Is his lunacy reaching a flashpoint?
by digby
Last Friday, the President visited Calexico, California, where he said, “We’re full, our system’s full, our country’s full — can’t come in! Our country is full, what can you do? We can’t handle any more, our country is full. Can’t come in, I’m sorry. It’s very simple.”
Behind the scenes, two sources told CNN, the President told border agents to not let migrants in. Tell them we don’t have the capacity, he said. If judges give you trouble, say, “Sorry, judge, I can’t do it. We don’t have the room.”
After the President left the room, agents sought further advice from their leaders, who told them they were not giving them that direction and if they did what the President said they would take on personal liability. You have to follow the law, they were told.
What if some of them try to follow the president’s orders anyway? Do they have a defense? He is the president of the United States, after all. The big boss. I don’t know that the war crimes statutes about “following orders” would necessarily apply here. So far, nobody seems to be as far gone as he is. But who knows what might happen?
His lunacy does seem to be escalating. This exchange between Nichole Wallace and Frank Figluzzi today was instructive about how professionals might be looking at this latest:
Nichole Wallace: A week or so ago you talked about alarming signs when you as a profiler from your law enforcement and counterintelligence background … describe some worries about compulsive conduct. Is this what you were talking about?
Former FBI Counterintelligence chief Figluzzi: What we talked about was a possible analogy between what we’re seeing in the president and studies of violence, particularly workplace violence.We talked about the journey and pathway to violence when we see people using language of despondency, lashing out, demeaning others, obsessive-compulsive attachment to one issue and an inability to get off of it. In this case it would be security on the border and immigration. In this case we have to ask ourselves in a behavioral sense are we watching a president on his way to what we call a flashpoint.
And are we beginning to see him act out in the form of purging and mass firing and completely not listening to any logic. When people say to him, the law or policy is such and such and it would be violating the institution or the law and he simply dismisses it and fires people and keeps doing it.
Are we essentially watching a workplace violence incident play out at the highest level of our government and is he acting out now? And where does this go if I’m right about that?
In fairness, he is also obsessed with the Mueller Report. But one probably plays into another. People who go crazy in the workplace are also often obsessed with a belief they’ve been treated unfairly. Donald Trump would be the first to say that’s true of him. He never stops whining about it.
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