Donald Trump’: 27 Psychiatrists Assess | The Last Word | MSNBC
Maureen Dowd: “Trump is a classic clinical narcissist”
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