A top psychiatrist has issued a grave warning as to the direction of President Trump’s mental disintegration. “That Trump is an utterly unhinged psychopath is pretty much beyond question, (and the US electorate equally unhinged psychos for having re-elected him), but  exactly where are his delusions leading him?” asks Dr Horace Pukkerlin of the Montreal Institute of Insanity and Derangement Studies.  “Increasingly, I’m beginning to suspect that he sees himself as some kind of super-villain.  In his own head he probably sees himself as Blofeld, Thanos or Lex Luthor, but in reality, I feel that he’s closer to The Penguin.  Not any of those more recent revisionist versions of the ‘Batman’ villain, but rather the version played by Burgess Meredith in the sixties TV series.” Speaking to the Weekly World Shopper, Pukkerlin contends that his analysis fits with Trump’s increasingly insane speeches and pronouncements. “I mean, when reading or listening to them, just imagine him wearing a purple top hat, monocle, clutching an umbrella and smoking a cigarette in a long holder – the image fits perfectly,” observes the renowned head doctor.  “It’s the same when you see him on TV, embarrassing himself and his country at some international event or other: as he waddles in front of the cameras, just imagine him in that outfit.  Again, it fits perfectly.”

The leading trick cyclist also pointed out to the tabloid that Trump even does that super-villain thing of telling us all his dastardly plans, in detail, before he tries to enact them.  Then wonders why they inevitably seem to fall flat or get foiled by NATO, Canada, the EU or even Iran.  “Soon, I’m sure, he’ll be sneering,” he adds. “Just like Penguin used to do to Adam West’s Batman, as he delivers his speeches.” Of course, all supervillains need a nemesis and while Trump seems to have a generalised hatred of anyone who doesn’t bend the knee to him, Pukkerlin believes that there is one individual in particular who the would-be supervillain has fixated upon as an arch-enemy. “We really can’t ignore his apparent obsession with Barack Obama, sorry, Barack Hussein Obama as Trump insists on calling him,” Pukkerlin observes.  “Obama’s been out of the White House for at least ten years, yet Trump still seems to see him as some kind of threat.  Could it be that he suspects that Barack Hussein Obama is really Batman, out to foil him at every turn?  Maybe he thinks that Joe Biden is Alfred the Butler, Bruce Wayne/Barack Hussein Obama’s aged retainer?”

The psychiatrist believes that Trump’s insistence upon constantly using and emphasising Obama’s middle name could be of great significance. “It’s a way of him emphasising that he knows Obama’s true name,” he says. “Which, in turn, could be taken as an implication that he knows his ‘true’ secret identity: Batman/Bruce Wayne” Pukkerlin is of the opinion that Obama should, perhaps, start dressing up as Batman and appearing, unannounced, at events Trump is hosting, in order to provoke a reaction. “Such a move could prove cathartic,” he ponders. “Forcing Trump to openly confront his delusions.” One of Pukkerlin’s colleagues, however, fears that such a move could backfire, simply reinforcing Trump’s delusional state. “Seeing Obama actually dressed as Batman would, surely, simply reinforce his delusion by confirming his suspicions,” Professor George Gingham of the London School of Delusional Studies explained to the Weekly World Shopper. “I have a strong suspicion that, should that happen, we could see Trump appearing at a press conference actually dressed as The Penguin. If he doesn’t like the questions he’s being asked, he would doubtless point his umbrella at the press and release poison gas into the crowd, killing them all.”

Gingham believes that after that, it would only be a short step to a live TV broadcast in which he has Obama dressed as Batman strapped to some infernal device and starts ranting about his latest dastardly scheme  -suitably peppered with bird puns – before sneering and departing by telling Obama how the device he’s strapped to will kill him.  Even though he’s left a ludicrously easy way for Batman to escape with a single bound. “We can only hope then that Obama/Batman catches up with Trump and beats him up in the style of the TV series, with words like ‘Ka-pow!’, ‘Wham!’ and ‘Ooof!’ appearing on the screen,” muses Gingham. “Perhaps this could prove the stimulus that is needed to knock Trump out of his delusional state and force him to face reality: that he is simply a bitter and demented old man whose only pleasure comes from ruining the lives of others.” But what is driving Trump’s supervillain delusion? According to Pukkerlin, such delusions inevitably have their roots in past trauma, often childhood trauma. “All the great supervillains have a back-story involving some traumatic event that changed the course of their lives from good to evil,” he muses. “Sometimes it is simply a physical trauma which disfigures them physically and mentally – think Two-Face, for instance – or it could be some psychological trauma. Often it is as simple as having been rejected, resulting in a turn to the dark side in response -if they can’t make people like them, then they’ll make them hate and fear them, instead.”

In Trump’s case, however, the precise source of his turn to supervillainy is difficult to pinpoint. “While it is obvious that he wants to be loved, worshipped even, the fact is that he’s always been a deeply repugnant character,” the psychiatrist opines. “I mean, honestly, he’s always been doing shitty things with no apparent remorse or compassion. It is likely that he is simply a psychopath who has gained the means to pursue his perceived grievances against the human race on a large scale!” Indeed, it is these very traits which, Pukkerlin believes, have made Trump’s supervillain fantasies take the form of The Penguin – and the Burgess Meredith version specifically – inevitable. “In order to be one of those sleek, scary and successful supervillains like Lex Luthor or Ernst Stavro Blofeld, you have to charisma and intelligence – two things that Trump is singularly lacking in, so it is hardly surprising that he is taking on the mantle of a fat, ugly and bird-obsessed slob of a villain who always bungles his nefarious schemes.”