Donald Trump's infectious incompetence needs a truth vaccine

There was a time when the common perception about the anesthetic in ether was called a truth serum.  Well, today what people need are truth vaccines.  In other words, the ability to create antibodies to protect the brain from being infected with Donald Trump's litanies of lies.

This opinion essay was written by the political columnist E.J. Dionne and published in The Washington Post.

We could all spend a lot of intellectual energy debating whether Donald Trump's failures are due primarily to corruption or incompetence, but it would be a waste of time.

Understanding that his incompetence flows from his corruption should animate the arguments against his reelection and inspire the work journalists do in making sense of the chaotic mess Trump has made of our government.

It won’t be easy. Trump has been involved in so many scandals and says so many reprehensible things that our country has developed a kind of herd immunity to the outrage that just one of his actions would have called forth in any previous administration. We have allowed Trump to fend off one scandal with . . . another scandal.

The key is seeing that Trump’s entirely selfish approach to the presidency has a measurable and material impact on the lives of citizens and on the policies he pursues — to the extent thathe is interested in policy at all. He cares above all about his own finances, his ego, his ratings and escaping accountability. Everything else falls by the wayside.

Trump’s opponents cannot assume, as they did in 2016, that if they drive home just how awful Trump is personally, voters will recoil in horror. This year, it is essential to make the case that Trump’s corruption means that most of the time he pays no attention to governing. And when he does, he governs in a way that subordinates the public interest to his own interests — and the interests of those who keep him in power.

Consider the past couple of days. The New York Times offered a jaw-dropping article that Trump instructed the U.S. ambassador to Britain, Robert Wood Johnson IV, to ask the British government to “help steer the world-famous and lucrative British Open golf tournament to the Trump Turnberry Resort in Scotland.”

This is the sort of corruption that would have made Boss Tweed proud — using our nation’s diplomats as fixers for Trump’s interest. But it also reflects Trump’s indifference to the idea that the State Department serves the national interest. Turning an ambassador into an errand boy for Trump’s money-losing golf course undercuts our envoys’ ability to carry out the work of the nation.

And there was this startling news on Tuesday at Trump’s first briefing on the pandemic since April: “I just wish her well, frankly,” Trump said when asked about Ghislaine Maxwell, who was arrested this month on charges that she aided convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, her onetime boyfriend, in his sexual exploitation and abuse of underage girls.

This is shocking on its face. But given Trump’s proven willingness to intervene in the criminal justice system and bandy about pardons to protect himself and his friends, it’s possible that Trump was sending a signal. Of course that’s not certain, but do we want a government where such a question naturally arises?

There was also Jane Mayer’s extraordinary reporting in the New Yorker this month about how weak federal regulation through the Occupational Safety and Health Administration during the pandemic has endangered the lives of thousands of poultry processing workers — and how Trump’s campaign has profited from industry contributions.


This is classic influence-peddling under the shroud of an anti-government ideology. But it underscores how Trump’s claim that he would govern on behalf of “the forgotten men and women of our country” was false — unless corporate CEOs were the “forgotten” people he had in mind.

Beyond the direct costs to Trump’s all-about-himself government, the indirect costs are just as large. Trump’s obsession with his interests pushes the consequential things aside.

It was astonishing that Trump thought he was saying a good thing when he declared at Tuesday’s coronavirus briefing that “we are in the process of developing a strategy.”

Really? The president is “in the process” of working on this after five months of catastrophe and more than 140,000 deaths?

And more than two months after Democrats passed an economic recovery bill in the House, Republicans in the Senate were in chaos this week as they tried to formulate an alternative. One reason, The Post reported, was “the White House’s failure to go into the talks with a preset strategy or a list of proposals they knew GOP lawmakers would rally behind.” Trump touts his economic genius but offers no leadership as the economy languishes.

A decade ago, in his powerful dissent in the Citizens United case, Justice John Paul Stevens wrote that “it is fair to say” our country’s Founders “were obsessed with corruption.” They understood that corruption and bad government go hand in hand. It’s a shame our president is so eager to prove them right.

E.J. Dionne’s archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook.

He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named’s leadership is imploding- echo commentary

Psychiatrists might want to rethink some of their reticence about The Goldwater Rule".  In other words, I've read two very recent reports about Donald Trump's deteriorating mental health.  This echo article about that very subject was published in May 2017, in The New Yorker.

In my opinion, Trump's serial lies are enough to demand a reprimand about his horrible leadership.  Nevertheless, one report described Donald Trump as having "cried" when the Pentagon cancelled his expensive $92 million military parade on Veterans Day, a decision supported by The American Legion.  In another report, associates who have known Donald Trump for many years are telling friends that they are observing changes in his mental status (although no actual descriptions of the changes were given).  

In May 22, 2017, Jane Mayer wrote about how a group of psychiatrists and psychologists were debating about how to warn the public about Donald Trump's narcissistic personality disorder. (NPD). Yet, the “Goldwater Rule” forbids mental-health professionals to give opinions on public figures they haven’t personally examined. Frankly, some may make an exception given the continued misbehavior, observed on a daily basis, by Donald Trump.

This "echo" blog is just as relevant today, maybe even more so.

Published in The New Yorker May 22, 2017, p28 print

When Donald Trump accused his predecessor Barack Obama of wiretapping him, James Comey, then the F.B.I. director, told colleagues that he considered Trump to be “outside the realm of normal,” and even “crazy.” Many Americans share this view, but the professionals who are best qualified to make such an assessment have been forced to remain mum.

“I’m struggling not to discuss He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named,” a psychiatrist named Jerrold Post said last week, speaking on the phone from his office, in Bethesda, Maryland. Post, who is the director of the political-psychology program at George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs, and the founder of the C.I.A.’s Center for the Analysis of Personality and Political Behavior, has made a career of political-personality profiling. However, he is also a distinguished life fellow of the American Psychiatric Association, whose professional code of conduct forbids members to publicly comment on the psyches of living public figures whom they have not personally examined.

The ban, known as “the Goldwater rule,” is the legacy of an embarrassing episode from 1964. That year, Fact magazine published a petition signed by more than a thousand psychiatrists, which declared that Barry Goldwater, who was then the Republican Presidential nominee, was “psychologically unfit to be President.” Goldwater lost the election, but he won a libel suit against the magazine. The bad publicity seriously tarnished the reputation of the profession.

More than fifty years later, Trump appears to be testing the limits of the Goldwater rule. In March, the Washington, D.C., branch of the A.P.A. convened a meeting of its members to debate the rule. Post and several others argued that, given the President’s erratic behavior, the organization was infringing on its members’ freedom of expression. Psychiatrists, they insisted, have a responsibility to serve society at large. “I think there’s a duty to warn,” Post said. “Serious questions have been raised about the temperament and suitability of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.” He added, “It seems unethical to not contribute at this perilous time.”

The psychiatrist John Zinner took the argument further, suggesting that, as doctors, who swear an oath to protect their patients, psychiatrists have an obligation to speak out about the menace posed by Trump’s mental health. “It’s my view that Trump has a narcissistic personality disorder,” Zinner said later. “Trump is deluded and compulsive. He has no conscience.” He said that psychiatrists have a constructive role to play in advising policymakers to add checks on the President’s control over nuclear weapons. “That supersedes the Goldwater rule,” he said. “It’s an existential survival issue.” (There were some dissenters at the meeting. Dr. Mark Komrad, who is on the staff at Johns Hopkins Hospital and Sheppard Pratt Health System, worried that overturning the rule could be bad for the profession. “We’re already seen as peddlers of a liberal world view,” he said. “If we make pronouncements about Donald Trump, nothing is gained. You don’t need a doctor to tell you that the guy on the plane with a hacking cough is sick.”)

Post is part of a push to have the A.P.A. form a commission to revisit the Goldwater rule. Meanwhile, the President’s firing of Comey (and since then, a litany of too many others to count, as well as other reactionary edicts, like taking away security clearances - behaving like a spoiled child who is hoarding toys) presented an almost irresistible case study to revisit this Goldwater decision issue. (IMO the A.P.A. has a duty to act.)

Post, when asked about the firing, chose his words carefully. He said he agreed with lay commentators that Trump appeared to be trying to suppress the F.B.I.’s investigation into his campaign’s ties to Russia, revealing a pattern—a quickness to get rid of those who disagreed with or threatened him. The result, Post said, would be “a sycophantic leadership circle afraid to question him.” He added that the manner of the firing, which Comey learned about from TV reports, displayed “a failure of judgment in crisis”; it was likely to turn Comey into “a dangerous and resentful witness.” Post said that it reminded him of other leaders he had studied, including Vladimir Putin, “a quintessential narcissist,” whose “way of handling criticism is to eliminate—literally—the critics.” After the Comey episode, Post said, he worried that “He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named’s leadership is imploding.”

What would Post ask Trump, if he had the opportunity to get the President on his couch? Post cleared his throat and said, “I’m sorry, but I think I’d better not answer that.”

The question reminded him of the time, during a television interview, that Dan Rather asked him what he would do if he encountered Saddam Hussein. Not realizing that the microphone was turned on, Post, who had been discussing Saddam’s “malignant narcissism,” gave a less than scholarly answer: “I would run right out of the office!” 

Mental illness and the presidency - POTUS effect

As a nurse who has assessed people with mental illness, it's easy to document how Donald Trump has exhibited emotionally labile behavior.  In other words, he is easily irritated. His prickly behavior is like a personality "cactus", it causes people to keep their distance, rather than raise the risk of being hit by one of his needles. This is the Trump personality or, as James Comey said, "the nature of the person" he was dealing with in the Oval Office encounters.  Hillary Clinton was resilient to Donald Trump, a trait which drove him emotionally over the edge. He was especially irked when Mrs. Clinton won the popular vote in the 2016 election. Trump simply can't get over this popular vote defeat, even though he managed to gain electoral votes.

Barry Goldwater (1909-1998)

Nevertheless, it doesn't take a psychiatrist or a nurse to see how Donald Trump needs mental health counseling.  Sometimes, his personality disorder borders on delusional thinking, especially when he invents the paranoia of being betrayed or spied upon.
For example, Donald Trump created the myth accusing President Obama of not being born in the United States, the neologism of "birtherism".  Moreover, he engaged in paranoid thinking by raising the accusiation that Barack Obama had "bugged" Trump Towers.
Both are symptoms of paranoid thinking.

Unfortunately, there's no way a psychiatrist can make a definitive diagnosis about Donald Trump, because this private information would violate patient confidentiality.  Moreover, as reported in The New Yorker, by Jane Mayer, there is a historic precedence to prevent psychiatrists from attempting to diagnose Donald Trump, without having interviewed him. It's called, The Goldwater Rule.

When Donald Trump accused his predecessor Barack Obama of wiretapping him, James Comey, then the F.B.I. director, told colleagues that he considered Trump to be “outside the realm of normal,” and even “crazy.” 

Many Americans share this view, but the professionals who are best qualified to make such an assessment have been forced to remain mum. “I’m struggling not to discuss He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named,” a psychiatrist named Jerrold Post said last week, speaking on the phone from his office, in Bethesda, Maryland. Post, who is the director of the political-psychology program at George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs, and the founder of the C.I.A.’s Center for the Analysis of Personality and Political Behavior, has made a career of political-personality profiling. However, he is also a distinguished life fellow of the American Psychiatric Association, whose professional code of conduct forbids members to publicly comment on the psyches of living public figures whom they have not personally examined.

The ban, known as “the Goldwater rule,” is the legacy of an embarrassing episode from 1964. That year, Fact magazine published a petition signed by more than a thousand psychiatrists, which declared that Barry Goldwater, who was then the Republican Presidential nominee, was “psychologically unfit to be President.” Goldwater lost the election, but he won a libel suit against the magazine. The bad publicity seriously tarnished the reputation of the profession.

More than fifty years later, Trump appears to be testing the limits of the Goldwater rule. In March, the Washington, D.C., branch of the A.P.A. convened a meeting of its members to debate the rule. Post and several others argued that, given the President’s erratic behavior, the organization was infringing on its members’ freedom of expression. Psychiatrists, they insisted, have a responsibility to serve society at large. “I think there’s a duty to warn,” Post said. “Serious questions have been raised about the temperament and suitability of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.” He added, “It seems unethical to not contribute at this perilous time.”

The psychiatrist John Zinner took the argument further, suggesting that, as doctors, who swear an oath to protect their patients, psychiatrists have an obligation to speak out about the menace posed by Trump’s mental health. “It’s my view that Trump has a narcissistic personality disorder,” Zinner said later. “Trump is deluded and compulsive. He has no conscience.” He said that psychiatrists have a constructive role to play in advising policymakers to add checks on the President’s control over nuclear weapons. “That supersedes the Goldwater rule,” he said. “It’s an existential survival issue.” (There were some dissenters at the meeting. Dr. Mark Komrad, who is on the staff at Johns Hopkins Hospital and Sheppard Pratt Health System, worried that overturning the rule could be bad for the profession. “We’re already seen as peddlers of a liberal world view,” he said. “If we make pronouncements about Donald Trump, nothing is gained. You don’t need a doctor to tell you that the guy on the plane with a hacking cough is sick.”)

Post is part of a push to have the A.P.A. form a commission to revisit the Goldwater rule. He’ll make the argument to a larger audience later this month, at the association’s annual meeting, in San Diego. Meanwhile, the President’s sudden firing of Comey presented an almost irresistible case study.

Post, when asked about the firing, chose his words carefully. He said he agreed with lay commentators that Trump appeared to be trying to suppress the F.B.I.’s investigation into his campaign’s ties to Russia, revealing a pattern—a quickness to get rid of those who disagreed with or threatened him. The result, Post said, would be “a sycophantic leadership circle afraid to question him.” He added that the manner of the firing, which Comey learned about from TV reports, displayed “a failure of judgment in crisis”; it was likely to turn Comey into “a dangerous and resentful witness.” Post said that it reminded him of other leaders he had studied, including Vladimir Putin, “a quintessential narcissist,” whose “way of handling criticism is to eliminate—literally—the critics.” After the Comey episode, Post said, he worried that “He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named’s leadership is imploding.”

What would Post ask Trump, if he had the opportunity to get the President on his couch? Post cleared his throat and said, “I’m sorry, but I think I’d better not answer that.”

The question reminded him of the time, during a television interview, that Dan Rather asked him what he would do if he encountered Saddam Hussein. Not realizing that the microphone was turned on, Post, who had been discussing Saddam’s “malignant narcissism,” gave a less than scholarly answer: “I would run right out of the office!” ♦