266 Comments
User's avatar
Patrice La Belle, M.D.'s avatar

This is the picture of a sociopathic narcissist. He stands in stark comparison to the other people in the picture as totally lacking in normal human empathy. He isn't even trying to fake it.

Expand full comment
Public Servant's avatar

The fascists are starving us into submission. My partner and I were fired from our civil service careers. We had to line up at a food bank again, use the same Halloween costumes as last year for our kids, and recycle their candy to give to trick or treaters.

So many of us are struggling with DOGE and the MAGA shutdowns - any support makes a big difference: https://democracydefender2025.substack.com/p/emergency-furlough-maga-shutdown

Expand full comment
PowerCorrupts's avatar

Connecting the dots...

1.

We've been brainwashed to NOT sue, suing the government is checks and balances and required for democracy

2.

We're spoiled EXACTLY AS THE SCIENCE OF DESENSITIZATION PREDICTS

3.

We're blinded by our ego from seeing our faults:

3a.

An addict named George W Bush redirected 70 percent of Americans anger from Al Queda to Iraq... Trump (see top 40 of his most pathetic attributes above) redirected the anger of his voters to day laborers, etc

3b.

We believe the human brain is superior to animals but the evolution of life on Earth has evolved their brains 1000000 times longer than ours to avoid their extinction

3c.

No American googled "... the science of anger.."... we are threatened by our EMOTIONAL IMMATURITY to be aware of our EMOTIONAL IMMATURITY....?

Expand full comment
PowerCorrupts's avatar

Details for the above

Up to 60% of anxious people are cured by placebo and a innocuous placebo can become an insidious placebo... Valium marketing subverted Americans dealing with our ubiquitous anxiety with the science... the scientific inoculation as recommended by the White House:"Do one thing every day that scares you.." Eleanor Roosevelt

Humans are hard wired to become defensive and indignant. If any of these emotions from the "anger family." of emotions are cured by any emotion from the anxiety family of emotions like insecurity or worry, etc it's insidious because when we are cured by a placebo from the "anger family." of emotions the prognosis is 100 times worse than the prognosis for anxiety

Expand full comment
Heather.B's avatar

Yes, he is a narcissist. Narcissism is a total lack of self image, this is why he loves to tear others down, so he can feel better about himself. Everything is all about him. He has no principles and cares about no one.

“Malignant narcissism has four components: narcissism of course, but also psychopathy - what we call antisocial personality disorder - so lying, breaking laws and norms, having no remorse for violating the rights of others. Also paranoia and finally, sadism.”

“It’s kind of a historically obscure diagnosis, but I’ve studied with the person who is the world expert on malignant narcissism and so - early on when Trump was running for president in 2015, - I recognised this was essentially a meteor heading towards earth!”

― Dr John Gartner

I would like to read about the Trump voters who now have "buyer's remorse". We TOLD you and you didn’t listen, and now you have no one to blame but yourself!

Not only do I tell people: "Don't blame me. I voted for her", but I have a tee shirt that says that. This one 👇

https://libtees.dashery.com/products/79821408-dont-blame-me-i-voted-for-her-t-shirt

Expand full comment
Patrice La Belle, M.D.'s avatar

Unfortunately, telling people they were wrong or pointing out their flaws rarely has the intended consequence of changing their opinions. That is more difficult and takes emotional empathy as well as evidence. Blame, or worse belittling, just makes people more entrenched in their views. It is even worse when they have been influenced and persuaded by a charismatic cult-like sociopathic leader who has focused their drumned-up anger on his preceived foes.

Expand full comment
Ann Sharon's avatar

You realize he uses the same tricks Hitler did? “The Big Lie” being a major one. He also “inoculated” his followers against haters in several ways. A main one being telling them what would be said about him in advance & we fell for it anyway.

Doubling down with schadenfreude games just confirms that we’re haters. It’s sure not going to help us get out of this mess.

Expand full comment
Lynn D.'s avatar

This photo certainly is one that will become iconic for his presidency, but there are so many others as well.

What I see in his face is selfish annoyance at having the event delayed and attention diverted from his agenda, but even more strongly, I see a person who doesn't feel well and is struggling to wait it out so he can finish the event and get out of there. He really looks sick to me.

Expand full comment
Nancy Dunn's avatar

Yes. I see this as a top candidate for defining photo of his disastrous 2nd term.

He displays an obvious sociopathic reaction, revealed plainly perhaps bc his cognitive decline robs him of the power to pretend to care. He doesn’t any longer seem to be able to pretend normal adult human behavior.

Yup, we all are expected to remain awake during our work hours and perform the obligate tasks, even if we’re new parents or back from a long grueling journey.

Or to have the self-awareness and care for our colleagues/coworkers to take a sick day if we might commit malpractice due to incapacity.

Expand full comment
Susanna J. Sturgis's avatar

Or he's totally unaware of what's going on.

Expand full comment
Michael Anthony Valente's avatar

The only photo describing the Trump years that I’m interested in seeing is of an ICE thug taking a crying baby away from its mother.

Anything else reminds me that people have ignored the biggest atrocity that’s been occurring for the last 10 years

Expand full comment
Private Intellectual's avatar

Agree!

Expand full comment
pilar's avatar

Is that ‘far enough’ for smelly, old fuckface?

Expand full comment
John's avatar

I think that he may taken this as them bowing down to him! ???

Expand full comment
Linda M. Fritz-Gasteier's avatar

The annoyed detachment from someone in distress, inability to muster any humanity, confused and awkward standing by the situation with no clue what to do….yes, pretty much a metaphor for the Trump years.

Expand full comment
Ron's avatar

Not just the tRump presidential years, the tRump life.

Expand full comment
Elizabeth Tiller (Beth)'s avatar

I think about how I look at photos of Hitler or Idi Amin or Mussolini or Mugabe or Stalin or...I look at a photo and think, "They don't look that evil. Evil doesn't have a physique. And there must have been a time in their early life when there was hope for them." Actually, I already do look at this photo that way. Photos like this capture one thing perfectly: the banality of evil.

Expand full comment
Whatistobedone's avatar

Yup. Hannah was spot on.

Expand full comment
Terry's avatar
Nov 8Edited

He looks like a brain dead zombie standing there.

Expand full comment
Martha Franklin's avatar

This would be an accurate observation were it not for lack of the required substrate. ; )

Expand full comment
CSL Laurentien's avatar

I lived and remember these photos well. Don’t forget the May 4, Kent State photo as a student grieves as another student is dead in the parking lot shot by Ohio National Guard.

Expand full comment
Whatistobedone's avatar

I am of the Vietnam era. That day, May 4, 1970...to THIS day...is etched into my life, let alone memory. The horror of that day remains profound for me. A friend of ours was shot. I mourn...still.

Expand full comment
AVee. (Alexia)'s avatar

💔I remember 💔

Expand full comment
Merrill Frank's avatar

I was going on 10 years old when Kent State happened and a daily newspaper reader. What stuck in my mind to this day and still shocks me is the Gallup poll of the incident had over 60% approval from Americans for the response from the national guard.

Expand full comment
Jean M's avatar

I graduated from college two weeks after Kent State. What struck us then as people in that area was that Kent was considered a party school with little political identity. The ONG should never have been there--or at any protest.

Expand full comment
Erica Wolf's avatar

I want to see his MRI. The vacant look is a giveaway.

Expand full comment
Martha Franklin's avatar

The MRI found nothing.

Expand full comment
Lillian Murty's avatar

It was a blank MRI. No brain

Expand full comment
Nancy Dunn's avatar

Exactly

Expand full comment
Linda Bruce's avatar

Only according to Trump.

Expand full comment
Sandy Kleppe's avatar

No, literally nothing in his brain.

Expand full comment
pilar's avatar

Brainless moron

Expand full comment
Patrice La Belle, M.D.'s avatar

With this administration's lack of candor, we don't know what the MRI or any other test showed. The 5-item memory test he passed in his first term is a test for significant dementia.

Expand full comment
Aleda's avatar

We need to have neuroscientists use brain scans to test for empathetic responses before we install people into positions of power over others.

Expand full comment
Annie D Stratton's avatar

I would say that we need to listen when someone tells you who they are, and believe them. That is far more accurate than brain scans.

Expand full comment
Aleda's avatar

Regarding accuracy: I have noticed that a lot of people apparently possess weak BS detectors. Correcting this flaw in the hiring process is a patch to humanity's highly hackable psychology.

Accurate measurements evaluating the health of brain responses are valuable because they can function as replicable, reliable and swift fact checks.

¿Por Qué No Los Dos?”

Expand full comment
Patrice La Belle, M.D.'s avatar

Our country's lack of emphasis on critical thinking skills in education and in general puts us at a disadvantage in detecting liars, fraudsters, and crooked politicians. That, along with the ability of media and social media to bombard us with enougch disinformation to obscure the facts, makes us vulnerable. It has grown even more difficult with the prevalence of realistic deep fakes. Disinformation detection is a skill that needs constant reinforcement as disinformation multiplies and morphs.

Expand full comment
Aleda's avatar

Agree, and my point was that the personality/brain that values not causing pain to others (detectable via brain scan in response to the test subject watching, say, an animation of an animal in distress) is the kind of person who is best suited for not exploiting positions of power and authority like education, policing, medicine, supervising people, representing the governance interests of a collective community. Guarding and prioritizing reality has a large overlap with guarding and prioritizing humaneness, making them good proxies for each other. If we can identify and select a conscience for empathy that would also be useful in selecting a conscience that prefers honesty and accuracy.

Expand full comment
Patrice La Belle, M.D.'s avatar

Neurological testing before holding office sounds good in theory, but has the potential for serious misuse.

That being said, there are AI protocols in use now that some recruiters use to ostensibly detect personality types such as extroversion or neuroticism. Reliance on such tests may disqualify people inappropriately.

Expand full comment
Aleda's avatar

And I would add that Musk has shown that AI can be used as a tool for his personal biases, and all AI is too frequently unreliable and replicates stupidity and bias even outside his control. Well-qualified humans exercising professional and ethical standards is the only way. Either a brain region associated with empathy lights up when exposed to relevant, proven stimulation or it doesn’t. Just as either a pilot can pass a vision test or they can't.

Expand full comment
Aleda's avatar

Well, there are ways to control for misuse, such as diverse and large enough supervisory panels to oversee such examinations that are required to be transparent and have recourse to whistleblower protections. Applicants have a right to be treated fairly but not a right to a particular job. Right now we have only after-the-fact measures against manipulative, bad actors. We need defenses such as screening for sociopathic personality traits as an early part of an application (or with politicians a consideration) process.

Expand full comment
Patrice La Belle, M.D.'s avatar

The public displays of Trump's psychopathy (cruelty, lack of empathy, lying, serial infidelity) were evident when he started his campaign in 2015, yet people didn't seem to notice or care.

Expand full comment
Aleda's avatar

A lot of people (prominent and unknown) noticed and cared. One problem was that the legacy media did not have a way other than "politics as usual" for handling the firehose of lies. Yes, his unethical and juvenile behavior was obvious to many Americans who recognize patterns and study history but the information streams had split, the divisive algorithms and bot armies were being deployed. My point is that if relevant experience or knowledge are part of assessing fitness for a job's requirements then why can’t demonstrated brain function (conscience and empathy) be evaluated as well?

Expand full comment
Bob Bowden's avatar

His MDs needed to look at his MRI, too, for some (obvious) reason

Expand full comment
Luce's avatar

Funny, (not funny). But when the photo was first seen on social media, people were saying it was a fake photo. However then we saw actual video footage. Shows what a disturbed man he is. His whole life is all about him. And no one else matters.

Expand full comment
Lora Ellison's avatar

Yes, it will. It's a reflection of how much he cares about the American people.

Expand full comment
DAR's avatar

Yes! But the problem is that there are so many Americans that are just like him that are positions that we deal with everyday.

Expand full comment
Whatistobedone's avatar

JUST thinking the very same thing! Fuhrer will be gone some day. Our issue as citizens: half of the country despises us. What is to be done?

Expand full comment
David Warburton's avatar

Separation for irreconcilable differences.

Expand full comment
Patrice La Belle, M.D.'s avatar

The people who are willing to follow a sociopath and those who won't are found in every community. They are not confined to states or regions that can be divided. They need "counseling" by more rational leaders to resolve the irreconcilable differences, not to allow differences to cause separation.

It is difficult, but we need to find ways to encouage people to leave the Trump cult of personality. Even more difficult, we need to prevent those few ultra-rich elites from gaining full power over us. They are using Trump with reported believe they are an aristocracy, that they know best, and that they can take over the MAGA cult.

Expand full comment
Ann Sharon's avatar

I think a big part of that is taking ‘yes’ for an answer & not pushing them to stay. Many were never actually maga and they’re tired of “winning”.

From a practical standpoint, he needed independent / unaffiliated & disaffected / intermittent voters to win. He did best among those who pay no attention to the news. Pro-trump organizations made a big effort to get all those voters & young people (especially young men) to the polls.

The recent elections and other polling show they are leaving him. In fact, NBC surveys track how many people identify as maga. Here’s what they found:

• Jan. 2024 — 20% • Oct./Nov. 2024 — 29. • March 2025 — 36

But now it is going in the other direction.

• “Just 30% aligned themselves with MAGA, down from 36% from the same poll in March.” AND despite the GOP labeling No Kings as ‘hate-America rallies’ etc. and it being new & loosely organized:

“In this survey, 43% say they consider themselves supporters of the No Kings protest movement — with the group largely composed of Democrats but also including around 4 in 10 independents.”

https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/poll-shows-no-kings-protest-movement-topping-maga-public-support-rcna241803

Expand full comment
Nancy Dunn's avatar

Was never half the nation. And a diminishing % now.

Expand full comment
Patrice La Belle, M.D.'s avatar

The bigger issue is the billionaire control of media so that media can reinforce behavioral patterns that assist the billionaires, such as indifference to the suffering of others. That makes it easier for them to exploit the rest of us without repercussions.

Expand full comment
DAR's avatar

Yes! But the problem is that there are so many Americans that are just like him that are in positions that we deal with everyday.

Expand full comment
Annie D Stratton's avatar

Maybe it is America itself that is the problem. Are we willing to take a hard look at the role we all played in getting to where we are, and are we willing to admit that we made mistakes? Most of all, are we willing to do the hard work of reconciliation and forgiveness and healing that we need to do to move forward as a democracy that actually is a democracy?

Expand full comment
Whatistobedone's avatar

You're right...but I fear the "forgiveness" part can't be part of my response. Acknowledgment of their changed attitude, yes....but people ARE dying, WILL die because of Fuhrer and his sycophant toadies....and, at THIS point...actively TRYING TO STARVE PEOPLE. No. No more "taking the high road." Not fighting, not cruelty, but...WITHDRAWAL. From them....let's be clear here.... FASCISTS.

Expand full comment
Patrice La Belle, M.D.'s avatar

We need accountability before any forgiveness. We did not get it with Nixon and did not with Trump’s insurrection.

Expand full comment
DAR's avatar

Hi Annie, I concur!

Expand full comment
Noreen Lassandrello's avatar

He is a blank canvas upon which so many emotional needy people paint their savior. The projection of millions of people is a powerful force. As we well know. They give him their power and he sucks it up.

Expand full comment
pilar's avatar

Sadly true

Expand full comment
Richard M. Ellis's avatar

The only thing we can do without a violent revolution is to vote as they did in Virginia, New Jersey, NYC and many areas in PA. I read that there was a very significant awing to the left in Mississippi. Now that is a good thing.

Expand full comment
Patrice La Belle, M.D.'s avatar

There is more we can do:

1. We can write and call our current legislators with our views on important topics,

2. Call out voter suppression efforts and support the lawyers fighting them in court,

3. Protest peacefully if we can do it safely,

4. Continue to post about problems and better solutions,

5. Talk with family, friends, and neighbors if we can do it without personal attacks which just increase their anger,

6. If we have the funds, support candidates at all levels (executive,,legislative, and judicial) who support democracy and our constitutional rights, and

7. Help people in our communities who are suffering from the actions of this administration.

Expand full comment
John Horwitz's avatar

no, see, it will be the bloody ear with zero damage - his entire life is a lie!

Expand full comment
Deborah Neudorfer's avatar

The stare of emptiness. No empathy, no compassion no concern no humanity and yet there he stands as our president of the United States. I only hope this is the portrait that goes on the presidential wall. Let it be a reminder of what evil is and what evil does. May God help us!!!

Expand full comment
Nancy Dunn's avatar

What a thought! It’s actually a fabulous idea. Let someone like the outstanding Bridgeport CT artist Rick Schaefer turn it into a great and grand drawing.

Expand full comment
Anne Brennan's avatar

I don't know if the photo will live as a symbol of him or of his presidency, but the first thing I thought of was his repulsion of a wounded soldier who appeared before him at a public event. The President of the United States asked that the person be removed and that we didn't need to see that sort of thing. Both the photo and the experience I relate indicates to me his inability to empathize with humanity on any level. Only the youngest, most beautiful, healthy and completely enamored with him may appear before him because, as the center of the universe, he is the only person worthy of attention and consideration. He is a very damaged human being.

Expand full comment
Jill Stoner's avatar

I had exactly the same thought, instantly. It was distasteful to him to have a person on the ground, suffering and in imperfect health, so close to his person.

Expand full comment
Peter Wilson's avatar

The picture of a malignant narcissist!

Expand full comment
Pamela Avison's avatar

This man is utterly devoid of humanity and deserves to rot in hell. How he & SCOTUS like taking food away from children & the elderly reflects their total lack of respect for those less fortunate.

Expand full comment