Americans deserve better than overt narcissist Donald Trump

Re: Trump cheers new trade deal, heralds death of NAFTA era — Oct. 2

As I watched Donald Trump’s so-called news conference last week, I couldn’t help but be struck by the utter brashness of the man.

His ego is so inflated, his bluster full of hyperbole, his delivery of mixed messages, exaggeration and outright lies.

He doesn’t answer questions at all

— he simply redirects, reframes and pontificates ad nauseam about how great he is.

He is the quintessential overt narcissist, a man with no compassion, no capacity for self-reflection and a man literally afraid of the truth.

His world has been shrunk to view all encounters as transactions where it’s all about either winning or losing.

How did this man become president of the United States? The founding fathers would not have wanted the electoral college to work this way. For someone to be outvoted by more than three million votes and still win the election? A man who can only appeal to his base of 35 per cent of the population, a base comprised of people who are either wealthy, angry, ill-informed or all of the above?

The office of the presidency is quickly becoming an empty throne. I hope and pray that his presence in American politics will embolden the U.S. population to choose differently in the next election. They need to have a president they can be proud of, someone to look up to, someone who can be a hero.

Chris Pernfuss

Waterloo