Thursday, July 13, 2017

Based On Army Field Manual Template Trump Is Unfit For Leadership

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The nitwit jpeg being circulated by ardent Trumpies. If they knew or processed the actual truth about this maggot they'd be less likely to be led by the nose.

Now we know, based on the specific use of the Army Field Manual and its psychological profile for leadership, that Donald Trump isn't fit to run a dog kennel far less be President of the United States.  This is important to know, especially for the purblind Trumpies who seemingly will follow the Donald to the ends of the Earth and likely the catastrophic end of our own nation. We saw how this glorified baboon acted at the G 20, like an ape that was immediately recognized and isolated by all other real leaders. (Never mind the WSJ op-eds and some other Right sources tried to dismiss it as a "PR performance")

Chris Uhlman, political editor of the Australian Broadcasting Service, had perhaps the most acerbic view of Trump as an isolated, clueless aberration at the G 20. In his words:

"He was an uneasy, lonely, awkward figure at this gathering and you got the strong sense that some of the leaders were trying to find the best way to work around him.  So what did we learn? We learned that Donald Trump has pressed fast forward on the decline of the United States as a global leader. 

He managed to isolate his nation, to confuse and alienate his allies, and to diminish America.. He will cede that power to China and Russia, two authoritarian states that will forge a very different set of rules in the twenty first century.  Some will cheer the decline of America but I think we will miss it when it's gone."

Powerful observations from an outsider, but cogent in that no thinking citizen can have missed the fact that Trump is no more than a cutout, an ersatz leader who lacks any scintilla of deftness, ability, knowledge or class. He is, as much of the media has portrayed him, an ignorant buffoon who doesn't even merit being a dog catcher.

This has now renewed examination of Trump's capacity for leadership in terms of his volatile mental state. As per a recent LA Times headline:

Is Trump mentally fit to be president? Let's consult the U.S. Army's Field Manual on Leadership

At the center of the story is past president of the American Psychoanalytic Association, Dr. Prudence Gourguechon who - in an MSNBC interview last week - referenced the 25th Amendment to the Constitution.  According to her:

"How would we determine that a president is unable to carry out the duties of his office? And I had the idea a couple of months ago that continuing to diagnose him was not going to go very far. First of all, you can never get three psychiatrists to agree on a diagnosis. And as FOX News pointed out the other day, forty nine percent of presidents have served with a mental health diagnosis.

So how would be decide this president can't carry out his duties?  I started building a checklist and ended up discovering the Army Field Manual. This is a fantastic document based on really sound psychiatric and psychological knowledge going back a century.  It comes up with a set of criteria, a set of capacities and abilities that a leader with strategic responsibilities has to have.  And so I put them into a pocket sized checklist of five core capacities straight out of the Army Field Manual. 

And anybody, you don't have to be a psychiatrist or doctor - any observant person - can take a look at these and ask: Does Donald Trump have these capabilities?

She laid out these capabilities in the LA Times piece:

- Trust 

- Discipline and self-control

- Judgement and critical thinking

- Self-awareness

- Empathy

Any one capability failed means the presumed leader fails in his putative role.

In terms of the second, 'discipline and self control, the "deal breaker" according to the AFM  "reacting viscerally or angrily when receiving bad news or conflicting information."

Something we've observed with Trump time and time again, especially in his fulminating tweets - whether attacking the judiciary, Hillary Clinton, Mika Brzezinski, Comey ("a nut job"), or anyone who arouses his petulance and ire at a given instant.

Trump is also woefully unable to anticipate consequences of his actions, including second and third degree consequences, thereby undermining any capacity for sound judgment.   And as Dr. Prudence Gourguechon noted:

"If you lack self-discipline you can't think, you can't strategize and you can't plan."

Especially damning was Trump's tweet about Mika Brzezinski, for which "every one of the criteria fell short."  In other words, no sense of trust, no discipline, no critical thinking - certainly no judgment (inflating a morning anchor's criticism to the level of a state crisis), and no empathy or self-awareness,, i.e. of how this even looks coming from the leader of the most powerful nation in the world.

So every one of the failing criteria that would get one knocked out of a leadership position in the Army was met by Trump in one fell tweet.  As to whether the Army Field Manual meets present day expectations of what a leader should be, Dr. Gourguechon is adamant, i.e. We clearly know what  it takes to be a human being with vast responsibilities for the life and fortune of others.

The issue then is not merely how we define mental illness,  but the capacity to shoulder enormous responsibility.  Thus the question to be asked is whether he has this capacity, not whether this or that psych diagnosis applies.

 The answer clearly is that Trump misses the most basic capacity threshold by a mile on each count. The man is an embarrassment and has no business being in any leadership position of consequence. Now, what we need is the Trumpies to see that, and cease invoking idiotic rationalizations and false equivalence narratives to prop up their clown prince.

But to reach that milestone we may have to wait for hell to freeze over - or at least all the ice sheets and icebergs on the planet to melt!

See also:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/don-hazen/73907/is-trump-simply-the-worst-human-being-we-can-imagine-14-experts-weigh-in


 
Excerpt:

"Trump may be the worst human being alive—the most hated person in America and throughout the world today.How do you decide whether someone is the worst person alive? You probably include in your criteria stupid behavior, lies and cheating, lack of grace and charm, cruelty, obsession with revenge, and constantly putting other people down—the weaker the better. But it's also important to check in on public opinion, or rather media opinion, to contextualize Trump's horrific standing.

TV Cheat Sheet likes to keep track of all the truly unpopular people, and it has dubbed Donald Trump the "most hated person in 2017" so far. Trump was also number one in 2016, which kind of says it all."

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Added note:

No comments will be posted from here on out that seek to enlist any kind of false equivalence takes, perspectives or "arguments". Sorry! If you want to see that sort of dreck put up go to Breitbart.com

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