Introduction: We don’t need a fine tuned diagnosis anymore to know Trump is psychologically unfit to be president.
I think our splitting hairs over between which characteristics, traits, and behaviors fit in to which diagnosis for Trump was illuminating. Now, it’s really an academic exercise because while we can easily see that he is a malignant narcissist, a good case can be made that he also has many indices of other disqualifying disorders like paranoid personality, impulse control, and a level of psychopathy somewhere less than Jeffrey Dahmer, Ted Bundy, and Hannibal Lecter on the Hare checklist. Many experts on psychopathy would probably call him a charming psychopath.
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Having written prolifically here about various aspects of Trump’s personality that made him unfit to be president, I think it is time to stop unless and until he demonstrate a new behavior that requires analysis.
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Tarasoff (duty to break confidentiality to warn about a client being dangerous) trumps Goldwater (don’t diagnose politicians at a distance) never literally applied. The MD-APA were a group of misguided psychiatrists that had no notion that a Trump could ever come along and lead to the members of their association being faced with a higher ethic to speak out.
Mental health professionals, mostly clinical psychologists and social workers, but a few psychiatrists thought we needed a rationale to break a rule that didn’t even apply to us. Duty to warn sounded like a good one. We believed were obligated as experts who saw what Trump was to alert the public. As shrinks some of us acted like Philadelphia lawyers instead of Philadelphia psychoanalysts. Still, “Tarsoff trumps Goldwater” was an effective meme.
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Dr. John Gartner’s idea to petition for the removal of Trump under the 25th was a superb tactic. As its originator he became the go-to shrink in the media. Mental health professionals became another front on the anti-Trump movement. The other elements needed to bring Trump down are the Russian connection, and growing dissatisfaction with the corporate kleptocracy his appointments have been implementing. Add to this the public and congressional perception that he’s team is dysfunctional.
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I always thought removal of Trump through the 25th Amendment was a long-shot. However I think publicizing the fact that Trump’s manifest extreme narcissism, impulsivity, and paranoia were clinical indicators of psychiatric disorders. That this was a concern of numerous mental health professionals effected the public discourse. It also informed our allies in Congress.
Trump’s partial comeuppance will hopefully come in the midterm elections when the Democrats take over the Senate. Otherwise will have to wait four years.
I think there is only the remotest possibility that Trump will have a psychotic break, and that would be the only reason the 25th Amendment would be invoked. Trump has managed to normalize the outrageously abnormal merely by being himself. I doubt we’ll see him giving many more of those obviously un-Trumpian teleprompter speeches.
He has redefined what it means to be presidential. The Trump ego told him “let Trump be Trump” and he heeded his own internal voice.
Trump is president of the United States of America. He is the most powerful person in the country. The only thing that will cause this to change is an irrefutable charge of collusion with the Russians to win the election, and he might even survive impeachment. Otherwise he will serve out one term.
If he doesn’t loose in the next election I can’t imagine what I’ll feel, let alone do to keep up the good fight. Even though I believe the majority of American’s does not was a despot as president, and do not want the country run as a conscienceless corporate klepocracy, voters will remain as gullible and ignorant as ever and it will be a touch slog for the Democrats to overcome the successful efforts by the Republicans to disenfranchise likely Democratic voters.
This is my prediction about Trump’s post missile opinion polling is the same as most of the pundits: his job approval rating will improve significantly. Unfortunately this will embolden him not only to take a more bellicose stance when it come to military muscle flexing, but will infuse his narcissistic arrogance with a potent tonic of Viagra, cocaine, rhinoceros horn powder, and methamphetamine.
What could go wrong?
Sunday, Apr 9, 2017 · 6:52:42 PM +00:00 · HalBrown
txdoubledd asked why DJT repeats himself. But before … I agree with Hal and have been pressing for this attitude for a long time. “Too easy to argue over specific diagnoses … stick to his behaviors and wonder — if in their presence — it is decidedly safe for the World for him to be armed. That having been said, the repeating can arise from many places. (1) There are times when it is no more than giving space for thinking. It can take more hidden forms, such as : “That’s a very important question,” giving the speaker the appearance of having thought thru the question and having an answer, while searching for a starting place. It is a common rhetorical device but, perhaps we can say, that if it’s always used, the person hasn’t thought about much. (2) It is common among folk with brain insults … strokes and accidents/trauma to the newer parts of the brain, the prefrontal cortical areas that govern planning and organization … the so-called executive functions of the Mind. This is common in folk with beginning dementias, as well. In these states, Neuro-folk call it confabulation. Y’ask a person with a traumatic brain injury or a systemic one (like in dementias) “whaddya have for breakfast?” They don’t recall and therefore must build a story … usually, in my experience, with an opportunity to begin weaving their tale. “It was a very, very typical morning. I had three beautifully fried eggs and really special sausage and a side of potato-onion homefries with fontana cheese.” Meantime? their guardian winks … they had a half cup of cornflakes with a splash of milk. DJT certainly shows some compromised thinking, as in his ability not only to repeat but to maintain internal contradiction in his thinking from moment to moment.