In the latest episode of KrassenCast, Episode 2: The Narcissistic-Paranoid-Sadistic-Psychopath President, we sat down for an interview with renowned psychologist Dr. John Gartner, for his insight into the mind of President Donald Trump. The entire episode, including a 25 minute in depth interview with Gartner, can be on Patreon, iTunes and Soundcloud.
Dr. Gartner specializes in borderline personality disorder, biopolar disorder, and depression and he believes that President Trump is suffering from a very dangerous form of mental illness, an illness that is identical to that suffered by Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin.
“Donald Trump truly has the most dangerous form of mental illness that you can find in a leader,” Gartner told KrassenCast. “He suffers from a personality disorder called malignant narcissism. Malignant narcissism was actually introduced by Erich Fromm, the famed psychoanalyst, who himself narrowly escaped the Nazis. Malignant narcissism was his attempt to explain the psychology of dictators like Hitler or Stalin or Mussolini.”
Gartner told us that Malignant narcissism is a combination of 4 traits, which includes narcissism, paranoia, antisocial personality disorder (the psychology of a criminal and someone who routinely lies) and sadism.
The sadist aspects of Trump’s apparent mental illness, according is Gartner, means that “he is driven and gets intense pleasure from harming, humiliating, and degrading other people.”
“He has actually gotten intense pleasure from [other people’s] pain. He is reveling in the chaos and the destruction he is causing,” Gartner explained. “The more he feels threatened by the Mueller investigation, the more he needs to experience the exaltation of feeling drunk with power, through his ability to harm and humiliate and degrade other people.”
While Gartner stopped short of saying that Trump is the next incarnation of Hitler, he did emphasize the importance of looking back at history as a means to try and prevent the catastrophes of the past from happening yet again.
In speaking of Trump, Gartner did not imply that Trump would follow in the path of Hitler, but he did underscore his belief that “these are the kind of people who really can commit genocide,” when comparing the two men.
“I’m not saying he’s Hitler. I’m saying he has the same psychology. He’s of the same type, cut from the same cloth…. He is someone, who if given the chance, would enact that same kind of destructive agenda.”
Gartner accentuated his observations that Trump is demonizing immigrants similarly to how Hitler demonized Jews. He explained how Hitler not only demonized Jewish people but he made them “powerfully evil”, by creating a narrative for his followers that implied that “unless they are destroyed, we will be destroyed”. Gartner feels as though Trump is currently doing the same thing with his attacks on immigrants.
Gartner also went into detail about how malignant narcissistic leaders tend to commit constant purges against their own staff. Hitler did this, Mussolini did this, as did Stalin and Saddam Hussein. We have also seen Trump do this at a faster rate than any other president in American history.
“They are very paranoid about their own staff,” Gartner explained in speaking about leaders with this mental disorder. “They keep purging their staff so that anyone with any independence — those people are purged — so you only have yes men and opportunists who will not defy the great leader. They don’t want to be constrained. They want to be able to act out their worst impulses and anyone who constrains them now becomes their worst enemy.”
Gartner also compared Trump’s psychology to that of a “gangster who believes all kinds of crazy conspiracy theories”. He went on to explain how it’s difficult to tell which conspiracy theories Trump actually believes and which he may simply be pushing in order to help push his own narrative.
“His reality testing is truly compromised. He’s not just bad, he’s also crazy.”
Gartner predicts that as Mueller turns over more and more stones in his investigation, and Trump begins feeling more threatened, he will become more and more “dramatically destructive.”
One statement by Gartner, which left a chilling affect, was when he told KrassenCast that “there is literally nothing Trump won’t do…. He is going to try and take as many of us down as he can before he will resign.”
Gartner went into much more detail. The entire interview can be heard in Episode 2 of the KrassenCast, now available on Patreon, iTunes and Soundcloud.
