"When the World is Led by a Child", David Brooks

I don't often agree with the New York Times' David Brooks, but his 15 May 2017 column hits the nail on the head.

He diagnoses Donald Trump as having failed to grow into adulthood.

At base, Trump is an infantalist. There are three tasks that most mature adults have sort of figured out by the time they hit 25. Trump has mastered none of them. Immaturity is becoming the dominant note of his presidency, lack of self-control his leitmotif.

Trump's profound immaturity underlies and adequately explains all of Trump's otherwise baffling behavior. It baffles us because we're accustomed to a grown man acting like a grown man. We especially don't expect our President to be so stunningly retarded in his intellectual and emotional development. (George W. Bush, for whom I had little respect, was merely ignorant: he wasn't volatile, nor did he have such profound disrespect for the office.)

Brooks' analysis also explains Trump's otherwise unfathomable sharing of classified information with Russian governmental officials:

From all we know so far, Trump didn’t do it because he is a Russian agent, or for any malevolent intent. He did it because he is sloppy, because he lacks all impulse control, and above all because he is a 7-year-old boy desperate for the approval of those he admires.

After the classified-information release story broke, reporters apparently "overheard yelling" in the White House tonight among Trump, Sean Spicer, Steve Bannon and White House Communications Director Michael Dubke. I have no doubt Trump was doing most of the yelling; he has a habit of blaming everyone but himself when things go wrong. Rather like a 7-year-old.

We are at the mercy of a spoiled little boy in the body of a 70-year-old man.

Are you scared? I sure as hell am.