Is Donald Trump Mentally Ill?

stumbler · Aug 11, 2020

How this famous 1971 experiment gave a warning about America’s backslide into authoritarianism

If your boss dressed you up in military gear and told you to spray tear gas on a group of nonviolent protesting mothers, would you obey their orders? Most of us humans like to believe that we are moral creatures, driven by empathy, and that we wouldn’t do something cruel even if ordered to. Yet psychological studies have shown that the opposite is true, and that humans often obey unquestionably. Perhaps the most infamous study of this was the Stanford prison experiment, conducted nearly fifty years ago by Stanford University psychology professor Dr. Philip Zimbardo, which revealed how many human beings will be corrupted by power and bow to authoritarian leaders if socially permitted to do so.

One can see how this experiment has lingering relevance — for instance, in the ordeals of the Portland protesters, who have been tear-gassed amid peaceful protests and kidnapped in unmarked vehicles. What makes a law enforcement officer willing and ready to behave in these ways, to become foot-soldiers of a nascent police state, is a question that was already answered by the Stanford prison experiment.

First, though, a few words about the experiment itself. Conducted at Stanford University between August 14 and August 19, 1971, 24 students were divided into groups of “guards” (with nine students) and “prisoners” (consisting of 15 students) at a simulated prison in the basement of the college’s psychology building. Once there, Zimbardo reports, the “guards” fell into sadistic and authoritarian roles, while the “prisoners” became submissive and despondent. A number of “guards” appeared to show genuine pleasure in tormenting the “prisoners,” while the “prisoners” showed signs of extreme stress and learned helplessness.

Although intended to last for two weeks, the plug was pulled after less than one week. Still, the experiment became a go-to reference point for scholars and pundits attempting to explain how ordinary people can become tyrants when given power. Though ethical concerns and controversy still swirl around the Stanford prison experiment, its relevance today is undeniable. And as many Americans perceive the nation lurching towards authoritarianism, its conclusions are more vital to understand than ever. Indeed, only in understanding authoritarianism can one stop it.

As Zimbardo explained in his response to criticisms of the experiment:

My interest in exploring the psychology of time perspective, or the temporal zones in which we all live, emerged in part from the sense of distorted time we all experienced during the [Stanford prison experiment]. Without clocks or windows, that basement prison’s time revolved around each guard shift coming and going. We often felt trapped in an expanded present time zone when the guards were endlessly harassing the prisoners, or in a present fatalistic time zone that most prisoners experienced when nothing they did made a difference in how they were treated. I subsequently developed a scale to measure individual differences in time perspective, the Zimbardo Time Perspective Inventory…

Salon reached out to Zimbardo for this thoughts on how his experiment pertains to America’s political situation today.

“We have never seen anything like this before in America. And hopefully, when we get rid of [Trump] in November, we won’t see anything like this again,” Zimbardo — now a professor emeritus at Stanford — told Salon. After discussing how he and other psychologists, psychiatrists and mental health experts wrote a book in 2016 warning that Trump was mentally unfit to serve, he explained that Trump “is the most extreme case of a Present-oriented hedonist. And he attracts similar kinds of people.”

The phrase “Present-oriented hedonist” refers to the Zimbardo Time Perspective Inventory, which refers to the different ways in which people experience the past, present and future. As Zimbardo explained, “about 20% of almost any population are Present-oriented Hedonists.” Present-oriented hedonists are defined by how “they live in the moment. They never think about future consequences of their current actions. They always seek novelty and excitement. They’re easily bored with the familiar. They always challenge rules that limit their freedom.”

He added, “These are the people earlier who were against wearing seatbelts. These are the people earlier who against wearing head gear for riding bicycles or motorcycles. In general, they’re anti-conformist. They want to have freedom from any rules. They don’t follow rules. And so this is the most terrible positive for somebody who has the power of the President of the United States.” Not only has it caused Trump to bungle America’s response to the coronavirus, Zimbardo argued, but it has inspired the worst behaviors in his followers.

“What he exudes is power without limits. He can say whatever he wants, he makes up reality. He lives in his own world,” Zimbardo explained. “He makes it up. He makes it up. He doesn’t care. So that’s a real sense of power. I say whatever I want, because I like it. And his followers get power through him. They admire his ability to do whatever you want to say, whatever you want. He doesn’t have to follow any rules. He doesn’t have to follow any decorum. And that’s what makes him and them dangerous, because it is all about power. It’s unconstrained power and it’s power without reason, which is deadly.”

Salon reached out to Dr. Bandy X. Lee, a forensic psychiatrist at Yale School of Medicine for 17 years who taught at Yale Law School for 15 of those years — as well as the editor of “The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump” (to which Zimbardo also contributed) — for further elaboration on the applicability of Zimbardo’s theories.

“The main point of the Stanford prison experiment is about the influence of institutional structure,” Lee told Salon by email. “When abuse and violence occur, we are inclined to attribute it to ‘a few bad apples,’ and the enormous influence of structures, mostly unseen but well-documented, is easily overlooked. In my own area of study, I emphasize how ‘structural violence’ is not only the most lethal form of violence — causing more than ten times the deaths from all the suicides, homicides, and collective violence in the world combined — but is also the most potent stimulant of behavioral violence.” After explaining that structural violence can entail political, economic and cultural layers of oppression — as well as the institutionalization of classism, racism and sexism — Lee identified how Trump’s presidency has exacerbated these unjust structures in the United States.

“Having a perpetrator of structural violence in the office of presidency means that not only will he kill through his policies that vastly increase the advantage of certain groups over others, but he will also cause deaths through incitement of violence,” Lee explained. “This, of course, is what is happening in Portland and in other cities: his structures and policies are stimulating violence. For what is happening now and other reasons — such as my work in prison reform and in global violence prevention — I have long considered the Stanford prison experiment to be one of the most important contributions to our understanding and never fail to assign it in my courses.”

Lee said she invited Zimbardo to speak at a conference last year about the dangerous state of the world because “he gave critical psychological insight into how Mr. Trump resembled the worst prison guards in his experiment. . . . We can extrapolate from this how he, as commander-in-chief, would create systems that produce maximal suffering and death, as well as generate more violent personalities in the society of which he is in charge.”

Dr. David Reiss, another contributor to the book and a fellow professor at Yale, echoed Zimbardo’s and Lee’s observations.

“Even though the experiment itself had its problems in terms of methodology and what it proved or did not prove, it still brought out the ideas that under certain circumstances, people can act in ways that are very sadistic, that are very authoritarian, that are not part of what they consider their usual personality,” Reiss explained. “And in that situation, it may not have been a perfect experiment, but on the other hand, it brought out that those capabilities are there. And we get to see in politics right now is that basically the cover has been taken off the wrappings of the worst part of people’s personalities in a lot of different ways.”

Reiss drew attention to how some of these aspects of the American character existed long before Trump rose to power.

“There are unique aspects to America because of where we came from in terms of slavery, in terms of civil rights, in terms of other issues,” Reiss told Salon. “But you can look at most cultures and see the same basic dynamics played out in different ways, that human beings have a capability of cruelty and sadism. And if it’s not kept in check one way or another, it can be extremely dangerous. And of course, the more that technology and the media can come into play now more than it did 20 years ago or 50 years ago, or a thousand years ago, the more dangerous it is in certain ways.”

Elizabeth Mika, a clinical therapist and another co-author of “The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump,” noted that “there are questions as to the methodology of [the experiment] and the ethics of [the experiment]” and that “the results of the experiments, because of that, may be tainted.” At the same time, she argued that the behavior of Trump and his supporters is a real-life demonstration of the experiment’s applicability.

“We see people following Trump now, and supporting him and doing his bidding quite enthusiastically in fact, and that itself I think — if you’re looking at this huge experiment playing out in front of our eyes, so we don’t even have to artificially create these conditions — we have it laid out for us,” Mika told Salon. “You see the Republicans in Congress supporting Trump in his decisions and defending his bizarre statements as if they completely lost conscience. And so the question is, do they have a conscience in the first place?”

She added, “What Trump has done, I think he, he has given permission for people with with deficiencies in conscience to show their true colors.”

Reiss was pessimistic about whether America can become a fully functional democratic welfare state again.

“We can’t close Pandora’s box,” Reiss explained ruefully. “We could acknowledge what’s emerged and find better ways to deal with it. But just like really any time in history when something like this has come out, it’s a process of first having to get past the denial and acknowledge that there is a problem. And then within the context of the culture we’re in now, what better ways are there to deal with it?”

He added, “What might have been better after the Civil War or the Revolutionary War or World War I or World War II may not work now. What would have worked in Ancient Greece would not work now. So it’s not really a matter of going back as a matter of acknowledging that this is human nature, that the changes in human nature are going to be evolutionary over not even generations but over hundreds of years or millennia. But there are things we can do better to keep it in check in the current environment.”
Click to expand...

https://www.rawstory.com/2020/08/ho...out-americas-backslide-into-authoritarianism/

Distant Lover · Aug 11, 2020

stumbler · Aug 12, 2020

Exclusive Mary Trump interview: Donald Trump ‘understands he is not the person he pretends to be’

Dr. Mary Trump’s recent book, Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man, has brought renewed attention to the mental health of the 45th president of the United States at a much-needed time. Much of Dr. Trump’s narrative matches the analysis of The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 37 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President, edited by DCReport contributor Bandy X. Lee, a Yale forensic psychiatrist.

In this exclusive interview of Dr. Trump by a fellow mental health professional, they discussed the pathologies of Donald Trump’s originating household, his culpable homicide of thousands of Americans and the silencing of experts.

This is the fifth and final installment of DCReport’s “Inside the Mind of Donald J. Trump: The World’s Most Dangerous Man.” You can read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4.

Lee tells DCReport: It feels as if the contributors to “The Dangerous Case” have come full circle with Mary Trump’s book: Our independent public health analysis at the beginning of the presidency meets her intimate household observations at the end of this term, in a seamless expert consensus. But it was dismay at the lack of focus on her expertise that got me started. This was the impetus of our DCReport series, “Inside the Mind of Donald J. Trump.”

Mary Trump is the antithesis of her uncle in almost every respect. To the extent that he is a superficial con man, she is deeply authentic and brave in examining herself. To the degree that he inflates himself to an unreal demigod status at the slightest granting of power, she remains humble and grounded, no matter her sudden catapult as a towering figure in the literary world and perhaps in the history of nations (for what other leader’s outspoken family member was also a psychological expert?). Most exceptionally, she is willing to step up to do what is right, in spite of her natural inclinations.

“I think we are both shy speakers,” I started—to which she smiled broadly—“who feel compelled to do this because of the gravity of the situation and the professional responsibility we feel.” I had planned to thank her for coming forth, in ways I could not encourage the most established and most senior members of my field to do, when they are far less vulnerable, but they had their positions, pensions, and established reputations to protect. This presidency has been for me, as no doubt for the nation at large, a series of disappointments in our institutions.

Dr. Trump, by contrast, was a refreshing and welcome surprise. And yet she was busy appreciating and elevating me: “Well, you know, I am so grateful for what you have been doing….”

Here is an excerpt of our conversation:

Lee: I was enormously impressed with the professionalism and the clinical prowess you brought to your own situation with your family and your uncle, which is not easy to do. When did you realize it was not you and your father who were “a mess,” but Donald Trump himself?

Trump: It took a really long time because you grow up in this atmosphere that seems totally the way it is, and you do not understand how it might be different from other families. The other complicating factor for me, personally, was that by the time I was born, the man my father had been, the self-made professional pilot, the man who had many, many friends who adored him, no longer existed.

Trump is directly responsible for the death of thousands of Americans, which could have been avoided if he had just taken responsibility.

I think getting disinherited was kind of a tipoff, so to speak. It was not just that I got disinherited, it was the way in which my grandfather wrote his will. I was not even named in the will. I was referred to as “the issue” of Fred C. Trump Jr., my father, and it was so breathtaking, the ease and the thoroughness with which I was excised from the family. So, I stopped having anything to do with the family for a long time.

Also throughout my training as a clinician, I learned a lot about how to look at systems like families and pathologies and developmental issues, et cetera. Distance and training, I think, helped a lot, although it was not until I started writing the book that I really got in touch with some things that I, honestly, wish I had not had to.

You were wondering why more mental health professionals were not speaking up. Did you know that we had, at one point, raised this issue to the number one topic of the national conversation? And then the American Psychiatric Association stepped in and basically blocked us from all major media. What do you think of the fact that our society is literally dying at this point from lack of access to expertise?

I think it is a total condemnation of the trend in the last few decades to undermine the necessity of expertise and to devalue science. I think, even more fundamentally, it starts with the West’s bizarre need to separate physical and mental health from each other, and then the weird double standard that it is okay to talk incessantly about a candidate’s physical wellbeing or lack thereof, but not at all their mental health or lack thereof—especially considering whether or not somebody has a bout of pneumonia is not going to endanger the planet, whereas if you have somebody with Donald’s myriad psychopathologies, and look at where we are.

One of the huge services you provided with your work is making it clear that there is plenty of evidence to support the assessments of him. It is not like you are talking about somebody we know nothing about: he has been a public figure for a very long time, and the data are there. Especially when people from very diverse orientations or backgrounds come to the same conclusions, that has a lot of explanatory power.

Now, with the pandemic, having epidemiologists silenced or belittled, and apparently Dr. Fauci is now getting death threats. I think that is something that Donald has done in order to change the subject from his own utter incompetence.

You said in your book, “Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong-un, and Mitch McConnell, all of whom bear more than a passing psychological resemblance to Fred, recognized … that Donald’s checkered personal history and his unique personality flaws make him extremely vulnerable to manipulation.” Why do those traits make him so dangerous, and do you see it also between him and his followers?

It is one of the most horrifying aspects of all of this, the way the patterns repeat and how something that happens in a closed system like a family becomes magnified on a societal level. I mean, it is quite mind-boggling, and I think we all have our work cut out for us. I know that work has been done in terms of authoritarian personalities and that sort of thing, but there is such a one-to-one correspondence here, that it is unnerving. When I first started writing the book, that was the first thing that struck me: that there are several through-lines from my grandfather to the Republican Party and the cult followers.

The stressors are unimaginable… Imagine the energy it takes him when he is supposed to be the best and winning everything all the time… The danger inherent in being faced with his inadequacies is astronomical.

Obviously, if Donald were not in the Oval Office I would not have referred to him as “the most dangerous man in the world.” The stressors are unimaginable, because it is not just the job, which he does not even do, quite honestly. It is the bad news that he is surrounded by, and on a deep level, he understands that he is not at all the person he pretends to be. So imagine the amounts of energy it takes him when he is supposed to be the best and winning everything all the time. To hide that, not just from other people but from himself—the danger inherent in being faced with his inadequacies is astronomical.

Even though my grandfather died twenty years ago, whenever Donald is talking about he is the best, he is the greatest, whenever he is starved for attention and compliments and the rally crowds, what he is really doing is speaking to his audience of one, which was my grandfather, and saying, “You know, Dad, I am the best, I am the winner, do not kill me.”

You mentioned in one interview that he could be charged with negligent manslaughter, and I would agree. In fact, I believe he meets the criteria for culpable homicide. Whether that is manslaughter or murder depends on “the guilty mind,” the mens rea, that we evaluate in forensic psychiatry or psychology. But we do have someone who is responsible for tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of deaths through wrongful conduct.

That is why, in the book, I do not come out and diagnose him because my point is, who cares what his diagnosis is? Look at what he is doing, and look at how his behavior is shaping the behavior of the people around him. That is the problem. If we had a patient who was an imminent threat to herself or others, we would be required by law to do something. This man is directly responsible, and I agree with you, there is culpability and purpose here. He is directly responsible for the death of thousands of Americans, which could have been avoided if he had just taken responsibility.

Would you like to give any last word?

Listen to people who know. Listen to the professionals. Listen to the experts. Listen to the people with the expertise, who have spent years and decades of their lives, honing their skills as professionals, who understand these things, and pay attention to what he is doing, and look at those behaviors through the lenses we are offering.
Click to expand...

https://www.rawstory.com/2020/08/ex...tands-he-is-not-the-person-he-pretends-to-be/

stumbler · Aug 20, 2020

This has been a constant theme in most the books written about Trump as president and a steady stream of White House employees. All of which basically say Trump is literally and clinically mentally ill as in crazier than a shit house rat.

CNN’s Camerota Exclaims ‘Oh My God’ As Miles Taylor Claims WH Officials Worry About Trump’s Mental State

CNN’s Alisyn Camerota reacted with apparent shock on Thursday when former DHS official Miles Taylor told her that Donald Trump’s advisers don’t think he has the mental acuity to be president.

Taylor has offered numerous concerning claims about Trump since going public with his turn against the president, and since Trump is claiming to be mentally superior to Joe Biden, Camerota used a New Day interview to ask Taylor “in the White House, did people think there was cognitive decline or did people worry about [Trump’s] cognition?”

Taylor answered that Trump’s top advisers had “daily” conversations where “people literally didn’t feel like he was up to the job.”

“I’m telling you with every fiber of my being that some of the president’s closest advisers did not think he had the mental acuity to do the actual job,” Taylor continued. He went on to recall the reasons why meetings with Trump in the Situation Room would always be the “scariest.”

You would sit there trying to keep your jaw from hitting the floor because you’re trying to present the president information he needs…and he can’t keep his mind on it. He can’t focus, he fidgets and he gets confused. But this is the guy that needs to protect our country in the emergency and he can barely focus on what’s in front of him…This is the truth. This is what I witnessed. This is what many people witnessed, and I hope others will overcome that fear about what might happen in their personal lives if they speak out against the president.

“Oh my God!” Camerota exclaimed right after. “Oh my God! We have heard this whispered about, but nobody has spelled it out that clearly, that people — his top advisers daily — worry about his mental acuity and he can’t absorb the important information about the national security. We hear about that from time to time, but that is putting a fine point on it.”

Taylor went on to say others Republicans don’t speak out against Trump because of fear, but he insisted that there are more Trump administration officials who are preparing to revolt against the president.

Watch above, via CNN.
Click to expand...

https://www.mediaite.com/tv/cnns-ca...wh-officials-worry-about-trumps-mental-state/

stumbler · Aug 21, 2020

Top Psychologists Compare Trump to Hitler and Mussolini in New Documentary

In the eye-opening documentary “#UNFIT,” premiering in virtual cinemas Aug. 28, psychologists and former allies of President Trump diagnose why he’s a danger to America.

Nick Schager
Published Aug. 21, 2020 4:34AM ET
Donald Trump’s psychosis is on full display for everyone to see, day in and day out, on TV and on Twitter. But for those interested in getting a fuller, damning portrait of his headspace—and who have already devoured his niece Mary Trump’s bestseller Too Much and Never Enough—#Unfit: The Psychology of Donald Trump has arrived to further mark the current commander-in-chief as a madman ill-suited for public service. Premiering in virtual cinemas on Aug. 28 and on digital/streaming TVOD on Sept. 1, it’s a cogently argued and executed evisceration of a president who’s fundamentally—and dangerously—unworthy of the Oval Office.

Like anything said or written about Trump, Dan Partland’s documentary will be somewhat outdated by the time of its debut; there’s just no way for any film to be totally up-to-the-minute when America’s leader so habitually whips up fresh outrages, gaffes, and scandals. Nonetheless, if it’s missing Trump’s very latest blunders and criminal conduct—such as his neutering of the U.S. Postal Service, and admission that he’s done so to swing the election in his favor—#Unfit remains a valuable peek inside a thoroughly rotten mind up to and including March’s coronavirus outbreak. Guided by interviewees whose commentary is expertly complemented by supporting-evidence clips of Trump saying all sorts of tellingly horrible things, it details the various personality traits that drive his monstrous behavior, and sheds light on how his own failings spell potential doom for American democracy.

The Lincoln Project co-founder George Conway kicks things off by rhetorically asking, “What is wrong with him? Donald Trump is like a practical joke that got out of hand.” Unfortunately, #Unfit is no laughing matter. Director Partland begins his breakdown of the current president by turning to esteemed psychologists, including John Gartner, Lances Dodes, and Justin Frank, who diagnose Trump as a “malignant narcissist,” a classification that has four components: Narcissism, Paranoia, Antisocial Personality Disorder, and Sadism. Trump’s exhibition of those qualities is thoroughly detailed in passages that make great use of his audio interviews, press conferences, rally speeches, and a 1993 Howard Stern interview in which he ranks celebrity females by their hotness, and semi-jokingly admits that he doesn’t treat women with respect.

“Trump is a sociopath. A sadist. A con artist. A racist. A misogynist. A sexist in general. And I think it is a problem,” says Frank, providing the most amusing understatement of this entire affair. Having initially probed Trump’s mind and found only arrogance, selfishness, greed, a hunger for power, and a total disinterest in his fellow man—or knowledge about the world, competing views, or any number of other subjects—#Unfit proceeds to expand its purview by explaining his corrosive tactics, such as gaslighting. Additional examples, such as a discussion about the Ash Experiment—in which lies told by the many convince the few to doubt the obvious facts they see—speak to Trump’s method of using deception to sow seeds of confusion and distrust.

A segment on Trump’s upbringing suggests that what he most learned from father Fred was to look down on those below him, and to vengefully crush anyone who might dare oppose him. As Gartner and his colleagues explain, the fact that an American president might have a mental disorder doesn’t, in and of itself, disqualify him or her from the job; Abraham Lincoln, Gartner surmises, might have been the ideal Civil War leader precisely because his depressive nature meant he was accustomed to shouldering great emotional pain. In the case of Trump, however, his deficiencies mark him as a sociopathic megalomaniac who only cares about himself—such that, as sportswriter Rick Reilly recounts, Trump actually rigs his personal golf cart to make it faster, all so he can speed to his ball ahead of his competitors in order to cheat.

While Trump might be a historically awful president, #Unfit doesn’t contend that he’s an altogether unique figure, since as Gartner says, he shares the same psychological profile, and characteristics, of autocrats like Mussolini and Hitler. Gartner’s claim that “they’re cut from the same cloth” is bolstered by other historians and mental health professionals who draw direct links between Trump’s MO and those of 1930s fascists who exploited and magnified existing economic fears, prejudices, and discontent to seize power and then systematically neuter institutions that might challenge him. #Unfit illustrates, clearly and concisely, that Trump is playing by the standard-issue authoritarian playbook, including by stoking ethno-nationalist movements and aligning himself with fellow despots such as Erdogan, Bolsonaro, and Putin.

In the interest of including a voice that isn’t 100 percent anti-Trump, #Unfit features input from Anthony Scaramucci, Trump’s blink-and-you-missed-him communications director, who largely decries his former boss but nonetheless gives him credit for pinpointing and manipulating the grievances of certain white Americans (which is true) and for not being a racist but, instead, an “asshole” (which is, respectively, untrue and true). Bill Kristol, meanwhile, condemns Trump as unfit to serve due to his character and judgment, and Conway admits that he originally believed that Trump’s intolerant diatribes were merely a function of his narcissism (i.e. he uses hateful language against anyone who doesn’t view him as a deity), but was soon swayed by the sheer ugliness of his vitriol.

#Unfit confirms that Trump is a lot of reprehensible things, but chief among them is that he’s a threat to the democratic experiment that’s been conducted in this country for nearly two-and-a-half centuries. With this lethally-unhinged man’s vindictive temper, refusal to learn anything or take anyone’s counsel, and contempt for the people he serves and the governmental structures and principles designed to guide his actions (all while he has his finger on the nuclear trigger), he’s a national disaster waiting to happen. His catastrophic inability to respond to the pandemic in a successful—or humane—manner is thus only the greatest of his many failings, resulting in over 170,000 American deaths so far and untold damage to the American economy and social fabric. As Partland’s doc recognizes, he’s an individual doomed to wreak havoc by his inherent makeup.

Which is to say, give him a few more days, and he’ll do something else that’s unforgivably appalling.
Click to expand...

https://www.thedailybeast.com/we-bu...them-well-in-their-cavity-searches?ref=scroll

Distant Lover · Aug 21, 2020

August 20, 2020

Miles Taylor, the former DHS chief of staff who, in recent days, has taken a jackhammer to Trump’s already rubbly reputation, has more horror stories from Hell House.

Today he appeared on CNN...

MILES TAYLOR: “It’s easy to make light of this. You know, the internet’s flooded with memes of really funny instances of Donald Trump showing less than great mental acuity, but this was discussed often, this was discussed daily among the president’s senior advisers and the cabinet. People literally didn’t feel like he was up to the job. And I don’t blame someone who’s watching me right now from thinking, this guy’s selling out and he’s trying to cash in and so he’s going to trash the president. I am telling you with every fiber of my being that some of the president’s closest advisers did not think he had the mental acuity to do the actual job.

We would go in there, again in meetings, the scariest ones being in the Situation Room, and those are usually ones where I can’t give you the details about what we were talking about, they’d be classified. But you would sit there trying to keep your jaw from hitting the floor because you’re trying to present the president sensitive threat intelligence and information that he needs to consider and he can’t keep his mind on it. He can’t focus and he fidgets and he gets confused. But this is the guy that we’re thinking, you know, needs to protect our country in an emergency, and he can barely focus on what’s in front of him, and rarely would read the piece of paper in front of him.

I hardly ever saw Donald Trump read a document he was handed, but he did love pictures. He loved pictures, and there were many occasions where we had to go see the president and we figured out that the best way to convince him of something was to get a really good graphic of it. I can’t believe I’m saying that either, but this is the truth. This is what I witnessed, this is what many people witnessed, and I hope others will overcome that fear about what might happen in their personal lives if they speak out against the president. It’s the time to do it, it’s right, and it’s the only way we’re going to have a great American comeback is if we prevent a second Donald Trump term.”

---------

I read a lot about Joe Biden's approaching senility. If Trump is not going senile, he has always been this stupid.

stumbler · Aug 27, 2020

New documentary raises alarms about Trump’s mental health — and exposes his ‘all-consuming narcissism’

Whatever the outcome in November — whether voters elect former Vice President Joe Biden and vote President Donald Trump out of office or give him four more years in the White House — a long list of pundits, journalists and political insiders will no doubt continue to dissect and analyze Trump’s presidency for years to come. Much of the analysis of Trump will take place from a policy standpoint, but the documentary “#Unfit: The Psychology of Donald Trump” mostly analyzes him from a mental health standpoint. And long-time Chicago Sun-Times film critic Richard Roeper, in an article published this week, explains why he is recommending “#Unfit.”

Roeper, despite his high opinion of the film, acknowledges that “#Unfit” is unlikely to turn Trump’s hardcore MAGA base against him.

“Some might even sit through all the arguments and watch the presentations making the case Trump is unfit and react by saying, ‘And that’s exactly why you’re all so scared of him and he’s the greatest president of all time!” Roeper writes. “Nevertheless, we are recommending ‘#Unfit’ not for any political reason — in fact, the film is not about Trump’s policies, but about his personality — but because it offers some valuable insights into Trump’s behavior.”

Roeper explains that on the whole, “#Unfit” is “about providing examples — and admittedly, very little of this is new — of Trump’s word and deeds through the decades reinforcing his belief in unfounded conspiracy theories; his utter lack of personal loyalty…. his inability to experience normal human empathy or even a hint of remorse; his sadistic and vindictive joy in getting even or seeing others fail, and his all-consuming narcissism as he processes virtually every experience through a me-first filter.”

“#Unfit” includes commentary from some mental health professionals, including psychiatrist Justin Frank and psychologist Suzanne Lachmann. But some political figures weigh in on Trump’s mental state as well in the documentary, including conservative attorney George Conway — one of Trump’s most vehement critics on the right. Although Conway has been very active in right-wing politics, he believes that Trump has been terrible for the conservative movement and is hoping that Biden will defeat him in this year’s presidential election. Conway, in fact, believes that a Biden landslide would be the best thing that could happen to conservatism in the United States.

In “#Unfit,” Conway says of Trump, “Think of what you tell your kids. You tell them to be honest, you tell them to tell the truth. You tell them, ‘Don’t think of yourself, don’t brag, don’t trash other people to make yourself feel good.’ How can you support Donald Trump? How can you support someone who essentially violates all of the things we want (our children) to follow? It makes no sense. It’s corrosive for them, it’s corrosive for you and it’s corrosive for the country.”
Click to expand...

https://www.rawstory.com/2020/08/ne...lth-and-exposes-his-all-consuming-narcissism/

stumbler · Sep 1, 2020

Just for your information RAWSTORY now has a "Flipboard" dedicated to stories about Trump's mental health or lack of same.

There are now just too many of these kinds of stories to fit on the front page.

https://flipboard.com/@rawstory/is-...utm_source=flipboard&utm_medium=curator_share

Is ‘malignant narcissist’ Trump sick? Experts and former allies say he’s ‘unfit’

Published 3 hours ago
on September 1, 2020
ByAgence France-Presse

As battle lines are drawn ahead of Donald Trump’s bid for re-election, a new documentary based on the testimony of mental health professionals has labeled the US president a “malignant narcissist.”

“Unfit: The Psychology of Donald Trump” — released on streaming platforms Tuesday — claims not to be politically motivated.

The film interviews several psychologists who argue they have a medical duty to warn the US public about Trump’s alleged mental state.

According to psychologist John Gartner, *Trump clearly exhibits four key symptoms of malignant narcissism — the “most destructive” personality type — including paranoia, narcissism, antisocial personality disorder and sadism.

“This type of leader pops up all throughout history, and they’re always extraordinarily disruptive,” Gartner told AFP, noting that the same label has been applied to Hitler, Stalin and Mussolini.

“What is so strange is that we’re not used to seeing this type of leader in America.”

But the film’s central premise of professionally diagnosing a public figure from afar is contentious.

Republican candidate Barry Goldwater successfully sued a magazine after it published a damning survey of psychiatrists speculating about his mental health during his failed 1964 run.

The psychiatric community later ruled that offering a professional opinion without an in-person examination is unethical.

However, Gartner argues the rise of observation-based diagnosis over traditional Freudian psychoanalysis — and the wealth of public data about Trump’s behavior — makes that rule outdated.

And the film highlights another rule that compels mental health professionals to speak out when a patient’s disorder imperils others — in this case, the US public.

“It’s not that he’s as bad as Hitler, or that he’s the equivalent of Hitler,” Gartner says. “But he has the same diagnosis as Hitler.”

Diagnosing Trump has long been a popular tactic for his opponents.

Trump’s psychologist niece Mary Trump recently published an unflattering tome on her uncle, while the president’s own “Art of the Deal” co-author has said their book should be re-titled “The Sociopath.”

The US president memorably hit back at allegations of mental health problems by declaring himself a “very stable genius.”

As well as psychologists, the movie interviews lawyers, historians, academics, former intelligence officers and — most prominently — noted Trump critics.

These include short-lived White House communications boss Anthony Scaramucci, and George Conway — whose wife, Kellyanne, recently announced she was stepping down as the president’s long-standing advisor.

According to director Dan Partland, “plenty” of politicians “have psychological diagnoses that are not dangerous.”

The film suggests Abraham Lincoln struggled with depression, which was an asset during the suffering of the Civil War, and Bill Clinton has hypomania, a key to his charisma.

“It’s the particular constellation of diagnoses that Donald Trump has that makes him so dangerous,” Partland told AFP.
Click to expand...

*Last night news broke that Trump made another trip to Walter Reed and he has suffered a series of mini strokes. And then he went on Laura Ingraham's show last night and even she could not save him from himself. Trump just babbled incoherently. Spouted conspiracy theories he saw on Facebook. And compared police shooting someone in the back 7 times to missing a three foot putt.

https://www.rawstory.com/2020/09/is...sick-experts-and-former-allies-say-hes-unfit/

stumbler · Sep 9, 2020

Michael Cohen dishes to Maddow on Trump’s mental state: ‘’He’s not the same person’

MSNBC anchor Rachel Maddow on Tuesday interviewed longtime Donald Trump “fixer” Michael Cohen about his forthcoming tell-all book on the president.

“Over time, do you feel like his sentience has declined, in what you’re describing there in terms of his spelling or the way that he speaks or sometimes has trouble with words?” she asked “Has that changed over time? Is he the same person that speaks now that you recognize from your time working with him for all those years?”

“He’s not the same person that I knew going back years ago,” Cohen replied.

“He was always gruff. He was always a certain way, but the power that he now has has gone to his head,” he explained.

“He wants to be an autocrat. He wants to be the president of this country for life,” he continued. “He wants to be just like [Vladimir] Putin, just like Kim Jong-Un, like Nicolás Maduro, like Mohammed bin Salman.”

“He’s not joking. He doesn’t have a sense of humor, he doesn’t laugh or tell jokes, he doesn’t have a sense of humor,” Cohen said. “He means it when he says it and my book is intended to really open the eyes of the 38% base of his that no matter what Donald Trump does it’s acceptable to them. And he doesn’t care and they don’t care.”

Watch:
Click to expand...

https://www.rawstory.com/2020/09/mi...-trumps-mental-state-hes-not-the-same-person/

stumbler · Sep 11, 2020

Trump’s reaction shows Bob Woodward inflicted a ‘severe’ narcissistic injury: psychotherapist

Details from Bob Woodward’s latest book, “Rage,” appear to have seriously harmed Donald Trump’s ego, according to a psychotherapist who co-authored a book about the president’s mental health.

Explosive details from the book went public on Wednesday, and Trump spent much of Thursday morning on Twitter.

“Our president tweeted and retweeted self-adulatory content 34 times, so far, in one hour. The narcissistic injury induced by Woodward tapes is severe,” wrote Elizabeth Mika, the co-author of “The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump,” in response to the president’s Twitter spree.

“Self-adulatory, contemptuous of his critics, and/or threatening content. Rage is a natural response to narcissistic injury,” she continued.

“We all experience narcissistic injuries, btw — the blows to our sense of (false) self and self-worth. They are actually necessary for our development, as they help us dismantle our false self, piece by piece or all at once, helping to reveal our True Self underneath,” Mika added.

Trump was to continue his PR blitz with another rally in Michigan later Thursday.

Despite the bluster, Trump’s taped admission to Woodward that he played down the coronavirus crisis in public, while being aware of the unique danger from the disease, has set off alarm bells less than eight weeks before election day.

“Rage” is filled with startling episodes, including the assessment by Trump’s then director of national intelligence, the respected Dan Coats, that the president “doesn’t know the difference between the truth and a lie.”

But the segments in which Trump candidly discusses the coronavirus pandemic — which has by now killed almost 200,000 Americans — are getting the most attention.

Despite openly describing to Woodward the scary characteristics of the then unknown virus, Trump said “I wanted to always play it down.”

Trump went on to explain that he wanted to avoid causing panic but his acknowledgement that he was deliberately failing to tell the country the unvarnished truth has started a firestorm.

“He knew how deadly it was,” Democratic opponent Joe Biden said Wednesday. “He lied to the American people. He knowingly and willingly lied about the threat it posed to the country for months.”

With additional reporting from AFP
Click to expand...

https://www.rawstory.com/2020/09/tr...a-severe-narcissistic-injury-psychotherapist/

stumbler · Sep 12, 2020

WATCH: George Conway walks through Trump’s ‘9 for 9’ symptoms of mental instability

In a clip that was not included in the upcoming documentary #UNFIT that explores Donald Trump’s mental instability as evidenced by his actions since he became president, George Conway, husband of White House senior adviser Kellyanne Conway, reads from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders to explain what is wrong with his wife’s boss.

As the film’s director Dan Partland explained to The Daily Beast’s Marlow Stern, “The important thing to recognize about behavioral disorders is that they can be diagnosed through observation alone. There is no need to probe the depths of someone’s soul to determine if they meet the criteria for a behavioral disorder. The DSM is written in plain English and can be easily understood by lay-people.”

With that, Conway can be seen in the clip listing off the nine indicators of the personality disorder while giving examples of Trump’s actions that match up.

“I have here the DSM-5,” explains Conway holding up an iPad and reading, “A pervasive pattern of grandiosity and fantasy or behavior, need for admiration, and lack of empathy as indicated by five or more of the following.”

After ticking off multiple indicators, Conway points out it was “nine for nine” that obviously apply to the president.

Watch below:
Click to expand...

https://www.rawstory.com/2020/09/wa...rumps-9-for-9-symptoms-of-mental-instability/

ace's n 8's · Sep 12, 2020

It's funny to see how so many 'professionally trained experts' of diagnosing mental illness seem to want make the connection between an Authoritarian regime and promoting individualism.

stumbler · Sep 24, 2020

Psychologists pen op-ed declaring Trump to be the most ‘psychiatrically disordered president in history’

In an op-ed published in the New York Daily News this Thursday, psychologists Alan D. Blotcky and Seth D. Norrholm said that when it comes to President Trump’s mental health, it’s time to “stop pulling punches.”

“We are psychologists, and we are convinced Donald Trump is a psychopath. His malignant behavior over the past four years is growing and escalating right before our eyes. Trump’s psychopathy will change us forever if he is not stopped,” they write. “This is not hyperbole. This is not an expression of ‘a left-wing agenda.’ This is a mental health opinion based on thousands of hours of documented behavior by this president.”

According to Blotcky and Norrholm, there’s absolutely nothing, no matter how untruthful or illegal or immoral, that Trump will not do to win the election.

“Trump is the most psychiatrically disordered president in history.”

Read the full op-ed over at The New York Daily News.
Click to expand...

https://www.rawstory.com/2020/09/ps...chiatrically-disordered-president-in-history/

stumbler · Oct 1, 2020

Mary is right. Trump got triggered and tried to say Biden was not as smart as he is. And the whole nation laughed because even if Trump was not mentally ill he would still be the most stupid and ignorant president in US history.

And Trump certainly is not alone when it comes to psychological projection where he falsely accuses others of what he is actually doing. That has now become the default response to anything Trump does or is doing. It does not matter what it is. They simply reverse it and then falsely claim its the left doing it. @shootersa does that all the time right here on the forum.

‘Classic projection’: Mary Trump says the president was triggered when Biden called a policy ‘not smart’

President Donald Trump’s niece Mary not only spent her life around the president and his family, but she also has the benefit of being a psychologist who could legitimately assess the life and mental health of her uncle.

Speaking to MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell, she explained that in one particular moment in the Tuesday evening debate, Trump seemed triggered by former Vice President Joe Biden’s use of the phrase “not smart” in reference to a policy. Trump went off.

“Did you use the word ‘smart?'” Trump asked after Biden insulted Trump’s coronavirus plan as not being “smart.”

“So you said you went to Delaware State but you forgot the name of your college,” Trump continued, falsely claiming something Biden never said. “You didn’t go to Delaware state. You graduated either the lowest or almost the lowest in your class. Don’t ever use the word ‘smart’ with me. Don’t ever use that word.”

Mary Trump explained that it was “classic projection” on the president’s part. Even though the “not smart” had nothing to do with Trump himself, he couldn’t control himself.

“Well, he knows [smart] doesn’t apply to him, and he’s very insecure about it,” she said. “That was just classic projection because, you know, it also didn’t make any sense. Joe Biden was talking about a tactic that wasn’t the right way to approach something. He wasn’t talking about anybody’s IQ. So, I think it was just another example of Donald’s insecurity coming to the surface.

O’Donnell noted that when Biden called Trump a “racist,” he didn’t bat an eye and didn’t seem to care.

“That was a great observation,” noted Mary Trump. “No, he’s happy to take that label as we saw with his horrific comments or failure to comment, I should say, on condemning white supremacy. He knows — first of all, he is a white supremacist, so he’s not going to go condemn himself. And secondly, he knows that that is something about him that plays with his base, and his base is all he’s got left.”

Biden went after Trump’s attacks on soldiers, talking about his late son, who served in Iraq. Trump pivoted from Biden talking about soldiers to attacking Biden’s other son Hunter for his addiction struggle. Mary Trump said that her reaction to it was “pure rage.”

“It was horrifying,” she said. “It was certainly not the most dangerous moment in the debate, but I think it explains why other moments are as dangerous as they are. This shows us who he is. First of all, I found Vice President Biden’s restraint absolutely incomprehensible. But that’s who — that’s who Donald is. He is cruel. He is contemptuous. And when Vice President Biden was able to steer the conversation back to something that mattered, his son’s recovery, and to say how proud he was of his son, I first thought personally I wish he had been my father’s dad. But unfortunately, Donald Trump was my father’s brother, so it was a pretty devastating moment.”

See the interview below:
Click to expand...

https://www.rawstory.com/2020/09/cl...iggered-when-biden-called-a-policy-not-smart/

3xm · Oct 1, 2020

He is who he's always been. An immature, low IQ narcissist. People just chose to support his bullshit and act like they didnt see it.

shootersa · Oct 1, 2020

3xm said: ↑

He is who he's always been. An immature, low IQ narcissist. People just chose to support his bullshit and act like they didnt see it.
Click to expand...

Again.
The choices in 2016 were limited to a career corrupt politician and a pompous gas bag. America made it's choice. It's now 2020 and time to make the selection again. If you don't like Trump, come up with a candidate who can beat him.
What did you come up with?
Biden?
Really?
Harris.
Really.

You have no one to blame but yourself.

conroe4 · Oct 1, 2020

Yourselves. There, FIFY.

Biden: I am the Democratic Party.

Trump: Not according to Harris.

That's some funny shit.

shootersa · Oct 1, 2020

Yeah, that right there, that one will come back and bite Biden right in the ass at some point.

Like, Biden says one thing, and Harris disagrees, and before you know it, Biden's over at Walter Reed looking at ink blots and Nancy Antoinette is saying “I, Nancy, am in control here at the White House,” and Harris is saying "We took an oath to uphold the constitution".

*look up Alexander Haig gaffs

stumbler · Oct 5, 2020

They know they are in real danger. First Trump has to have Ivanka around to keep him from going off the deep end and reveal just how mentally ill he really is. And its a race against time with Trump in the hospital. And their terror is made even worse with the possibility that something will happen to Trump before he can pardon all of them.

Donald Trump Jr thinks his father is ‘acting crazy’ and is desperate to rein him in: report

President Donald Trump’s hospital joyride and his manic Monday-morning tweets aren’t just being panned by political pundits — they’re also reportedly freaking out some in the president’s own family.

According to Vanity Fair’s Gabriel Sherman, the president’s eldest son has been alarmed by his behavior over the past couple of days, in which he’s been desperate to project strength while being hospitalized at Walter Reed Memorial Hostpital.

“Don Jr. has said he wants to stage an intervention, but Jared and Ivanka keep telling Trump how great he’s doing,” one source tells Sherman. “Don said, ‘I’m not going to be the only one to tell him he’s acting crazy.'”

However, even Jared and Ivanka reportedly agreed with Donald Jr. that the president’s Monday morning all-caps tweet storms — which included messages such as “SPACE FORCE. VOTE!” — went way over the edge.

“They’re all worried,” said one source. “They’ve tried to get him to stop tweeting.”
Click to expand...

https://www.rawstory.com/2020/10/do...crazy-and-is-desperate-to-rein-him-in-report/

And also we see why no Trump supporter can ever claim they care about national security again. That is just an obvious lie. Trump has created the worst national security crisis since the Cuban Missile crisis and should have put Pence in charge the moment they decided he needed to go to the hospital.

Doctor Warns Trump’s Coronavirus Treatment Can Cause Psychosis, Mania
Dr. Megan Ranney told CNN that the steroid dexamethasone can cause “mental health side effects.” She also called some of Trump’s behavior “concerning.”

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-covid-dexamethasone-mental-health_n_5f7b22e6c5b64cf6a253baa3

shootersa · Oct 5, 2020

Rear admiral motherfucker who, you know, thinks America is a shithole, should just siddown and shut up about security or our future or our issues.

Log in or Sign up

stumbler Porn Star

Distant Lover Master of Facts

stumbler Porn Star

stumbler Porn Star

stumbler Porn Star

Distant Lover Master of Facts

stumbler Porn Star

stumbler Porn Star

stumbler Porn Star

stumbler Porn Star

stumbler Porn Star

ace's n 8's Porn Star

stumbler Porn Star

stumbler Porn Star

3xm Sex Machine

shootersa Frisky Feline

conroe4 Lake Lover In XNXX Heaven

shootersa Frisky Feline

stumbler Porn Star

shootersa Frisky Feline

Is Donald Trump Mentally Ill?

Log in or Sign up

stumbler Porn Star

Distant Lover Master of Facts

stumbler Porn Star

stumbler Porn Star

stumbler Porn Star

Distant Lover Master of Facts

stumbler Porn Star

stumbler Porn Star

stumbler Porn Star

stumbler Porn Star

stumbler Porn Star

ace's n 8's Porn Star

stumbler Porn Star

stumbler Porn Star

3xm Sex Machine

shootersa Frisky Feline

conroe4 Lake Lover In XNXX Heaven

shootersa Frisky Feline

stumbler Porn Star

shootersa Frisky Feline

Useful Searches