Trump is Unfit for Office and his mental instability is a threat to our national security
“Psychiatrist On Trump’s ‘Dangerous’ Response To Coronavirus Crisis” – The Last Word, MSNBC; February 28, 2020 (6:37)
Trump is psychologically unfit to discharge the duties and responsibilities of his office; his mental instability is a serious danger to our country and our world and he must be removed ASAP. He is unfit to serve, and the majority of Americans admit that they know this is true (see: “‘No Upside’ for Trump as New Poll Shows US Majority Think President ‘Unfit to Serve’,” by Common Dreams Staff; September 27, 2017).
“We do believe that Donald Trump’s mental illness is putting the entire country, and indeed the entire world, in danger,” – Dr. John Gartner, psychologist
Trump is unfit to be class president of a high school, much less the most powerful nation on Earth. The 25th Amendment, section 4, allows – requires – that be removed because he is “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.”
This is not about making psychiatric diagnosis of Trump. It’s about our survival. Trump is unfit to serve and that undeniable fact is a threat to us all.
“We have let a megalomaniacal predator, a man who has appointed a Cabinet full of predators, take over our government. We are watching the Trump administration take a wrecking ball to everything we hold dear: the rule of law, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, the health of our environment, our national parks, the US leadership among nations, tolerance of people who are different from us, and worst of all, the future of our children and grandchildren.” – Dr. Carol Wolman, psychiatrist
There are countless examples of Trump’s failures which demonstrate his inability to be leader of the United States. For example, although it is a well-established fact that Russia interfered with the 2016 U.S. Presidential election, Trump has failed to take this seriously and has failed to take any action at all. Former Ambassador to NATO (under George W. Bush) Nicholas Burn described Trump’s failure as a clear “dereliction of duty” in his Congressional testimony (see: “Trump Accused of Dereliction of Duty as Russia Scandal Gets More Dire For Republicans,” by Sarah Jones, PoliticsusUSA, June 29, 2017). This failure to take action and protect the U.S. from a foreign enemy is not just a dereliction of duty – it is tantamount to aiding and abetting the enemy: NOT taking action is Trump’s action and it sends a clear message to Russia that they can do what they want to the United States under Trump’s administration.
There are those who say that Trump has (at a minimum) Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD); others insist it is Malignant Narcissistic Personality Disorder with psychopathy. Others make a strong case that Trump doesn’t have psychopathy as defined by the DMS-IV or DSM-V books (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) [1]; others agree that although he doesn’t meet that specific criteria, he has many of the personality traits which are consistent with those listed in the “Hare Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R).” [2]
There are many who believe that Trump is more likely to meet the criteria for sociopathy as well as Narcissistic Personality Disorder; add to that assertions that he has Anti-Social Personality Disorder and even dementia (note that Trump’s father – who was arrested for participating in a Klu Klux Klan event – died of Alzheimer’s disease). More likely than not, Trump’s mental instability is a combination of many traits that are atypical, not normal, abnormal. For example, it is quite possible that Trump is a sociopath with Malignant Narcissistic Personality Disorder and early onset dementia (or worse). But – does any of that even matter? As Anna Lind-Guzik said, “But why insist on a diagnosis? If labeling him is the main obstacle to talking about Trump’s disorder, let’s ditch it.” (See: “Duty to warn: Shrinks can’t say that Donald Trump suffers from a mental disorder – but we can,” by Anna Lind-Guzik, Salon; May 7, 2017).
In an interesting article, psychiatrist Dr. Gourguechon used the U.S. Army’s “Field Manual 6-22 Leader Development” to conclude that Trump is unfit to serve based on the lack or absence of necessary leadership personality traits that include trust, discipline and self-control, judgment and critical thinking, self-awareness and empathy as well as the capacity to anticipate consequences of your actions. Trump does not have these characteristics that would be required by anyone who is Commander-in Chief. (See: “Is Trump mentally fit to be president? Let’s consult the U.S. Army’s field manual on leadership,” by Prudence L. Gourguechon, LA Times, published on June 16, 2017).
In an interview with MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell, Dr. Gourguechon stated “anybody – you don’t have to be a psychiatrist or a doctor – any observant person can take a look at these and say does Donald Trump meet these – does he have these capabilities? …. And I think that we’re better off looking at positive attributes of capacity rather than, oh, does he have this diagnosis or that diagnosis because not only will there be disagreement, but a mental diagnosis does not necessarily disqualify you to be President as Abraham Lincoln was famously severely depressed at different times in his life.”
On October 3, 2017, a new book went on sale: “The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 27 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President”. In an interview with psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton (who wrote the forward to the book) he pointed out that “it isn’t always the question of a psychiatric diagnosis. It’s really a question of what psychological and other traits render one unfit or dangerous.” (See: “The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: Robert Jay Lifton and Bill Moyers on ‘A Duty to Warn’,” by Bill Moyers, Bill Moyers.com; September 14, 2017).
“The question that has been so confusing about him is this diagnostic issue. It actually has a perhaps surprisingly easy solution: the traits that are important – lying, cheating, hurting people without any remorse – these are the traits that go into any diagnosis. And it’s the traits that are important; the final label – the diagnostic label – changes all the time. We’re on the fifth edition of the Diagnostic Manual now [Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders] – they’ll be a sixth and seventh; the label just doesn’t matter and people argue over it ruthlessly. But we know as a fact that he has these traits which indicate important personality disability – and those are the things that make him dangerous. So, without haggling over the diagnosis, there’s no question about his having mental instability and that being a danger.” – Dr. Lance Dodes*
* See: “Trump’s mental health: ‘The elephant in the room,’” The Last Word, MSNBC; February 23, 2017 (Video 7:04)
So psychiatric or mental illness labels are not necessary to determine that Trump is unfit for office – in fact, those labels can end up as obstacles in discussing what really matters: Trump is unfit to serve, period. You have to be blind – or an idiot – or in complete denial about reality – to NOT see that something is wrong with Trump – very wrong – and that he is unfit for office.
Even so, there are a few mental health professionals out there who don’t think Trump has a mental illness or that he isn’t mentally unstable; there are mental health professionals that are blind to the fact that Trump exhibits traits that are consistent with antisocial personality disorder, narcissistic personality disorder, or a combination of personality disorders. There are those who object to psychiatrists violating the ethical rule of making a diagnoses at a distance (i.e., not having a one-on-one interview with Trump and so on), but then those same doctors turn around and make their own diagnosis at a distance by saying Trump isn’t Narcissistic – or whatever – even though they haven’t met the diagnostic one-on-one criteria with Trump either. The reality is that those doctors don’t know what the hell they are talking about. You don’t need to be a mental health professional to know that Trump is mentally unstable and because of that, he is a threat to our national security. You just have to see him for who he really is.
“Trump, a thin-skinned malignant narcissist who can leave no slight unavenged, no matter how slight … Malignant narcissists are not your garden-variety narcissists. They combine narcissism with paranoia, anti-social traits and a propensity for aggression. Trump sees threats where they don’t exist … and feels no compunctions about breaking rules … to lash out at those imaginary threats … Malignant narcissism is an untreatable personality disorder, for the simple reason that no one can ever tell the malignant narcissist he is wrong. Anyone who questions a malignant narcissist’s judgment is immediately dismissed as an idiot or attacked as a threat. Anyone who questions their ruthless tactics is belittled as soft and naive. It’s not accidental that Trump has said ‘my primary consultant is myself.’…. In short, a president Trump is one of the biggest threats imaginable to our national security.” – John Gartner, psychologist
This needs to be the fundamental rallying cry of every American. We need to say it, scream it, shout it, and repeat it: Trump is unfit for office.
His is mentally unstable. He is mentally unfit. He is nuts. He is mentally deranged. He is out of his mind. He is fucked-up in the head and a serious threat to our country – to our world. And that’s what matters, nothing else. He must be removed from office, and everyone needs to pressure Republicans to take the first step – whether through impeachment or the 25th Amendment. Trump MUST go.
“[T]he millions of people who voted for [Trump] and believe that he represents their interests will learn what anyone who deals closely with him already knows – that he couldn’t care less about them.” – Tony Schwartz, true author & ghostwriter of “The Art of the Deal” [NOT] by Donald Trump.*
*See: “Donald Trump’s Ghostwriter Tells All,” by Jane Mayer, The New Yorker; June 25, 2016
Trump is a pathological liar. He tells lies the same way other people breathe [3]. Truth is not truth, facts are not facts: to Trump, all that matters is Trump. He lies to his voters all the time, but they either don’t care, or believe that Trump “tells it like it is.” What is wrong with those people who still follow, support and enable Trump? What is wrong with those people who believe the lies of a pathological liar? What is wrong with those people who trust someone with sociopathic traits? What is wrong with those people who believe that Trump – with traits consistent with malignant narcissistic personality disorder – cares about them in any capacity at all? I know a few Trump supporters, very well. One is brain damaged. One is supremely stupid. Another is a narcissistic sociopath. That may sum up the totality of the combined personality of the cult followers of Trump.
Trump exhibits personality traits that cannot be denied except by the most blinded doctors or by brainwashed Trump cult followers. It’s a cult following: Trump devotees have faith in his lies and support and enable his delusions – it is a departure from reality itself. As Ken Levy wrote,
“Individually, most of Trump’s supporters are probably not psychopaths. But the collective group is psychopathic … While many predict that Trump’s followers will eventually be disillusioned and abandon the ‘Trump Train,’ their prediction is naively optimistic. Cults don’t operate rationally; cult members do not change their core beliefs and behavior on the basis of facts and evidence. Instead, they blindly follow their leader wherever he and his inner circle decide to go … If the 60% who do not support Trump want to avoid calamity, they need to start talking not merely about how to resist Trump and win the 2018 elections but also how to de-program millions of people.” Ken Levy, “A Psychological Divide: Irrationality, Psychopathy and Trump’s Cult,” CounterPunch, February 2, 2017
Trump will never “pivot” to become presidential. He will never change. No matter the situation, he will never, ever apologize or admit he is wrong. He will always double-down – always. Just as water is wet (fact), Trump is simply incapable of admitting that he is wrong about anything (fact). He will NOT change. He CANNOT change.
I urge everyone to read (at least some) of the publications listed below. I urge everyone to share them, email them, Tweet them, post them; print them out, talk to others about them. Trump is completely, utterly mentally unstable, unfit for office, and he must be removed from office before it is too late. However, the only way that he can be (currently) removed is if Republicans – who control the House and Senate – take action – either by starting impeachment proceedings or acting on section four of the 25th Amendment [4].
Call your government representatives: 202-224-3121. If your Senators and/or Representatives are Republicans – tell them to take action. If they are Democrats, then tell them to talk to their fellow Republican Congress members and tell them that Trump is unfit to serve. Tell them to convince the Republicans to take action now. Trump MUST go.
[1] The main functions of the DSM volumes (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) are to assist in the treatment of mental disorders by providing a classification and diagnostic methodology and to bill insurance companies for treatment and prescription medications. The DSM has already undergone five major revisions and there will be more in the future.
[2]. See: “Hare Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R)”
Also see: “Psychopathy and the DSM – IV Criteria for Antisocial Personality Disorder,” by Robert D. Hare, Stephen D. Hart, Timothy J. Harpur, Journal of Abnormal Psychology, Vol. 100, No. 3; August 1991 (14 pages); This publication can also be found HERE, HERE and HERE.
Also see: “The Revised Psychopathy Checklist: Reliability and Factor Structure,” by Robert D. Hare, Timothy J. Harpur, A. R. Hakstian, Adelle E. Forth, Stephen D. Hart and Joseph P. Newman, Psychological Assessment: A Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology; Vol. 2, No. 3; September 1990 (4 pages)
[3]. See: “The First 100 Lies: The Trump Team’s Flurry of Falsehoods,” by Igor Bobic, Huffington Post; February 26, 2017
Also see: “President Trump’s Lies, the Definitive List,” by David Leonhardt and Stuart A. Thompson, New York Times, June 23, 2017
[4] See: “Impeachment of the president, explained,” by Andrew Prokop, Vox; October 11, 2017
“The 25th Amendment, explained: how a president can be declared unfit to serve,” by Andrew Prokop, Vox; May 17, 2017
“The 25th Amendment Proves Why Trump’s Mental Health Matters,” by Richard Painter and Leanne Watt, Ph.D., Think (NBC News); October 18, 2017
“The 25th Amendment Makes Presidential Disability a Political Question,” by Jeffrey Rosen, The Atlantic; May 23, 2017
“Presidential and Vice Presidential Succession: Overview and Current Legislation,” by Thomas H. Neale, Congressional Research Services; September 27, 2004 (26 pages); this publication can also be found HERE.
Also see: “Impeachment and Removal,” by Jared P. Cole & Todd Garvey, Congressional Research Service; October 29, 2015 (27 pages)
Also see: “Presidential Succession: An Overview with Analysis of Legislation Proposed in the 109th Congress,” by Thomas H. Neale, Congressional Research Services; June 29, 2005 (26 pages)
Also see: “The President Pro Tempore of the Senate: History and Authority of the Office,” by Christopher M. Davis, Congressional Research Services; September 16, 2015 (29 pages)
“Mental health experts see Trump is dangerous, but our professional gatekeepers protect him,” by Bandy X. Lee, USA Today; October 11, 2019
“Trump Is Mentally Unfit, No Exam Needed,” by Leonard L. Glass, Bandy X. Lee & Edwin B. Fisher, New York Times; October 11, 2019
“Harvard Psychologist: Trump Has ‘Serious’ Mental Health Problem,” by Johnny Vatican, Medical Daily; October 10, 2019
Excerpt: Donald Trump keeps scaling new peaks of insanity.
His tweet on October 7 bragging about “my great and unmatched wisdom” is again being seen as indisputable proof the former TV show host is a clinically insane, paranoid narcissist living in a world of his own making. In other words, Trump is totally unfit to be president of the United States.
American mental health professionals have long warned us Trump exhibits signs of clinical insanity and we haven’t listened. In September 2017, a mere eight months after Trump took the office of president of the United States, 60,000 mental health professionals decided to rebel against convention to sign a petition crafted by Dr. John Gartner, Ph.D., stating that:
“We, the undersigned mental health professionals, believe in our professional judgment that Donald Trump manifests a serious mental illness that renders him psychologically incapable of competently discharging the duties of President of the United States. And we respectfully request he be removed from office, according to article 4 of the 25th amendment to the Constitution, which states that the president will be replaced if he is ‘unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.’”
That call has gone unheeded in the hyper-partisan environment in Congress where Republicans habitually turn a blind eye to all of Trump’s insanities.
Trump on Oct. 7 again reminded us how right these 60,000 mental health professionals were in calling for his removal from office. Trump’s complete tweet:
“As I have stated strongly before, and just to reiterate, if Turkey does anything that I, in my great and unmatched wisdom, consider to be off limits, I will totally destroy and obliterate the Economy of Turkey (I’ve done before!).”
Daniel Gilbert, a professor of psychology at Harvard University, found the tweet concerning from a mental health point of view. He suggested the tweet might be grounds for triggering Trump’s involuntary detention under psychiatric care.
“Am I the only psychologist who finds this claim and this threat truly alarming?” tweeted Gilbert.
“Wouldn’t these normally trigger a mental health hold? Right and Left must set aside politics and agree that there is a serious problem here.”
“Harvard Psychologist: Trump Has ‘Serious’ Mental Health Problem,” by Johnny Vatican, Medical Daily; October 10, 2019
►► “Unfit for Office,” by George T. Conway III, The Atlantic; October 3, 2019
“Trump is ‘unfit for the presidency’,” by The Editorial Board, USA TODAY; September 29, 2019
“Psychiatrist explains Trump’s actions on Ukraine says,” by Travis Andersen, Boston Globe; September 25, 2019
“Trump is seriously, frighteningly unstable – the world is in danger,” by Robert Reich, The Guardian; September 15, 2019
Excerpt: I think we have to face the truth that no one seems to want to admit. This is no longer a case of excessive narcissism or grandiosity. We’re not simply dealing with an unusually large ego. The president of the United States is seriously, frighteningly, dangerously unstable. And he’s getting worse by the day. Such a person in the Oval Office can do serious damage.
“Trump Is Not Well,” by Peter Wehner, The Atlantic; September 9, 2019
Excerpt: Accepting the truth about Trump’s mental state will cause us to take more seriously than we have our democratic duty, which is to prevent a psychologically and morally unfit person from becoming president.
“‘He’s losing his s—’: Trump’s advisers are increasingly worried about his mental state following days of erratic behavior,” by Sonah Sheth, Business Insider; September 7, 2019
Excerpt: “No one knows what to expect from him anymore,” one former White House official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal conversations about the president, told Insider. They added: “His mood changes from one minute to the next based on some headline or tweet, and the next thing you know his entire schedule gets tossed out the window because he’s losing his s—.”
“Is It Now Time To Discuss President Trump’s Mental State?” – (11:06) WGBH News, September 5, 2019
“Trump is an extremely successful sociopath”
“Harvard psychiatrist talks book ‘The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump’” – MSNBC; August 25, 2019
“This Isn’t the Madman Theory. This Is a Madman President,” by Rick Wilson, MSN; August 22, 2019
“Psychiatrist On ‘The Essential Emptiness Of President Donald Trump’” | The Last Word | MSNBC – (9:10) August 22, 2019
“Trump again plays on Messianic claims as he embraces ‘King of Israel’ title,” by Sarah Pulliam Bailey, Washington Post; August 21, 2019
“Yale psychiatrist Bandy Lee: Trump’s mental health is now a ‘national and global emergency,’” by Chauncey DeVega, Salon; June 14, 2019
“Looking at the Mueller Report from a Mental Health Perspective,” by Bandy X. Lee, Leonard L. Glass and Edwin B. Fisher, Boston Globe; May 9, 2019
Excerpt: The psychological nature of the president’s impairments is thoroughly revealed in the Mueller report. The report has documented the president as willful, enormously self-absorbed, ruthlessly exploitative, threatened, and delusionally heedless of the consequences of his impulsive actions. His dangerousness constitutes a national crisis.
“Trump the most dangerous man in the world. He’s equally dangerous because of his finger on the nuclear trigger and because of his mind ensconced in solipsistic reality. The two are a dreadful combination.”
“The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: Robert Jay Lifton and Bill Moyers on ‘A Duty to Warn’,” by Bill Moyers, Bill Moyers.com; September 14, 2017
This article was also published here: “A Group of Experts Wrote a Book about Donald Trump’s Mental Health – and the Controversy Has Just Begun,” by Bill Moyers, Mother Jones; September 24, 2017; “‘A Duty to Warn’ and the Dangerous Case of Donald Trump,” by Bill Moyers, Robert Jay Lifton, Common Dreams; September 15, 2017
Excerpt: There will not be a book published this fall more urgent, important, or controversial than The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump, the work of 27 psychiatrists, psychologists and mental health experts to assess President Trump’s mental health. They had come together last March at a conference at Yale University to wrestle with two questions. One was on countless minds across the country: “What’s wrong with him?” The second was directed to their own code of ethics: “Does Professional Responsibility Include a Duty to Warn” if they conclude the president to be dangerously unfit?
As mental health professionals, these men and women respect the long-standing “Goldwater rule” which inhibits them from diagnosing public figures whom they have not personally examined. At the same time, as explained by Dr. Bandy X Lee, who teaches law and psychiatry at Yale School of Medicine, the rule does not have a countervailing rule that directs what to do when the risk of harm from remaining silent outweighs the damage that could result from speaking about a public figure — “which in this case, could even be the greatest possible harm.” It is an old and difficult moral issue that requires a great exertion of conscience. Their decision: “We respect the rule, we deem it subordinate to the single most important principle that guides our professional conduct: that we hold our responsibility to human life and well-being as paramount.”
Hence, this profound, illuminating and discomforting book undertaken as “a duty to warn.”…. Here is my interview with Robert Jay Lifton — Bill Moyers …..
Lifton: We have a duty to warn on an individual basis if we are treating someone who may be dangerous to herself or to others — a duty to warn people who are in danger from that person. We feel it’s our duty to warn the country about the danger of this president. If we think we have learned something about Donald Trump and his psychology that is dangerous to the country, yes, we have an obligation to say so. That’s why Judith Herman and I wrote our letter to The New York Times. We argue that Trump’s difficult relationship to reality and his inability to respond in an evenhanded way to a crisis renders him unfit to be president, and we asked our elected representative to take steps to remove him from the presidency…..
Moyers: Some of the descriptions used to describe Trump — narcissistic personality disorder, antisocial personality disorder, paranoid personality disorder, delusional disorder, malignant narcissist — even some have suggested early forms of dementia — are difficult for lay people to grasp. Some experts say that it’s not one thing that’s wrong with him — there are a lot of things wrong with him and together they add up to what one of your colleagues calls “a scary witches brew, a toxic stew.”
Lifton: I think that’s very accurate. I agree that there’s an all-enveloping destructiveness in his character and in his psychological tendencies. But I’ve focused on what professionally I call solipsistic reality. Solipsistic reality means that the only reality he’s capable of embracing has to do with his own self and the perception by and protection of his own self. And for a president to be so bound in this isolated solipsistic reality could not be more dangerous for the country and for the world. In that sense, he does what psychotics do. Psychotics engage in, or frequently engage in a view of reality based only on the self. He’s not psychotic, but I think ultimately this solipsistic reality will be the source of his removal from the presidency.
Moyers: What’s your take on how he makes increasingly bizarre statements that are contradicted by irrefutable evidence to the contrary, and yet he just keeps on making them? I know some people in your field call this a delusional disorder, a profound loss of contact with external reality.
Lifton: He doesn’t have clear contact with reality, though I’m not sure it qualifies as a bona fide delusion. He needs things to be a certain way even though they aren’t, and that’s one reason he lies. There can also be a conscious manipulative element to it. When he put forward, and politically thrived on, the falsehood of President Obama’s birth in Kenya, outside the United States, he was manipulating that lie as well as undoubtedly believing it in part, at least in a segment of his personality. In my investigations, I’ve found that people can believe and not believe something at the same time, and in his case, he could be very manipulative and be quite gifted at his manipulations. So I think it’s a combination of those……
Moyers: There’s a chapter in the book entitled, “He’s Got the World in His Hands and His Finger on the Trigger.” Do you ever imagine him sitting alone in his office, deciding on a potentially catastrophic course of action for the nation? Say, with five minutes to decide whether or not to unleash thermonuclear weapons?
Lifton: I do. And like many, I’m deeply frightened by that possibility. It’s said very often that, OK, there are people around him who can contain him and restrain him. I’m not so sure they always can or would. In any case, it’s not unlikely that he could seek to create some kind of crisis, if he found himself in a very bad light in relation to public opinion and close to removal from office. So yes, I share that fear and I think it’s a real danger. I think we have to constantly keep it in mind, be ready to anticipate it and take whatever action we can against it. The American president has particular power. This makes Trump the most dangerous man in the world. He’s equally dangerous because of his finger on the nuclear trigger and because of his mind ensconced in solipsistic reality. The two are a dreadful combination.
“‘The Dangerous Case Of Donald Trump: 27 Psychiatrists Assess | The Last Word | MSNBC” – (10:34) published by MSNBC on October 5, 2017
“Inside the Mind of Donald Trump – He’s grandiose, deceitful and paranoid – but don’t let him drive you crazy,” by Bandy X. Lee & Tony Schwartz, POLITICO Magazine; July 27, 2018
“Harvard psychiatrist breaks down Trump’s ‘severe, continuous, mental disturbance’,” by Tana Ganeva, Raw Story; March 1, 2019
“Trump is now dangerous – that makes his mental health a matter of public interest,” by Bandy Lee, The Guardian; January 6, 2018
“President Donald Trump’s Mental State An ‘Enormous Present Danger’” | The Last Word | MSNBC – (11:21) November 30, 2017
“Top psychiatrist: Trump’s ‘mental impairment’ poses danger to world” – (11:47) France 24, November 20, 2017
“Worried About Trump’s Mental Stability? The Worst Is Yet to Come.” by Mehndi Hasan, The Intercept; October 7, 2017
Excerpt: In a new book published this week, “The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump,” a group of 27 psychiatrists and mental health experts warn that “anyone as mentally unstable as this man should not be entrusted with the life-and-death-powers of the presidency.” Seemingly in defiance of the American Psychiatric Association’s “Goldwater rule,” which states “it is unethical for a psychiatrist to offer a professional opinion [on a public figure] unless he or she has conducted an examination and has been granted proper authorization for such a statement,” the various and very eminent contributors paint a picture of a president who has “proven himself unfit for duty.”
Stanford University psychologist Philip Zimbardo — of the famous Stanford prison study — suggests the “unbalanced” Trump is a “specific personality type: an unbridled, or extreme, present hedonist” and “narcissist.” Psychiatrist Lance Dodes, a former Harvard Medical School professor, says Trump’s “sociopathic characteristics are undeniable” and his speech and behavior show signs of “significant mental derangement.” Clinical psychologist John Gartner, a 28-year veteran of John Hopkins University Medical School, argues that Trump is a “malignant narcissist” and “evinces the most destructive and dangerous collection of psychiatric symptoms possible for a leader.” For Gartner, the “catastrophe” of a Trump presidency “might have been avoided if we in the mental health community had told the public the truth, instead of allowing ourselves to be gagged by the Goldwater rule.”
“The Dangerous Case Of Donald Trump” was conceived of and edited by Professor Bandy Lee, a forensic psychiatrist on the faculty of Yale School of Medicine, who writes of her profession’s moral and civic “duty to warn” the American public about the threat posed by their volatile, erratic and thin-skinned president … I spoke to Lee about Trump’s mental state, the purpose of the book and the arguments put forth by her critics….
MEHDI HASAN: According to a study by experts at the Duke University Medical Center, around one in four presidents have had some sort of mental illness while in office. So why is Trump so special?
BANDY LEE: Mental illness itself does not involve an incapacity to carry out a duty. It’s really the specific symptoms, the severity of the symptoms, and the particular combination of… impulsivity, recklessness, an inability to accept facts, rage reactions, an attraction to violence, a proneness to incite violence – all these things are signs of danger.….
MEHDI HASAN: A lot of presidents were narcissists, egomaniacs, incited violence, suffered from conditions such as depression. People didn’t question their fitness for office, did they?
BANDY LEE: That is right. Very few conditions are dangerous. Very few conditions would make one unfit for duty. In this particular situation, we are declaring a danger to the public and to international security. I can tell you as an expert on violence that he has shown many signs of dangerousness. The most obvious ones might be verbal aggressiveness, history of sexual assault, incitement of violence at his rallies, attraction to violence and powerful weapons, [provoking] hostile nations, and, more recently, an endorsement of violence, during [the protests in] Charlottesville, and sparring with another nuclear power that has an unstable leader. All these things are signs of dangerousness…..
MEHDI HASAN: How worried should we be that Trump has access to the nuclear codes?
BANDY LEE: Well, that is our critical concern: that his condition is actually probably far worse than people are detecting now; that [his] mental impairment goes deeper and is far more pervasive than people can understand when they are untrained in psychological matters. And that the worst is yet to come.
“Assessing Trump: Is the president fit for office? – UpFront (Special Discussion)” (10:17) published by Al Jazeera English on October 7, 2017
“Donald Trump, domestic abuser,” by Gaynell Terrell, The Shinbone Star; October 4, 2017
Excerpt: There’s an informal policy known as the Goldwater Rule that prohibits psychiatrists from evaluating a public figure without a formal examination. That hasn’t stopped some psychiatrists from suggesting Donald Trump’s peculiar mental and emotional shortcomings can be a symptom of malignant narcissism and/or autism.
In the absence of a medical degree, we find refuge in the criminal statutes. Trump’s every action, every tweet sounds like a pamphlet from a women’s shelter on “warning signs for domestic abusers”:
► Volatile temper
► Misogyny
► Refusal to admit to failure
► Revenge
► Refusal to take suggestions
► Family favorites
► Secrecy
► Scary behavior
► Insults
► Makes all decisions
► Can’t take criticism
► Controlling
► Seizes money or property
► Bullying
The penalty for a few of these – if convicted – is up to a year in jail, probation or fine. Penalty for all 14 is a clear case of felony domestic abuse and can merit up to four years in prison.
Speaking for two-thirds of Americans, we want to file charges.
“We’re not talking about a gross psychotic disorder. We’re talking about a way in which people with severe personality disorders can regress to what they call transient psychotic states. It’s a more subtle kind of psychosis, but it goes over the boundary into psychosis.”
“The Madness of Donald Trump,” by Matt Taibbi, Rolling Stone; September 29, 2017
Excerpt: Trump’s catastrophic August, which saw his approval ratings drop to a preposterous 35 percent, was marked by two devastating unforced errors: his Phoenix speech and the similarly id-exposing Trump Tower presser about those “very fine people” among the Nazis. The press narrative since those incidents has been focused far less on impeachability than on the other road to early removal: a declaration of “inability to discharge duties” under Section 4 of the 25th Amendment.
This is a form of legalized mutiny that could theoretically take place if enough people in Trump’s orbit were to conclude he were mentally unfit….
In the Senate … Republican Bob Corker … questioned Trump’s “stability” and “competence” in a statement that was widely interpreted as a reference to the 25th Amendment. This came after Democratic Sen. Jack Reed was captured on a hot mic saying to Republican Sen. Susan Collins, “I think he’s crazy.” Collins replied, “I’m worried.”….
But the 25th Amendment process, adopted in 1967, offers faint hope to anti-Trumpers. “It’s the new Hail Mary,” says the law professor Turley. It can be instigated in a few ways, none simple….
Everyone with half a brain and a recent copy of the DSM (the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, used by shrinks everywhere) knew the diagnosis on Trump the instant he joined the race. Trump fits the clinical definition of a narcissistic personality so completely that it will be a shock if future psychiatrists don’t rename the disorder after him.
Grandiosity, a tendency to exaggerate achievements, a preoccupation with “fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty or ideal love,” a belief in one’s specialness (which can only be understood by other special people), a need for excessive admiration and a sense of entitlement – sound like anyone you know?
…. “As someone who’s studied Trump, as someone who’s met Trump, who’s interacted with him socially, I can say with absolute confidence that he suffers from severe personality disorders, perhaps a cluster of disorders,” says Ben Michaelis, a New York-based psychologist who has run into Trump over the years. “But to get a sense of outright psychotic behavior … There’s some possibility, but you really need to examine him in a clinical setting.”
This holdup – that merely being disordered isn’t enough to justify removal, particularly when so many people endorsed these characteristics with a vote – has been one logistical problem stopping the “unfitness” Hail Mary. Another has been the American Psychiatric Association’s so-called Goldwater Rule, an ethical dictum that discourages mental-health professionals from diagnosing public figures from afar.
John Gartner, a psychologist who trained residents at Johns Hopkins, has found a way around both problems. The Goldwater Rule he just ignores, because, he argues, the graveness of the Trump threat renders it quaint. Lots of his colleagues seem to agree, as Gartner has managed to gather more than 62,000 signatures from self-described mental-health professionals attesting that Trump “manifests a serious mental illness that renders him psychologically incapable of competently discharging the duties of president of the United States.”
Gartner’s argument is relatively simple. Add paranoia, sadism and antisocial behavior to narcissistic personality disorder and you have a new diagnosis: “malignant narcissism.” Trump, he says, is no paranoid schizophrenic who walks the streets claiming to be the Son of God – no one “so grossly ill” could be elected. However, the president’s increasing tendency to obsess over persecution theories – and not just parrot meaningless stupidities like the inaugural crowd story but seemingly believe them – shows that he’s crossing a meaningful diagnostic line into psychotic delusions, common among malignant narcissists.
“We’re not talking about a gross psychotic disorder,” Gartner says. “We’re talking about a way in which people with severe personality disorders can regress to what they call transient psychotic states.” He adds, “It’s a more subtle kind of psychosis, but it goes over the boundary into psychosis.”
The term malignant narcissist is said to have been invented by Holocaust survivor Erich Fromm, who used it to explain Hitler. It’s now become a catch-word on the Internet to describe Trump, and almost inevitably – in much the same way that language from the Steele dossier bled from the Internet to pop culture to the rhetoric of elected officials – it has begun to be circulated within the Democratic Party. California Rep. Jackie Speier actually used the term to describe Trump after Charlottesville, in an interview in which she also called him “unhinged” and “unfit.”
“Donald Trump’s Passion for Cruelty,” by Henry A. Giroux, Truthout; October 5, 2017
Excerpt: Donald Trump seems addicted to violence.
It shapes his language, politics and policies.
He revels in a public discourse that threatens, humiliates and bullies.
He has used language as a weapon to humiliate women, a reporter with a disability, Pope Francis and any political opponent who criticizes him. He has publicly humiliated members of his own cabinet and party, including Attorney General Jeff Sessions and a terminally ill John McCain, not to mention the insults and lies he perpetrated against former FBI Director James Comey after firing him.….
Violence for Trump became performative, used to draw attention to himself as the ultimate tough guy. He acted as a mafia figure willing to engage in violence as an act of vengeance and retribution aimed at those who refused to buy into his retrograde nationalism, regressive militarism and nihilistic sadism….
Trump’s disregard for human life is evident in a range of policies. They include withdrawing from the Paris Agreement on climate change, slashing jobs at the Environmental Protection Agency, gutting teen pregnancy prevention programs and ending funds to fight white supremacy and other hate groups….
What’s different about Trump is that he revels in the use of violence and war-mongering brutality to inflict humiliation and pain on people. He pulls the curtains away from a systemic culture of cruelty and a racially inflected mass- incarceration state. He publicly celebrates his own sadistic investment in violence as a source of pleasure.
“Donald Trump is not mentally capable to carry out the duties required of him as president of the United States”
“Donald Trump’s Mental Stability Continues To Decline,” by The Ring of Fire Network, TYT Network; October 2, 2017
Excerpt: There have been a lot of things going on recently with Donald Trump’s overall behavior. I think it’s time that we address some of those and talk again about Donald Trump’s continuing mental decline. First and foremost, one of the biggest ones of the last week or so is the fact that he picks a fight with the NFL, calls them sons of bitches while referring to White supremacists as some very fine people. Then he continues to double down and he triples down and he quadruples down on that all throughout the weekend as if he’s going to make it better by continuing to dig while he’s already in the hole. He is actively antagonizing a dictator in North Korea who may or may not have nuclear weapons and may or may not want to fire them at the United States.
He lied about Obama wiretapping him and, no, the Manafort wiretap did not fall into that category. He lies about everything on Twitter. He’s picking fights with celebrities. He’s picking fights with athletes. He’s picking fights with everybody. Reports say that his staff is almost leery to go near him because of his volatile attitude. They don’t know who’s going to show up that day. Is it fairly decent normal Donald Trump or is unhinged Donald Trump who’s throwing things at the TV? Reports have shown that staffers have said that, yeah, he’s throwing stuff at his TV because he’s so angry. All of this points to a very specific problem and that is that Donald Trump is not mentally capable to carry out the duties required of him as president of the United States….
We shouldn’t have to wait for a missile to hit in the United States before we invoke the 25th Amendment, before we get this madman out of office.
“Donald Trump’s Mental Stability Continues To Decline”– (4:16) published by The Ring of Fire, September 30, 2017
“We have someone in charge of the nuclear codes who is not in touch with reality. I can’t imagine anything more dangerous.” – Dr. John Gartner
“Baltimore psychologist heads effort to ‘warn’ about Trump’s mental health,” by John Fritze, Baltimore Sun; September 24, 2017
Excerpt: These days Gartner is gaining national attention for a cause of his own – and creating a stir in his field – by trying to convince voters that President Donald Trump has a mental illness, and should be removed from his job because of it.
From a small office he rents at Sheppard and Enoch Pratt Hospital, Gartner has emerged as a leader of a group of mental health professionals called Duty To Warn. The campaign began as an internet petition seeking to remove Trump under the 25th Amendment, which broadly lays out the procedure for booting a president who is “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.”
The Change.org petition, [*] launched in January and aimed at Trump’s cabinet, has garnered more than 62,000 signatures. But it has also drawn substantial criticism, and not just from Trump supporters. Both the American Psychiatric Association and the American Psychological Association advise members against assessing the mental health of individuals they haven’t personally examined.
[*] See: “A Public Manifesto” by Citizen Therapists Against Trumpism
And yet the campaign by Gartner and others appears to be expanding. Duty to Warn is planning to hold conferences in cities across the country on Oct. 14, many drawing established psychologists and psychiatrists. Gartner and others, meanwhile, have contributed to a book to be published next month: “The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump.” [*]
[*] See: “The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 27 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President”
Gartner – a Princeton graduate and former assistant professor at the Johns Hopkins medical school, specializes in borderline personality disorder and depression. He describes Trump as a “malignant narcissist,” a condition that includes paranoia, anti-social behavior, sadism and other traits along with narcissism.
Gartner points to the president’s insistence that President Barack Obama bugged his office, or that the crowds at his inauguration were historically large, as validating signs.
“Unless he doesn’t believe a word he’s saying, there’s evidence here of someone, really, who’s actually disconnected from reality,” said Gartner, 59. “We have someone in charge of the nuclear codes who is not in touch with reality. I can’t imagine anything more dangerous.”…..
The Goldwater rule doesn’t apply to Gartner, who is a psychologist. But the American Psychological Association takes a similar – if less ironclad – position.
“APA’s Code of Ethics counsels psychologists against diagnosing living individuals whom they have not personally assessed,” spokeswoman Kim I. Mills said. “Singling out mental illness is misguided and tends to further stigmatize mental health problems.”
Gartner dismisses the rule and similar guidelines as a product of professional associations concerned primarily with protecting members from lawsuits. It is preferable to meet with patients before assessing them, he agrees, but in cases where that’s not possible it shouldn’t be a requirement.
Much can be gleaned, he says, by observing years of public interactions.
“The only people who aren’t allowed to comment on Donald Trump’s mental health are the people who are most expert and qualified to do it,” Gartner said.
The phrase “duty to warn” has its antecedent in a similar ethical dilemma. It’s based on the name used for laws on the books in at least 28 states, including Maryland, that require mental health professionals to break patient confidentiality rules and report information about a patient if they believe that person may become violent.
Garter isn’t alone in his assessment of the Goldwater Rule.
“Why We Must Talk About Trump’s Mental Health | The Resistance with Keith Olbermann | GQ” (9:29) published by GQ on September 6, 2017
“Trump could be removed for political incompetence – using the 25th Amendment,” by Eric Posner, Washington Post; September 12, 2017
Excerpt: Certainly, the authors of the 25th Amendment had in mind presidents who suffered from illness while in office, such as Woodrow Wilson after his stroke. But they deliberately used broad language that goes beyond psychological or physical disability. The amendment refers to a president who is “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.” This language does not specifically refer to mental or physical factors as the source of the inability, and thus allows removal of a president whose incompetence results from other reasons – including a failure of temperament, ideology or ability.
The amendment explicitly authorizes Congress to create a “body” that, together with the vice president, is responsible for informing Congress that the president is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office. There is no requirement that medical professionals serve in that body. It may consist of whomever Congress chooses.
Congress should create such a council and staff it not with medical professionals (as proposed in a bill this spring by some Democrats in Congress), but with senior elected officials of both parties — the top Republican and Democratic elected officials in Congress, plus a few governors as well…..
But I mean incompetent in a political sense, not a mental sense. By politically incompetent, I mean incompetent to exercise the powers of the presidency in a way that meets the approval of the president’s party as well as the opposing party. This could be because the president’s values fall outside the mainstream (either they have changed while in office or he concealed them while running for office); he lacks the interest or attention span to inform himself about issues; or he lacks management abilities and is unable to govern effectively.
“Will Trump Be the Death of the Goldwater Rule?” by Jeannie Suk Gersen, The New Yorker; August 23, 2017
“Donald Trump and Why It’s Time to End the Goldwater Rule,” by Jeffrey Kluger, Time; July 26, 2017
“There’s a More Frightening Possibility than Trump is Just Nuts,” by Robert Reich, Alternet; July 3, 2017
“Trump’s Mental Death Spiral Continues as He Blames Obama for GOP Sabotage of the ACA,” by Sean Colarossi, PoliticusUSA; June 24, 2017
“Trump Accused of Dereliction of Duty as Russia Scandal Gets More Dire For Republicans,” by Sarah Jones, PoliticusUSA, June 29, 2017
“Trump’s Refusal to act on Russian Interference is a Dereliction of Duty” (2:01) June 30, 2017
“The narcissist who cried wolf,” by Propane Jane, Daily Kos; June 18, 2017
Excerpt: We teach our children not to lie, because the likelihood that they will not be believed when they’re actually being truthful increases exponentially with each lie they tell. We proclaim that honesty is a virtue and expect our elected officials to tell us “the whole truth and nothing but the truth” whenever they speak on the public record. We deem perjury a punishable crime even for unelected everyday citizens, because lying without compunction has generally come to be accepted as a betrayal of societal norms and the public trust.
But what happens when a man whose whole existence is predicated on habitually lying to himself and others becomes our president? What happens when for 71 years his entire sense of self-worth and emotional stability has been rooted in his imaginary competence, popularity, and perfection, even in the face of mounting objective evidence to the contrary? If the flagrant patronization and ego stroking on display at Donald Trump’s first cabinet meeting are any indication, the most likely occurrence will be his Republican enablers’ persistence in fertilizing the soil from which his grandiose delusions grow.
“Is Trump mentally fit to be president? Let’s consult the U.S. Army’s field manual on leadership,” by Prudence L. Gourguechon, LA Times; June 16, 2017
These publications are cited in the above article: “Field Manual 6-22 Leader Development,” by U.S. Army; June 2015 (188 pages); “Worrying About Reagan,” by Jane Mayer, The New Yorker; February 24, 2011
Excerpt: Since President Trump’s inauguration, an unusual amount of attention has been paid to the 25th Amendment to the Constitution. That’s the measure, ratified in 1967, that allows for removal of the president in the event that he is “unable to discharge the powers and duties” of the office. What does that mean, exactly? Lawyers surely have some ideas. But as a psychiatrist, I believe we need a rational, thorough and coherent definition of the mental capacities required to carry out “the powers and duties” of the presidency.
Although there are volumes devoted to outlining criteria for psychiatric disorders, there is surprisingly little psychiatric literature defining mental capacity, even less on the particular abilities required for serving in positions of great responsibility. Despite the thousands of articles and books written on leadership, primarily in the business arena, I have found only one source where the capacities necessary for strategic leadership are clearly and comprehensively laid out: the U.S. Army’s “Field Manual 6-22 Leader Development.”
The Army’s field manual on leadership is an extraordinarily sophisticated document, founded in sound psychological research and psychiatric theory, as well as military practice. It articulates the core faculties that officers, including commanders, need in order to fulfill their jobs….
The Army field manual amounts to a guide for the 25th Amendment. Whether a president’s Cabinet would ever actually invoke that amendment is another matter. There is, however, at least one historical precedent.
“25th Amendment: Is President Donald Trump Fit To Serve? | The Last Word | MSNBC” – (9:40) published by MSNBC on July 5, 2017
“Trump Invites His Employees to Praise Him during Cabinet Meeting,” by Igor Bobic, Huffington Post; June 12, 2017
Also see: “Donald Trump just held the weirdest Cabinet meeting ever,” by Chris Cilliza, CNN Politics; June 13, 2017
Related video: “President Trump’s first full cabinet meeting” – YouTube (11:11) published by CNN on June 12, 2017
ALSO SEE:
“To keep Donald happy, Trump’s staff has to ensure he’s always receiving praise and adulation,” by Hunter, Daily Kos; February 22, 2017
Excerpt: Politico has a story explaining how Donald Trump’s staffers are locked in a constant, daily battle to keep the barely coherent man-child from launching one of his famous incoherent tantrums. It’s pathetic. It’s deeply embarrassing. It’s the story of a team constantly attempting to feed praise of Donald Trump to friendly outlets so that they could turn around and show it back to their boss, a constant scramble to feed his unending need for public praise. Because if they didn’t do it he’d get sullen and cranky and lash out like a petulant little child.…
So whenever there were negative stories about Trump, which has been All The Damn Time, they’d go to outlets like “Breitbart, Washington Examiner, Fox News, Infowars and the Daily Caller” with alternative story ideas for how freakin’ swell Donald Trump was, and then once they got one of those friendly (Infowars!) outlets to take the bait, the staff would tweet those stories out, then print out, for Trump, that friendly coverage to make the idiot manchild feel like he was getting sufficient praise for his little pronouncements and wars and fits. That, and only that, would calm him….
So even Donald Trump’s own staff knows full well he’s an unstable narcissist who’s likely to go off on dangerous tangents at any given time unless he’s fed a constant diet of praise and shielded from criticism – and leaving him alone for even the span of a few hours can result in him going off yet again. [Emphasis added]
“Report: Donald Trump’s Handlers Planted Friendly News Stories to try and Prevent His Twitter Meltdowns,” by Jay Willis, GQ; February 22, 2017
Excerpt: Since the term has been mangled and misappropriated so often that it bears almost no resemblance to its original meaning, it’s important to note that the hastily-created friendly fodder, at least as described in the Politico report, wasn’t “fake news”- rather, these stories were put together for the purpose of placating Trump. This is smarmy and dishonest and undermines what little journalistic integrity those propagandist media outlets might still have, but they weren’t lies.
Nonetheless, as embarrassing as it is to learn that Trump’s team managed his temper by dangling strategically-tweeted baubles in front of him, this report’s more damning takeaway is that the president is – surprise – a remarkably uncritical thinker. Somehow, he never noticed or felt the need to question the fact that the “praise” his staffers shared with him always came from a suspiciously narrow set of sources – including, apparently, the staffers themselves! President Trump doesn’t care about who is praising him, or how many people are praising him. So long as someone tells him what he wants to hear, the pacifier goes in, and – if only for a moment – the screaming stops.
“How Trump’s campaign staffers tried to keep him off Twitter,” by Tara Palmari, POLITICO; February 22, 2017
“Staffers Plant Alternative Facts to Stop Trump From Tweeting,” by Jonathan Chait, New York Magazine; February 22, 2017
“President Donald Trump’s Staffers Work To Control His Twitter Habit | Morning Joe | MSNBC” – YouTube (5:33) published by MSNBC on February 23, 2017
“American Sociopath,” by Propane Jane, Daily Kos; June 4, 2017
Excerpt: [Trump] has become the social media equivalent of Christian Bale’s portrayal of Patrick Bateman in American Psycho, prowling the Twitter streets wielding his cellphone as a makeshift chainsaw. He inhabits the fantasy world of his own self-serving mind, in which nothing he does is wrong or unjustifiable, and his actions are rendered legitimate and lawful simply by virtue of the fact that he took them. He and his underlings spare no expense in defending the indefensible.
In this vein, Trump has much in common with the garden-variety sociopath, who as most seasoned prison wardens will tell you is “innocent” of every crime that led to his conviction….
While I lack the necessary diagnostic testing of his mind and body to comprehensively pinpoint Donald Trump’s multifaceted pathology in more formal terms, I also know a textbook sociopath when I see one.
“Yale Psychiatrist Says Donald Trump’s Mental Illnesses Can’t Be Ignored Anymore” – YouTube (3:47) published by The Ring of Fire on June 4; 2017
“President Donald Trump is a clear and present danger to the United States and the world.”
“Psychiatrist Bandy Lee: ‘We have an obligation to speak about Donald Trump’s mental health issues. Our survival as a species may be at stake,’” by Chauncey DeVega, Salon; May 25, 2017
Excerpt: President Donald Trump is a clear and present danger to the United States and the world.
He has reckless disregard for democracy and its foundational principles. Trump is also an authoritarian plutocrat who appears to be using the presidency as a means to enrich himself and closest allies as well as family members. Trump’s proposed 2018 federal budget is a shockingly cruel document that threatens to destroy America’s already threadbare social safety net in order to give the rich and powerful (even more) hefty tax cuts. His policies have undermined the international order and America’s place as the dominant global power. It would appear that he and his administration have been manipulated and perhaps (in the case of Michael Flynn) even infiltrated by Vladimir Putin’s spies and other agents. The world has become less safe as a result of Trump’s failures of leadership and cavalier disregard for existing alliances and treaties.
Donald Trump’s failures as president have been compounded by his unstable personality and behavior. It has been reported by staffers inside the Trump White House that he is prone to extreme mood swings, is cantankerous and unpredictable, flies into blind rages when he does not get his way, is highly suggestible and readily manipulated, becomes bored easily and fails to complete tasks, is confused by basic policy matters and is unhappy and lonely. And despite bragging about his “strength” and “vitality” during the 2016 presidential campaign, Trump appears to tire easily and easily succumbs to “exhaustion.” Trump is apparently all id and possesses little if any impulse control. He is a chronic liar who ignores basic facts and empirical reality in favor of his own fantasies.
“Should Psychiatrists Speak Out Against Trump?” by Jane Mayer, The New Yorker; May 22, 2017
“How Trump Could Get Fired,” by Evan Osnos, The New Yorker; May 8, 2017
“For purposes of saving the republic, all we need to know is that our president is delusional, dangerous and incurable. He’s a 70-year-old con man who relishes violence, abuse of power and deception. He will never, ever change.”
“Duty to warn: Shrinks can’t say that Donald Trump suffers from a mental disorder – but we can,” by Anna Lind-Guzik, Salon; May 7, 2017
Excerpt: President Donald Trump has a personality disorder that we’re not supposed to talk about, and that makes me furious. The Goldwater rule, an ethical norm from the 1960s that forbids psychiatrists and psychologists from diagnosing public figures they haven’t been able to evaluate in person, has gagged the most knowledgeable among us from speaking freely. A man with no impulse control and no chance of improvement is shooting his missiles all over, not to mention targeting vulnerable populations at home. The world is in a panic while the doctors worry that he’ll sue.
Beyond compounding the crisis of public ignorance, the moratorium is a reflection of the way professional norms are all too often wielded to protect predators and silence women. The media’s dispiriting willingness to roll over and let old white men dictate the boundaries of legitimate conversation and expertise has to end.
Trump benefits immeasurably from the Goldwater rule, which was put in place because Sen. Barry Goldwater, the 1964 Republican presidential nominee, sued a magazine called Fact, which solicited diagnoses of him during the election campaign. Trump normally has to buy his victims’ silence himself, but this gift came for free. Since he will never allow an independent evaluation of his competence, the American Psychiatric Association and its members have kept quiet.
But why insist on a diagnosis? If labeling him is the main obstacle to talking about Trump’s disorder, let’s ditch it. When I asked my psychiatrist about the issue, he admitted that diagnosing personality disorders is “squishy” at best. Mental illness often blurs the lines between nature and nurture, and diagnosis is both an art and a science……
Our inability to diagnose has led to de facto censorship on the subject. For purposes of saving the republic, all we need to know is that our president is delusional, dangerous and incurable. He’s a 70-year-old con man who relishes violence, abuse of power and deception. He will never, ever change.
“You don’t have to be an expert on dangerousness or spend fifty years studying it like I have in order to know how dangerous this man is.”
“Mental Health Professionals call for Trump to be removed from office,” by Jacquie Slater, WTNH Connecticut News; April 22, 2017
Excerpt: The push by mental health professionals to have President Donald Trump removed from office on the grounds he is mentally unfit to serve came to New Haven on Thursday.
About two dozen people convened at a town hall style meeting held at Yale’s School Of Medicine.
“I’ve worked with some of the most dangerous people our society produces, directing mental health programs in prisons. I’ve worked with murderers and rapists. I can recognize dangerousness from a mile away,” said James Gilligan, a psychiatrist and professor at New York University. “You don’t have to be an expert on dangerousness or spend fifty years studying it like I have in order to know how dangerous this man is.”….
One of the arguments against the health professionals’ movement is that these individuals have not sat down with Trump one on one.
“This notion that you need to personally interview someone to form a diagnosis actually doesn’t make a whole lotta sense. For one thing, research shows that the psychiatric interview is the least statistical reliable way to make a diagnosis,” said Dr. Gartner.
“Worse than just being a liar or a narcissist, in addition he is paranoid, delusional and [has] grandiose thinking and he proved that to the country the first day he was President”
“Group of Mental Health Professionals Warn Trump’s State ‘Putting Country in Danger’,” by Andrea Germanos, Common Dreams; April 21, 2017
Excerpt: A group of mental health professionals gathered at Yale University Thursday to discuss what they believe is their duty to warn the public of the “danger” posed by President Donald Trump.
The “Duty to Warn” event was attended by roughly two dozen people and was organized Dr. Bandy Lee, assistant clinical professor in the Yale Department of Psychiatry, the CTPost writes. Lee called the mental health of the president “the elephant in the room,” and said: “Colleagues are concerned about the repercussions of speaking.”….
“We do believe that Donald Trump’s mental illness is putting the entire country, and indeed the entire world, in danger,” argued Dr. John Gartner, a psychologist who used to teach at Johns Hopkins University, local WTNH writes. “As health professionals we have an ethical duty to warn the public about that danger,” he said.
“Worse than just being a liar or a narcissist, in addition he is paranoid, delusional and [has] grandiose thinking and he proved that to the country the first day he was President. If Donald Trump really believes he had the largest crowd size in history, that’s delusional,” Gartner added.
Gartner founded Duty to Warn and also started a Change.org petition which states that “Trump manifests a serious mental illness that renders him psychologically incapable of competently discharging the duties of President of the United States” and should therefore be removed from office. As of this writing, the petition has gathered over 42,000 signatures.
In a letter to the editors of the New York Times earlier this year, a separate group of over 30 mental health professionals also warned of Trump’s “grave emotional instability” and said of the Goldwater Rule: “this silence has resulted in a failure to lend our expertise to worried journalists and members of Congress at this critical time. We fear that too much is at stake to be silent any longer.”
“Mr. Trump’s speech and actions demonstrate an inability to tolerate views different from his own, leading to rage reactions. His words and behavior suggest a profound inability to empathize. Individuals with these traits distort reality to suit their psychological state, attacking facts and those who convey them (journalists, scientists),” they wrote.
“Donald Trump has ‘dangerous mental illness’, say psychiatry experts at Yale conference,” by May Bulman, The Independent; April 21, 2017
Excerpt: Donald Trump has a “dangerous mental illness” and is not fit to lead the US, a group of psychiatrists has warned during a conference at Yale University.
Mental health experts claimed the President was “paranoid and delusional”, and said it was their “ethical responsibility” to warn the American public about the “dangers” Mr. Trump’s psychological state poses to the country…..
The doctors have said that even if it is in breach of tradition ethical standards of psychiatry, it was necessary to break their silence on the matter because they feared “too much is at stake”.
It is not the first time Mr. Trump’s mental health has been called into question. In February, Duty to Warn, which consists of psychiatrists, psychologists and social workers, signed an open letter warning that his mental state “makes him incapable of serving safely as president”.
The letter warned that the President’s tendency to “distort reality” to fit his “personal myth of greatness” and attack those who challenge him with facts was likely to increase in a position of power.
“Psychotocracy in a Post-Truth World,” by Joseph Natoli, CounterPunch; April 14, 2017
Excerpt: Fear that he is fast creating an autocracy is allayed I think by the fractured, fractious nature of his regime, which means that it is already a failed rather an efficient regime that can really do damage, or great damage. If he does succeed in drawing to him a functional group of loyal apparatchiks that execute his will, manage to de-fang opposition from legislative and judicial branches, and counterbalance resistance with the alternative truths of a deranged authoritarian personality (as defined by Adorno), what results would be a psychotocracy.
Minus all that, what we have for this president’s term is a residency by one man whose illusions regarding self and world are such that he cannot rise to any level of integral accomplishment, least of all that of the successful authoritarian personality. He may be caught with his hand in the cookie jar; and Bannon’s well-laid plans to “deconstruct the administrative State” may lead to a “You’re fired!” decision from President Trump, whose only plan I would bet is to get the cookies and the jar, endless worshipful applause, and his hairdo on Mt. Rushmore.
“Trump’s Mental Health: Is Pathological Narcissism the Key to Trump’s Behavior?” by Alex Morris, Rolling Stone; April 5, 2017
“What is most worrisome about Trump is Trump himself. He is a man so unpredictable, so reckless, so petulant, so full of blind self-regard, so untethered to reality that it is impossible to know where his presidency will lead or how much damage he will do to our nation.”
“Our Dishonest President,” by the Editorial Board, Los Angeles Times; April 2, 2017 [Note: this editorial was the first in a series; see below]
Excerpt: In a matter of weeks, President Trump has taken dozens of real-life steps that, if they are not reversed, will rip families apart, foul rivers and pollute the air, intensify the calamitous effects of climate change and profoundly weaken the system of American public education for all.
His attempt to de-insure millions of people who had finally received healthcare coverage and, along the way, enact a massive transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich has been put on hold for the moment. But he is proceeding with his efforts to defang the government’s regulatory agencies and bloat the Pentagon’s budget even as he supposedly retreats from the global stage.
These are immensely dangerous developments which threaten to weaken this country’s moral standing in the world, imperil the planet and reverse years of slow but steady gains by marginalized or impoverished Americans. But, chilling as they are, these radically wrongheaded policy choices are not, in fact, the most frightening aspect of the Trump presidency.
What is most worrisome about Trump is Trump himself. He is a man so unpredictable, so reckless, so petulant, so full of blind self-regard, so untethered to reality that it is impossible to know where his presidency will lead or how much damage he will do to our nation. His obsession with his own fame, wealth and success, his determination to vanquish enemies real and imagined, his craving for adulation – these traits were, of course, at the very heart of his scorched-earth outsider campaign; indeed, some of them helped get him elected. But in a real presidency in which he wields unimaginable power, they are nothing short of disastrous. [Emphasis added]
“Why Trump Lies,” by the Editorial Board, Los Angeles Times; April 3, 2017
Excerpt: He is dangerous. His choice of falsehoods and his method of spewing them – often in tweets, as if he spent his days and nights glued to his bedside radio and was periodically set off by some drivel uttered by a talk show host who repeated something he’d read on some fringe blog – are a clue to Trump’s thought processes and perhaps his lack of agency. He gives every indication that he is as much the gullible tool of liars as he is the liar in chief.
“Trump’s Authoritarian Vision,” by the Editorial Board, Los Angeles Times; April 4, 2017
“Trump’s War on Journalism,” by the Editorial Board, Los Angeles Times; April 5, 2017
“Conspiracy Theorist in Chief,” by the Editorial Board, Los Angeles Times; April 6, 2017
“Donald Trump Shocking Mental Health Treatment Needed” – YouTube (8:49) published by Salman khan on March 27, 2017
“The Soul-Sucking, Attention-Eating Black Hole of the Trump Presidency,” by David Rothkopf, Foreign Policy; March 24, 2017
Excerpt: It is not just that Donald Trump is an egomaniac. Most presidents have a pathological need for approval and attention. It’s why they suffer the slings and arrows that come with seeking the country’s top office … Trump is a Transcendental Solipsist. It is not just that he has a strong sense of self. His view of the universe does not extend a single inch beyond the boundaries of his own interests. That is why normative concepts like truth or commonly held values or the national interest are completely alien to him. There is Trump world, and then there is oblivion … This is Transcendental Solipsism. It’s all about us being all about him being all about himself.
“People with these personality disorders are usually considered untreatable by psychiatry. They tend to think they are above the law, and to be out of touch with reality.”
“Trump vs the People: a Psychiatrist’s Analysis,” by Carol Wolman, MD, CounterPunch; March 24, 2017
Excerpt: There is a “Goldwater” rule in the therapeutic community that one should not try to diagnose politicians. This was broken in January 2017 with an article reportedly backed by almost 60,000 psychologists, announcing that Trump suffers from “malignant narcissism” (egotism, selfishness), and is a danger to the American people. The authors felt that “Goldwater” was overridden by a duty to warn, under the Tarasoff rule, which sets aside confidentiality if the person presents a threat to others … We have let a megalomaniacal predator, a man who has appointed a Cabinet full of predators, take over our government. We are watching the Trump administration take a wrecking ball to everything we hold dear: the rule of law, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, the health of our environment, our national parks, the US leadership among nations, tolerance of people who are different from us, and worst of all, the future of our children and grandchildren … Psychiatrically, Trump fits into several categories under the general heading of Personality Disorders … In other words, Antisocial Personality Disorder applies to criminals, con artists, and people without scruples … Surely, Trump has repeatedly demonstrated that he doesn’t know the difference between truth and lies, right and wrong, and doesn’t care, which makes him criminally insane … He also fits into the category of Histrionic Personality Disorder … People with these personality disorders are usually considered untreatable by psychiatry. They tend to think they are above the law, and to be out of touch with reality … Another Personality Disorder is emerging now … Paranoid Personality Disorder … Trump plays to the egotism and paranoia of a large segment of Americans, by appealing to racism, sexism, xenophobia and patriotism- the classic strategy of fascist leaders. [Emphasis added]
“What Trump’s ‘Time’ Interview Shows about his Thinking,” by Michael D. Shear, New York Times; March 23, 2017 *
Excerpt: If there’s one thing that Mr. Trump hates, it is being laughed at. That is clear from this response in the Time magazine interview, when the president dismissed the critics who found humor in his pursuit of the White House.
It is also worth remembering how flustered and angry Mr. Trump appeared to be when President Barack Obama made fun of him – and made a roomful of people laugh – during the 2011 White House correspondent’s dinner. Mr. Trump has said he will not attend this year’s dinner.
No matter if the facts currently contradict him, Mr. Trump appears to have convinced himself that he will be proved correct – always – in the future….
Central to Mr. Trump’s self-image is his belief that he is smarter than the people around him. Throughout his campaign, he often bragged that he knew better than the doubters, who he predicted eventually would be proven wrong.
[*] See: “Donald Trump: TIME Interview on Truth and Falsehoods,” by Time Staff, Time; March 23, 2017; also see: “Trump Truth: The President with False Claims Faces Reality,” by Mike Scherer, Time; March 23, 2017
Also see: “How Many Lies Can Donald Trump Defend in One Interview?” by Inae Oh, Mother Jones; March 23, 2017
Also see: “Dear America, Donald Trump is completely insane,” by Mark Sumner, Daily Kos; March 23, 2017
“The Management of Unleashed Insanity,” by Todd Gitlin, Common Dreams; March 17, 2017
Excerpt: Richard Nixon lied about wars and cover-ups, but otherwise his evasions and spins were in the mainstream of American political discourse. He was not in the regular practice of calling black white. By the end of his second term, Ronald Reagan was so mentally impaired as to make it unclear what he knew and when.
But the present situation, a regime that systematically assaults truth, is unprecedented.
“3 terrifying possible reasons for Trump’s rant about Obama,” by Robert Reich, San Francisco Chronicle; March 7, 2017
Excerpt: On Saturday last weekend, Donald Trump alleged in a series of tweets that former President Barack Obama orchestrated a “Nixon/Watergate” plot to tap Trump’s phones at his Trump Tower headquarters last fall in the run-up to the election. Trump concluded that the former president is a “Bad (or sick) guy!”
Last Sunday morning, Trump’s White House called for a congressional investigation.
Trump cited no evidence for his accusation.
Folks, we’ve got a huge problem on our hands. Either:
Trump is more nuts than we suspected — a true delusional paranoid. Trump’s outburst was seemingly triggered by commentary March 3 in the alt-right publication Breitbart News, which reported an assertion made the night before by right-wing talk-radio host Mark Levin suggesting that Obama and his administration used “police state” tactics last fall to monitor the Trump team’s dealings with Russian operatives.
If this was the case, we’ve got a president willing to put the prestige and power of his office behind baseless claims emanating from well-known right-wing purveyors of lies. Which means Trump shouldn’t be anywhere near the nuclear codes that could obliterate the planet, or near anything else that could determine the fate of America or the world…..
Whatever the reason for Trump’s rant, America is in deep trouble. We have a president who is either a dangerous paranoid who’s making judgments based on right-wing crackpots, or has in all likelihood committed treason, or is willing to sacrifice public trust in our basic institutions to further his selfish goals.
Also see: “Is Trump a Traitor or a Paranoid?” by Robert Reich, Newsweek; March 7, 2017
“Avoiding questions about Trump’s mental health is a betrayal of public trust,” by Lee Siegel, Columbia Journalism Review; February 22, 2017
Excerpt: As cavalier as this may sound, mental illness does not need to be professionally diagnosed. We don’t need to be told by a doctor that the guy who is coughing and sneezing at the other end of the train car is probably sick, though we don’t know if it is a cold, the flu, bronchitis, pneumonia, or an allergy. All we know is that the safe thing to do is to stay away from him. When someone is compulsively lying, continuously contradicting himself, imploring the approval of people even as he is attacking them, exalting people one day and abusing and vilifying them the next, then the question of his mental state is moot. The safe thing to do is not just to stay away from him, but to keep him away from situations where he can do harm.
Also see: “Trump’s mental health: ‘The elephant in the room,’” The Last Word, MSNBC; February 23, 2017 (Video 7:04)
“‘Duty to warn’ on MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell Show” – (6:29) published by johngartner2010 on February 22, 2017
“So even Donald Trump’s own staff knows full well he’s an unstable narcissist who’s likely to go off on dangerous tangents at any given time unless he’s fed a constant diet of praise and shielded from criticism – and leaving him alone for even the span of a few hours can result in him going off yet again.”
“To keep Donald happy, Trump’s staff has to ensure he’s always receiving praise and adulation,” by Hunter, Daily Kos; February 22, 2017
Excerpt: Politico has a story explaining how Donald Trump’s staffers are locked in a constant, daily battle to keep the barely coherent man-child from launching one of his famous incoherent tantrums. It’s pathetic. It’s deeply embarrassing. It’s the story of a team constantly attempting to feed praise of Donald Trump to friendly outlets so that they could turn around and show it back to their boss, a constant scramble to feed his unending need for public praise. Because if they didn’t do it he’d get sullen and cranky and lash out like a petulant little child…
So whenever there were negative stories about Trump, which has been All The Damn Time, they’d go to outlets like “Breitbart, Washington Examiner, Fox News, Infowars and the Daily Caller” with alternative story ideas for how freakin’ swell Donald Trump was, and then once they got one of those friendly (Infowars!) outlets to take the bait, the staff would tweet those stories out, then print out, for Trump, that friendly coverage to make the idiot manchild feel like he was getting sufficient praise for his little pronouncements and wars and fits. That, and only that, would calm him.
The whole thing reads like Trump’s staff treats him like a dangerous zoo animal let loose in the White House. Gotta keep him happy. Gotta rub his belly when he says to. Don’t let anyone rattle the bars of his little cage or we’re all dead. And never, never leave him alone…
All right, great. Fantastic. So even Donald Trump’s own staff knows full well he’s an unstable narcissist who’s likely to go off on dangerous tangents at any given time unless he’s fed a constant diet of praise and shielded from criticism—and leaving him alone for even the span of a few hours can result in him going off yet again.
Donald Trump doesn’t need a staff. He needs keepers. Good god—has a less capable or less competent man ever risen to the office? William Henry Harrison died 31 days into his term, and his mouldering corpse still was better suited to the office than this ever-tantruming little man-baby.
“How Trump’s campaign staffers tried to keep him off Twitter,” by Tara Palmari, POLITICO; February 22, 2017
Excerpt: The key to keeping Trump’s Twitter habit under control, according to six former campaign officials, is to ensure that his personal media consumption includes a steady stream of praise. And when no such praise was to be found, staff would turn to friendly outlets to drum some up – and make sure it made its way to Trump’s desk.
“Staffers Plant Alternative Facts to Stop Trump From Tweeting,” by Jonathan Chait, New York Magazine; February 22, 2017
Excerpt: One Trump associate said it’s important to show Trump deference and offer him praise and respect, as that will lead him to more often listen. And If Trump becomes obsessed with a grudge, aides need to try and change the subject, friends say.
“What Trump has actually done, of course, is demonstrate his manifest unsuitability for the job he now holds.”
“Donald Trump’s Alternative-Reality Press Conference,” by John Cassidy, The New Yorker; February 17, 2017
Excerpt: It was “insane,” a “marathon rant” at the media, and “a press conference for the ages.” Before you accuse me of liberal bias, these were the terms that Fox Business Network’s Charles Gasparino, the home page of the New York Post, and Fox News’s Shepard Smith used, respectively, to describe the performance that Donald Trump put on during a lengthy press conference in the East Room of the White House on Thursday….
“I’m here today to update the American people on the incredible progress that has been made in the last four weeks since my Inauguration . . . I don’t think there’s ever been a President elected who in this short period of time has done what we’ve done.”
What Trump has actually done, of course, is demonstrate his manifest unsuitability for the job he now holds. He has also signed a bunch of papers, most of which have had little immediate effect, and one of which – his anti-Muslim travel ban – plunged America’s airports into chaos before being put on hold by a federal judge. For the past week, his Administration has been consumed by damaging stories about his ties to Russia, and his firing of his national-security adviser, Michael Flynn … Trump has achieved virtually nothing, except scaring the bejeezus out of the world … In his mind, of course, things are very different…
Also see:
“30 of Trump’s Attacks on the media from His Unhinged Press Conference,” by Media Matters Staff; February 16, 2017
“‘It was Festivus’: CNN’s Jake Tapper tears into Trump’s ‘wild’ and ‘unhinged’ press conference,” by Elizabeth Preza; Raw Story; February 16, 2017
“18 WTF Moments from Trump’s Unhinged Press Conference,” by Tessa Stuart, Rolling Stone; February 16, 2017
“Trump, in Rambling Defense, Calls Administration a ‘Fine-Tuned Machine’,” by Peter Baker, New York Times; February 16, 2017
“Trump’s incoherent rambling on Russia and ‘Nuclear’ Feb. 16, 2017” – YouTube (1:34) published by Seven Generations
“We had Hillary Clinton try and do a reset. We had Hillary Clinton give Russia 20 percent of the uranium in our country. You know what uranium is, right? This thing called nuclear weapons like lots of things are done with uranium including some bad things. Nobody talks about that. I didn’t do anything for Russia. I’ve done nothing for Russia. Hillary Clinton gave them 20 percent of our uranium. Hillary Clinton did a reset, remember? With the stupid plastic button that made us all look like a bunch of jerks. Here, take a look. He looked at her like, what the hell is she doing with that cheap plastic button? Hillary Clinton – that was the reset, remember it said reset? Now if I do that, oh, I’m a bad guy. If we could get along with Russia, that’s a positive thing. We have a very talented man, Rex Tillerson, who’s going to be meeting with them shortly and I told him. I said ‘I know politically it’s probably not good for me.’ The greatest thing I could do is shoot that ship that’s 30 miles off shore right out of the water. Everyone in this country’s going to say ‘oh, it’s so great.’ That’s not great. That’s not great. I would love to be able to get along with Russia.” –Trump, February 16, 2017
“Rep. Ted Lieu to Introduce Bill Requiring a Psychiatrist in White House” – YouTube (2:26) published by Democracy Now on February 15, 2017
“Admit it: Trump is unfit to serve,” by E.J. Dionne Jr., Washington Post; February 15, 2017
Excerpt: Let’s not mumble or whisper about the central issue facing our country: What is this democratic nation to do when the man serving as president of the United States plainly has no business being president of the United States?
“A Neuroscientist Explains why Donald Trump Needs LSD,” by Bobby Azarian, Alternet; February 15, 2017
Excerpt: It’s no secret that Donald Trump is an egomaniac. That’s pretty much a bipartisan belief. He’s been called a narcissist by more psychologists than you can shake a stick at. He’s obsessed with his TV ratings and crowd sizes, to the point where he will lie to others and possibly even himself about them. In Trump’s world, everything has to be “the biggest” or “the greatest.” If you criticize or poke fun at him, be prepared to feel his Twitter wrath and expect a barrage of vindictive personal attacks. But if you stroke his ego, he’ll praise you, even if you are a murdering dictator with dubious intentions.
Since it distorts his reality, clouds his judgment, and gets in the way of his work as President, Donald Trump’s biggest enemy is his ego.
“Donald Trump and the Definition of Insanity,” by Shane Snow; February 15, 2017
Excerpt: Malignant Narcissism, according to John D. Gartner, one of the country’s top psychologists, is basically a combination of three mental illnesses - Anti-social Personality Disorder, Paranoid Personality Disorder, and Narcissistic Personality Disorder - plus sadism, or the enjoyment of inflicting pain…..
Gartner, who taught personality disorders at Johns Hopkins University for 28 years and explained Bill Clinton’s mental issues in the book In Search of Bill Clinton: A Psychological Biography, says Trump’s illness might be called “Dictator Personality Disorder.” Malignant Narcissism often coincides with mild mania - the ability to consistently stay up all night obsessing on a project - which helps sufferers achieve high career status despite their cruel tendencies. Trump exhibits this, too.
“I’ve been a specialist in personality disorders for 35 years,” Gartner says. “Trump is the most severe case I’ve seen in my career.” [Emphasis added]
“Trump is a threat to national security,” by Jennifer Rubin, Washington Post; February 14, 2017
Excerpt: If he does not drastically and immediately alter his conduct and approach to the job, lighthearted banter about impeachment or activation of the 25th Amendment will become markedly more serious. What does one do with a president who either by intention or utter incompetence puts the United States and its institutions at risk practically every single day?
“To have such an unstable figure, incapable of accepting reality, at the center of the world, is an extremely dangerous thing.”
“Mental health professionals warn Trump is incapable of being president,” by Katie Forster, The Independent; February 14, 2017
Excerpt: A growing number of mental health professionals and Senators of both parties have expressed concern over Mr. Trump’s psychological state.
Conservative commentator Andrew Sullivan said the media should be seriously discussing the President’s mental health.
“To have such an unstable figure, incapable of accepting reality, at the center of the world, is an extremely dangerous thing,” he told CNN.
“I know we’re not supposed to bring this up – but it is staring us brutally in the face.”
“Mental Health Professionals Warn About Trump,” by Dr. Lance Dodes & Dr. Joseph Schachter, New York Times; February 13, 2017
Excerpt: Charles M. Blow (column, nytimes.com, Feb. 9) describes Donald Trump’s constant need “to grind the opposition underfoot.” As mental health professionals, we share Mr. Blow’s concern.
Silence from the country’s mental health organizations has been due to a self-imposed dictum about evaluating public figures (the American Psychiatric Association’s 1973 Goldwater Rule). But this silence has resulted in a failure to lend our expertise to worried journalists and members of Congress at this critical time. We fear that too much is at stake to be silent any longer.
“I’ve concluded he is a danger to the republic”
“Congressman to file Bill Requiring a Psychiatrist at the White House,” by Jennifer Bendery, Huffington Post; February 8, 2017
Excerpt: A Democratic congressman is introducing legislation as soon as next week that would require a psychiatrist at the White House, something he says is overdue but also urgent given his and other people’s concerns about President Donald Trump’s mental health.
Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) said Tuesday that the president, any president, should have access to a mental health professional given the pressures of the job. Congress passed a law in 1928 requiring a physician at the White House, but stopped short of requiring a psychiatrist because of the stigma associated with mental illness.
“I’m looking at it from the perspective of, if there are questions about the mental health of the president of the United States, what may be the best way to get the president treatment?” Lieu said in an interview with The Huffington Post. “We’re now in the 21st century. Mental health is just as important as physical health.”
But he isn’t just thinking about future presidents. Lieu said he’s been increasingly alarmed by Trump’s erratic behavior and penchant for lying about things, big and small, that are easy to disprove.
“It is not normal for the president of the United States, within 24 hours, to write about death and destruction and fake news and evil,” he said. “The most troubling aspect of this is it is very clear he has a disconnection from the truth. … The very first press conference he had in this administration, they could have talked about jobs or health care. They talked about crowd size. And then lied about it. It’s one of the most bizarre events I’ve witnessed in politics.”….
Lieu said he’s not a doctor, but many people like him are worried about the president’s pattern of behavior.
“His disconnection from the truth is incredibly disturbing,” he said. “When you add on top of that his stifling of dissent, his attacks on the free press and his attacks on the legitimacy of judiciary, that then takes us down the road toward authoritarianism. That’s why I’ve concluded he is a danger to the republic.”
Also see: “California rep says Trump is ‘danger to the Republic’ and White House needs a resident psychiatrist,” by Meteor Blades, Daily Kos; February 8, 2017
“We have a President who only believes something is true if it praises him. Everything else is fake news to him. Psychologists know what that is: It’s a dangerous, pathological detachment from reality.”
“President Trump exhibits classic signs of mental illness: shrinks,” by Gersh Kuntzman, N.Y. Daily News; January 29, 2017
Excerpt: The time has come to say it: there is something psychologically wrong with the President.
The fuzzy outlines of President Trump’s likely mental illness came into sharper focus this week: in two interviews with major networks, he revealed paranoia and delusion; he quadruple-downed on his fabrication that millions of people voted illegally, which demonstrated he is disconnected from reality itself; his petulant trade war with Mexico reveals that he values self-image even over national interest; his fixation with inaugural crowd size reveals a childish need for attention.
Partisans have been warning about Trump’s craziness for months, but rhetoric from political opponents is easily dismissed; it’s the water of the very swamp the President says he wants to drain.
But frightened by the President’s hubris, narcissism, defensiveness, belief in untrue things, conspiratorial reflexiveness and attacks on opponents, mental health professionals are finally speaking out. The goal is not merely to define the Madness of King Donald, but to warn the public where it will inevitably lead.
“Narcissism impairs his ability to see reality,” said Dr. Julie Futrell, a clinical psychologist, who, of course, added a standard disclaimer because she has never actually treated Trump. “So you can’t use logic to persuade someone like that. Three million women marching? Doesn’t move him. Advisers point out that a policy choice didn’t work? He won’t care. The maintenance of self-identity is the organizing principle of life for those who fall toward the pathological end of the narcissistic spectrum.”…. [Emphasis added]
So boil it all down: We have a President who only believes something is true if it praises him. Everything else is fake news to him. Psychologists know what that is: It’s a dangerous, pathological detachment from reality.
“That portion of the interview showed me that Trump lacks proper reality testing,” said Jean Fitzpatrick, a relationship therapist practicing in midtown Manhattan.
She and others said this particular mental deficiency is why Trump surrounds himself with people who won’t smash the narcissistic mirror, lest the Dear Leader become enraged (which we’ve already seen in Trump’s jeremiads against journalists).
“Living with a person with narcissistic or sociopathic traits is exhausting because they are all about meeting their needs and getting constant strokes,” Fitzpatrick said…
Let me be clear: This is not an attack on Trump’s policies. You want to build a wall and charge Mexico for it? Sure, whatever…..
So I’m not quibbling with Trump’s proposals. I’m concerned with the man’s clear mental illness. And there’s a lot more at stake than just who pays for the wall.
Another shrink to whom I spoke – who declined to be identified – said Trump was indeed mentally ill, and that his anger is a classic “repetition compulsion” that is similar to that of an alcoholic.
“It’s a reaction to some anxiety from childhood,” said the doctor, predictably going back to Freud’s root of all evil. “An alcoholic initially drinks to relax, but it destroys him in the end. With Trump, he’s a disturbed person who protects himself by building up his ego and tearing down others.”
And it’s very difficult to treat that, Futrell added.
“A narcissist’s defenses function to protect the person from the knowledge of what lies beneath, and as such, must not be challenged lest the walls come crumbling down,” she said. “It is important to understand that the need to maintain the self-image is so great … the severe narcissist bends reality to fulfill whatever fantasy about power, wealth, beauty, etc. s/he maintains.”…..
Trump’s psychological damage will, in short, create “the illusion that real Americans can only become winners if others become losers,” which “normalizes what therapists work against: the tendency to blame others in our lives for our personal fears and insecurities … instead of taking the healthier but more difficult path of self-awareness and self-responsibility. It also normalizes a kind of hyper-masculinity. … Simply stated, Trumpism is inconsistent with emotionally healthy living — and we have to say so publicly.”
“Donald Trump is mentally ill and a clear and present danger to America and the rest of the world”
“The Opinion of Leading Psychologists Is That Trump Is Mentally Deranged,” by RMuse, PoliticusUSA; January 28, 2017
Excerpt: There have been many top America psychologists who have implied that they think Trump is mentally unstable and “unfit” to be president, but now there are many honest-to-dog psychological experts from different leading institutions who diagnosed Trump as a “textbook narcissist.” Trump is not the run-of-the-mill narcissist with an over-abundance of confidence, thinks they’re irresistible to the opposite sex, and possesses the drive to achieve something remarkable. No, he is one sick twisted malcontent and a clear and present danger to any and everyone within his sphere of influence. And now that he gets to live in the White House, that sphere includes the entire world and it is why world leaders, except Russia’s Vladimir Putin and Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu, are growing very nervous about what that crazy “American psycho” is going to do next to threaten the world.
One top psychologist, Harvard professor and renowned research scientist Howard Gardner said that Trump is “a textbook narcissist.” Professor Gardner’s diagnosis is in complete agreement with many other noted clinical psychologists, including George Simon who told Vanity Fair that, “He’s so classic that I’m archiving video clips of him to use in workshops.” According to the nation’s leading psychological experts, and in agreement with this column, Trump’s narcissistic mental state puts him in the exact same category as a number of infamous tyrannical dictators like Muammar Gaddafi, Adolf Hitler, and Saddam Hussein just to name a few.
Trump suffers a plethora of pathologies and mental defects, but none more terrifying for America’s and the world’s fate than his severe “narcissistic personality disorder.” According to the Mayo Clinic, narcissistic personality disorder is “a mental disorder in which people have an inflated sense of their own importance, a deep need for admiration and a lack of empathy for others.” If that definition needed a single image to accompany and sum up the text, it would be a picture of Donald Trump…..
Trump’s severe mental dysfunction and disorder affects the nation and his acolytes’ attitudes towards other Americans, and it is straining relationships with the rest of the world, including America’s allies. And because Trump has no ability or desire to be diplomatic or compromise on anything, it is crystal clear he is incapable of ever being “an effective and responsible national or world leader.” It is precisely why a growing chorus of real psychological experts’ diagnosis is that Donald Trump is mentally ill and a clear and present danger to America and the rest of the world; an “opinion” this column has proffered for months.
“It is time to say it: Trump is Mentally Ill,” by Jeff Jarvis, Medium; January 28, 2017
Excerpt: I was about to write that for the good of the nation and the world it is high time that someone in psychiatry or psychology break the Goldwater Rule and diagnose Donald Trump’s mental illness - not to feed jokes but to grapple with a profoundly serious and dangerous situation. Now someone has.
Dr. John D. Gartner is a psychologist and part-time professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins. He diagnosed Trump with malignant narcissism…..
I have long feared that Donald Trump is unfit for office and I believe he is proving that fear to be correct after only one week in office. Certainly there are many Americans who agree with me. But that is insufficient cause to take official action. We need to inform Congress and the courts - on whom we now depend - so they may act as a check on his power and fitness. Whether he is corrupted or compromised or mentally ill - or all three - journalists with help from experts and doctors must bring evidence to the people and their representatives.
“Johns Hopkins’ Top Psychotherapist Releases Terrifying Diagnosis of President Trump,” by Olive Murphy, Bipartisan Report; January 27, 2017
Excerpt: Gartner, who is also the author of In Search of Bill Clinton: A Psychological Biography, says “Donald Trump is dangerously mentally ill and temperamentally incapable of being president.”….
Gartner says that individuals with malignant narcissism often lack impulse control and empathy. He also says many who suffer from this disorder believe that others around them don’t recognize their greatness…..
As if that weren’t enough, malignant narcissism is incurable.
So there you have it. The leader of the United States of America is more than likely a malignant narcissist who has the fate of the free world in his two tiny hands. Not to mention, he now has access to the United States government’s nuclear codes. If that’s not terrifying, we don’t know what is.
“Donald Trump is dangerously mentally ill and temperamentally incapable of being president”
“Temperament Tantrum – Some say President Donald Trump’s personality isn’t just flawed, it’s dangerous,” by Susan Milligan, US News; January 27, 2017
This article may also have been titled: “Does Donald Trump’s Personality Make Him Dangerous?” by Susan Milligan, US News; January 27, 2017
Excerpt: The behavior of the new president in his first week in office has experts and elected officials wondering: is this just a case of a president with predictable quirks, or is it something that raises concerns about Trump’s judgment and adherence to factual reality?
John D. Gartner, a practicing psychotherapist who taught psychiatric residents at Johns Hopkins University Medical School, minces as few words as the president in his professional assessment of Trump.
“Donald Trump is dangerously mentally ill and temperamentally incapable of being president,” says Gartner, author of “In Search of Bill Clinton: A Psychological Biography.” Trump, Gartner says, has “malignant narcissism,” which is different from narcissistic personality disorder and which is incurable.
Gartner acknowledges that he has not personally examined Trump, but says it’s obvious from Trump’s behavior that he meets the diagnostic criteria for the disorder, which include anti-social behavior, sadism, aggressiveness, paranoia and grandiosity. Trump’s personality disorder (which includes hypomania) is also displayed through a lack of impulse control and empathy, and “a feeling that people … don’t recognize their greatness.
“We’ve seen enough public behavior by Donald Trump now that we can make this diagnosis indisputably,” says Gartner. His comments run afoul of the so-called Goldwater Rule, the informal term for part of the ethics code of the American Psychiatric Association saying it is wrong to provide a professional opinion of a public figure without examining that person and gaining consent to discuss the evaluation. But Gartner says the Trump case warrants breaking that ethical code….
On Capitol Hill, Republicans deflect questions about Trump’s temperament and his re-litigation of a campaign he won. Democrats are alarmed.
“We’ve moved from the entertainment to the clinical concern. There is a serious clinical concern about, how delusional is this guy?” says Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va. “It will only get worse, because this guy is the president and he’s surrounded by enablers and sycophants, who instead of trying to call him on it are fueling the delusion. They’re enablers,” Connolly adds. “They’re not stopping the drinking problem. They’re handing out the Scotch bottles.” [Emphasis added]
“Trump says he doesn’t need facts as long as ‘very smart’ Fox News viewers agree with him,” by Aaron Rupar; January 26, 2017
Excerpt: During his first interview as president of the United States, Donald Trump was challenged by ABC News’ David Muir about his baseless claim that up to five million illegal votes were cast in the 2016 presidential election.
Trump could muster no actual evidence to support the oft-debunked voter fraud allegation he’s repeatedly made since November. So instead, he cited opinions espoused by Fox News hosts and shared by the network’s “very smart” viewers.
“Let me just tell you, you know what’s important, millions of people agree with me when I say that if you would’ve looked on one of the other networks and all of the people that were calling in they’re saying, ‘We agree with Mr. Trump. We agree.’ They’re very smart people,” Trump said.
“Is Donald Trump Mentally Stable? » A Psychologist’s Perspective | Unite for America” – YouTube (4:28) published by Unite for America on December 17, 2016
“Is Donald Trump Mentally Ill? 3 Professors of Psychiatry ask President Obama to Conduct ‘A Full Medical and Neuropsychiatric Evaluation’,” by Richard Greene, Huffington Post; December 20, 2016 [Two embedded videos, one at about 4 minutes, the other at about 27 minutes]
Excerpt: Another, and related reason is the fact that he is cognitively so limited that such briefings make no sense to him (and that’s why he wants Ivanka, for example, or Jared with him during similar occasions, to help him understand what’s being said). Additionally, and also relatedly, his profoundly deficient attention makes it impossible for him to focus on any stimuli that do not provide him with adulation. He’s quickly bored by and dismissive of anything that does not have to do with himself.
The point about him getting worse in the future also cannot be overstated. An increasing paranoia combined with growing sadistic vindictiveness is pretty much a given. We have seen it consistently in other leaders, past and present, with this character defect.
And being so impulsive and without a conscience, he won’t stop for a moment before putting his primitive impulses into action. Those who believe that they can somehow “control” him, or that our democratic “checks and balances” can withstand the collusion between his personal pathology and that of his willing sycophants, are deluded, I’m afraid.
The man is unfit to run a lemonade stand, much less a country. That so many have decided to ignore his profound character defect, or turn it into an asset in their eyes, is horrific, but, sadly, not surprising. [Emphasis added]
“Harvard professor says there are ‘grave concerns’ about Donald Trump’s mental stability,” by Lucy Pasha-Robinson, The Independent; December 18, 2016
“Three professors of psychiatry call for ‘neuropsychiatric evaluation’ of Trump out of fears he’s mentally ill,” by Tom Boggioni, Raw Story; December 17, 2016
“When I hear and see Donald Trump, I hear and see an emergency.”
“Instability-in-Chief,” by Propane Jane, Daily Kos; December 5, 2016
Excerpt: My day job is seeing things people can’t or choose not to see. In other words, I’m a psychiatrist. I don’t say it to be boastful, but rather to illustrate my burden. While I take great pride in my service to my patients, I’m also forever incapable of turning off my clinical skills when I leave work. I notice speech patterns, eye contact, facial movements, tone, alertness, processing speed, linearity of thought, affect, mood, memory, insight, judgment, and risk of harm to self or others, in every single human interaction I witness or experience. I also can’t help but recognize when people employ maladaptive coping skills and defense mechanisms in response to life’s challenges.
Needless to say, I have concerns about Donald Trump…..
I’m not here to formally diagnose him from afar, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t beginning to feel somewhat derelict watching an emergency unfold without meaningful, life-saving intervention taking place. I make my living treating acute and sub-acute mental and behavioral health emergencies, which means people don’t end up on my radar unless they’ve comported themselves in ways that are generally determined to be unstable and unsafe. In some cases it’s florid psychosis, dementia, or mania, and in others it’s severe depression and suicidality, or unbridled poly substance abuse or personality disorder. No matter the etiology, my duty is to determine if the mental status changes in question represent a lack of stability and/or portend a heightened risk to individual or public safety.
When I hear and see Donald Trump, I hear and see an emergency.
…. our country and the world have been entrusted to a man who hasn’t demonstrated the mental and behavioral stability to keep himself, let alone the rest of us safe. After eight years of steady, even-handed leadership from a president often labeled too “professorial,” “calm,” and “aloof,” it’s a wonder we haven’t yet drawn a connection between his stability and our prosperity.
It’s also a wonder that people who claimed to be suffering from severe anxiety just voluntarily committed themselves to strife at the hands of Instability-in-Chief, and we aren’t yet treating it like the emergency it is.
“Why I Will Not Cast My Electoral Vote for Donald Trump,” by Christopher Suprun, New York Times; December 5, 2016
Excerpt: I am a Republican presidential elector, one of the 538 people asked to choose officially the president of the United States. Since the election, people have asked me to change my vote based on policy disagreements with Donald J. Trump. In some cases, they cite the popular vote difference. I do not think presidents-elect should be disqualified for policy disagreements. I do not think they should be disqualified because they won the Electoral College instead of the popular vote. However, now I am asked to cast a vote on Dec. 19 for someone who shows daily he is not qualified for the office.
Fifteen years ago, as a firefighter, I was part of the response to the Sept. 11 attacks against our nation. That attack and this year’s election may seem unrelated, but for me the relationship becomes clearer every day….
I have poured countless hours into serving the party of Lincoln and electing its candidates. I will pour many more into being more faithful to my party than some in its leadership. But I owe no debt to a party. I owe a debt to my children to leave them a nation they can trust….
Finally, Mr. Trump does not understand that the Constitution expressly forbids a president to receive payments or gifts from foreign governments. We have reports that Mr. Trump’s organization has business dealings in Argentina, Bahrain, Taiwan and elsewhere. Mr. Trump could be impeached in his first year given his dismissive responses to financial conflicts of interest. He has played fast and loose with the law for years. He may have violated the Cuban embargo, and there are reports of improprieties involving his foundation and actions he took against minority tenants in New York. Mr. Trump still seems to think that pattern of behavior can continue…..
Fifteen years ago, I swore an oath to defend my country and Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. On Dec. 19, I will do it again.
[Note: After the general election on November 8, 2016, the Electoral College election was held on December 19, 2016, which finalized Trump’s nomination].
“Narcissist-in-Chief: The Psychopathology That Explains Donald Trump’s Depravity,” by Alfie Kohn, Alternet; December 2, 2016
Excerpt: All through the campaign, I found myself looking through a psychological lens at Trump’s behavior, not only appalled at the bellicose, racist pronouncements about, say, Mexicans or Muslims, but riveted by the deeply damaged human being who was saying these things. Even before he ran for president, Trump had been Exhibit A for the axiom that it’s possible to be rich and famous without being a successful human being, psychologically or morally speaking. To flesh out the details now that we’re more familiar with him is to add a layer of disbelief and dismay to the reality that so many people voted for him anyway. This psychological perspective is also critical for trying to predict just how much damage he will do to the country and the world, particularly to those who are most vulnerable.
Donald Trump has distinguished himself as someone who is:
* given to boasting, preening, and swaggering to the point of self-parody;
* not merely thin-skinned and petulant but vindictive when crossed or even criticized;
* restless, with the attention span of a toddler;
* desperately competitive, driven to sort the world into winners and losers, and to regard other people (or countries) primarily as rivals to be bested;
* astonishingly lacking not only in knowledge but in curiosity;
* not merely given to uttering blatant falsehoods on a more or less constant basis but apparently unaware of the extent of his dishonesty, as if the fact that he believes or has said something makes it true; and
* possessed of a sense of absolute entitlement – such that if he wants to kiss or grab an attractive woman, for example, he should of course be free to do so – along with a lack of shame, humility, empathy, or capacity for reflection and self-scrutiny….
Donald Trump seems to me a textbook illustration of how a lifelong campaign of self-congratulation and self-aggrandizement (acquiring as much as possible and then pasting his name on everything he owns) represents an attempt to compensate for deeply rooted insecurity. He fears being insignificant, worthless….
This is not someone who is merely narcissistic in the colloquial, casual sense of the term, meaning that he’s selfish or self-centered. This is someone with a psychiatric disorder in all its flagrant, florid particulars. To grasp its seriousness is to be staggered that someone too disordered and rancid to be a trustee of your condo association will be running our country. How is it possible that almost half the voters, even those who like his values and disliked his (conventional politician of an) opponent, could have listened to him taunt and lie and bully his way through a campaign and then said, “Yep. That’s who should be in charge of the country”?
The implications going forward are nothing short of chilling. It’s not just how little he knows but how little that fact bothers him – the overweening arrogance that leads him to believe he has nothing to learn, that he knows “more about ISIS than the generals do.” [*]….
His hunger for approval means he’s likely to keep surrounding himself with those who tell him what he wants to hear and flatter him – the engine of Shakespearean tragedies. His belligerence and volatility, that hair-trigger temper, are the last qualities you want to see in someone holding a position of power, particularly when they’re coupled with a childish us-versus-them view of the world: xenophobic nationalism and compulsive competitiveness. His disorder leaves no room for consensus and collaboration. How can one not tremble at the thought that someone like this will command the military and have access to nuclear weapons? ….
This, then, is the bottom line: Trump has little understanding of, commitment to, and (psychologically speaking) capacity for democratic decision-making. And that’s been clear from the start….
On his HBO show, John Oliver urged us to keep reminding ourselves, “A Klan-backed misogynist Internet troll is going to be delivering the next State of the Union address. This is not normal.” Furthermore, we’ll need to remember that what’s abnormal here isn’t just a set of positions and policies but the psychological state of the person who will be in charge. The clearer our understanding of that, the better our chances for protecting one another – and our democracy. [Emphasis added]
[*] “Trump knows more than the Generals do, ‘believe me’ – Narcissistic Personality Disorder” – (2:10) published by Seven Generations on June 12, 2017
The following articles were published before the November 8, 2016 presidential election.
“Donald Trump, the ‘Greatest Victim’ in the History of the World,” by Ann Jones, Truthout; November 1, 2016
Excerpt: Last June, I published a piece at Tom Dispatch venturing to explain why candidate Donald J. Trump was getting “rock-bottom ratings” in the polls from women voters. Nearly 70% of them reportedly couldn’t stand the guy. I pointed out what seemed to me to be the obvious: “Trump’s behavior perfectly fits the profile of an ordinary wife abuser.”
In a sworn deposition introduced in divorce proceedings, his first wife Ivana swore under oath that he had torn out her hair and forcibly raped her, raging at her because he didn’t like the results of a “scalp-reducing” procedure (meant to remove a bald patch) performed on him by a plastic surgeon she had recommended. (Before she collected a $14 million divorce settlement, she toned her story down, saying the assault was not “criminal.”)
About one in three American women are survivors of some version of such treatment, euphemistically called “domestic abuse.” That’s roughly 65 million women voters who, as I wrote last June, “know a tyrant when they see one.” I raise this subject again because the now-infamous tape of Trump’s open-mic Hollywood Access bus ride in 2005 added a new page to the rap sheet of this particular abuser…..
In my June post, I wrote:
“Trump’s behavior perfectly fits the profile of an ordinary wife abuser — but with one additional twist… Trump has not confined his controlling tactics to his own home(s). For seven years, he practiced such tactics openly for all the world to see on The Apprentice, his very own reality show, and now applies them on a national stage, commanding constant attention while alternately insulting, cajoling, demeaning, embracing, patronizing, and verbally beating up anyone… who stands in the way of his coronation.”
In this fashion, he humiliated his male Republican primary opponents, demeaning them with nicknames — Little Marco, Lyin’ Ted, Low-Energy Jeb — and denigrated his only female primary opponent, Carly Fiorina, by unfavorably appraising her appearance. (“Look at that face! Would anyone vote for that?”) More recently, of course, he’s disparaged “Crooked Hillary” in a similar fashion (“Such a nasty woman!”)…..
Still, don’t expect a serial abuser to be a quitter either. Faced with accusations of abhorrent and criminal acts he can’t acknowledge, plus impending incomprehensible defeat at the polls, and the very real possibility of becoming one of those people he so despises — a loser — Trump casts about for others to blame. Given his character, it’s not surprising that he follows, as if by instinct, what we might call the Joel Steinberg path to self-exoneration — painting himself, and himself alone, as the ultimate innocent victim of abusive others in a world whose every aspect is “rigged” against him.
“Donald Trump is Completely Obsessed with Revenge,” by David Corn, Mother Jones; October 19, 2016
Excerpt: Why all the insults, bullying, and grudge matches? There is a reason. Trump fervently believes in retaliation. How do we know? Because he has said numerous times that he is driven by revenge and that it is a basic tool to use in business. He is obsessed with payback.
In speeches and public talks, Trump has repeatedly expressed his fondness for retribution. In 2011, he addressed the National Achievers Congress in Sydney, Australia, to explain how he had achieved his success. He noted there were a couple of lessons not taught in business school that successful people must know. At the top of the list was this piece of advice: “Get even with people. If they screw you, screw them back 10 times as hard. I really believe it.”….
His favorite form of revenge is escalation – upping the ante, screwing ’em more than they screwed you.
“9 Ways Donald Trump Is A Sociopath” – YouTube (9:33) published by The Rational National on August 4, 2016
“Donald Trump’s raging egomania,” by Eugene Robinson, Washington Post; September 8, 2016
“Donald Trump is a unique threat to American democracy,” by Editorial Board, Washington Post; July 22, 2016
Excerpt: A Trump presidency would be dangerous for the nation and the world … He is desperate for affirmation but contemptuous of other views. He also is contemptuous of fact. Throughout the campaign, he has unspooled one lie after another … It is impossible to know whether he convinces himself of his own untruths or knows that he is wrong and does not care. It is also difficult to know which trait would be more frightening in a commander in chief … For eight years, Republicans have criticized President Obama for “apologizing” for America and for weakening alliances. Now they put forward a candidate who mimics the vilest propaganda of authoritarian adversaries about how terrible the United States is and how unfit it is to lecture others. He has made clear that he would drop allies without a second thought. The consequences to global security could be disastrous.
“He’s sick. He’s willing to inflict pain on other people.”
“Donald Trump is ‘willing to inflict pain on people,’ says reporter who provoked his wrath,” by Rob Hasting, iNews; July 11, 2016
Excerpt: Singer does not hold back on his assessment of Trump’s character. “He’s a pathological liar. I think he’s a compulsive liar,” says the writer. “He’s a bulls**t artist, he was and always will be, but he’s now a dangerous bulls**t artist… His ego became more out of control, it became megalomania.
“He’s sick. He’s willing to inflict pain on other people. He’s mocked a disabled reporter from The New York Times. He talks about torture – ‘we’re going to do it’ – and we’re going to bomb the s**t out of Isis and we’re going to kill their families, kill innocent people, waterboarding; all these totally discredited things that were used after we invaded Iraq. Trump talks about it because it’s like throwing red meat to these people with conservative values. To be able to discuss torturing people with that kind of enthusiasm tells us something about a person.” [Emphasis added]
He adds: “The question is: what’s really going on inside Donald Trump’s mind? That is something that I haven’t thought about much lately because I’m more concerned about what is going on in the minds of the people voting for him.”
“Donald Trump’s Rambling Sentence on July 21, 2016” – YouTube (1:32) published by Seven Generations on March 6, 2017
“Look, having nuclear – my uncle was a great professor and scientist and engineer, Dr. John Trump at MIT; good genes, very good genes, OK, very smart, the Wharton School of Finance, very good, very smart – you know, if you’re a conservative Republican, if I were a liberal, if, like, OK, if I ran as a liberal Democrat, they would say I’m one of the smartest people anywhere in the world – it’s true! – but when you’re a conservative Republican they try – oh, do they do a number – that’s why I always start off: Went to Wharton, was a good student, went there, went there, did this, built a fortune – you know I have to give my like credentials all the time, because we’re a little disadvantaged – but you look at the nuclear deal, the thing that really bothers me – it would have been so easy, and it’s not as important as these lives are (nuclear is powerful; my uncle explained that to me many, many years ago, the power and that was 35 years ago; he would explain the power of what’s going to happen and he was right – who would have thought?), but when you look at what’s going on with the four prisoners – now it used to be three, now it’s four – but when it was three and even now, I would have said it’s all in the messenger; fellas, and it is fellas because, you know, they don’t, they haven’t figured that the women are smarter right now than the men, so, you know, it’s gonna take them about another 150 years – but the Persians are great negotiators, the Iranians are great negotiators, so, and they, they just killed, they just killed us.” – Donald Trump, July 21, 2016
“A Psychologist Analyzes Donald Trump’s Personality,” by Dan P. McAdams, The Atlantic; June 2016
“Donald Trump’s Ghostwriter Tells All,” by Jane Mayer, The New Yorker; June 25, 2016
“Donald Trump: Megalomaniac in Chief,” by Taylor Dibbert, Huffington Post; April 2, 2016
“Trump is one of the biggest threats imaginable to our national security”
“9/11: What Would Trump Do?” by POLITICO Magazine; March 31, 2016
Excerpt: It’s the totally unthinkable question that Americans find themselves confronting this week: What would President Donald Trump do in a genuine national crisis? …..
Politico Magazine asked foreign policy and counterterrorism experts, historians, Trump biographers, even psychologists to take a serious guess at how he’d handle the days after a terrorist attack in the United States – all based on what they know about Trump the candidate and what he’ll be facing if he gets elected…..
“A president with that personality would experience a large terrorist event as an enormous narcissistic injury … and his rage would be white-hot”
Martha Stout is a psychologist and author of The Sociopath Next Door.
As a psychologist who has spent her career studying human personality and its variations, I can tell you that personalities don’t have an off switch, not even for dire emergencies. If we suffered another brutal terrorist attack, I fear that President Trump would exhibit the same bombast, rage and impulsivity that he has shown in the campaign trail and imperil his fellow human beings, perhaps with even more lasting effects than those of the disaster itself.
The personality that underlies Trump’s observable behaviors—a demeanor of personal superiority, a focus on being admired, immediate heated anger when challenged, an emphasis on unlimited success, and an apparent expectation of automatic compliance—would be problematic in a U.S. president at any time, and plainly dangerous should our nation experience another terrorist atrocity. A president with such a personality would experience a large terrorist event as an attack on him personally, an enormous “narcissistic injury”—what psychologists call a perceived threat to self-worth—and his rage would be white-hot. The anger we have seen directed at protesters during Trump rallies would be multiplied by an unknowable factor. That whisper in the ear from an aide, telling him that an event had occurred, would instantly evoke a need for reprisal, a desire to attack and to do so right away, using airstrikes, boots on the ground, torture in interrogations and any other “powerful” tactic that occurred to him…..
“Trump, a thin-skinned malignant narcissist who can leave no slight unavenged … is the candidate most likely to overreact to a terrorist event”
John Gartner is a private-practice psychologist, part-time assistant professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University Medical School and author of In Search of Bill Clinton: A Psychological Biography.
Trump, a thin-skinned malignant narcissist who can leave no slight unavenged, no matter how slight (God help us if Kim Jong-un makes fun of his hands), is the candidate most likely to overreact to a terrorist event or threat in an impulsive, misguided and heavy-handed way that would win us enemies and influence people around the world to hate us. For example, his proposal to “register” all Muslims in America will humiliate a proud people and radicalize scores of young people.
Malignant narcissists are not your garden-variety narcissists. They combine narcissism with paranoia, anti-social traits and a propensity for aggression. Trump sees threats where they don’t exist—like Mexican immigrants who “might be ISIS”—and feels no compunctions about breaking rules, such as those against torture or collective punishment, to lash out at those imaginary threats. The Geneva Convention is for politically correct suckers. The law of the jungle, not the rule of law, is the organizing principle of malignant narcissists. And if they can’t rule the jungle they’ll burn it down.
Malignant narcissism is an untreatable personality disorder, for the simple reason that no one can ever tell the malignant narcissist he is wrong. Anyone who questions a malignant narcissist’s judgment is immediately dismissed as an idiot or attacked as a threat. Anyone who questions their ruthless tactics is belittled as soft and naive. It’s not accidental that Trump has said “my primary consultant is myself.”……
In short, a president Trump is one of the biggest threats imaginable to our national security. His need to appear strong will make us weak. A malignant narcissist is much like a malignant tumor. Sooner or later it will kill the body politic.
“Do we really want to put all Americans, and even the entire world, at great risk by giving a narcissist the nuclear code?”
“A neuroscientist explains: Trump has a mental disorder that makes him a dangerous world leader,” by Bobby Azarian, Raw Story; January 18, 2016
Excerpt: According to a number of top U.S. psychologists, like Harvard professor and researcher Howard Gardner, Donald Trump is a “textbook” narcissist. In fact, he fits the profile so well that clinical psychologist George Simon told Vanity Fair, “He’s so classic that I’m archiving video clips of him to use in workshops.” This puts Trump in the same category as a number of infamous dictators like Muammar Gaddafi, Napoleon Bonaparte, and Saddam Hussein. And although there are narcissists out there who entertain us, innovate, or create great art, when a narcissist is given immense power over people’s lives, they can behave much differently….
What is it exactly that makes someone a certifiable narcissist and not simply a person who has a healthy amount of confidence and a burning desire to achieve great goals? According to the Mayo Clinic, narcissistic personality disorder is “a mental disorder in which people have an inflated sense of their own importance, a deep need for admiration and a lack of empathy for others.”
Trump’s shortage of empathy can be seen clearly by his stances on topics like immigration … It appears that his lack of empathy has distorted his mind’s ability to grasp the fact that the refugees he speaks of are actually seeking safety from the same murderous maniacs that he wants to keep out….
But a lack of empathy is just one part of narcissistic personality disorder. Just beneath the surface layer of overwhelming arrogance lies a delicate self-esteem that is easily injured by any form of criticism. We have all seen Trump unjustifiably lash out at a number of people with harsh and often extremely odd personal attacks….
What happens when another world leader who is a loose cannon doesn’t give Trump the admiration that he feels he deserves? We can be sure that notoriously anti-American dictators like Kim Jong-un of North Korea or Iran’s Supreme Leader Khamenei aren’t going to give him any respect, let alone praise. How would a President Trump react when he feels he is being put down or undermined? Will we see the start of World War III because the leader of the most important nation in the world doesn’t feel that others are kissing his ass as much as they should be? Narcissistic personality disorder is known to have strong negative effects on relationships, and when it comes to being an effective and responsible world leader, diplomacy is everything…. [Emphasis added]
The position of President of the United States is one that requires great empathy, a certain amount of humility, the ability to preserve relationships, and a willingness to establish new ones. These are all qualities that the narcissist lacks, and with their absence comes danger. Do we really want to put all Americans, and even the entire world, at great risk by giving a narcissist the nuclear code?
“Is Donald Trump Actually a Narcissist? Therapists Weigh In!” by Henry Alford, Vanity Fair; November 11, 2015
“Trump Rambles during Campaign Rally in Hilton Head, SC on Dec. 30, 2015” – YouTube (2:47) published by Seven Generations on June 5, 2017
“So, he’s got a problem with the carbon footprint. You can’t use hair spray because hair spray is going to affect the ozone. I’m trying to figure out. Let’s see, I’m in my room in New York City and I want to put a little spray so that I can – right? Right? But I hear where they don’t want me to use hair spray, they want me to use the pump because the other one which I really like better than going bing, bing, bing — — and then it comes out in big globs, right, and you — it’s stuck in your hair and you say oh my God, I’ve got to take a shower again. My hair’s all screwed up, right? I want to use hair spray. They say don’t use hair spray, it’s bad for the ozone. So I’m sitting in this concealed apartment, this concealed unit — you know, I really do live in a very nice apartment, right? But it’s sealed, it’s beautiful. I don’t think anything gets out. And I’m not supposed to be using hair spray. But think of it. So Obama’s always talking about the global warming, that global warming is our biggest and most dangerous problem, OK? No, no, think of it. I mean, even if you’re a believer in global warming, ISIS is a big problem, Russia’s a problem, China’s a problem. We’ve got a lot of problems. By the way, the maniac in North Korea is a problem. He actually has nuclear weapons, right? That’s a problem. We’ve got a lot of problems. We’ve got a lot of problems. That’s right, we don’t win anymore. He said we want to win. We don’t win anymore. We’re going to win a lot — if I get elected, we’re going to win a lot. We’re going to win so much — we’re going to win a lot. We’re going to win a lot. We’re going to win so much you’re all going to get sick and tired of winning. You’re going to say oh no, not again. I’m only kidding. You never get tired of winning, right? Never. But think of it. So Obama’s talking about all of this with the global warming and the — a lot of it’s a hoax, it’s a hoax. I mean, it’s a money-making industry, OK? It’s a hoax, a lot of it. And look, I want clean air and I want clean water. That’s my global — I want clean, clean crystal water and I want clean air. And we can do that, but we don’t have to destroy our businesses, we don’t have to destroy our – And by the way, China isn’t abiding by anything. They’re buying all of our coal; we can’t use coal anymore essentially. They’re buying our coal and they’re using it. Now when you talk about the planet, it’s so big out there — we’re here, they’re there, it’s like they’re our next door neighbor, right? In terms of the universe – Miss Universe, by the way, I made a great deal when I sold — oh did I get rich. That was a great deal. You know, they broke my choppers on that. They said he talks about illegal immigration, we’re not going to put him on television. First of all, Univision is being sued like crazy; you wouldn’t believe it. And NBC, I made a great deal with them, just like an amazing deal, far more than I would have ever gotten — I mean, I made an unbelievable deal — far more than I ever would have gotten if I said I think I’m going to sell it if times were normal, right? Isn’t it amazing the way that stuff can work out? But I love Miss Universe and I love the universe. But think of it.”
“A Public Manifesto” by Citizen Therapists Against Trumpism
Excerpt: We must speak out for the well-being of people we treat and care for in our work. Trumpism will undermine the emotional health of those seen as the “other” in America – both historically denigrated groups and those whose turn will come. And it will compromise the integrity of those who are seduced by the illusion that real Americans can only become winners if others become losers. The public rhetoric of Trumpism normalizes what therapists work against in our work: the tendency to blame others in our lives for our personal fears and insecurities and then battle these others instead of taking the healthier but more difficult path of self-awareness and self-responsibility. It also normalizes a kind of hyper-masculinity that is antithetical to the examined life and healthy relationships that psychotherapy helps people achieve. Simply stated, Trumpism is inconsistent with emotionally healthy living – and we have to say so publicly.
We must speak out for the well-being of our democracy, which is both a way of living and acting together and a set of political institutions. Therapists have taken for granted how our work relies on a democratic tradition that gives people a sense of personal agency to create new narratives and take personal and collective responsibility for themselves, their families, and their communities. Reliance on a Strong Man who will solve our problems and deal with internal and external enemies is a direct threat to the democratic basis of psychotherapy. Therapy only flourishes on democratic soil.
“President-Elect Trump: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)” – (29:00) published by LastWeekTonight on November 13, 2016
Updated October 11, 2019
By Jeff Kirkpatrick
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Trump Watch 
Reblogged this on Trumpism.
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