THURSDAY: Solon thinks Trump is "seriously ill!"

THURSDAY, MAY 14, 2026

And yet he doesn't speak: Is something wrong with President Trump? We would assume that there is.   

The unfortunate stigma associated with "mental illness" makes it a difficult topic to discuss. But Jonathan Chait has made the latest attempt to describe the president's recent bizarre behavior—the bizarre behavior in which he engaged, at great length, overnight this past Monday night.

Chait's piece was written for The Atlantic. He's describing only one small part of the president's overnight meltdown:

Big Brother Is ReTruthing You

[...]

Trump's strange, symbiotic relationship with the world of lies was in evidence last night, when he experienced one of his periodic social-media crashouts. From 10:15 to 10:53 p.m. EST, he shared more than two dozen posts on his Truth Social account alleging a blizzard of conspiracies. Roughly half of them centered on Barack Obama, whom the posts accused of having committed treason, having attempted a coup, having personally used Hillary Clinton’s email server under a pseudonym, and having personally collected $120 million from the Affordable Care Act.

The rest of the messages contained attacks on various targets—such as Mark Kelly, James Comey, Jack Smith, and Hillary Clinton—whom Trump wishes to be arrested, including demands that the Justice Department move more quickly to apprehend these or other targets, as well as a handful of random videos that appear to show Black people misbehaving in public.

These messages, collectively, do not alter our understanding of Trump’s mindset. His accusations against Obama, as is typical, seem like reflected confessions. Obama never ordered investigations of his rivals, tried to overturn an election, or used the presidency as a vehicle of profit (the ACA charge, which appears new, seems to originate from a satirical website). Trump has done all of these things.   

Chait is describing only part of the president's behavior that night. Later that night, to cite a further example, the sitting president reposted an image of Presidents Obama and Biden, accompanied by Nancy Pelosi, swimming in human feces in the Reflecting Pool.  

The stigma associated with mental illness seems to have made it impossible to conduct a serious discussion of this fairly apparent—and presumably dangerous—state of affairs. Of the current situation, two things can be said:

Almost surely, the sitting president is indeed "mentally ill." And also, without a shred of doubt, the rest of us are just a bunch of kids.

We'll add an example of what we mean. We take our example from a news report at Mediaite which starts like this, intriguing headline included:

‘Trump Needs Medical Attention’: Congressman Says President’s Family Should Stage ‘Intervention’

Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA) said President Donald Trump’s call to arrest former President Barack Obama should trigger a medical “intervention.”

On Wednesday, Pablo Manríquez of MeidasTouch caught up with McGovern at the Capitol and first asked about the president’s obsession with the construction of the White House ballroom. 

[...]   

“Is Donald Trump’s ballroom a national emergency?” Manríquez asked.

“You gotta be kidding me,” McGovern responded. “It’s a vanity project..."  

The report continues from there. Eventually, Rep. McGovern is quoted saying this, just like the headline said:  

“I think he’s seriously ill. I think Trump needs medical attention, and there needs to be an intervention. I mean, you know, his family or someone in his cabinet, you know, or I would say maybe some Republicans here, but they don’t have the balls to confront him on anything. So he’s not well.”

“I think he’s seriously ill," McGovern said. “I think [the sitting president] needs medical attention." Mediaite provides the videotape of his statement.   

McGovern is a good, decent person. There's no lack of smarts to the guy. For such reasons, our question is this: 

Under the circumstances, what do you think of a member of Congress who won't call a press conference in order to make a statement lack that in a serious setting?   

We'd say it teaches an anthropology lesson:  

We human beings simply weren't built for this line of work.   

As we've noted in the past, this doesn't mean that we're bad people. Anthropologically, it simply means that we're people people! 

We don't know how to talk about matters like "mental illness." This is the best we can do!

While we're at it: Yevtushenko, in translation:

Not people die but worlds die in them.
Whom we knew as faulty, the earth’s creatures...