……. Interview with John Gartner www.salon.com/...
I doubt this book will get a positive or negative Tweet-out from Trump either one of which would increase its sales.www.cnn.com/...
Add another book to the long Wikipedia list of books about Donald Trump.
I haven’t had a chance to read the new book “Rocket Man: Nuclear Madness and the Mind of Donald Trump” but am alerting Kossacks to its publication. The publication of this just prior to Trump’s meeting with Kim Jun Un couldn’t have been timed better. The book is not only timely but noteworthy in that it has chapters by 10 mental health professionals about Trump’s dangerous psychopathology and by 14 historians and other experts about other reasons that he represents an existential threat to the country and the world.
Joe Cirincione on MSNBC today, he wrote Chapter 11: The Greatest Danger to America is Her Commander in Chief
Among the mental health professionals are a number who also wrote chapters in bestseller The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump. Among the non-therapists are at least these three who may be familiar to you since they have appeared on MSNBC: Gordon Humphrey, former Republican Senator; Richard Painter, former Chief White House Ethics Lawyer; and Joe Cirincione, President, Ploughshares Fund.
Summary From Amazon:
Will President Trump destroy civilization or win the Nobel Peace Prize? Humankind’s survival feels like a jump ball that could go either way. We are perched on a precipice, and the reason we are looking into an abyss of nuclear annihilation is that the American president has unencumbered, unilateral control over the nuclear codes. One thing we know for sure is that the mind of Donald Trump is currently in control of our fate. Never before have the nuclear codes been in the hands of a man who many observers view as unstable and erratic. The twenty-four experts who contributed to this book analyze President Trump’s behavior hoping to provide insights into what may be the most urgent question of our time. What will Trump do with his “big button?”
The mental health professionals who authored chapters have their own set of accomplishments, however, it would take too long to summarize them author by author. Instead, I provided brief bios of the non-mental health professionals as they are an impressive group. Their chapters are in bold.
Table of Contents:
Chapter 1: The Erratic President — Harry Segal, PhD, Cornell University
www.dailykos.com/...
Chapter 2: Nuclear Risk is Rising as Donald Trump Goes Downhill — John Gartner, PhD, Founder, Duty To Warn, currently raising funds to produce a documentary #UNFIT: The Dangerous Behavior of Donald Trump which I wrote about last week. Right >
Chapter 3: If President Trump Were Airman Trump, I Would Not Certify Him Psychologically Fit to Handle Nuclear Weapons — Steven Buser, MD, Psychiatrist, Former Major, USAF
Chapter 4: If Trump Were a Policeman I Would Have to Take Away His Gun -David Reiss, MD
Chapter 5: If Trump Was Entering the Military, He Would Not Receive a Security Clearance — William Enyart, Former U.S. Congressman & Retired General. In 2012, Enyart received the Commander's Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland from Bronislaw Komorowski, the President of Poland.
Chapter 6: A Man with No Humanity Has the Power to Destroy Mankind — Lance Dodes, MD
Chapter 7: Trump’s Sick Psyche and Nuclear Weapons: A Deadly Mixture -Gordon Humphrey, former Republican Senator with an interesting far-right history. In 1987, Humphrey harshly criticized President Ronald Reagan's appointment of openly gay geneticist Dr. Frank Lilly to his commission on the HIV Epidemic,[3] saying that Lilly's appointment would send the message ". . .that homosexuality is simply an alternative lifestyle." In 2015, Humphrey endorsed Ohio governor John Kasich for President in 2016.[8] During the 2016 Republican presidential primaries, Humphrey was a leader of efforts to try to block Trump from securing the nomination at the Republican National Convention. He stated, "I would only vote for Hillary in the event of a very close contest. Meantime, I'm hoping the Republican leadership, at long, long last will show the courage and principle to denounce Trump and to demand he renounce the nomination or face a reconvening of the convention." On 6 November 2016, two days before the election, Humphrey officially endorsed Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. In November 2016, he left the Republican Party and became an independent. On August 9, 2017, Humphrey extended his opposition to Trump by calling for his removal from office in a letter addressed to his own member of Congress, Rep. Ann McLane Kuster, arguing that Trump is “sick of mind” and dangerous.
Chapter 8: Facing the Truth: The Power of a Predatory Narcissist — Jacqueline West, PhD
Chapter 9: Trump’s No Madman, He’s Following the Strongman Playbook -Ruth Ben-Ghiat, The recipient of Guggenheim, Fulbright, and other fellowships, she’s an expert on fascism, authoritarianism, war, propaganda, and Donald Trump. She writes frequently for the media on those topics and has provided podcast and on-camera political commentary for Sky News, Slate, Salon, KCRW, Democracy Now!, Al-Jazeera, and other outlets.
Chapter 10: The Gospel of War Presidency —Leanne Watts Ph.D., Clinical Psychologist, and Richard Painter, chief White House ethics lawyer in the George W. Bush administration, American lawyer, professor, and political candidate. Often seen as a commentator on MSNBC and CNN, Painter has been an outspoken critic of unethical behavior in Washington, DC. He is the S. Walter Richey Professor of Corporate Law at the University of Minnesota, and since 2016 has served as vice-chair of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), a bipartisan government ethics watchdog group. A longtime Republican, in 2018 Painter launched a campaign as a Democrat for the U.S. Senate in Minnesota, challenging recently appointed Senator Tina Smith in the DFL primary.
Chapter 11: The Greatest Danger to America is Her Commander in Chief — Joe Cirincione, President, Ploughshares Fund a public grant-making foundation focused on nuclear weapons policy and conflict resolution. He is the author of Bomb Scare: The History and Future of Nuclear Weapons (Columbia University Press, 2007) and Deadly Arsenals: Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Threats (Carnegie Endowment, second edition 2006) and the co-author of Universal Compliance: A Strategy for Nuclear Security (Carnegie Endowment, 2005).
Chapter 12: Bluffing Us Into the Nuclear Abyss? — James Blight and Janet Lang, Dept. of History, Univ. of Waterloo, authors of "The Armageddon Letters"– a transmedia project (multiplatform storytelling) launched on the occasion of the 50thanniversary of the Cuban missile crisis –
Chapter 13: One Week in August: How a Self-Made Nuclear Crisis Exposed Donald Trump’s Psychopathology — Seth Norrholm PhD
Chapter 14: The Bully-in-Chief — Philip Zimbardo, Ph.D. & Rosemary Sword
Chapter 15: American Carnage: The Wars of Donald Trump - Melvin Allan "Mel" Goodman a national security and intelligence expert. He has worked as an analyst for the CIA and State Department, taught at the National War College and Johns Hopkins University, and is a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy.
Chapter 16: Taking Trump’s Finger off the Nuclear Button -Tom Z. Collina, Director of Policy, Ploughshares Fun, As director of policy Tom brings 25 years of Washington, DC experience in nuclear weapons, missile defense and nonproliferation issues to Ploughshares Fund. He has worked extensively as a researcher, analyst, and advocate to strengthen the efforts to end US nuclear testing, rationalize anti-missile programs, extend the Nonproliferation Treaty, and secure Senate ratification of the New START Treaty among others.
Chapter 17: Is Donald Trump a Fascist? - Bård Larsen works as a historian in Civita. Bård is a historian and has written a master thesis on the genocide of the Armenians. He has written a number of articles for, among others, Humanist and After Lemkin, on topics related to ideology, conflict, political Islam and totalitarianism. In 2008 he released the Civita book "Big Brother Kills! About totalitarianism ». In 2011 Bård published the book "The Idealists - On The Left-wing Travel In The Authoritarian". Bård has previously worked as a historian teacher in upper secondary school and has been affiliated with the Holocaust Center.
Chapter 18: The Relentless Victim: How Donald Trump Reinforces North Korea’s Narrative -Paul French, Freelance Writer, British author of books about modern Chinese history and contemporary Chinese society including Midnight in Peking. From his website: “As someone who divides his time pretty evenly writing about China now and China back then this seemed like a place to throw all the interesting bits that fall through the cracks somehow and never get used anywhere else. It's basically the stuff that doesn't get used in my writing about modern China or in the books I do about old China — i.e. probably of little interest to anyone but me and therefore ideally suited to an obscure blog up a dark cul-de-sac of the Internet.”
Chapter 19: Trump and North Korea: The Offer for Talks Was Impulsive, but Could it Work? - Stephan Haggard is Professor of Korea-Pacific Studies, director of the Korea-Pacific Program and distinguished professor of political science at the School. He has written on transitions to and from democratic rule and the political economy of economic reform, social policy and globalization. His focus on the Asia-Pacific region includes extensive work on North Korea with with Marcus Noland, including “Famine in North Korea: Markets, Aid, and Reform” (2007), “Witness to Transformation: Refugee Insights into North Korea” (2011) and "Hard Target: Sanctions., Inducements and the Case of North Korea" (2017). Haggard is the current editor of the Journal of East Asian Studies, maintains the "North Korea: Witness to Transformation" blog and has a regular column with the Joongang Daily.
Haggard writes following the summit : “ As a political scientist raised on the effects of strategic and institutional constraints, my contribution to the volume took a somewhat more prosaic view. I considered how Kim Jong Un's race to complete strategic nuclear and missile forces played an important role in forcing subsequent developments; Van Jackson at Politico makes similar points. Since the summit, I have noted that a number of features of the administration's foreign policy were on display in Singapore, including one noted by Keren Yarhi-Milo in particular: that personal chemistry has an upside as well as a downside. On the one hand, it can generate the empathy necessary to see an adversary's point of view and find negotiating space. But too much empathy and personal interests get conflated with national ones, and to the detriment of the latter.”
Chapter 20: The Art of the North Korea Deal — Harry Kazianis, Director of Defense Studies, The Center for the National Interest. Mr. Kazianis is a recognized expert on national security issues involving North Korea, China, the Asia-Pacific and general U.S. foreign policy and national security challenges. Kazianis is also Fellow for National Security Affairs at the Potomac Foundation and a non-resident Senior Fellow at the University of Nottingham (UK).
Chapter 21: Madman or Rational Actor? Kim Jong-un’s Nuclear Calculus — Ken Gause, Director, International Affairs Group CNA Corporation. He is the director of International Affairs Group, a part of the Strategic Studies division of the CNA Corporation in Alexandria, VA. He also oversees the Foreign Leadership Studies Program. Ken's work on foreign leaderships dates back to the early 1980s with his work on the Soviet Union. He has published numerous articles on the North Korean leadership for such publications as Korean Journal for Defense Analysis and Jane’s Intelligence Review, and is the author of a recently published book entitled North Korea Under Kim Chong-il: Policy, Politics, and Prospects for Change and Coercion, Control, Surveillance, and Punishment: An Examination of the North Korean Police State.
Chapter 22: How Presidential Actions Raise or Lower the Risk of War — James E. Doyle, PhD was a specialist in the Nuclear Nonproliferation Division at Los Alamos National Laboratory from 1997 to July 2014. His professional focus is on systems analysis, strategic planning and policy development. Dr. Doyle holds a PhD in International Security Studies from the University of Virginia. At Los Alamos he managed projects with Russia’s nuclear weapons institutes on the joint development of technologies and procedures for verifying the dismantlement and storage of nuclear warheads and fissile materials. He has been focusing on this topic again, speaking and publishing on the prospects for another round of U.S.-Russian nuclear arms reductions following the New START Treaty.
Chapter 23: Extinction Anxiety and Donald Trump -Thomas Singer, MD
Afterword: Visions of Apocalypse and Salvation -Leonard Cruz, MD
Endorsements From Chiron Publications on the back of the flyleaf endorsements:
“With courage and clarity John Gartner and the writers assembled here make a convincing case for understanding Donald Trump as a deeply troubled man who poses a danger to the nation and the world. Most alarming are the predictions of what we can expect as Trump feels investigations into his actions close-in. Read this and you will be ready to resist.”
-Michael D’Antonio, author of The Truth About Trump and Never Enough: Donald Trump and the Pursuit of Success
“A President whose grandiosity, paranoia and impulsivity are constantly on display has alarmed the public. This book explains why their anxiety is not misplaced.”
-Henry J. Friedman, M.D. Associate Professor of Psychiatry, Part-time, Harvard Medical School
“These sobering essays expose the level of very real danger in the United States and the world; they offer some insight into just how wrong things can go and just how fast it can happen. This is vital reading in an era of terrifying vulnerability.”
-Andrew Solomon, Ph.D., Professor of Clinical Psychology, Columbia University, and author of Noonday Demon, Far From the Tree, and Far & Away
“In fascinating and frightening detail, the authors explain why the symptoms exhibited by Trump would signal danger in anyone; and why, in a man who controls nuclear weapons, they threaten the entire world.”
-Joe Conason, Editor, The National Memo and author, Man of the World: The Further Endeavors of Bill Clinton
“Rocket Man offers a chance to approach Donald Trump through the eyes of astute psychotherapists and other experts—a must read for anyone concerned about his dangerous leadership.”
– Justin A. Frank, M.D., Clinical Professor psychiatry George Washington University and author of forthcoming book Trump on the Couch: Inside the Mind of the President.
“These distinguished thinkers and therapists grapple with the President’s confusing inner life and its potential manifestations into political and nuclear chaos.”
-Richard L. Munich, M.D., Professor of Clinical Psychiatry, Weill-Cornell College of Medicine