About 14 months ago, I tried to warn readers of this newspaper about the perils of electing a psychopath to be president of the United States. Trump supporters bristle at that characterization, but you be the judge.
In the field of psychology, the gold standard for measuring psychopathy is the Hare PLC-R checklist. The PLC-R measures 20 personality traits and behaviors, and scores 2 for “often,” scores 1 for “sometimes” and scores 0 for “not really.”
The traits and behaviors are:
Glibness and superficiality; Charm; Grandiose estimation of self; Need for stimulation; Cunning and manipulativeness; Lack of remorse or guilt; Superficial emotional responsiveness; Callousness and lack of empathy;Parasitic lifestyle;Poor behavioral controls; Sexual promiscuity; Early behavior problems; Lack of realistic long-term goals; Impulsivity;Failure to accept responsibility for own actions; Many short-term marital relationships; Juvenile delinquency; Revocation of conditional release (for prisoners – score zero);Criminal versatility. People with no criminal background normally score around 5. Psychopathic criminal offenders score around 22. A score above 30 qualifies a person for a diagnosis of psychopathy in the United States (in the U.K., it is above 25; they have a higher standard for sanity than we do).
Trump is a narcissistic, tyrannical, misogynistic, unpredictable and dangerous man. He is a threat to our environment, civil discourse, our ideals of inclusiveness and principles of democracy. For the sake of our country, he must be removed from office as quickly and possible.
Rational thinking people must unite and work toward that goal.
Jack Morrison
Durango
