I cannot imagine any American with good sense not being shocked and saddened by the way Donald Trump behaved in last night’s presidential debate, and those are only two among many adjectives that describe how I and most of you feel about what happened.
I think journalist Ezra Kline provided the best analysis of anyone when he tweeted that in the debate Donald Trump proved that he “is not just a bad president. He is a bad man.”
Yes. That is what we saw on display last night, a bad man who happens to be President showing utter disrespect for the office he holds and the country he is supposed to be serving.
This is what makes his presidency so difficult to abide. Being a bad man cannot be hidden. It is like a dye-stain on your hand you cannot wash off. Daily being a bad man shows through his words and actions.
But he is a bad man for a reason, which is that he has not yet become a full-grown man. Donald Trump acts as if he is developmentally still a teenager.
Brain research has discovered why teenagers act out, why they do dumb things, sometimes very bad things, and almost always immature things. It has to do with their frontal lobe development.
The frontal lobe, which is responsible for decision-making, impulse control, sensation-seeking, emotional responses and consequential thinking, does not become fully developed until young people reach their early-to-mid 20s.
Clinical psychologist Michael Bradley tells all about it in his best-selling book, Yes, Your Teen is Crazy!: Loving Your Kid Without Losing Your Mind.
Until the frontal lobe of our kids develops fully, they will say and do crazy things, engage in non-sensical behavior, making us wonder what in the world they are thinking about, which, of course, is precisely what they are not doing – thinking.
That sounds like Donald Trump to me. It was clear last night that he has no impulse control, creates chaos to feel important, and shows no ability to connect his words and actions to consequences.
It is not surprising that he came across as a bully who needed a punch in the face.
I also think most of the people who support him act as if their frontal lobe has not fully developed either.
That is why talking to them is an experience similar to talking to an out-of-control teenager. They cannot be reasoned with. They say stuff that is genuinely non-sensical – Trump always tells the truth…Obama built cages for babies and children…Trump was a great businessman…Trump has made America respected again in the world…and they simply will not listen to any other point of view.
The hard part for us is knowing that nothing about Trump is going to change in the coming weeks.
On the contrary, conservative journalist Bill Kristol predicted in a post-debate tweet that Trump’s behavior is going to get a lot worse:
“Trump is a cornered rat. After tonight, he’ll only get more desperate. The next five weeks could be a spectacle of ugliness unsurpassed in recent history. The country–all of us–will be put to a political, institutional, and civic test. It won’t be pretty, and it won’t be easy.”
I guess it’s a bit much to say we are in for a full-frontal assault, given what I have written, but after what we saw last night a little humor can’t hurt.
Nothing prepared any of us for what took place, and I am sure it’s only the beginning as Kristol suggests, not least because of what Joe Biden said when he turned Trump’s dismissal of all the coronavirus deaths back on him: “It is what it is because you are who you are.”
Yes, he is, but we are not going to have to put up with him much longer. Last night should serve to reassure us that Trump’s juvenile behavior as President now has a definite time-limit on it.
If anything, what we saw proved that George Conway has been right all along in predicting that Trump’s prospects for incarceration far exceed his prospects for re-election.
So today as we reflect on what was a terrible and sad night for our country, we have the comfort of knowing the end to this national nightmare is not only in sight, but has been put in clear focus by Trump himself.
linnposts.com 