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The All-Trump-All-the-Time media orgy surrounding The Real (as in real estate and reality TV) Donald Trump’s ascension to Republican nominee for President is only one aspect of what is at once the most fascinating and most disturbing Presidential campaign in my memory. It is difficult to click on a cable news program and go more than a few minutes without being dosed with Trump news. Except it is not really “news”… It is burlesque, reminiscent of The Morton Downey Jr. Show, a mockery of the political process. Each report is anticipated with the same tingle reserved for the latest tiff among the Real Housewives of Somewhere USA  or the doings of certain Khardashians as we await to hear what outrageous statement The Trumpster has made, or to see whom he has chosen as the target of his latest verbal assault. We are close to selecting a Chief Executive on the basis of the readings of an applause meter.

Mr. Trump has not had a career in public service. He has toiled - okay, not toiled, but schemed- his way through the world of big-time real estate development. He was born rich, so he got into the game already many rungs up the ladder. While some of the ups and downs of his career have been documented over the years by various media outlets (four bankrupcies of Trump-owned businesses), many facets of the Trump “mystique” remain vague- purposely so, it seems. The one thing we do know for certain about the Trumpster is that he has a fluid definition of facts. His claimed worth ($10 billion) cannot be verified. He refuses to release his tax returns. He denies making statements that were captured on video. His supporters, the Trumpinis, claim that one of his appeals is that he says things that other politicians won’t, ignoring that, aside from the hyperbole we associate with the usual claims of politicians, it is prudent for reasonable people not to utter inanities.

I have no doubt that Trumpetto would be diagnosed- if he ever agreed to psychiatric examination- as a malignant narcissist. His outlandish boasts: “I have the best words,” for example. (My personal favorite which, as his wont, Donald tweeted: “Sorry losers and haters, by my I.Q. is one of the highest- and you all know it! Please don’t feel stupid or insecure,it’s not your fault”. Note that he did not post his actual I.Q. score.) There are other symptoms- abusiveness (as in personal attacks), the incessant lying, attention-seeking. A superficial online search for detailed descriptions of narcissistic pathology offered descriptions of behaviors that Donald exhibits. I did read somewhere that narcissism is often a case of arrested development. That gibes with the comments by some in the media that Trumps’ conduct is reminiscent of that of an 8th grader.

So it has come to this: America, the world’s only super-power, the nation many consider the greatest on the planet, has decided that a psychologically-unfit man-child might be its President.