What to do with an unbalanced president?

The evidence is so overwhelming that we are becoming inured to it. President Trump’s erratic behaviour is becoming the new normal. We poor souls, bewildered by it all, hardly know how to react anymore.

He lies and he flip flops on his story about Russia. First he knew nothing about Russia. Later he knows Russia well. Then he has never met Putin. Then later he admits that he did meet him (at a beauty pageant in Russia). This behaviour is all captured on video. However, all of this recorded evidence does not seem to phase Donald Trump, nor his ardent followers.

He has made outlandish claims about himself, and he has done it so often that we hardly know how to respond.

In all of this, to know what the man really believes, it is helpful to scan his cabinet appointments. Qualifications to become a member of his inner circle seem to include one or more of the following characteristics. One should:

- be a billionaire business person

- be a member of the military

- be a climate change denier, or at least be a skeptic

- not have any experience (or have had a negative experience) with the organization that one will be directing.

What can one possibly make of all of this? One must conclude that either;

(1) He deliberately lies to deceive, or

(2) He actually believes that when he speaks each time, that he is telling the truth, even when he clearly contradicts something that he had said previously.

I think that the second option is closer to the truth, though there is also evidence for the first option. In this case, the president of the USA both repeatedly lies and is a delusional narcissist.

All of this has frightening consequences. Recently at the United Nations, there was a debate about the fact that the US was installing anti-ballistic missiles in South Korea to defend against the possible actions of another delusional leader, Kim Jong Un of North Korea. The new US ambassador to the UN said of Kim Jong Un, “This is not a rational person. He is not thinking clearly”.

What would happen if two delusional leaders, both armed with nuclear weapons, were to have a showdown?