The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump
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Weinstein, Edwin A. 1981. Woodrow Wilson: A Medical and Psychological Biography. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Zaru, Deena. 2017. “It Took FOIA for Park Service to Release Photos of Obama, Trump Inauguration Crowd Sizes.” CNN Politics, March 7. www.cnn.com/2017/03/07/politics/national-park-service-inauguration-crowd-size-photos/.
EPILOGUE
Reaching Across Professions
NOAM CHOMSKY, PH.D., WITH BANDY X. LEE, M.D., M.DIV.
The expertise that gives weight to professional opinion can also be its limitation. The benefits of knowing one area well can also blind one to the need for other perspectives. For this reason, professionals should not only speak out but speak to one another, across disciplines. I thus reached out to linguist and philosopher-historian Dr. Noam Chomsky, because of the following: He has arrived at similar conclusions about the seriousness of the risks outlined in this book, through different methods, which can be a powerful confirmation. He has criticized Democrats as well as Republicans. As socially engaged as he has been, his contributions as a cognitive scientist have been prominent and continuous over several decades, and he remains first and foremost a scholar and a teacher. Therefore, while we do not count him among the twenty-seven mental health experts who have contributed to the opinions of this volume, we respect him as another professional with whom we can begin a conversation. In response, he offered to edit excerpts of some of his past interviews in service of this epilogue.
Bandy Lee
It is pretty clear what is responsible for the rise of the support for Trump, and there is general agreement about it. If you take a simple look at economic statistics, much of the support for Trump is coming from mostly white, working-class people who have been cast by the wayside during the neoliberal period. They have lived through a generation of stagnation or decline—real male wages are about where they were in the 1960s. There has also been a decline in a functioning democracy, overwhelming evidence that their own elected officials barely reflect their interests and concerns. Contempt for institutions, especially Congress, has just skyrocketed. Meanwhile, there has of course been wealth created. It has gone into very few hands: mostly into a fraction of the top one percent, so there is enormous opulence.
There are two huge dangers that the human species face. We are in a situation where we need to decide whether the species survives in any decent form. One is the rising danger of nuclear war, which is quite serious, and the other is environmental catastrophe. Trump wants to virtually eliminate the Environmental Protection Agency, Richard Nixon’s legacy, to cut back regulations, and race toward the precipice as quickly as possible. On militarism, he wants to raise the military budget, already over half of discretionary spending, leading right now to confrontations which could be extremely hazardous (Newman 2016).
The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists regularly brings together a group of scientists, political analysts, other serious people, to try to give some kind of estimate of what the situation of the world is. The question is: How close are we to termination of the species? And they have a clock, the Doomsday Clock. When it hits midnight, we are finished. End of the human species and much else. And the question every year is: How far is the minute hand from midnight?
At the beginning, in 1947, the beginning of the nuclear age, it was placed at seven minutes to midnight. It has been moving up and back ever since. The closest it has come to midnight was 1953. In 1953, the United States and Russia both exploded hydrogen bombs, which are an extremely serious threat to survival. Intercontinental ballistic missiles were all being developed. This, in fact, was the first serious threat to the security of the United States. Then, it came to two minutes to midnight. And it has been moving up and back since.
In 2014, the analysts took into account for the first time something that had been ignored: the fact that the nuclear age—the beginning of the nuclear age—coincided with the beginning of a new geological epoch, the so-called Anthropocene. There has been some debate about the epoch in which human activity is drastically affecting the general environment; there has been debate about its inception. But the World Geological Organization is settling on the conclusion that it is about the same time as the beginning of the nuclear age. So, we are in these two eras in which the possibility of human survival is very much at stake, and, with us, everything else, too, of course, all living—most living things, which are already under very severe threat. Well, a couple of years ago, the Bulletin began to take that into account and moved the minute hand up to three minutes to midnight, where it remained last year.
About a week into Trump’s term, the clock was moved again, to two-and-a-half minutes to midnight. That is the closest it has been since 1953. And that means extermination of the species is very much an open question. I do not want to say it is solely the impact of the Republican Party—obviously, that is false—but they certainly are in the lead in openly advocating and working for destruction of the human species. I agree that is a very outrageous statement (Goodman and González 2017), but extreme dynamics are behind it, and we are all responsible.
* * *
Sooner or later the white working-class constituency will recognize, and in fact, much of the rural population will come to recognize, that the promises are built on sand. There is nothing there.
And then what happens becomes significant. In order to maintain his popularity, the Trump administration will have to try to find some means of rallying the support and changing the discourse from the policies that they are carrying out, which are basically a wrecking ball, to something else. Maybe scapegoating, saying, “Well, I’m sorry, I can’t bring your jobs back because these bad people are preventing it.” And the typical scapegoating goes to vulnerable people: immigrants, “terrorists,” Muslims, and elitists, whoever it may be. And that can turn out to be very ugly.
I think that we should not put aside the possibility that there would be some kind of staged or alleged terrorist act, which can change the country instantly (Frel 2017).
* * *
In the United States, power is overwhelmingly and increasingly in the hands of a very narrow sector of corporate wealth, private wealth, and power—and they have counterparts elsewhere, who agree with them and interact with them partly. There is another dimension of “who rules the world.” The public can have, sometimes does have, enormous power. We can go back to David Hume’s first major modern work on political philosophy: On the First Principles of Government. He pointed out that force is on the side of the governed. Those who are governed have the force if they are willing to and eager to recognize the possibility to exercise it. Sometimes they do (Newman 2016).
Perhaps the movements we have been witnessing, starting with the Women’s March on the day after the inauguration, represent the force within humankind that resists annihilation and gropes toward health and survival. Like Dr. Chomsky, who has worked tirelessly to inform and engage the public, we as mental health professionals and healers should welcome and assist any action in this direction, regardless of political attribution.
Bandy Lee
Noam Chomsky, Ph.D., is Professor Emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which he joined in 1955. Dr. Chomsky has written and lectured widely on linguistics, philosophy, intellectual history, contemporary issues, international affairs, and U.S. foreign policy, and is the recipient of numerous honorary degrees and awards. Among his more recent books are The Essential Chomsky; How the World Works; 9-11: Was There an Alternative?; On Western Terrorism: From Hiroshima to Drone Warfare (with Andre Vltchek); What Kind of Creatures Are We?; Why Only Us: Language and Evolution (with Robert C. Berwick); Who Rules the World?; and Requiem for the American Dream.
References
Frel, Jan. 2017. “Noam Chomsky: If Trump Falters with Supporters, Don’t Put ‘Aside the Possibility’ of a ‘Staged or Alleged Terrorist Attack.’” Alternet, March 27. www.alternet.org/right-wing/noam-chomsky-it-fair-worry-about-trump-staging-false-flag-terrorist-attack
.
Goodman, Amy, and Juan González. 2017. “Full Interview: Noam Chomsky on Trump’s First 75 Days & Much More.” Democracy Now, April 4. www.democracynow.org/2017/4/4/full_interview_noam_chomsky_on_democracy.
Newman, Cathy. 2016. “Noam Chomsky Full Length Interview: Who Rules the World Now?” Channel 4 News, May 14. www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2lsEVlqts0&list=PLuXactkt8wQg9av3Wtu_xhZaAcTi4lF1M.
Notes
Foreword
1 Please see Appendix for the link to the Yale conference transcript.
Prologue
1 It should be noted that a majority of the American Psychological Association membership did not approve this revision of the Association’s ethics code and tried to rescind it. They did not succeed, however, until the matter became a public scandal.
2 We hold no brief for the general moral superiority of the American Psychiatric Association, which has had its own ignominious history in the ways that its diagnostic code for many years reinforced institutional homophobia and misogyny. In the particular case that we are discussing, however, the APA was fortunate enough to have good leadership that resulted in a position of moral clarity.
3 Please see Appendix for the link to the Yale conference transcript.
Introduction
1 Assessing dangerousness requires a different standard from diagnosing so as to formulate a course of treatment. Dangerousness is about the situation, not the individual; it is more about the effects and the degree of impairment than on the specific cause of illness and it does not require a full examination but takes into account whatever information is available. Also, it requires that the qualified professional err on the side of safety, and it may entail breaking other, ordinarily binding rules to favor urgent action.
Donald J. Trump, Alleged Incapacitated Person: Mental Incapacity, the Electoral College, and the Twenty-Fifth Amendment
1 Sections 3 and 4 of the Twenty-Fifth Amendment state:
Section 3. Whenever the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that he is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, and until he transmits to them a written declaration to the contrary, such powers and duties shall be discharged by the Vice President as Acting President.
Section 4. Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.
Thereafter, when the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that no inability exists, he shall resume the powers and duties of his office unless the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive department or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit within four days to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office. Thereupon Congress shall decide the issue, assembling within forty-eight hours for that purpose if not in session. If the Congress, within twenty-one days after receipt of the latter written declaration, or, if Congress is not in session, within twenty-one days after Congress is required to assemble, determines by two-thirds vote of both Houses that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall continue to discharge the same as Acting President; otherwise, the President shall resume the powers and duties of his office [emphasis added].
Should Psychiatrists Refrain from Commenting on Trump’s Psychology?
1 As discerned by videotaped exchanges and acknowledging the limitations of relying on such material as opposed to a traditional and in-person psychiatric evaluation.
Health, Risk, and the Duty to Protect the Community
1 My own translation from the Hebrew. A literal take on this passage might be “Go not rumoring among your people; Stand not on the blood of your neighbor: I am God.”
New Opportunities for Therapy in the Age of Trump
1 Portions of this essay were adapted with permission from his article “Therapy in the Age of Trump,” in The Psychotherapy Networker (May–June 2017): 34–35.
In Relationship with an Abusive President
1 This is a fictional couple.
Trump and the American Collective Psyche
1 This chapter has been adapted from an earlier essay, “Trump and the American Selfie,” in A Clear and Present Danger: Narcissism in the Era of Donald Trump, coedited by Steven Buser and Leonard Cruz, and from the article, “If Donald Trump Had a Selfie Stick, We’d All Be in the Picture” (billmoyers.com/story/donald-trump-selfie-americas-worst-side/).
The Loneliness of Fateful Decisions: Social and Psychological Vulnerability
1 This name for the crisis will be used for ease of communication, although it has been rightly criticized as reflecting a U.S.-centric view of the world.
2 Much of the history of the October 1962 crisis has been drawn from Robert Kennedy’s 1971 memoir of those events, Thirteen Days: A Memoir of the Cuban Missile Crisis (New York: W. W. Norton, 1971). Unless otherwise noted, quotations are from that source.
APPENDIX:
TRANSCRIPT OF THE YALE CONFERENCE
https://us.macmillan.com/static/duty-to-warn-conference-transcript.pdf
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Bandy X. Lee, M.D., M.Div., is Assistant Clinical Professor in Law and Psychiatry at Yale School of Medicine. She earned her degrees at Yale, interned at Bellevue, was Chief Resident at Mass General, and was a Research Fellow at Harvard Medical School. She was also a Fellow of the National Institute of Mental Health. She worked in several maximum-security prisons, cofounded Yale’s Violence and Health Study Group, and leads a violence prevention collaborators group for the World Health Organization. She’s written more than one hundred peer-reviewed articles and chapters, edited academic books, and is the author of the textbook Violence. You can sign up for email updates here.
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CONTENTS
TITLE PAGE
COPYRIGHT NOTICE
DEDICATION
FOREWORD
Our Witness to Malignant Normality
Robert Jay Lifton, M.D.
PROLOGUE
Professions and Politics
Judith Lewis Herman, M.D., and Bandy X. Lee, M.D., M.Div.
INTRODUCTION
Our Duty to Warn
Bandy X. Lee, M.D., M.Div.
PART 1: The Trump Phenomenon
Unbridled and Extreme Present Hedonism: How the Leader of the Free World Has Proven Time and Again He Is Unfit for Duty
Philip Zimbardo, Ph.D., and Rosemary Sword
Pathological Narcissism and Politics: A Lethal Mix
Craig Malkin, Ph.D.
I Wrote The Art of the Deal with Donald Trump: His Self-Sabotage Is Rooted in His Past
Tony Schwartz
Trump’s Trust Deficit Is the Core Problem
Gail Sheehy, Ph.D.
Sociopathy
Lance Dodes, M.D.
Donald Trump Is: (A) Bad, (B) Mad, (C) All of the Above
John D. Gartner, Ph.D.
Why “Crazy Like
a Fox” versus “Crazy Like a Crazy” Really Matters: Delusional Disorder, Admiration of Brutal Dictators, the Nuclear Codes, and Trump
Michael J. Tansey, Ph.D.
Cognitive Impairment, Dementia, and POTUS
David M. Reiss, M.D.
Donald J. Trump, Alleged Incapacitated Person: Mental Incapacity, the Electoral College, and the Twenty-Fifth Amendment
James A. Herb, M.A., Esq.
PART 2: The Trump Dilemma
Should Psychiatrists Refrain from Commenting on Trump’s Psychology?
Leonard L. Glass, M.D., M.P.H.
On Seeing What You See and Saying What You Know: A Psychiatrist’s Responsibility
Henry J. Friedman, M.D.
The Issue Is Dangerousness, Not Mental Illness
James Gilligan, M.D.
A Clinical Case for the Dangerousness of Donald J. Trump
Diane Jhueck, L.M.H.C., D.M.H.P.
Health, Risk, and the Duty to Protect the Community
Howard H. Covitz, Ph.D., A.B.P.P.
New Opportunities for Therapy in the Age of Trump
William J. Doherty, Ph.D.
PART 3: The Trump Effect
Trauma, Time, Truth, and Trump: How a President Freezes Healing and Promotes Crisis
Betty P. Teng, M.F.A., L.M.S.W.
Trump Anxiety Disorder: The Trump Effect on the Mental Health of Half the Nation and Special Populations
Jennifer Contarino Panning, Psy.D.
In Relationship with an Abusive President
Harper West, M.A., L.L.P.
Birtherism and the Deployment of the Trumpian Mind-Set