Advisory: I do not want to distract from the discussion about Trump’ repugnant racism. This is what the national dialogue should be focused on. If you want to read about his racism, stop now. If you want to read about the psychopathology of Trump, and see how I think the shithouse remark relates to it, read on.
Yesterday's shithole countries remark demonstrates Trump's ingrained racism. It is only the latest such utterance by Trump proving that the apple hasn't fallen far from his father's KKK tree.
Not only does the “shithole” comment rub his racism in our face, it is also proving he that is non-compos mentis. It showcases his lack of impulse control and, significantly, his utterly absent ability to consider the consequences of his words.
Did he think, in the moment, that nobody in the room would find his choice of words offensive enough to release it to the press? This is a psychiatrically and/or neurological consequential example lack of judgment.
Another psychiatric explanation is that he is also so delusional that thought the lawmakers there would share his racist views, or be so cowed by him they'd keep their mouths shut. Did he not realize that Democratic Senator Dick Durbin was in the room? My hunch is that he didn't.
The sine qua non of any medical assessment is the doctor’ s observing the patient’ s connection to reality. In a focused psychiatric or neurological examination where a breakdown in reality testing ability is suspected there are specific questions and sometimes tests used to quantify the degree of the breakdown in reality testing. Professionals are now urging Trump’ s annual physical include determining whether Trump has a cognitive impairment. They “ note the president's 'declining faculties for complex thought.'”
I do not buy that Trump deliberately used this vulgarity to pander to his racist base. This is the Trump is crazy like a sly fox meme, or (not to be cute) crazy for Fox News meme. This isn't a picture book about a lovable sneaky fox. It's a story about a rabid fox who can't control his impulses.
Trump isn't even the scorpion telling the frog "it's in my nature" because Trump doesn't have the self-awareness to understand his own nature.
We have an authoritarian racist who is crafting policies that promote the alt-right white nationalist agenda, and like the madman he is, flinging deranged rhetorical feces at the Statue of Liberty and all the American values she stands for.