Lack of empathy is a diagnostic bell-ringer for sociopathy. As a psychologist working for the Kansas Department of Corrections, I was part of a team that did the initial classification evaluations on sentenced inmates. I encountered many inmates who, when it was in their interest, could pretend to feel the very human emotion of empathy. In Friday’s Globe, the banner headline “Report: Trump disparaged US war dead as ‘losers,’ ‘suckers’ ” virtually screamed about Donald Trump’s inability to empathize with those who suffered the loss of a loved one in war.
We have also seen this deficit of human emotion on display in his response to the pandemic. Apparently, he doesn’t have it within him to even pretend to feel what others feel. I can’t begin to imagine what John Kelly, a retired general and then the secretary of homeland security, felt as he stood at his son’s grave with Trump when the president reportedly said, “I don’t get it. What was in it for them?”
It’s time to suspend the so-called Goldwater rule. We need more practitioners in the psychiatric field with the gravitas to inform public opinion to step forward and call Trump out for what he is.
Jim Cain
Wakefield
Note from KBJ: Jim Cain believes, without reliable evidence, that President Trump disparaged American soldiers. Why does he believe it? Because he hates Trump. Get some help for your derangement, Jim. You're making an ass of yourself.
