For all his ranting about fake news and fake media...
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There’s a narcissistic fraud in the White House. An angry, hollow, vindictive man is running the country. What bottomless emotional need does he have for acclaim? It is hard to know where his rampant narcissism ends and serious mental problems ensue. He lies prodigiously and for no reason except he obviously has an unclear vision of what the truth is.

Is his narcissism the driving force behind his lies? Look no further than the lobbies at seven of his golf courses, where he has hung fake Time Magazine covers with made-up headlines of effusive praise for himself. What a bizarre intersection between vanity and fraud. That is a president whose cabinet officials obsequiously offer tribute to his greatness while cameras roll. What is next, Dear Leader... a new haircut?

Trump has lied so much there was a New York Times article listing just the lies he’s told since taking the oath of office. This is to say nothing of the lies told repeatedly on the campaign trail and the ones he used to sell investors before bankrupting six business deals. He tells us he is very rich, but disregards the Constitution to enrich himself and his family. The chief government ethics officer just quit over it.

“He is a president who only enjoys the roar of the crowd at the rallies, and doesn’t want to learn even the basics of federal policy.”

Trump continues to lie about the number of people at his inauguration. Why is that so important to him? Is he so obsessed with losing the popular vote by 3 million that he established a partisan, taxpayer-funded commission to search for non-existent voter fraud? A Stanford analysis of what Trump’s “voter fraud” panel would do, shows how devastating it would be to legitimate voters, “For every one case of double voting the program identified, it yielded 200 false positives that would purge the registrations of people legitimately eligible to vote.” Luckily, 44 states (as of July 5th) have refused to fully comply and hand over the invasive partisan information requested by the commission. Business Insider pointed out the Department of Homeland Security doesn’t even intend to investigate whether voting machines were hacked in November, and the commission is not bothering to investigate Russian interference. As I write this, it is being reported that Trump has accepted, despite our intelligence community’s unanimous finding otherwise, Putin’s denial that Moscow interfered in the 2016 presidential election.

He has a particular problem with any criticism from strong women. We all saw the disgusting tweet he put out about Mika Brzezinski, “She was bleeding badly from a face-lift.” At dinner at Mar-a-Lago? I doubt that. What is his obsession with blood? When Megyn Kelly hosted the GOP debate, he was so put off by her appropriately tough questioning of his record that he denigrated her saying, “She had blood coming out of her wherever.” He went on to retweet someone who called her a “bimbo.” He regularly disparages women’s looks, debases them to sexual objects and even brags about sexually assaulting them... and yet he became president?

In his Twitter battle with Morning Joe hosts Joe Scarborough and Brzezinski, he called Scarborough “psycho” and Brzezinski “crazy” with a “low I.Q.” He called former FBI Director James Comey “a real nut job” to the Russians. This seems to be yet another example of Trump suffering from “the disowned self,” the psychological condition of a person who projects his own flaws onto others. Does his ego blind him?

The large ego of a small man drives the vindictiveness of his policies. This presidency is all about the perception of “winning” for Trump – no matter the cost to others. He is a president who only enjoys the roar of the crowd at the rallies, and doesn’t want to learn even the basics of federal policy. While Trump presides over the circus in his mind, his vice president, Mike Pence, is pushing the extreme agenda of the Koch brothers through both the appointments and policies of federal agencies. They have undone environmental, labor and consumer protections. The Education Department is undermining public schools, and now attorneys general from 18 states and DC are suing Education Secretary Betsy DeVos for undoing loan protections for students who were cheated by fraudulent colleges. In fact, many in the cabinet seem dedicated to undoing the historic missions of their agencies. No surprise, since Trump’s financial supporters are getting what they want – deregulation in the guise of preventing necessary public oversight.

Candidate Trump promised: “No cuts... to Medicaid,” “No one will lose coverage,” and that “Nobody will be worse off financially.” Of course we now know his endorsed Senate TrumpCare plan offers tax cuts to the wealthiest individuals at the cost of stripping 23 million people of their health care and making the biggest cuts to Medicaid in history. Another broken promise. He has specifically gone after women’s health care with a vengeance. Can his supporters support that? Do they even know about it? Maybe not if they get their fake news from Fox.

Residents of the world have taken note. According to a recent Pew Research Poll, international faith in the president of the United States to respond well to global crises is 22 percent. This is down from 64 percent when President Obama was in office.

Keith Olbermann has taken to calling our Commander in Chief, #FakePresident. One could almost hear his unrequited search for legitimacy when he said, “I’m president and you’re not” to the media. You can hear the singsong of a child saying, “lalalalala!” There was also his stunt for WWE when he faked a body slam, which of course was later repurposed into a tweet he shared with a CNN logo over his opponent’s face. While he fit quite nicely into this WWE world of fake entertainment, what case of arrested development is it to retweet this? Is he 12?

This is the Trump presidency. He will not grow in the office. Does his vindictiveness stem from Obama teasing him at the White House Correspondents Dinner over the “birther” insanity? As Charles Blow so perfectly put it, “Trump wants to be Obama — held in high esteem. But, alas, Trump is Trump.” His approval rating is underwater. A full 20 percent of his first five months in office has been spent golfing instead of learning about policy. He watches cable TV and then tweets in a rage. He lacks the temperament to fulfill his role. For all his ranting about fake news and fake media... the truth is, he is the fake president.

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