In the department of There Are None So Blind As Those Who Will Not See, some hack at the Washington Examiner actually asked, “Why hasn’t Michael Wolff’s dementia-Trump ever been seen in public?” Like there hasn’t been discussion about Trump’s mental health going back long before Wolff’s book came out. See, for example, “I’m a brain specialist. I think Trump should be tested for a degenerative brain disease,” published December 7.
The more pertinent question is, does it really matter what the diagnosis is? Josh Marshal writes,
We are now back on to the feverish debate about whether or not Donald Trump is mentally ill or suffering from the onset of dementia. The most important thing to know about this debate is that it simply doesn’t matter. Diagnoses are something for trained professionals and even they are challenged to make them without a proper in-person examination. But again, it doesn’t matter.
For public purposes, clinical diagnoses are only relevant as predictors of behavior. If the President has a cognitive deficiency or mental illness that might cause him to act in unpredictable or dangerous ways or simply be unable to do the job, we need to know. But My God, we do know! We see him acting in these ways every day – and not just in multiple news reports from an abundance of different news organizations. We see it with our own eyes: in his public actions, his public statements, his tweets. All the diagnosis of a mental illness could tell us is that Trump might be prone to act in ways that we literally see him acting in every day: impulsive, erratic, driven by petty aggressions and paranoia, showing poor impulsive control, an inability to moderate self-destructive behavior. He is frequently either frighteningly out of touch with reality or sufficiently pathological in his lying that it is impossible to tell. Both are very bad.
In other words, Washington Examiner hack, if you want to see what dementia looks like, just watch Trump for a while. If he’s not suffering some sort of brain impairment, he’s putting on a hell of an act. Or, if that’s his “normal,” then he’s always been dumb as a box of rocks. Either way, he shouldn’t be president.
And people are getting tired of the excuses. (Watch Jake Tapper cut short an interview with Stephen “I Even Look Like Fredo” Miller. Fun little clip.)
Michael Chabon wrote something that I can only paraphrase.
"There was something about him that made one look down at the dashboard of life and see a red light flashing." That's a bit more Wodehousian than it might be in the original, but, survival of the kind dependent on "fight or flight" doesn't depend on specifics or definitions.
Once again, Josh Marshall puts it well.
Everything I read about the man prompts me to ask "Why isn't he referred to as Republican President Trump?"
It seems to me that's all that needs to be said about his people and his leadership.
Stella — I avoid using the qualifier “president” before the name “Trump.” But if I am forced into it in the future I will certainly add “Republican.”
Not a bad nickname Stella, since it's entirely true. Since Republican President Trump cannot be wrong (has never admitted error, has only said he might not do a handful of obviously messed up things the same way) I think Republican Lackey/Traitor/Slapdog “Sloppy Steve” is in one helluva bind, regardless of how contrite he may appear.
Josh Marshall says it well. Having worked as a psych nurse for many years and watched psychiatrists form a diagnosis, I observed that most patients were a combination. However, to get paid by the insurance company, the doctor must settle on one. And it is sort of a guessing game. I believe the criteria for each diagnosis are listed in the DSM and the patient must display a certain percentage for the diagnosis to be valid. But that is for doctors and insurance companies. Anyone with acute observation skills can see that Trump is not qualified to be president. But since he won the election, can we say that the voters are not qualified to vote. Perhaps. But that is our system. Is our system broken? These are questions that I ponder frequently. I honestly cannot see how we can go on for another year with this chaos and I do not have confidence that if the Democrats take over the House or Senate that they will do anything either. Guess you could call that apathy. That calls for chocolate.
grannyeagle, interesting points. My fear is that Democrats operate out of caution in a way that does not comport with the times. They lose by default, once again.
If your wife is now the reason to disqualify agents from investigations; if we need a 2nd special prosecutor to look into everyone else's underwear but not Republicans; if every word in the book is false BUT those of Bannon the banished; if Grassley has a Barbara Ledeen on his staff who with her spouse Michael Ledeen participated in searching for the legendary missing emails, If Congressmen calling for Sessions to resign are partisans, how can their investigations be pure as the wind driven snow and all else be tainted?
ah the discrepancies in Republican heads. They really must have a divided lobe situation in their brains.
grannyeagle,
One thing we should thank the FSM for, is that in the past year there was no major international incident – beyond NK testing nukes (and NOT using them) – and the national ones were either of tRUMP's own making, and costly hurricanes (instead of a major 2007/2008-like economic disasters).
We have yet to see our psycho POTUS face a national or international situation that would test a real, rational, and intelligent President – and Congress.
Let's hope – or pray – that our luck holds out….
Here,s a few numbers to consider, in the Rasmussen poll 29% STRONGLY approve of Trumps performance. As of October, Gallup reported that 31% of voters identified as democrats 24% as republican and 42% as independent.
Got that? More voters STRONGLY approve of Tromp.than there are republicans. There might be some GOP voters opposed to Trump but any GOP politician who can read a poll can see you MUST support Trump or get primaried by a candidate who does.If you suck up to Trump voters you might loose in November but if you don't kiss a@@ in the primary you won't be on the ballot in November.
Except in states where independents voters can participate in the primary no republican incumbent can survive if they oppose Trump. Forget impeachment.
The GOP leadership, under the threat that Trump will start his own party, can not stab Trump. They are counting on the democrats to do it. As I see it, the GOP only wants to survive Trump for as long as it takes for democrats to remove Trump while they remain blameless for the deed.
The strategy for the GOP may accept that the House is gone in 2018, the Senate majority will follow and they have no chance to keep the WH if Trump runs again. But it will be the best they can hope for if the GOP survives without fragmentation in 2020.
They created a climate where the cult of Trump could happen. If we are lucky, it will destroy them.If we’re not lucky…
You don’t need to be a doctor to see Trump is unable to function competently as President. If Obama or any democratic President, for that matter, had referred to him or herself as a “stable genius,” the same people who refuse to acknowledge that Trump has issues would be demanding that democrats acknowledge the President’s unfitness and that he/she be removed.
The GOP is willing to burn the house down, literally, to get what they want and deliver for their paymasters; it’s as simple as that. They don’t care about the damage to our standing in the world and with our allies, and the national security risks a president who is not only incompetent but mentally and emotionally challenged presents. It remains to be seen whether there is a line with these people where they will set aside their own partisanship for the good of the nation, but right now it looks like there is none.
Bottom line, the GOP owns it all. Until then, the democrats need to make sure the voters understand that and motivate them to come to the polls and vote.
Banner on CNN's Inside Politics:
TRUMP AND HIS ALLIES DEFEND HIS MENTAL ILLNESS
OC, what they meant to say is that Trump denies his mental illness. 😉
But I kind of like it the way it is. 🙂
Ah, well! My Freudian slip. The banner was OK, my lying eyes were not. It actually said this:
TRUMP AND HIS ALLIES DEFEND HIS MENTAL FITNESS
I hope I gave you a chuckle. 😉
Should have been:
TRUMP AND HIS SYCOPHANTS DENY HIS MENTAL ILLNESS
Like people couldn't see the quality of his character right from the beginning? His mental illness is the least of it. His spiritual and moral decay radiates like a beacon. There should be no guess work in assessing who Trump is and what you should expect from him. He's an abomination by any measure.
Personally, I think that describing him as a big bag of shit is an all encapsulating descriptor of his many vile and negative attributes. I kind of favor using Old Testament terminology in analysing how complete a bag of shit Trump is. It seems to me that wrestling with nuance is counter productive in identifying the sickness,corruption, and decay that dwells within Trump. Why spin your wheels using modern day psychological terms cataloging and compartmentalizing Trump's various(legion) spiritual sicknesses and deviancies when we know they are all interconnected. Whereas an old fashioned declaration of he's got Beelzebub satisfies all of the criteria in describing who Trump really is and how sick he really is.
A big bag of shit works for me! It's accurate, and it's all encompassing.
First Mate Pence-sieve to the Captain (of the Titanic2, “The Big-ly-er”) as they climb into the Escape Inflatable Golf Cart (patent pending): “who are all those swimmers swimming toward the ship?” “They’re called Republicans. Look at that one, Corker. Guess he floats, hah-hah.” “And there’s Little Marco. Hope is fingers are big enough to paddle.”
As the Golf Cart hits the water we discover it doesn’t float after all: “Made in Jina.”