the mellow tigger's musings

It's Moody Monday, so it's the day for unpleasant topics. How about something more challenging, though? Do you think it's possible for you to feel compassion for Trump?

I didn't think I could, but I'm less certain after viewing the video that I'm sharing today. In this 14-minute video, a psychiatrist presents some history and analysis of Donald J Trump. This story presents a compelling argument for why Trump's compassion is always (and likely always will be) sorely lacking. Watch the entirety, if you dare risk feeling sorry for this leader on the world stage.

This video, "Why Trump Gets Angry When People Suffer", is only 14 minutes long. Give it a go. It explains why that televised talk with Zelenskyy was so painful to watch. It needed to be exactly that ambush in order to protect Trump's own self-esteem.

So... it doesn't excuse Trump's behavior. It does, however, seem to explain it rather well. It also explains Trump's persistent hatred of Obama. How could Trump feel anything else after Obama mocked Trump at the White House Correspondents Dinner back in 2011? Reimagine every press conference in 2025 as Trump privately sneering at media leaders who previously laughed at him publicly in 2011 but now striving to speak directly to him. His disdain seems almost reasonable, from his perspective, doesn't it? I expect to be back to reviling Trump by next week. Okay, probably tomorrow. I've thought since 2019, and the opinionated James Carville now wonders too, that Trump suffers ongoing brain damage from an old syphilis infection. I never really considered his childhood and family life as a factor in his current vile behavior.

I can for a few minutes now feel... I dunno... pity, maybe.

For what it's worth, I've been watching this NBC live news feed for the last 2 hours or so.



I had other things to discuss for the upcoming Moody Monday post. I wanted to talk about the Border Patrol helicopter that circled over my house for 2 hours, then the next day was the ICE raid and community response here in Minneapolis. Something else always takes precedence, though. The absurdities arrive fast and furious, don't they?

And, yes, of course they're shooting reporters again, just like they did in 2020 in Minneapolis.

There are labels that I gladly accept and others that I reject.

For instance:

• I am not a Democrat. Not since Bernie got sidelined the first time.
• I am a progressive. Meaning I want continuing improvements in response to new empirical knowledge.
• I am #antifa. And you should be too.
• I am not an anarchist.

I should explain that last label, given my longstanding criticism of so many things here in the USA. I want great changes in government and economic structures, yes, but I still want structures. Anarchism has the debatably-laudable goal of making individuals each responsible for all outcomes. It plans to accomplish that goal, thanks to elimination of all hierarchy as a form of coercion. Afterwards, individuals and their choices would be all that matters.

I've recommended the book "The Nature of Economies" by Jane Jacobs many times over the years. It uses easy ecological metaphors to teach ideas that are more complex. I propose a biological metaphor for understanding proposed anarchy. Show me the creature that was formerly a multicellular organism of specialized cells (requiring hierarchy of its own sort) that later backtracked to eliminate that specialization, where each cell becomes master of itself and must negotiate with other cells as equals. Show me how evolution has proved that simplification strategy as more adaptable than advanced specializations, then I'll believe that anarchism is viable at our level too. It seems at first glance, at least, that Mother Nature prefers constant change and reorganization, not mere simplification.

"You've got that eternal idiotic idea that if anarchy came it would come from the poor. Why should it? The poor have been rebels, but they have never been anarchists; they have more interest than anyone else in there being some decent government. The poor man really has a stake in the country. The rich man hasn't; he can go away to New Guinea in a yacht. The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all. Aristocrats were always anarchists."
- G.K. Chesterton

I still believe in the beauty of complex systems, and I still believe in the possibility of their actually serving the long-term needs of constituent components.