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Day to Day Politics: The Trump Report No8. Is he mentally ill?

Thursday February 16 2017

While the President works on a revised version of his immigration policy, dismisses his first advisor and blunders along telling lie upon lie and tweeting his sarcasms, the concentration of us mere mortals seems cantered on his sanity, or to put it more politely, his mental health issues.

The whole of the American media seems fully concentrated on the state of the President’s sanity.

“Johns Hopkins Top Psychotherapist Releases Terrifying Diagnosis of President Trump”.

So read the headline on the ”Bipartisan Report” web page. Now the John Hopkins institute is a very well-respected institution so my curiosity begged me to dig somewhat deeper.

It seems that “John D. Gartner, a registered psychotherapist at the renowned Johns Hopkins University Medical School seems to think Trump may, in fact, be the one with the problem. Gartner, who teaches psychiatric residents at Hopkins, decided to break the ethical code known as the “Goldwater Rule” in order to warn the American public about the dangerousness of our new commander-in-chief’s mental state.”

Normally therapists don’t break the “Goldwater Rule” which is an ethics code of the American Psychiatric Association saying it is wrong to provide a professional opinion of a public figure without examining that person and gaining consent to discuss the evaluation.

So a decision to do so would not be taken lightly. He says that Trump is “temperamentally unfit” to serve as president, following his numerous sexist remarks about women, mocking of a disabled reporter, and blatantly racist statements about basically every single human being who isn’t white. Gartner unofficially diagnosed Trump with malignant narcissism. Although he himself has not personally examined Trump, Gartner claims it’s obvious from watching even a little of his behaviour that he meets the diagnostic criteria for the disorder. Some of the characteristics include:

  • Anti-social behaviour
  • Sadism
  • Aggressiveness
  • Paranoia
  • Grandiosity
  • Entitled
  • Regressed
  • Manipulative
  • Destructive
  • Egocentric
  • Use of projection
  • Lack of conscience
  • Narcissistic

But it’s not only the John Hopkins institute that is concerned about the President’s mental health. Bernie Sanders has called him a pathological liar.

“We have a president who is delusional in many respects, a pathological liar,”

A Democratic senator claims that “a few” of his Republican colleagues have expressed concern to him about President Donald Trump’s mental health, directly relating to questions about Mr Trump’s truthfulness.

“Some will say he’s not right mentally,” Senator Franken said. “And then some are harsher.”

The Washington Post has reported that Mr Trump is also said to have told some senators in a private meeting at the White House that he and former Republican Senator Kelly Ayotte would have won in New Hampshire if not for voters bussed in from out-of-state.

”You know, that is not the norm for a president of the United States, or, actually, for a human being”

During the election campaign Trump’s mental health came into question a number of times.

”Donald Trump is not of sound mind,” conservative Stephen Hayes wrote two weeks ago in the Weekly Standard.

”Have we stopped to appreciate how crazy Donald Trump has gotten recently?” liberal Ezra Klein wrote last week on Vox.

He ”appears haunted by multiple personality disorders,” conservative David Brooks wrote last week in the New York Times.

”We can gloss over it, laugh about it, analyze it, but Donald Trump is not a well man,” Stuart Stevens, chief strategist to Mitt Romney’s 2012 campaign, wrote last week on Twitter.

”Trump is crazy. And you can’t fix crazy,” Kevin Sheekey, a Bloomberg adviser, told The New York Times.

California congresswoman Karen Bass, whose district includes areas in and around Los Angeles, also put a hashtag behind her effort calling for a mental health examination of Donald Trump. #DiagnoseTrump.

The internet is swarming with articles about the mental fitness of Donald Trump. Whatever your opinion there is certainly enough behavioural evidence to suggest he is not the full quid’s worth as we Australians are apt to say. As for me well, I’ll settle for two slices short of a sandwich.

My thought for the day.

“We all have to make important decisions in our lives. None more important than the rejection of those things that tempt us into being somebody we are not”

 

31 comments

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  1. Shogan

    Has anyone ever seen Donald Trump actually laugh, like in a real belly laugh about something??

    There has to be something wrong with someone who can’t see the funny side of something & LOL!!

  2. Peter F

    Good thing it couldn’t happen here. ( !!!!!! )

  3. Roswell

    Trump is fuming over the leaks that resulted in the downfall of Gen Flynn. Meanwhile, the rest of the sane world is more concerned over his involvement with Russia in the first place.

    Trump has attacked the wrong people here.

  4. Harquebus

    “I have opinions, but they’re just that, opinions, and opinions are like buttholes, everyone has one and they usually stink.” — Curt Schilling

    Cheers.

  5. Karl Young

    Sociopath, Narcissist, pathological Liar, lack of a sense of humor all define Trump. The USA elected their first mad President.

  6. Jack Straw

    Harquebus: You really need to stop quoting other people and get a life man.And the above quote by Curt Schilling is as pathetic and

    offensive and as stupid as any joke told by Donald Trump and stop saying Cheers you moron.

  7. Johno

    Thats the dirt on Trump, what about Pence, is he crazy as well.

  8. Klaus Petrat

    Hi John Lord,

    I wish you apply the same thoughtfulness to Australian politicians.

    I regard Turnbull, Ciobo, Morrison, Dutton as narcissistic egomaniacs, amoral and being pathological liars.

    Latest evidence is the report in the South Australian Blackout from last September (Weather event) and last Week (Software error in shedding 300 instead of 100 MWH). And to top it, Malcolm said they knew it was a weather event. Knowingly lying to the Australian public.

    This needs to be shouted from the rooftops, by the MSM.

  9. Johno

    Klaus
    Don’t shout from Turnbulls rooftop, you might block the sun from his solar panels. Oh the irony.

  10. Kaye Lee

    Melania Trump did a naked photo shoot on Donald’s jet where she is pictured handcuffed to a briefcase and another where she is about to be spanked by another scantily clad woman holding a whip.

    “I always loved women together, because I have been with a lot of women who desired the ménage à trois,” said Donald

    I doubt it would be possible to blackmail Trump. How much worse can it get?

  11. Keitha Granville

    a couple of kangaroos loose in the top paddock is my preferred analogy !
    Excellent piece, but pretty scary don’t you think ? A madman loose in the White House. We can only hope he doesn’t make too many irreversible decisions before his term is up. Like making himself President for life !

  12. helvityni

    I had lunch in Sydney with my American friend last Sunday. He is usually not shy to express his opinions about anything and anyone, but my eager question about how he now feels about Trump was answered , most bluntly: “Too depressing, I don’t want to talk about him…”

    “Doubly depressing as things ain’t too good here either”, was my reply before attacking my very new-style Lamb- Burger… I noticed he has given up on Coca Cola, That was positive, but I kept mum about it….

  13. wam

    hahaha peter f what a great laugh to start the day.

    Klaus, only the suppository of all knowledge, the rabbott, is amoral and, pitiously, will never move from his indoctrination, the others are immoral and deserve contempt.

    As anyone who has tried to read my ravings knows i am at least one double cut baked bean, cheese and pickles roll short of a picnic but for all the ‘attack’ medicare years I have tried to get someone to explain why a 2% levy should not be on gross income rather than nett??

    That would make everyone with a tax office declared income/allowance/pension to pay BEFORE avoiding tax????
    Who would like the postman to pay $100000 and packer heaps I wonder if he paid GST on the ring??

    Whilst I am here why not gst collected, at outlet, on cash transactions and by the banks on all card transactions. Wouldn’t that catch online purchases?

  14. Terry2

    The media are calling Trump’s comments on the Israeli/Palestinian problems as a change of US policy.

    If you listen to what he said he is basically saying that there can be a two state solution or a one state solution and he likes the one that the parties agree on.

    What he seems to be saying is that he doesn’t give a f*** what happens and he is abdicating all US involvement in a negotiated solution – but obviously he supports Israel to the full.

  15. helvityni

    “This needs to be shouted from the rooftops, by the MSM.”

    You are optimistic, Klaus Petrat !!!

    LOL, Johno.

  16. Terry2

    Kim Beazley sounds a timely warning to the Liberal Party as they embrace One Nation into mainstream politics.

    As Beazley points out, Indonesia is our nearest Islamic neighbour with a population exceeding 250million and an economy that is surging ahead. The constant hatred directed against Muslims by One Nation and their growing acceptance by our government will not be going down well in Jakarta. Particularly not helped by people like Sinodinos who tells us that One Nation are much more ‘sophisticated’ that they used to be.

    Let’s not forget that Abbott and the coalition benefited significantly from the support of the Indonesian government in stopping the boats. Had it not been for the agreement by Indonesia to accommodate our boat turn-backs and other measures to stem the flow of asylum seekers, Abbott in particular but also Turnbull would not have been able to constantly shout ” we stopped the boats”.

    Labor are to be commended for coming out and saying quite clearly and categorically that they will not do any deals with One Nation : what happens in the forthcoming WA election with the Liberals preferencing One Nation will tell us a lot about the future direction of our politics, the future of the coalition and our relationship with Indonesia.

  17. Sam

    In the old days people like Trump, Pence, Abbott, Abetz, Bernardi could only be found in Churches, Masonic lodges Amateur Theatre Halls and Bowling Clubs. How did these nutters get into politics?

  18. helvityni

    Sam, with the help of American and Australian voters, that how…

  19. Egalitarian

    Terry 2 re like Sinodinos who tells us that One Nation are much more ‘sophisticated’ that they used to be.

    And dare I break Godwin’s Law.That is what they probably said about Hitler before it was too late.

  20. Alan Baird

    The most quietly telling moments for me were when Trump was reported telling the very next potentate (or not-so-potent-middle-runger) who would listen that he had won the popular vote. As if he was seeking reassurance that he did! “Oh, it’s all right Don, you did, no doubt about it but I haven’t checked the figures”, the reply may have come. A rare moment of blatant fragility. Mentally that is. Barking.

  21. Jill

    Are we forever going to use psychiatry (therefore in need of “treatment”) to rename the descriptors of bad behaviour, of a profoundly bad person (therefore in need of incerceration/ containment). Do not give him the benefit of responsibility excused which comes from the mad diagnosis…

  22. Roswell

    More trouble in the Trump camp with his Secretary for Labour resigning after it was revealed he’d been employing ‘illegal’ workers.

    The swamp clearly has not been drained.

  23. helvityni

    …. I just read (Guardian) that Ivanka Trump is swooning over Trudeau. We better not start saying: like the father, so the daughter… after all Canadian PM is rather ‘swoon-able’…

  24. jimhaz

    [“I always loved women together, because I have been with a lot of women who desired the ménage à trois,” said Donald]

    This is something I can imagine Les Patterson has more or less said.

  25. jimhaz

    [We better not start saying: like the father, so the daughter… after all Canadian PM is rather ‘swoon-able’…]

    I really love the look on Trudeau’s face when Trump out his hand for a handshake. “I really don’t want to shake hands with this creep that I cannot stand in any way, but I suppose I have to for the sake of diplomacy”

    https://au.be.yahoo.com/lifestyle/a/34416960/trudeau-and-trumps-awkward-handshake-becomes-instant-meme-yahoo7-be/#page1

    I say lets send Mark Latham over there to give him a Howard type handshake. Except Latham’s more or less gone over to the dark side.

  26. win jeavons

    The sandwiches are poisoned and the kangaroos are rabid . Trump is infantile and self promoting and his daughter wants to cash in on it. What a disaster, and when he is finished , if civilization remains , we will all wonder where the communal insanity started . Of course there are desperate Americans , and Aussies too, but their Saviour is a con man .

  27. Sean Stinson

    Despite the Goldwater rule, not a day goes by without someone in the corporate media calling Trump unstable or unhinged. Just going on the sources of these accusations, it is my opinion that there is a psy-op afoot to have Trump impeached under article 25 of the constitution.

    Recently Andrew Sullivan from CNN came out with this. “Journalists should be talking about Trump’s mental health.”

    Seriously? Not his policies?

    I am not defending Trump. He needs to be watched carefully. His moves need to be analyzed in detail. This is crucially important as things are now moving very very fast.

    CNN, the New York ties, Washington Post, the Guardian etc can rant all they want about Trump’s malignant narcissism. This is not analysis. It is, at very best, slander.

  28. michael lacey

    While we are all focused on how mad Trump may or may not be and his qualities to lead. What is going on behind the scenes in that ever stealthy un-elected Deep State?
    Sean Stinson hints as to the what might be underlying manipulations behind the scenes!

    Normally do not listen to FOX but they are interviewing Dennis Kucinich, Former U.S. Rep. and Democratic presidential candidate, who a very moderate Democrat and what one might call left of centre democrat.

  29. Pingback: Could a Tweet From an Unstable US President Send Australia to War With China? – The Indespensable Blog

  30. James

    Is Trump mentally ill? Probably, and combined with a bit of dementia, I think he forgets quite a lot of what he has said along with denials of what he remembers.
    He is also pretending to have knowledge of things he doesn’t have a clue about. In regards to uranium for example. Justin Trudeau could certainly tell him a thing or two, but I doubt Trump would remember. Trump can only thing in $ and cents and has no compassion for anyone that doesn’t serve his political purpose.

  31. Terry2

    Trump is a narcissist and his ego is fed by those around him telling him how great he is : a classic case of the Emperor’s new clothes.

    We just need a child to call out this phony and point out to the rest of us that this emperor has no substance beyond that provided by us feeding his ego.

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