On this, our nation's Thanksgiving Eve...

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 2023

...what's up with Donald J. Trump? When we were kids, Thanksgiving morning was all about the Winchester-Woburn game.

The game began at 11 a.m. On his way to winning the Heisman Trophy at the Naval Academy, Joe Bellino was the star of the hometown Winchester team.

(One of the players on the team—his nickname was "The Wit"—was our babysitter's boyfriend. We asked him once what the players do when they go in the locker room at halftime. "We lay on our backs and drink beer," the boyfriend convincingly said.)

This very day, on Thanksgiving Eve, Kevin Drum quotes a passage from Thomas Edsall's assessment of Donald J. Trump's mental health. 

In the main, we don't agree with the specific framework Kevin builds around the quoted assessment. But the assessment reminds us of this passage from Maureen Dowd's column last Sunday:

DOWD (11/19/23): Like other pols, Biden has a healthy ego and like all presidents, he’s truculent about not getting the credit he thinks he deserves for his accomplishments. And it must be infuriating that most of the age qualms are about him, when Trump is only a few years younger.

No doubt the president is having a hard time wrapping his mind around the idea that the 77-year-old Mar-a-Lago Dracula has risen from his gilded coffin even though he’s albatrossed with legal woes and seems more deranged than ever, referring to Democrats with the fascist-favored term “vermin” and plotting a second-term revengefest. Trump’s campaign slogan should be, “There will be blood.” 

[...]

It’s a perfect playing field for the maleficent Trump: He learned in the 2016 race that physical and rhetorical violence could rev up his base. He told me at the time it helped get him to No. 1 and he said he found violence at his rallies exciting.

He has no idea why making fun of Paul Pelosi’s injuries at the hands of one of his acolytes is subhuman, any more than he understood how repellent it was in 2015 when he mocked a disabled Times reporter. He gets barbaric laughs somehow, and that’s all he cares about. In an interview with Jonathan Karl, Trump gloated about how his audience on Jan. 6 was “the biggest crowd I’ve ever spoken in front of by far.”

Never mind that it was one of the most dangerous, shameful days in our history. To Trump, it was glorious.

Absent a fuller context, Trump's comment about that "biggest crowd" strikes us as perhaps innocuous. Also, we think people are totally missing the point when they keep saying that Trump "is only a few years younger."

That said:

Dowd says that Trump, who she has interviewed various times, "seems more deranged than ever." She says that his campaign slogan should be, "There will be blood."

With striking specificity, she says that Trump has no idea why his jokes about Paul Pelosi are inhuman. In Dowd's view, he has no idea why people think that. All he cares about is the fact that he gets laughs.

Intentionally or otherwise, she seems to be describing a victim of "antisocial personality disorder"—colloquially, a sociopath. According to the largest studies, a surprising percentage of adult men could be so diagnosed.

In his short post, Drum notes Trump's apparent ongoing loss of impulse control. "Hardly anyone seems willing to say it," Kevin says, "even though it's become more and more obvious over the past year."

We'll only restate this point:

Our journalists have agreed on a sixty-year-old rule which flatly forbids such discussion. They continue to be shocked, shocked—perhaps more correctly, surprised, surprised—by the downward spiral in Trump's public statements and public behavior.

When Bandy X. Lee assembled her best-selling book, The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump, she explicitly said that Trump's condition would inevitably get worse. To their dying days, our high-end journalists will all agree that they must never discuss such matters—that they must never interview carefully selected medical specialists who can speak to such points of concern.

We aren't saying they're right in adopting that rule. We aren't saying they're wrong. 

We're merely telling you what they're doing. They've agreed that this potentially dangerous situation must never be discussed.

Bellino was a decent guy. Everyone was back then!



33 comments:

  1. If Somerby ever read his comments he would understand why no ethical mental health professional will diagnose Trump (without examination) in the press. They would lose their license, as Bandy Lee did, and her appointment at Yale. Because it is unethical and likely not accurate.

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  2. There are better reasons not to vote for Trump. Many mentally ill people lead normal lives, hold jobs and have families and don’t behave like Trump does. Trump commits crimes for which he should be held accountable —because he is a crook, not a fruitcake. As far as that goes, most psychopaths do not become serial killers. They become surgeons, air traffic controllers, businessmen, attorneys. Trump had two parents in an intact home with siblings who led normal lives, except for a casual attitude toward corruption. Somerby cannot call Trump “damaged” to excuse his character flaws. That is nowhere near mental illness.

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  3. What characterizes mental illness? Suffering. Has Trump suffered throughout his life. Not so you’d notice. People seek help because they are in distress. They can’t find a mate or can’t hold a job. They hear negative voices or need rituals to hold crippling anxiety at bay. Trump hasn’t done that. He is fine with himself.

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  4. Somerby wants to blame the media for not warning us about Trump. If they had tried, they would lose all credibility, just as when Hillary tried to warn us about Russia’s meddling and collusion with Trump in 2016.

    Somerby’s reference to “carefully selected” professionals implies he wants someone selected for what they will say, not their credentials, but that boils down to selecting someone willing to smear Trump, like Bandy Lee. That makes Somerby’s call suspect and less likely to be believed.

    Why isn’t Trump’s behavior sufficient to disqualify him from office? Because voters like him and will vote for him. Republicans have used Trump to gain political power without concern for his fitness. It is time for them to grow a conscience and speak to their base about damage to our nation. Those are the people Somerby should be calling out — not journalists and shrinks. Trump is the responsibility of Republican leadership and voters. It is up to them to fix the Trump problem.

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  5. Everyone was not decent back when Bellino played. Nostalgia like that can be a symptom of senility. Somerby needs to watch out or some reader may remotely diagnose him with dementia.

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    Replies
    1. Do you truly believe Somerby thinks everyone was decent back then? Do you?

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    2. If he didn’t mean it, why did he say it?

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    3. I assume it was an effort to demoralize Democratic voters, like everything else he says.

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  6. One problem with attacking Trump's mental health is that his opponents overdid it. Trump has already been attacked in almost every conceivably way. To his opponents, Trump is racist, antisemitic, homophobic, stupid, humorless, dishonest, corrupt, never public spirited, under Putin's thumb, and basically evil. Trump supporters find many of these attacks invalid. So, Trump supporters have learned to ignore all criticisms.

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    Replies
    1. Those so-called attacks are true. I don’t think Trump supporters find them “invalid” — they just don’t care about any of it because Trump makes them feel powerful.

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    2. Thanks, @8:07. Some of those criticisms are wildly incorrect. Trump has an incredible sense of humor. He can ad lib almost as well as a professional comedian. Trump's support for Jews is obvious. He has a major award from a Jewish organization. He welcomed Jews into his immediate family. His policies supported Israel more strongly than Obama's and Biden's. Trump supporters tune out criticisms, even valid ones, from people who cannot these these obvious points.

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    3. Supporting Israel does not support Jews, it degrades them.

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    4. "Trump supporters find many of these attacks invalid. So, Trump supporters have learned to ignore all criticisms."

      So the Trump supporter logic here is: some of the criticisms against Trump are invalid, therefore they all are invalid.

      Is this supposed to make me feel better about the intelligence of Trump supporters?

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    5. Supporting Israel keeps Israelis alive. They are good with that. Palestinians need to stop attacking people. The US doesn’t make deals with terrorists.

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    6. Anonymouse 8:33pm, ROXs 42Bb just eye rolled you.

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    7. What is ROXs 42Bb?

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    8. David says, "Trump has an incredible sense of humor."

      Go ahead, David, tell us all what is so fucking funny about this>

      He has no idea why making fun of Paul Pelosi’s injuries at the hands of one of his acolytes is subhuman, any more than he understood how repellent it was in 2015 when he mocked a disabled Times reporter.

      Tell us what is so fucking funny about a man is his 80's getting attacked with a hammer. You are a fucking cretin, David.

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    9. David in Cal,
      The good people in Charlottesville don't believe for a second that Trump supports Jews.

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    10. David say “Thanks, @8:07” because 8:07 responded to David, whose only goals here are to generate responses to make his life seem less empty, and trigger others into engaging in a way that distracts from clarity.

      8:07’s comment is astute and accurate in and of itself, but within the context of responding to a right wing lost soul arguing in bad faith, it merely encourages those looking to diminish that very circumstance of astuteness and accuracy.

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    11. What matters, electorally, is if Republican voters believe Trump supports Jews (or blacks). For the sake of the future of the United States of America, let's hope enough of them sit out the election because they think Trump does.

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  7. Let's give DIC the opportunity to provide an example of Donald J. Trump's comedic genius, with the caveat to DIC to avoid any examples that involve denigrating the unfortunate, however funny he may consider those.

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  8. Isn't it amazing that this Bad Orange Man, who makes jokes your useless rags find "subhuman", brought more peace and prosperity to this country in just three years than your masters in 3-4 generations?

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    Replies
    1. Three years. Bwahahaha. Erase 2020 from the history books. Nice work, magat.

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    2. National debt increased by 22% under Trump.

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  9. So we're going to lock away Trump and throw away the key, or leave him on the street laying in a pool of piss? You know, like we do with the other mentally ill folks we have in the US of A.

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  10. "Also, we think people are totally missing the point when they keep saying that Trump "is only a few years younger."

    The point is that Republicans don't understand basic mathematics. Although we've known that for decades.

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    Replies
    1. Basic mathematics is set theory. Who understands that? Not Corby.

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  11. Re: sense of humor.
    Not everybody finds the same thing funny. Some think Trump is witty, others think Hamas is a wittier. What are you going to do?

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    Replies
    1. I am sure trump had Ruby Freeman in stitches with his sparkling wit. An unpaid volunteer poll worker having a target put on her back by the President of her country. It's hilarious, don't you think? And she's black too!!! Double funny!!!

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  12. Unfortunately, Dowd is still spewing her venom into our political discourse. She never takes any responsibility, through her silly Clinton-bashing columns, how Trump got to be President in the first place. This is why I will not subsctibe to the Times.

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  13. Good wishes to Cecelia and to David.

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  14. I give thanks for President Biden and vice-president Harris.

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