curated cinema: convicted felon and adjudicated rapist Donald Trump remains a massive danger to the US and the entire world
curated cinema: convicted felon and adjudicated rapist Donald Trump remains a massive danger to the US and the entire world
2020 documentary *#Unfit: The Psychology of Donald Trump* is streaming on Prime on both sides of the Atlantic, and also on library-streamer Kanopy in the US
Sorry to put Cheetos Hitler on your timeline, but this is important.
Almost four years ago — in September 2020 — when I reviewed the incredibly essential documentary #Unfit: The Psychology of Donald Trump, I wrote:
I know it’s a pipe dream, but I wish that every American would see this movie before Election Day. Anti-Trumpers might not need any more convincing to vote against him, but it’s still absolutely worth getting an in-depth understanding of precisely why Trump is such a threat to the entire world, not just the United States. (It’s not merely that we feel he is dangerous. There is solid scientific and medical evidence that he is.) And pro-Trumpers desperately need to appreciate that he does not give the tiniest shit about his voters, because he is incapable of caring about them. Trump supporters need to understand that he will never do anything that will benefit them, that he is using them for his own ends.
This remains true, in another election year, with Trump running again while not only a convicted felon and adjudicated rapist but also very clearly in the advanced stages of some sort of dementia. That’s on top of the diagnosis of malignant narcissism that a panoply of mental-health professionals confidently made in this film, which already renders him utterly unsuited to serve as president of the United States. Which anyone not cultishly deluded plainly saw during his previous four years in the White House.
He may longer be able to string a few words together to form a single coherent sentence, but he’s always been a monster. And now that he’s been cornered by the justice system and humiliated in public, he’ll be even more dangerous than ever. (Here’s a recent interview with John Gartner, one of the mental-health professionals who appears in #Unfit, about Trump’s recent — and terrifying — cognitive decline.)
I don’t usually underscore the streaming info I mention, but — again — this is important. #Unfit is free to stream for Prime members in the US and the UK, and is a very cheap rental in the US (99 cents) if you aren’t a member. It’s also cheap — 99 cents/99 pence — on Apple TV transatlantically. The film is also on Kanopy, a streaming service available free to anyone in the US with a library card. You have a library card, don’t you?
US: stream on Prime and Kanopy; rent/buy on Prime and Apple TV
UK: stream on Prime; rent/buy on Prime and Apple TV
See #Unfit: The Psychology of Donald Trump at Letterboxd for more viewing options, including in all other global regions.
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I think the psychiatrist is downplaying Biden's troubles while fully addressing Trump's, but he's not wrong.
And I don't much care about the flaws in his analysis of Biden, at this point. Unless one of them dies before the election (which can't be ruled out, and dementia increases the odds), even if Biden's a "Weekend at Bernie's" style president, I'll gladly vote for the shadowy cabal of Party hacks who are his controllers over Donald Trump. And I was a lifelong Republican until Trump took over the party.
There's a war going on in Europe now, and it doesn't stop going on just because people aren't paying as much attention. Biden's response has been tepid and full of half-measures, but Trump actively wants the free world to lose this war, and could make it happen on Day One of his second term. WITHOUT doing anything illegal or unconstitutional. Betraying Ukraine, as stupid and loathsome as it would be, is fully within the enumerated constitutional powers of the executive branch.
My basic calculation is, if you want to spend most of the next 10-20 years fighting World War III, vote Trump. (Which is not to say "nuclear war" BTW. but while building up a big mythology around global thermonuclear war, we've largely forgotten just how destructive and disruptive a "regular" war on a global scale can be. It would be plenty horrible, and can best be prevented or delayed by stopping Russia now.)