The near-catastrophe aboard Apollo 13 was nothing compared to what Captain Space-X and his orange crew chief are now launching in America

(11 min read)

“Houston, we’ve had a problem.”  Jim Lovell, American astronaut, April 1970

Like the problem (explosion) on Apollo 13, the current firestorm raging from the White House could blow up if we don’t throw off our ideological straight jackets and get at the root problem. This is about more than the sordid affairs of corrupt and wasteful governments, downsizing, cost cutting and herds of bulls racing through China shops, it’s about the competency of the men piloting Spaceship America.

I don’t view it through the lens of political ideology or think it can be objectively analyzed based on subjective political comparisons of what a president does or doesn’t do (Jackson, Lincoln, Clinton, Trump, et al). It’s bigger and more fundamental than that. The basic proposition that never gets debated in a civilized, non-ranting, pros-and-cons, professional form is this simple premise: Donald Trump suffers from a level of mental illness that should disqualify him from the Presidency? I take the affirmative side on this.

Three points

  • The problem is not anchored in political ideology
  • The problem is Trump’s psychopathy
  • And the myth of democracy exacerbates the problem

Looking through the prism of political ideology blinds us to the problem. And political ideology is completely irrelevant when it comes to analyzing Trump. First and foremost, he doesn’t have an ideology and is a serial chameleon – and a damn good one. In addition, the problem of corrupt and inefficient government is not an ideological issue, it’s a systemic, cultural, organizational management issue, which has been with us since we tried to organize tribes into hierarchies. Human beings need hierarchy, and hierarchies become bureaucracies and bureaucracies become corrupt. It’s axiomatic, nothing to do with political ideologies. Sure, liberal politicians err in building bigger governments and usually spend more, but in the last forty years of American politics (since Reagan in the ‘80s) the so-called conservatives (GOP) have abandoned their small government bona fides and run up deficits, debt and ignored bigger governments as much as Democrats (Trump has increased the deficits/debt by many trillions). If we “watch their feet, not their mouths,” we can see both left and right spewing the same ol’shit, just a different flavor.

Yes, size matters in an organization, but the core problem is not size, it’s inefficiency and ineffectiveness – waste – hiding in bureaucratic processes where corruption flourishes, and the solutions are not found in any political ideologies because no political party – none, nil, nada – is capable of draining the political swamp. Because their very existence depends on breeding, procreating and perpetuating power, and the swamp aides and abets this purpose.

“Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts, absolutely.” – Lord Acton

Nothing new here

Government is corrupt, always has been, from Solon and Caesar to Lincoln and Trump, and it provides the fertile soil (well fertilized by myth and bullshit) in which humans have one of the best opportunities to ply their predatory, “will to power” over fellow humans (reference Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, Darwin). Nothing new here. The bellicose Trump-Musk proclamations are just political noise, redundant platitudes, empty promises, worse, they’re spewed forth despite a flotsam of evidence from the 20th century that any scorched-earth approach always ends in grand failure or complete disaster. Trump and Musk are like characters in Greek mythology, a tragedy, two titans throwing fire and brimstone on the very structures they need to save the heaven they promised everyone. They’re stuck somewhere between barefaced negligence and willful ignorance.

What Trump and Musk profess to uncover has been a hollow clarion around Washington since, I don’t know … George Washington. We all agree it needs to be fixed and requires long overdue maintenance. But – and it is an important “but” – the key to success, or failure, lies in the “how.” This is not about taking “a meat axe to the mess” (many years ago I was a butcher and can tell you that after you’ve used a meat clever the only thing left is hamburger and a lot of blood). Organizations have been trying to find the best ways to eliminate corruption and inefficiency since Henry Ford brought us mass production, and when we emerged from the 20th century, we had a mixed bag of mixed results. Most companies and CEOs are still not very good at it.

It’s the process, stupid

Despite a formidable cavalry of experts from Alfred Sloan, Edward Deming and Peter Drucker to Elliott Jaques, Jim Collins, Philip Kirby, and many more, the majority of organizations are still not good at rooting out these historically ingrained problems. Although technology has improved productivity, figuring out the human aspect remains widely misunderstood and CEOs continue to “slash and burn,” mainly because it’s the easiest way. But not the best. If we can’t get it right in corporations then the chances that we can in government is highly improbable, actually impossible.

“Frequently wrong, never in doubt.”

If there is any hope, then the highest levels of understanding and expertise are a prerequisite, and neither Donald or Elon meet that standard. Impeded by their inability to consider opposing thoughts, they’re stuck in their own narcissistic expertise, frequently wrong but never in doubt. Put another way, handing Trump and Musk an axe when surgeons with scalpels are required is … well, somewhere between ignorant and dangerous, and guaranteed to fail.

Those who have succeeded are on record as saying that corruption and inefficiencies (NVA – non-value-added activity) are hiding in plain sight in the process. Philip Kirby said, (maybe Deming too), “The people are not the problem, it’s the process, stupid.” (I added the stupid). We have learned what not to do from the failure in the 1990s of “reengineering” (flatten the organization) and downsizing (i.e., Chainsaw Al Dunlap at Scott Paper, Antonio Perez at Kodak, and Ron Johnson at JC Penney). Each set their companies back billions, ignoring the how to do it as proven by Edward Deming and the Toyota Production System. The most significant lesson has been: Laying off huge swaths of people is not only the wrong way, it produces serious long-term stagnation or decline

Enormous risk

Michael Lewis sets out in his insightful book, The Fifth Risk, that random, reckless downsizing in the federal government poses an existential threat to “the two biggest risks to human existence, nuclear weapons and climate change,” all managed by the Department of Energy (DOE). Alert: Trump and Musk already made arbitrary cuts at DOE, but, fortunately, had to reverse decisions when they realized how it compromised our nuclear security. They also foisted the same stupidity on Ebola prevention. Come on, what sick fuck does that?

Lewis posits an unanswered question: What happens when “the risk a society runs falls into the habit of responding to long-term risks with short-term solutions?” (also see the book, Short-term America). In other words, what happens when politics trump smart practices? When willful ignorance trumps clear reasoning?  When the rustlers ride the bulls through the China shop? When the inmates take over the asylum? When the sex addicts get Platinum cards in a whorehouse? When … well, you get the idea.

Back to the “how” of downsizing. Yes, it’s necessary to reduce people and increase technology in order to eliminate waste and corruption and improve productivity and throughput, but … here it comes, only the people working in the process, those who know it best, can fix it (that’s worth reading again). Taking a chainsaw to wages and salaries is both the easiest (lazy and ignorant) and stupidest method (here are a few reading references for the non-reading President: Any of Deming’s books; The Process Mind by Philip Kirby, Firms of Endearment by Sisodia; Thoughtware: Change the Thinking and the Organization Will Change Itself by Kirby & Hughes; and The Requisite Organization by Dr. Elliot Jaques). They all counter, condemn and expose the folly of everything Trump and Musk are doing. Again, it’s not about the need to fix the “mess,” it’s about having no fuckin’ clue how to do it (they’ve already shown that).

“He’s an adolescent playboy, not a serious businessman.”

In the mid-1980s, I consulted in New York’s luxury condo market and more than a couple dozen developers considered Trump – I paraphrase – an irresponsible, shoot-from-the-hips, more-money-than-brains (daddy’s money), erratic, bullshitting, spoiled kid. Some had had dealings with him, all said he was a high-risk, never-to-be trusted, incompetent, neophyte developer. One said, “He’s an adolescent playboy, not a serious businessman.” That was my limited exposure to Trump at the time, but when I add that to what we now know about his childhood and emotional relationship with his mother and father (Psych 101), then nothing about his psychological makeup and behavior should surprise us. There are countless people like Trump on the psychopathic spectrum (it’s estimated at 3% as per the book, Wisdom of the Psychopath by Kevin Dutton, Cambridge University), so Donald as Donald is not rare. What is rare is that someone like him, as badly damaged as he is can become the President of the United States, whether Republican, Democrat or Independent. That is the root problem.

“This is not about strategy, it’s about mental illness.” – Dr. John Gardner

Psychology is the only thing that explains such bizarre and irrational behavior. Even if we’ve never taken Psych 101, a modicum of observation tells us all we need to know about Trump and a cursory assessment of his business career exposes his lack of competency in “running” much of anything. I don’t mean running for political office, I mean running a corporation or an organization larger than a cloistered, family-operated, holding company. The point: Trump’s limited and myopic business experience plus his undeniable psychosis (displayed throughout his life), makes him totally unqualified to change anything, let alone a government. He not only doesn’t know how to dismantle it he has no fuckin’ idea how to rebuild it.

“Donald Trump is an impulsive, immature, incompetent person who when in the position of ultimate power easily slides into the role of tyrant.” – from the book, The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 27 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President by Dr. Brandy Lee

We can all see this man in stark relief, a man whose behavior throughout his well-documented life empirically defines his psychosis (by all objective assessments). We can see with our own eyes: a psychologically damaged adolescent man; a narcissistic sociopath; a man diagnosed on the severe end of the psychological spectrum; a man with limited experience, intellect and capability; a man whose business expertise comes from marketing pop-and-son real estate projects, running three casinos into bankruptcy and putting his company into Chapter Eleven.

The foundational debate here is about a man’s competence. At its essence, it’s about where this particular man sits on the spectrum of knowledge, experience and, most importantly, psychopathology (or in Kevin Dutton’s book, what he calls the “scale of madness”). There is more than enough evidence (from empirical observation and dozens of books) to see that “little Donny Trump is damaged, irreparably.” And he’s not atypical. Dutton’s research confirmed there are thousands of CEOs, neurosurgeons and serial killers on the psychopathic spectrum and all share common qualities ranging from fearless, confident and charismatic to ruthless, impulsive and denial.

Metaphorically speaking, Donald Trump is a white rat in the public lab of this “democratic experiment,” and in this historic moment we can observe in real-time the deep flaws in the political scaffolding when an underdeveloped, malformed, psychologically stunted member of the Homo sapiens species is let loose in a labyrinth of unfettered power. It’s an experiment gone wrong?

Trump’s credibility in the hunt for corruption falls on its own sword when it comes to his pursuit of tariffs. Tariffs have always been a weapon of choice in corrupt governments, a means to corrupt ends, a means to leverage – read blackmail – a weaker opponent (e.g., Zelensky on the “perfect phone call”). Here’s Trump claiming to root out corruption on one hand and with the other hand applying global corrupt practices with no rational reason or cogent explanation to the American people. Tariffs in certain and specific situations can, and do, work, but any economist worth his degree knows that random, reckless tariffs are counterproductive, and in the hands of an uninformed malcontent can be seriously destructive to the instigating nation. This really is absolute power corrupting, absolutely.

Last point

The fact that a man of Trump’s caliber can become the President of the United States (twice) tells us a lot about the American democracy, and democracy since the 6th century BCE. Obviously, it doesn’t work well, never has. As Benjamin Franklin said in response to a question about whether they had created a Republic, “We have, if we can keep it.” My understanding is that way back in Ancient Greece, Solon was asked to institute a form of governing that would provide the patricians with the means of protecting their property interests while at the same time satisfy the plebeians need to feel they had a say in their government. They called it democracy. And despite taking many forms over the centuries, its purpose remains basically the same: Protect the “Haves” and give the “Have-nots” a sense of representation. It is, and always has been, rule by minority. The idea of “representation” is a façade built by the minority to protect their interests from the masses.

Getting 32% of eligible voters is not a mandate – not even a democracy!

As Alexander Hamilton said in discussing the new government and its need to control the majority, “Beware the beast.” Today, “the beast” is not represented. Democracy and representative government are myths. Take this recent election, which Trump erroneously claims he received “a mandate.” It’s bullshit. He got approximately 77 million votes, Harris 75 million, which is 32% and 30%, respectively, of eligible voters. That’s all, and less than the number of Americans that did not vote for either candidate. Over 90 million eligible voters did not vote at all. Add them to the Harris vote (90M+75M) and two-thirds of Americans did not vote for this president (similar numbers for previous presidents). That’s not a democracy. And sure as hell not a mandate. It’s a long-ago designed, inadequately adjusted, hypothetical experiment (i.e., the electoral college comes to mind) that could be on the verge of fulfilling Franklin’s harbinger, “… if you can keep it.”

Trump’s rise has ripped the cover off the petri dish of the democratic experiment and exposed the nature of the cultures and fungi that can grow when insidious and odious bacteria infiltrate the system. Alexander Fleming turned his experiment into penicillin, not sure the American people can find a cure.

If there’s hope it just might come within the disease itself, from Trump. His short-term, non-strategic, transactional approach is the perfect recipe for failure and the incompetence, sloppiness, and ignorance provides fuel for a major implosion.

But right now … “Houston, we have a problem.”

Post script

Donald Trump is a coin-operated, transactional, unevolved toddler.

Donald is incapable of understanding the indomitability of the human spirit. Not his fault, his psyche has been “wired” through childhood and adolescence to process human behavior in the exact opposite way, to disconnect his emotions and shutdown empathy in order to “survive” in the world his father brought him up in. As Fred told him over and over, “Be a killer.” So, as an adult he’s primarily a coin-operated, transactional, unevolved toddler (again, Psych 101). His inability to understand or assess the power of the human spirit at the level of a nation (e.g., Ukraine and Canada, and European nations) will be his undoing. He, and any nefarious “plans” he might have with Putin will never overcome the Ukrainian spirit. They’ve already lost over 60,000 lives and will fight until the last man and woman standing – even as a guerilla or resistance movement. His not supporting Ukraine against Russia is a lose-lose proposition and suggesting Canada become the 51st state is the hubris and ignorance of a transactional bully who has never lived outside the confines of a tiny schoolyard, a privileged private school, where daddy’s money has always bailed him out (now he’s counting on Elon’s money).