Author’s note: This was my debut diary to Daily Kos, which was first posted in July 2017. It didn’t get much attention then, but perhaps today it is more timely. I have deleted some esoteric sections and added more examples of aberrant behavior not contained in the original.
There is a new optimistic trend to paint the President as mentally ill. In other words, the problem is, he isn’t well. There is certainly a strong case for this. He isn’t in touch with reality (schizophrenia; psychosis). He is extremely narcissistic (Narcissistic Personality Disorder). He only cares about himself, and will do anything for himself, regardless of whom it hurts (sociopath; psychopath; Anti-Social Personality Disorder). He is paranoid (paranoid schizophrenia). He doesn’t tell the truth (pathological liar). He is obsessive and compulsive (OCD, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder). He needs more anger management than the golfer in the movie Happy Gilmore as played by Adam Sandler. Don’t even get me started on his delusions of grandeur.
Seven-year-old with ADD symptoms: normal
David Brooks, another conservative political pundit, wrote a fascinating op-ed recently for the New York Times entitled When the World Is Led by a Child. Although he doesn’t claim per se that Trump is mentally ill, he describes a very serious case of Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD). Now ADD is as common as dirt—so common many critics believe it is over-diagnosed and over medicated. The inability to sit still, focus attention, and concentrate is normal for boys around ages seven and eight. However, behavior that is normal for immature boys, is pathological, if not down-right dangerous, for a grown man. Quoting Brooks:
First, most adults have learned to sit still. But mentally, Trump is still a seven-year-old boy who is bouncing around the classroom. Trump’s answers in these interviews are not very long—200 words at the high end—but he will typically flit through four or five topics before ending up with how unfair the press is to him.
The other night, conservative political pundit, George Will, suggested Trump’s thinking was seriously impaired, and beat the drum that the President is not well. George Will wasn’t the first and won’t be the last to declare Trump has lost his marbles (if he ever had any to begin with).
Seventy-something adult with extreme ADD: pathological
Dan Rather previously stated, “We haven’t had a president this psychologically troubled…since at least Richard Nixon.”
Of course, if you are psychologically troubled, or if I am psychologically troubled, it means we are personally suffering from either anxiety, depression, or some other emotional disturbance. However, if Donald Trump is psychologically troubled, it means the entire country and the whole world is suffering from his inability to function properly, nevertheless presidentially.
All this, my friends, sets the stage for eliminating Donald Trump from his office as President, not via impeachment, but by invoking the 25th Amendment to the Constitution which reads in part:
If the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.
The 25th amendment covers such contingencies as the President suffering from a stroke. Who decides that the President is unable to discharge his duties? It’s complicated. The Vice President plays a significant role in the decision, but it isn’t his decision alone. If it were, any unscrupulous VP could simply declare his boss was unfit for office, and thus become President himself. (Somehow Dick Cheney comes to mind.)
Of course, the President can be removed from office via impeachment, as stated in the Constitution. But impeachment, at least in theory, is designed to replace a president who has violated the law of the Constitution and is guilty of “Treason, Bribery, or other High Crimes and Misdemeanors.” In fact, a President can be impeached if he is simply guilty of pissing off the vast majority of the members of Congress. President Andrew Johnson was one vote away from being impeached. His “crime?” He was too conciliatory to the South after the Civil War was over.
But one doesn’t have to be guilty of anything to be locked up, as long as significant people in authority agree one is too mentally ill to walk around free. Likewise, a President doesn’t have to found guilty of breaking the law to be removed from office; for in our society, as long as someone is mentally ill, they can be removed from a position of power.
There is much recent hoopla about Trump losing his marbles. There is a historical precedent for this. Just before Nixon resigned from the Presidency as the Watergate scandal blew wide open, and Nixon was deemed guilty by most Americans of obstruction of justice; there were rampant rumors that Nixon was losing it mentally. He often got drunk late in the evening, and while intoxicated demanded that nuclear weapons should be dropped on Hanoi; but Henry Kissinger made it clear to anyone within earshot, that Presidential orders should be ignored when the President was drunk. As evil and Machiavellian as Kissinger was, at least he prevented Nixon from starting WW III.
Yet it was rumors that Nixon was carrying on conversations with the portraits of ex-Presidents whose visages adorned the White House; that laid the groundwork for removing Nixon from office should impeachment fail, or if Nixon didn’t resign on his own volition. If he were mentally ill, the 25th Amendment could conceivably come into play.
Long before the election, I posted an article entitled Diagnosing Donald Trump which clearly demonstrated Trump had every criteria listed in the DSM (Diagnostic Statistical Manual) to be diagnosed with Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Yet, it is a myth that one must be a Doctor of Psychiatry or Psychology, to determine whether someone should be so diagnosed. You only have to know how to read. However, one does have to be a qualified expert before insurance companies will pay medical benefits for treatment to someone so diagnosed. Likewise, you don’t have to be a Supreme Court Justice to understand the First Amendment guarantees freedom of religion, freedom of the speech, and freedom of the press; but you do have to be a judge to rule as to whether a law violates the Constitution.
Trump is either a liar or delusional
Thus, it annoys me when someone like George Will says Donald Trump is mentally incapacitated, but then George pulls his punches by saying he might be wrong because he isn’t a medical doctor. This is like me saying that since the Supreme Court decided five-to-four that George W. Bush won Florida and thus the majority of electoral votes, and thus the Presidency; they must be right, and I’m wrong, because they (five of them) are Supreme Court Justices and I’m not. When an umpire blows a call, the umpire may rule, but that doesn’t mean the umpire is right.
Saying Donald Trump is mentally ill is simply an excuse to get rid of him. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing; it may be the only viable option available to remove an unfit President from office. But it is a shame the Constitution only states he can be removed because he is “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office;” and not because he is unfit, or incapable, or unwilling, or incompetent, or simply because he is too ignorant or too stupid to discharge the powers and duties of his office. In other words, the 25th Amendment applies if he is physically or mentally too sick to perform his Presidential duties; and unfortunately doesn’t apply because he is simply too bad to do so. In our culture we tolerate someone who is terribly bad, but not someone who is slightly mad.
That is a shame. Trump couldn’t be worse, even if he is in perfect health.
Post Script, September 2018. Tonight I was talking with someone who used to live in New York for many years and frequently saw Trump on television. She stated that he was much more articulate and coherent years ago and that he no longer has the mental faculties he once had. She used to work with Alzheimer's patients. Also, I recommend the book, The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump. I wrote a customer review of this book for Amazon. Out of over 700 reviews they posted, mine got the second-highest rating.