When Barack Obama’s election in 2008, I guessed all presidents of the United States will be younger than me. Bill Clinton was two years older.
Then Donald Trump upset all norms in Washington and became a president older than my age.
In January, his successor will be older than him.
President-elect Joe Biden turned 78 Friday. I turn 73 next month, so the new president goes into office with more than five years of seniority over my age.
Ironically, the future oldest president replaces a 74-year-old that many consider a childish pretender to the job.
Trump’s niece, in a best-selling “tell-all” book about America’s crimnally-corrupt president calls him “a child in an adult’s body, someone psychologically brutalized and damaged by his sociopath father and who developed defenses of anger and distrust to mask his own chronic insecurities.”
“The atmosphere of division my grandfather created in the Trump family is the water in which Donald has always swum, and division continues to benefit him at the expense of everybody else,” Mary Trump writes.
“From the beginning, (Trump’s father) Fred’s self-interest skewed his priorities,” she writes. “His care of his children, such as it was, reflected his own needs, not theirs. Love meant nothing to him, and he could not empathize with their plight, one of the defining characteristics of a sociopath; he expected obedience, that was all.”
Child psychiatrist Gene Beresin, executive director of The Clay Cnter for Young Healthy Minds at Massachussets General Hospital, says Trump acts too often like a pre-schooler or teenager.
“The problem is that Trump is not a preschooler or a normal teenager. He is the President of the United States,” Beresin wrote on the center’s web site.
For America’s sake, we should be thankful that Trump’s childish, but dangerous, presidency is coming to an end. His failures this week in courts and with state leaders have left him a morose spoiled brat who is running out of lies and excuses.
Parents should be worried as their kids watch Trump day after day modeling quite the opposite behavior they hope for in their kids. And many do worry that their kids will imitate this behavior, or rationalize their misbehavior saying, “Hey President Trump did that! Why can’t I?”
As a 72-year-old, I admit being childish much too often in my seven decades of existence.
I’ve let my ego get in the way too many times, exaggerated things then when facts could have sufficed. Too often, I have hurt people with stupid actions. I’ve disappointed those who expected better.
Alcohol was a contributing factor, but even with 26 years years, five months, and 15 days of sobriety, I still did stupid and childish things. Hopefully, I have learned and ago has added restraint with wisdom.
Joe Biden doesn’t drink. Says he never has. He seems to be more of an adult.
Let’s hope.