We in the press are rightly questioning President Joe Biden’s fitness for a second term. I believe he has stayed in the game too long, the way Willie Mays did in 1973 after his skills had eroded.

Unfortunately, by focusing so fervently on Joe’s mounting woes, we’ve taken our eye off the ball. We’re ignoring the pathologically lying fascist, the convicted felon who’s still up for sentencing, the indicted coup fomenter who’s been held liable for rape and financial fraud.

Can’t we cover both fellows at the same time?

With that goal in mind I wish to remind everyone that the cult’s presidential nominee is, for starters, a very sick puppy, a particularly malignant case case of narcissistic personality disorder. That alone should disqualify him.

Admittedly, I’m not a mental health professional. Nor, in all probability, are you. So I decided to do something different, something interactive. Knowing everything I know about Trump’s detestable shtick, I took an online narcissistic personality test, answering as he would if her were honest.

I clicked on all of Trump’s personality traits, and he easily scored a 32 — a score so high the psychiatric website diagnosed the narcissistic disorder as extreme. And here’s how the disorder is defined:

“Narcissistic Personality Disorder…is characterized by a long-standing pattern of grandiosity (either in fantasy or actual behavior), an overwhelming need for admiration, and usually a complete lack of empathy toward others. People with this disorder often believe they are of primary importance in everybody’s life or to anyone they meet…”

According to the shrink site, the symptoms of narcissistic personality disorder include any five of the following:

– Has a grandiose sense of self-importance (e.g., exaggerates achievements and talents, expects to be recognized as superior without commensurate achievements)

– Is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love

– Believes that he or she is “special” and unique and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or high-status people (or institutions)

– Requires excessive admiration; has a very strong sense of entitlement, e.g., unreasonable expectations of especially favorable treatment or automatic compliance with his or her expectations

– Is exploitative of others, e.g., takes advantage of others to achieve his or her own ends

– Lacks empathy, e.g., is unwilling to recognize or identify with the feelings and needs of others

– Is often envious of others or believes that others are envious of him or her

– Regularly shows arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes

Those are the symptoms. Sound like anyone we know?

Thinking back to the June 27 debate, Trump had a classic narcissistic moment (deranged grandiosity sub-category) when he was asked to critique the ever-worsening climate change crisis. Remember the climate-denier’s non-answer?

“I want absolutely clean air, and we had it. We had H2O. We had the best numbers ever,” Trump claimed. “I had the best environmental numbers ever.”

And here’s my punchline: With the exception of today’s three opening paragraphs, most of what you’ve just read has been lifted from a column I wrote on May 16, 2016.

In other words, I’ve been warning about the evil lummox nonstop for eight long years, with no intention of easing off the accelerator. Nor should anyone else in the press. The Biden age story is urgently legitimate and warrants most of the coverage it’s receiving, but we should be able to walk and chew gum at the same time.

Regardless of whether Joe stays or go, voters need to know a helluva lot more about the fascist blueprint Project 2025 – coupled with fresh scrutiny of the personality-disordered criminal who’d serve as its frontman. Only then will voters hopefully come to their senses and join the British and French electorates who’ve rejected a right-wing future.

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Copyright 2024 Dick Polman, distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.

Dick Polman, a veteran national political columnist based in Philadelphia and a Writer in Residence at the University of Pennsylvania, writes at DickPolman.net. Email him at [email protected]