A pit viper president

Donald Trump is detestable.  He is an ignorant, stupid, and malevolent creature.  That is why so many people support him.   Having those qualities in a president seems to vindicate their own ignorance, stupidity, and malice.  Many people have noted that he is as detestable as it is possible for a human being to be.  Trump shows every day that he cannot do things that define the human species.  He cannot process facts.  He can only respond by lashing out.  There is a reason.  His brain functions only on the reptilian level.

Brain science posits that the human brain developed three layers during the evolutionary process.   The basic most primitive part of the brain is what we share with the lower orders of the animal kingdom, the reptilian cortex.  That is the part of the brain that controls basic things like breathing but also those primitive behaviors such as aggression, dominance, territoriality, and ritual displays.  When people behave with mindless aggression, their reptilian brains have taken over from the higher parts of their brains, if they have any.  

Trump's behavior is typical of a person who has or chooses to use only a reptilian brain. His tweets are major evidence.  When he feels threatened, he shows no ability to assess whether there is an actual threat or if what stirs his alarm is a benign presence.  He assumes that other humans are driven by the kind of malign motives that drive him.  He strikes out at them like a rattle snake defending its territory.  

When people around him in the White House describe his "narcissism," his inability to act with informed and analyzed communication, his fearful and defensive mental state, his malice, his chaotic isolation, his inability to form trusting relationships, they are describing a creature that is not operating with a human brain.  He can only breathe, eat. sleep, do what seems necessary for his survival, and strike out at those around him. He is the quintessential pit viper. 

New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd has captured his reptilian nature in one of her recent columns, "This Snake Can’t Shed His Skin."

He is our president.