FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 2024
Is Donald Trump mentally ill? Is the Republican candidate, Donald J. Trump, (some version of) mentally ill?
We regard that as one of the major questions to emerge from the current campaign. A second major question would be this:
Are we the people—are we humans—really built for this line of work?
By that second question, we mean the following:
Given our basic wiring, are we humans built for the task of running a modern "democracy?' Are we built for the (relatively recent) task of adhering to "Enlightenment values?"
Also are we built for the task of maintaining a "rational" discourse? Or is something else possible?
Is it possible that certain new realities—the so-called "democratization of media; the relative ease of international travel—have created a world which is "now too much for us," to borrow an old phrase from Frost?
Have those new realities created a world within which we aren't equipped to function? So it goes as we ask you, once again, if Donald Trump may be "mentally ill."
Is Donald Trump "mentally ill?" We've routinely put such terms inside scare quotes because the very concept of "mental illness" remains remarkably fuzzy.
Is "mental illness" simply a metaphor, in which we draw a fuzzy comparison with the more straightforward concept of physical illness?
No one doubts that measles is real, but is "sociopathy" (to cite one example) some equivalent manifestation? Or is "sociopathy" (to cite one example) simply a form of bad behavior?
Is "mental illness" just an excuse? Here's part of the leading authority's profile of Thomas Szasz:
Thomas Szasz
Thomas Stephen Szasz (1920 – 2012) was a Hungarian-American academic and psychiatrist. He served for most of his career as professor of psychiatry at the State University of New York Upstate Medical University. A distinguished lifetime fellow of the American Psychiatric Association and a life member of the American Psychoanalytic Association, he was best known as a social critic of the moral and scientific foundations of psychiatry...
[...]
Mental illness is a myth
In Szasz's view, people who are said to have a mental illness only have "problems in living." Diagnoses of "mental illness" or "mental disorder" are passed off as scientific but are judgments (of disdain) to support certain uses of power by authorities. In that line of thinking, schizophrenia becomes not the name of a disease entity but a judgment of extreme psychiatric and social disapprobation. Szasz called schizophrenia "the sacred symbol of psychiatry" because those so labeled have long provided and continue to provide justification for psychiatric theories, treatments, abuses, and reforms.
He argued that psychiatry is a pseudoscience that parodies medicine by using medical-sounding words...
And so on from there. That said, we restate our first question:
Is Donald Trump some version of mentally ill? In our view, this is the one of the seminal questions which has emerged from the current campaign. Nor is he the only major public figure concerning whom this question might well be asked.
Is Trump some version of mentally ill? As we've repeatedly noted, it's a question our high-end journalists have agreed that we must never explore. That too is part of the second question we ask:
As a species, are we humans built for the current task? As a species, are we humans built for the modern world's ongoing moral and intellectual challenges?
Is the one candidate mentally ill? We think it's a seminal question!
However you want to parse that question, there he sat, just yesterday, saying such things as you can see below. We compliment the Washington Post for the way it has chosen to report this matter:
Trump suggests ‘war hawk’ Liz Cheney should have guns ‘trained on her face’
GLENDALE, Ariz. — Former president Donald Trump appeared to suggest on Thursday that former congresswoman and longtime Trump critic Liz Cheney should be subjected to gunfire as he called her a “war hawk,” saying during a live event with Tucker Carlson, “Let’s see how she feels about it,” with guns “trained on her face” as a target.
Trump went on a tangent about his pardon of Lewis “Scooter” Libby, a former top aide to Vice President Dick Cheney, and then talked about Liz Cheney—the former vice president’s daughter, who broke with the GOP to denounce Trump over the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
“His daughter is a very dumb individual, very dumb,” Trump said. “She’s a radical war hawk. Let’s put her with a rifle standing there with nine barrels shooting at her, okay? Let’s see how she feels about it. You know, when the guns are trained on her face.”
“They’re all war hawks when they’re sitting in Washington in a nice building, saying, ‘Oh gee, let’s send 10,000 troops right in the mouth of the enemy,’” he added.
We'll note that the headline understates what the candidate seems to have said.
The candidate didn't simply say that Cheney "should have guns trained on her face." In his usual jumbled fashion, he also seemed to say that she should have to stand there "with nine barrels shooting at her."
She should have to face, and be shot by, a firing squad! That said, the Post's report about the candidate's behavior continues directly as shown:
Trump also attacked several other prominent Republicans who have criticized him, closing out one of his final days on the campaign trail with an event that seemed geared toward his base rather than swing voters.
He called his former national security adviser John Bolton a “nut job” and a “moron.”
“I could see his face get red, red, red, with that stupid white mustache, and he’d be ready to explode,” Trump said. “When Kim Jong Un saw him, he said: ‘Oh s---. I think the guy wants to go to war.’ So he was great for me to negotiate with.”
He mocked “crying Adam Kinzinger,” the former Republican congressman who was part of a Democratic-led House select committee that investigated the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol by a pro-Trump mob.
“They’re not select—they’re scum,” Trump said of the committee.
And he went after Rep. Adam Schiff (D-California), describing him as a “watermelon head,” “real scum” and “unattractive both inside and out.”
For better or worse, this is highly unusual conduct by a major party presidential nominee. In our view, the New York Times has broken its back, down through the years, in its refusal to treat this departure from American norms as a major front-page news framework.
This kind of behavior by Candidate Trump's represents a giant departure from traditional American norms. We think such departures from long-standing norms is major news whenever it happens. But does it suggest the possibility that the candidate is mentally ill?
For better or worse, the entire upper-end press corps has agreed that we must never ask. That said, Trump was speaking to Tucker Carlson yesterday when he made those unusual remarks. As reported at Mediaite, here is the latest on him:
Tucker Carlson Says Demon Attack Left Him Bleeding In His Bed With ‘Claw Mark’ Scars
Tucker Carlson said that he was “physically mauled” by a demon a year and a half ago that left him bleeding and with still-visible scars on his body from “claw marks” in a clip posted by the “Christianities?” YouTube channel on Thursday.
Asked by his interlocutor, John Heers, if he thought “the presence of evil is kickstarting people to wonder about the good?” Carlson answered “That’s what happened to me,” before recounting the story.
“I had a direct experience with it,” said Carlson.
“In the milieu of journalism?” asked Heers.
“No, in my bed at night,” replied Carlson. “And I got attacked while I was asleep with my wife and four dogs and mauled, physically mauled.”
“In a spiritual attack by a demon?” inquired Heers.
“Yeah, by a demon,” affirmed Carlson. “Or by something unseen that left claw marks on my sides.”
In his report at Mediaite, Isaac Schorr transcribes more of Carlson's remarks.
Carlson's remarks are part of the trailer for a forthcoming documentary film. You can see the videotape of Carlson's fuller remarks at the Mediaite report, or simply by clicking here.
Was Tucker Carlson clawed by a demon eighteen months ago? Did he "rise from his warm bed," bleeding, while his wife and his four dogs slept?
So the gentleman has now said. Yesterday, he was the conduit for Candidate Trump's array of insults—and for his evocation of violence against Cheney.
All in all, riddle us this:
Are we humans, as a species, built for this modern world? Given our basic wiring, are we built for a post-Enlightenment world? Are we built for a world in which we are assumed to be "the rational animal?"
It seems to us that these are the basic questions which have emerged from our current campaign. It seems to us that our major news orgs have refused, every step of the way, to address these basic questions.
Is it possible that Trump is mentally ill? "Mental illness" is a fuzzy concept, and our high-ranking journalists seem happy to keep it that way.
(Quite often, these journalists "went to the finest schools." As we've noted in the past, we're not always entirely sure why they bothered to do that.)
Is it possible that Candidate Trump is mentally ill? We've long assumed that he is.
We've always recommended pity for people so afflicted, if that is the appropriate term—for the loss of human potential brought on by such afflictions. We've often suggested that Bob Dylan foresaw the coming of this particular beast way back in 1967:
I pity the poor immigrant
I pity the poor immigrant
Who wishes he would've stayed home
Who uses all his power to do evil
But in the end is always left so alone
That man whom with his fingers cheats
Who lies with every breath
Who passionately hates his life
And likewise fears his death
[...]
Who eats but is not satisfied
Who hears but does not see
Who falls in love with wealth itself
And turns his back on me
For those inclined to become upset, "immigrant" is a metaphor here. This prophetic song wasn't a news report.
In our view, Candidate Harris has shown herself to have what Oliver Wendell Holmes once described as "a first-class temperament" during this campaign. (Holmes was speaking of President Franklin D. Roosevelt.)
She has often seemed to do a very poor job answering basic questions. That said, she's never lost her cool or abandoned her basic decency. We've come to greatly admire her for that.
We're hoping that she emerges next Tuesday night as the winner of this election—though if she does, the civil war will only be starting then.
We'll almost surely have more on "mental illness" next week. We may even recall our many radio appearances with Professor Richard Vatz, who literally wrote the book about Szasz while qualifying as the nicest guy in the world.
"Mental illness" seems to be all around us at present! In certain obvious ways, the term may seem to be a metaphor. That said, it cloaks a much more basic question:
Are we the people—are we humans—built for this modern assignment? In Lincoln's words, are we equipped to succeed with "a task before [us] greater than that which rested upon Washington?"
Are we humans built for this work? Also, is it possible that one of our candidates may be mentally ill?
