Donald Trump is mentally ill. And no, this is not the beginning of a joke, I am very serious. And I don’t mean this the way most people bandy about phrases like, “the guy’s completely nuts”, alluding to the fact that this person is your basic, run-of-the-mill, unhinged egomaniac.

No, Donald Trump began his break with reality in the 1980’s, as he sought constant attention from the press. He saw himself as a persona, and not really as his own person the way most people do of themselves. So, in support of that delusion, he began to sculpt his own mythos. Trump went so far as to produce additional characters out of whole cloth (the most well known of which is, John Barron), whose sole purpose in this dimension was to lift up their hero, Mr. Trump.

But, it was The Apprentice that finally gave Donald a massive dose of that… whatever the hell that thing is that people get exposed to in ‘Celebritopia’, that causes people go all Macaulay Culkin.

That exposure was way too much for the already damaged psyche of Trump. And so, like Voldemort’s damaged soul, Donald’s thinly egg-shelled ego crushed under the weight of having attained its deepest desire: Enough recognition and admiration to finally convince him that it’s all true… Every bit of it is true. He really is that famous, and influential!

It was this Donald Trump that, on January 20, 2017, became the most powerful man on earth, The President of the United States. Of course, the rest of the world sees and knows that there’s no way Donald Trump could have become president on his own merits, not even remotely. And there’s plenty of evidence to show that they’re right. But the inner-Trump, who needs unwavering admiration, can never accept such a preposterous idea.

Trump then dwelt in this twilight reality for a few years, feeding his inner Mr. Hyde a 24 hour diet of Twitter and Diet Coke. It was then that Donald Trump finally achieved a level of self-deceit required to break out of his demented chrysalis, and finally he burst forth in his final, monstrous form.

To think that Vladimir Putin isn’t beside himself with glee over how childishly persuadable the new President of the United States is. Or that he has begun visualizing effigies of himself being erected next to those of Vladimir Lenin’s, then you clearly do not understand the gravity of these current events. Putin sees himself as the father of New Russia, and Donald Trump, Putin’s very own useful idiot, is helping him every step of the way.

Donald Trump isn’t evil in the same deliberate, scheming way that Vladimir Putin is. No, Trump has far more frightening incentives that make him dangerous on so many other levels. And it’s primarily because of this that it’s impossible to tell which reality Trump is inhabiting when he’s making a particular decision. How do you defend against something like that?

Donald Trump doesn’t feel like you and I feel. One of the scariest part about having Donald Trump as a President is that he has about as much emotional connection to his world-altering decisions, as you or I do about purchasing a property during a game of Monopoly. He sees his choices in isolation, not in context. He simply wants to win the game. And the only skills he possesses for such a task are ruthlessness, and self-preservation. The problem is that if Trump doesn’t see or hear the suffering of real people as a direct result of his decisions, then any results are simply too abstract for him to recognize them in connection to the bigger reality. In other words, you and I are as real to him as the little toy pieces on the game board.

The world is a going to be a different place after this meeting. No one in a position of influence has the courage to stop this before it happens. And they’ll be no reversing things once Putin gets his entire foot in the door.

Dibs on the little dog piece.