PIECES OF WORK: At one time, he was two years old!

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 24, 2025

Howling into the void: President Trump has been on a bit of a jag of late.

First, he gave us the magic beds. Then he identified the Democrats as "the party of Satan."

Last weekend, he posted an AI videotape in which he himself is dumping mountains of excrement on the heads of his fellow Americans. Then he called the backhoe in and, as Bing Crosby once sang, "the walls came tumbling down."

At one point, he had been two years old—two and a half, to be more precise. Then, a terrible medical incident disabled his mother and made a bad situation worse.

Now, as sitting American president, he's dumping waste on the heads of the American people and, out in the literal realm, he has knocked a large chunk of the White House down. These last two behaviors were so peculiar that even our own major news orgs took note. But nothing is ever going to make these trusted elites in our own Blue America come to terms with what is sitting right there before them—with the apparent situation concerning which they've been warned.

In our view, it isn't surprising that the president is targeting iconic representatives of the country over which he presides. A familiar backstory may help explain the hostility which might imaginably be seem to be lurking in his devolving behaviors. But it was the book which was edited by the Yale psychiatrist which put Blue America's major journalists on a type of early notice.

The book was a New York Times best-seller, but it wasn't reviewed by the Times. It was published by MacMillan, but this page for the audiobook seems to be the only remaining official evidence of that connection:

The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump:
37 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President — Updated and Expanded with New Essays

Author: Bandy X. Lee, M.D., M.Div...

About This Book
As this bestseller predicted, Trump has only grown more erratic and dangerous as the pressures on him mount...

Has President Trump become "more erratic and dangerous?" Has he become dangerous at all?

That, of course, is a matter of judgement. But three years later, in the summer of 2020, the president's niece, a Ph.D.-wielding clinical therapist, published a second best-seller:

Mary L. Trump, PhD
Too Much and Never Enough:
How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man

About The Book
In this revelatory, authoritative portrait of Donald J. Trump and the toxic family that made him, Mary L. Trump, a trained clinical psychologist and Donald’s only niece, shines a bright light on the dark history of their family in order to explain how her uncle became the man who now threatens the world’s health, economic security, and social fabric.

Again, those judgments are matters of assessment, of personal and professional opinion. That said, the news orgs of Blue America had been issued a second warning. Their refusal to discuss such assessments has continued to the present say, with excrement raining down from the sky and the East Wing, all of a sudden, suddenly no longer there.

What might explain these manifestations? In the summer of 2020, the niece offered this:

In the last three years, I’ve watched as countless pundits, armchair psychologists, and journalists have kept missing the mark, using phrases such as “malignant narcissism” and “narcissistic personality disorder” in an attempt to make sense of Donald’s often bizarre and self-defeating behavior. I have no problem calling Donald a narcissist—he meets all nine criteria as outlined in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5)—but the label gets us only so far.

[...]

Does Donald have other symptoms we aren’t aware of? Are there other disorders that might have as much or more explanatory power? Maybe. A case could be made that he also meets the criteria for antisocial personality disorder, which in its most severe form is generally considered sociopathy but can also refer to chronic criminality, arrogance, and disregard for the rights of others...

"A case could be made," the doctorate-wielding niece now said. Just for the record, the leading authority on the syndrome in question presents the symptoms of that disorder in the following manner:

Antisocial personality disorder

[...]

DSM-5

The main text of fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) defines antisocial personality disorder as being characterized by at least three of the following traits:

• Failure to conform to social norms and laws, indicated by repeatedly engaging in illegal activities.
• Deceitfulness, indicated by continuously lying, using aliases, or conning others for personal gain and pleasure.
• Exhibiting impulsivity or failing to plan ahead.
• Irritability and aggressiveness, indicated by repeatedly getting into fights or physically assaulting others.
• Reckless behaviors that disregard the safety of others.
• Irresponsibility, indicated by repeatedly failing to consistently work or honor financial obligations.
• Lack of remorse after hurting or mistreating another person.
• In order to be diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder under. the DSM-5, one must be at least 18 years old, show evidence of onset of conduct disorder before age 15, and antisocial behavior cannot be explained by schizophrenia or bipolar disorder.

That stands as the basic (rather familiar) list. In simpler narrative fashion, the authority posits this:

Antisocial personality disorder (ASPD) is a personality disorder defined by a chronic pattern of behavior that disregards the rights and well-being of others. People with ASPD often exhibit behavior that conflicts with social norms, leading to issues with interpersonal relationships, employment, and legal matters. The condition generally manifests in childhood or early adolescence, with a high rate of associated conduct problems and a tendency for symptoms to peak in late adolescence and early adulthood.

The prognosis for ASPD is complex, with high variability in outcomes...

[...]

People with ASPD may have a limited capacity for empathy and can be more interested in benefiting themselves than avoiding harm to others. They may have no regard for morals, social norms, or the rights of others. People with ASPD can have difficulty beginning or sustaining relationships. It is common for the interpersonal relationships of someone with ASPD to revolve around the exploitation and abuse of others. People with ASPD may display arrogance, think lowly and negatively of others, have limited remorse for their harmful actions, and have a callous attitude toward those they have harmed.

Just so you'll know, this branch of medical science holds that this syndrome—this unfortunate "mental disorder"—is perhaps more prevalent than one might suspect. Along the way in its lengthy presentation, the authority alleges this:

Prognosis

Boys are almost twice as likely to meet all of the diagnostic criteria for ASPD than girls and they will often start showing symptoms of the disorder much earlier in life. Children that do not show symptoms of the disease through age 15 will almost never develop ASPD later in life. If adults exhibit milder symptoms of ASPD, it is likely that they never met the criteria for the disorder in their childhood and were consequently never diagnosed. Overall, symptoms of ASPD tend to peak in late teens and early twenties but can often reduce or improve through age 40.

[...]

Epidemiology

The estimated lifetime prevalence of ASPD amongst the general population falls within 1% to 4%, skewed towards 6% men and 2% women.

The claim is something like a prevalence of six percent among men! Presumably, some afflictions of this "disease" (or this "disorder") are more substantial than others. But this is the general shape of the medical science which the major organs of our press corps have uniformly agreed to ignore.

For the record, medical science can always be wrong, and the very concept of "mental illness" (the term "mental disorder" is apparently now preferred) is much fuzzier—is much less clear—than is the concept of physical illness. When we say that someone is afflicted with a mental disorder, are we simply describing unusual conduct, or are we reporting a physiological impairment of some kind?

If our journalists would ever perform their function, we might see an informed discussion of an array of such points. Still, we already consider these assertions as made by the leading authority:

Causes

Personality disorders are generally believed to be caused by a combination and interaction of genetics and environmental influences. People with an antisocial or alcoholic parent are considered to be at higher risk of developing ASPD. Fire-setting and cruelty to animals during childhood are also linked to the development of an antisocial personality disorder, along with being more common in males...

[...]

Genetic

Research into genetic associations in antisocial personality disorder suggests that ASPD has some or even a strong genetic basis. The prevalence of ASPD is higher in people related to someone with the disorder. Twin studies, which are designed to discern between genetic and environmental effects, have reported significant genetic influences on antisocial behavior and conduct disorder.

In the specific genes that may be involved, one gene that has shown particular promise in its correlation with ASPD is the gene that encodes for monoamine oxidase A (MAO-A), an enzyme that breaks down monoamine neurotransmitters such as serotonin and norepinephrine. Various studies examining the gene's relationship to behavior have suggested that variants of the gene resulting in less MAO-A being produced (such as the 2R and 3R alleles of the promoter region) have associations with aggressive behavior in men.

This association is also influenced by negative experiences early in life, with children possessing a low-activity variant (MAOA-L) who have experienced negative circumstances being more likely to develop antisocial behavior than those with the high-activity variant (MAOA-H). Even when environmental interactions (e.g., emotional abuse) are taken out of the equation, a small association between MAOA-L and aggressive and antisocial behavior remains.

And on and on from there. In the case of the sitting president, some such "genetics" may have been contributed by his father, who is, rightly or wrongly, repeatedly described as a "sociopath" in Mary Trump's book. 

In this passage from that book, "Mary" and "Fred" are the president's parents:

Whereas Mary was needy, Fred seemed to have no emotional needs at all. In fact, he was a high-functioning sociopath. Although uncommon, sociopathy is not rare, afflicting as much as 3 percent of the population. Seventy-five percent of those diagnosed are men. Symptoms of sociopathy include a lack of empathy, a facility for lying, an indifference to right and wrong, abusive behavior, and a lack of interest in the rights of others. Having a sociopath as a parent, especially if there is no one else around to mitigate the effects, all but guarantees severe disruption in how children understand themselves, regulate their emotions, and engage with the world.

Children of sociopaths face a difficult road. So said the clinical therapist, and so says the leading authority, right there in paragraph 2 of its lengthy report:

The prognosis for ASPD is complex, with high variability in outcomes. Individuals with severe ASPD symptoms may have difficulty forming stable relationships, maintaining employment, and avoiding criminal behavior, resulting in higher rates of divorce, unemployment, homelessness, and incarceration. In extreme cases, ASPD may lead to violent or criminal behaviors, often escalating in early adulthood. Research indicates that individuals with ASPD have an elevated risk of suicide, particularly those who also engage in substance misuse or have a history of incarceration. Additionally, children raised by parents with ASPD may be at greater risk of delinquency and mental health issues themselves.

There's more, much more to the way the niece's account of the family history dovetails with the leading authority's lengthy account of the way this syndrome is born. That said, the American press corps has steadfastly refused to discuss this part of the niece's best-selling book. 

Today, the uncle is soiling and demolishing leading emblems of the American nation. As this continues, our news orgs will continue to be shocked, shocked by the puzzlingly "erratic" behavior the president puts on display.

Will he have to knock the whole White House down to shake these elites from their lethargy? The president's devolving behavior tracks the state of medical science, but what explains the endless refusal to perform exhibited by the biggest stars of our realm?

Is the sitting president "a real piece of work" at the present time?  Under the circumstances, we think possible danger is plainly suggested by his increasingly erratic personal conduct. 

As we say that, we remember to pity the child, but we also leap to say that the adult may in fact be a dangerous person, as those two best-selling books have asserted right in their titles.

Is the sitting president a real piece of work? You may or may not want to use that language. But if the president is a piece of work, what about the other people with whom he's now surrounded? And what can we say about our journalists, who will happily go over the cliff before they agree to report the state of our medical science?

In our view, his behavior is becoming stranger and stranger, but so perhaps is theirs. The state of the science, such as it is, is still being ignored—disappeared.

Tomorrow: Much, much more