This is a short and (bitter)sweet article from Newsweek which lays out succinctly what Duty to Warn therapists like me have been saying for nearly three years:
Bullet points:
- "(Trump’s) focus on his personal benefit at any cost is why he's a successful sociopath," (psychiatrist Lance) Dodes told Salon, adding that he can "see Donald for who he really is."…. "But in order to explain and predict Trump's behavior, you have to begin with awareness that he is essentially a predator…. "Once you keep in mind that Trump lacks a conscience and lacks empathy, he becomes very easy to follow. Unlike normal people, who are complex, he's basically running on a very simple and very disordered program."
- John M. Talmadge, MD, a physician and clinical professor of psychiatry at U.T. Southwestern Medical Center, wrote on Twitter that Trump's" mental impairment means he cannot think strategically or in abstract terms." …. "This Trumpian brain failure is hard for normal people to understand because for normal people, abstract thought is natural, baked in, largely unnoticed. Normal people see the consequences, assess risk, make rational decisions most of the time."
- Daniel Gilbert, a professor of psychology at Harvard suggested that Trump should be detained involuntarily to assess his mental health.
- Bandy Lee, MD, a Yale psychiatrist, told Newsweek that a longtime Trump family friend approached her with concerns about the president's well-being…. Lee wrote that Trump displayed "psychological symptoms reflective of emotional compulsion, impulsivity, poor concentration, narcissism and recklessness."
- In a recent article for The Atlantic, George Conway (Kellyanne’s husband) detailed at length the evidence that Trump is mentally unfit to hold his office.
- …. a letter to Congress signed by 250 medical professionals led by Bandy Lee warned lawmakers to take into consideration the president's mental state. (It stated that Trump) "has the pattern of fragile sense of self and is prone to blame and attack others when threatened" and has "shown himself willing to encourage violence against his perceived enemies."
Trump is everything described in this article and more: he is a sadist, a bully, a pathological liar, and a toucherist who also has indications of having an impulsive control disorder and paranoia at some level depending on how much he believes some of the conspiracy theories he spins. Duty to Warn founder Dr. John Gartner warned back in April that “Trump's cognitive deficits seem worse. We need to know if he has dementia.” Trump also is an authoritarian who not only admires, but identifies with the likes of Putin and Erdogan but believes in authoritarianism as a form of government.
Many people who aren’t Trump cultists or sycophants attribute Trump’s faux success at business (at least an he was not not abject failure that put him into the poorhouse). I don't know what they make of his two violent and unfaithful marriages. I supposed they admire him for being married to women they consider to be “hot babes” with no off-putting pretenses at having major personal accomplishments (see First lady feud: Here's the history of Trump's battling wives). The MAGA hat wearing men may wish they could sustain a marriage to a former model young enough to be their daughters.
I think Trump has been incredibly lucky that his lies and braggadocio, his incitement to the violent impulses and bigotry of supporters, combined with the ignorance and low intellect of many of his cult members enabled him to become president.
Trump is like the handful of lottery winners who won more than once, or perhaps he’s more like William Lee Bergstrom whose unfortunate demise ought to be a lesson.
The legendary gambler is also known as ‘The Phantom Gambler’ and is best known for the tale of the two suitcases. In 1980, he walked into the Horseshoe Casino in Las Vegas with one empty suitcase and one suitcase that contained $770,000. He gambled the $770 000 on one single craps roll and doubled his money, which he, of course, put into the empty suitcase.
Over the next few months, he pulled this stunt twice more, first winning $190.000 and then $90,000. With his new-found confidence he decided to bet $1 million on a single Craps bet and unbelievably lost it all.
Unfortunately, in 1985 Bergstrom committed suicide, but according to reports it wasn’t linked to his gambling career as he still had more than enough money in his account at the time of his untimely passing. It is, however, a warning to all would-be big rollers out there: Make sure you take risks you can afford to lose. Reference.
The extremely stable genius
Only the most brainwashed supporters believe he has the biggest brain and is a stable genius. I know liberals who actually think there is method in his madness. I do not. I think his madness is quite simply stated actual madness.
I few days ago House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham said in an official statement “I worked with John Kelly, and he was totally unequipped to handle the genius of our great President.”
MSNBC noted:
Putting aside Kelly’s competence as a White House chief of staff, Grisham’s statement goes a long way toward proving his concerns about Team Trump correct. His point was that the president would benefit from a capable team, filled with sensible officials who have the will and the wherewithal to restrain Trump’s worst instincts.
Confronted with this awkward-but-accurate assessment, the White House responded by pretending Trump’s instincts are without flaw. Kelly just wasn’t smart enough, the argument goes, to fully appreciate the “genius of our great President.”
I have written before that a have a clinical psychologist friend who has administered hundreds of standard IQ tests and she said she thinks Trump would test 100, exactly normal. This would mean he has the lowest estimated IQ of every president. Grant was the lowest with an estimated IQ of 120.
Others who have worked with him have an even more critical opinion: ‘Idiot,’ ‘Dope,’ ‘Moron’: How Trump’s aides have insulted the boss (Politico).
There are four elements of an IQ test. You can assess how you think Trump would fare on each of these:
Intelligence Quotient tests are designed to measure the intelligence of an individual. According to Gardner's Theory of Multiple Intelligences, intelligence is not a single general ability. The test objective is to assess an individual's relative cognitive abilities and identify one's strengths. In the educational setting, the results assist in identifying learning disabilities. IQ tests address one's overall verbal and nonverbal abilities. The four areas identified are
- verbal comprehension,
- perceptual reasoning,
- working memory and
- processing speed.
reference with sample IQ test
You can read all my stories on Trump’s psychopathology here.