THURSDAY, APRIL 10, 2025
The several faces of Donald: We seem to recall our sainted mother telling us about the film.
She'd gone to see it the night before. We would have been nine years old at the time. We can't recall what she said:
The Three Faces of Eve
The Three Faces of Eve is a 1957 American drama film based on the book of the same name about the life of Chris Costner Sizemore, which was written by psychiatrists Corbett H. Thigpen and Hervey M. Cleckley, who also helped write the screenplay. Sizemore, referred to by Thigpen and Cleckley as Eve White, was a woman they suggested might have dissociative identity disorder (then known as multiple personality disorder). Sizemore's identity was concealed in interviews about this film and was not revealed to the public until 1977.
Joanne Woodward won the Academy Award for Best Actress, making her the first actress to win an Oscar for portraying three personalities (Eve White, Eve Black, and Jane).
For the record, Woodward was only given one (1) statuette.
We saw the film maybe ten years ago, most likely on TCM. As for dissociative identity disorder, here's what the Bible says:
Dissociative identity disorder
Dissociative identity disorder (DID), previously known as multiple personality disorder (MPD), is characterized by the presence of at least two personality states or "alters." The diagnosis is extremely controversial, largely due to two opposing models of the disorder.
[...]
According to the DSM-5-TR, early childhood trauma, typically starting before 5–6 years of age, places someone at risk of developing dissociative identity disorder. Across diverse geographic regions, 90% of people diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder report experiencing multiple forms of childhood abuse, such as rape, violence, neglect, or severe bullying. Other traumatic childhood experiences that have been reported include painful medical and surgical procedures, war, terrorism, attachment disturbance, natural disaster, cult and occult abuse, loss of a loved one or loved ones, human trafficking, and dysfunctional family dynamics.
The full discussion is much, much longer. But so the good book says about this particular syndrome.
We mention this only to establish the fact that this is an actual clinical diagnosis, included in the DSM. We mention this today for one particular reason:
The invaluable website Rev has created the Rev Transcript Library—a collection of major political tapes and transcripts. The site transcribed President Trump's marathon speech at Tuesday night's National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) dinner.
As you can see by clicking this link, the president went on and on, then on and on and on. He spoke for almost exactly 90 extremely jumbled minutes.
We decided to skim through the transcript today because we'd seen clips in which he made an array of his standard unusual statements and claims:
The 2020 election was rigged! The money the federal government accrues through the imposition of tariffs comes from the foreign countries in question!
During the Biden years, foreign countries were emptying their insane asylums to flood our nation with the worst of the worst!
In short, all the greatest hits emerged, along with repetitive name-calling directed at Sleepy Joe, Shifty Schiff, and the rest of the standard villains. ("Horseface" went unmentioned.)
The jumbled transcript had the feel of the work of a person who could almost be madman adjacent. We were struck by the crazy feel of the endless series of rants because this same president had seemed so relaxed, in recent days, as he engaged in Q-and-A sessions on Air Force One.
Watching those Q-and-A sessions, it seemed to us that we'd never seen Trump seem so calm and so relaxed. Even after last week's stock market plunge, he seemed to be enjoying every minute of his sudden assault on the world.
Liberation Day had finally come! In its aftermath, he had seemed profoundly sure of himself, preternaturally relaxed.
Then the other person showed up at the NRCC event. Our journalists obey strict laws against ever discussing such things, but we thought about the Woodward film as we read Rev's transcript:
"Just who are these two different people," we skillfully wondered and asked.
Meanwhile, what the heck is an "idée fixe?" That term does not appear in the DSM, but it's long been a part of psychology talk.
The idées fixes seemed to be running wild at the NRCC event. For the record, we've long suggested empathy for the afflicted. We think that approach is right on the merits and is best on the politics too.
ReplyDelete"What the heck is an "idée fixe?""
It's your idiotic obsession with diagnosing the opponents of your dumbass politics.
You're right. They're insanely stupid and corrupt. Period.
DeleteFrom AI: "In psychology, an idée fixe is a persistent, often irrational, idea or belief that dominates a person's thoughts and behavior. It's essentially a fixed idea that refuses to be dislodged, even when confronted with evidence to the contrary. "
DeleteAI continues: It may take the form of a delusion and become an obsession.
Who has fixed ideas like this? People with dementia and other frontal lobe damage, who are incapable of testing ideas against reality, do not recognize they are repeating themselves, and cannot integrate thoughts and reality, recognize the source of ideas, and test them against evidence.
This describes Trump well. That is why people have repeatedly called for Trump to release his health records and to be cognitively tested. He is way worse than anything Biden did and yet Republicans and his supporters will not recognize and deal with the obvious concerns arising from his disordered speeches at rallies but also at important events that are now part of his job as president.
If Trump were your grandfather, you would insist that he see a specialist and be properly tested. Then you would make a plan for helping him cope with finances, stop driving a car, appoint someone to supervise important decisions, make sure he doesn't wander or get lost, and remove sharp objects in his vicinity. Trump's frequent temper tantrums also suggest a lack of impulse control, another function performed by the frontal lobes (where dementia occurs). People seem to think that memory loss is a primary symptom of dementia and there is some of that, but these problems with cognition are more concerning, especially in someone who is now president of us all.
Forgetting who you are and what your job is, like forgetting who the people around you are (including close family) is not the same as switching from one detailed personality to another in dissociative identity disorder (DID). Loss of identity is just plain and simple dementia.
DID patients, like individuals with dementia, can experience significant changes in their personalities as the disease progresses. However, the specific ways in which these changes manifest may differ in DID patients due to the pre-existing internal complexity of their multiple identities.
Notice that Trump has recently become abrupt with reporters who ask him questions he cannot cope with. He has begun calling them and their questions "stupid" and saying he doesn't have time to deal with their stupidity, or saying "I'm not going to talk about that." Yes, his imperiousness suggests he thinks he is too important to be bothered, but he can't seem to even come up with his usual propaganda nuggests any more. This is a recent development that I think should be concerning to his handlers.
Maggie Haberman said that he is losing patience and not bothering to keep up pretenses any more, but it also looks like someone who is losing the cognitive ability to cope with the demands of the jobs, such as reporter questions that don't contain requisite flattery (or a hint about the answer in the question itself). That looks like deterioration to me. And yes, I have the advanced degrees to comment on such things, unlike Somerby.
No empathy for Republicans.
ReplyDeleteSS benefits were not paid to people incorrectly shown as alive in the SS data base., However, unemployment insurance WAS paid to people who were not alive.
ReplyDeleteDepartment of Government Efficiency
@DOGE
An initial survey of Unemployment Insurance claims since 2020 revealed the following:
- 24.5k people over 115 years old claimed $59M in benefits
- 28k people between 1 and 5 years old claimed $254M in benefits
- 9.7k people with birth dates over 15 years in the future claimed $69M in benefits
In one case, someone with a birthday in 2154 claimed $41 k
I assume those people who committed fraud are being referred for prosecution. What is the evidence that happened? Without such evidence, you are only showing that it is as easy to make up figures for unemployment insurance as for social security -- and we know DOGE made up figures there about non-existent fraud.
Delete
DeleteHow do you know, David, that "SS benefits were not paid to people incorrectly shown as alive"? Not to a single one?
Sorry, I find it highly unlikely. Where did you get this info?
tdh - psychiatrists with degrees and licenses aren't supposed to diagnose individuals who they've never met with, even then it isn''t always that easy- all the more reason from you backing off on this. You've never met Trump. You're not a shrink. Just my take, but you don't seem to show that much of knack in your speculations about this commander's mental diagnosis. I do think though from a layman's standpoint, you or anyone else can reasonably wonder if Trump is psychologically nuts. (not an actual recognized diagnosis). He says tons of things that seem nuts. Is a nut; or another explanation, he's a total dipshit; yet he managed to get elected twice as POTUS, a rare feat. Power is one of the things most sought after. He gets adulation from millions. It seems that part of his strategy is to get libs outraged, his supporters seem to love that. You could say the problem is more with his supporters than with him. also the dems losing their way so badly.
ReplyDeleteGood observations, AC/MA. I agree that Trump wants to get libs upset. In particular, he wants to get liberal media upset, so he dominates their headlines. That strategy was especially successful in 2016, when he no business winning the election or even the nomination. He played the media into reporting in a way that actually helped him.
DeleteEveryday David proclaims to the world of TDH, I am dumb. Really really dumb.
DeleteTrump has not shown any public indications of becoming another identity or of dissociating under stress. Somerby is not qualified to diagnose anyone, in person or otherwise. A psychiatrist earns a bachelor's degree (often in some science) then applies to medical school and spend 4 years studying medicine, then does a one-year internship and must pass a board exam, then does a further 5 years of residency in order to qualify to diagnose and treat people with mental illness. Some further specialize by doing a fellowship in personality disorders (DID is a personality disorder) under the supervision of someone very experienced in that field. Somerby barely finished Harvard and received no training in classroom teaching, so no wonder he thinks he can practice medicine on Trump simply by reading Wikipedia.
DeleteDissociative disorders are more complex than the summary Somerby posted. For one thing, the person who switches from one personality to another often has amnesia (no memory) for the time when they were another personality. DID is sometimes diagnosed by the "lost time" represented by memory loss. Somerby's frequent joke about his medical visits being "lost time" is offensive given the confusion and distress occurring in someone who actually has such a disorder. The extent of trauma needed to cause such a disorder is also extreme, not the simple lack of affection Trump's father may have shown Trump. Dissociation refers to a separation between mind and body that occurs when someone is being tortured physically and can no longer stand experiencing what is happening, not a neurotic response to withheld praise, as Trump may have experienced. Physicians used to believe that children did not experience pain the way adults do, so it was not unusual for a child to be under-medicated for pain during treatments while hospitalized. We know different now and there is nothing to suggest that happened to Trump.
I find it very offensive that Somerby would use the real and difficult circumstances of those who develop a dissociative disorder (coupled with references to a film that was hardly realistic) to make whatever asshole point he thinks he is making about Trump's ongoing extreme behavior as president.
Of course politicians should be taking Trump's obvious cognitive decline seriously, but using real pain as a rhetorical device the way Somerby does is callous and bizarre. He shouldn't do it, as even AC/MA recognizes, but not because he is wrong, because he minimizes the degree of suffering involved and his trivialization of it in order to play some political game. Real people have mental illness. It is characterized in all cases by suffering. That's why it is wrong to use psychiatric terms to call names, and wrong to joke about or minimize such illness in the name of politics.
Would Somerby use pancreatic cancer as a metaphor for whatever is wrong with Trump? Why not? It is just as ill-fitting, callous and wrong?
anon 8:14 -I see you're very offended by TDH's post. What a surprise. You should try diagnosing yourself. Your inexplicable, bizarrely obsessive dishonesty - some type of obvious disorder. good god, whist's wrong with you??
DeleteI don't see AC/ MA, David in Cal, nor Trump ever forgiving the media for not mentioning that Trump is a long-time failed businessman, adjudicated rapist, and self-admitted sexual predator, in the run-up to the 2024 Presidential election.
DeleteFrankly, I can't blame them.
Some people are saying egg prices haven't come down. Business Digest says they hadn't come down as of March 3, but they have come way down as of today.
ReplyDeleteThe average cost of eggs amounted to $6.41 on Jan. 21, Trump’s first full day of his second term, according to Trade Economics. Prices decreased from an average of $8.27 on March 3 to $3.23 as of Wednesday.
https://www.breitbart.com/entertainment/2025/04/10/fact-check-whoopi-goldberg-falsely-claims-egg-prices-have-not-come-down-since-trump-took-office/
“Egg prices rise to record high despite White House optimism
DeleteEgg prices rose to a record high in March of $6.23 per dozen despite optimism from the White House last month.
The price for a dozen grade A large eggs jumped from February’s $5.90 to $6.23, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). It was $4.95 per dozen in January.”
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5242457-egg-prices-rise-record-high/amp/
Thanks 10:46. Your figures are a little different from the ones I found, but they both show the price of eggs at a record high in early March. Your figures end in March so they don’t show that prices are now less than half of what they were in early March and are considerably lower than they were when Trump took office.
DeleteWhy would anyone use the price of eggs as a marker of inflation?
DeleteThe price of eggs is a marker of how the egg farms are faring against the current bird flu outbreak. I did some maintenance repairs at three egg farms in 2015. They told me they had to landfill all 24 million birds at their 3 facilities; (8M each) after the bird flu hit in the early 00's. I am so sick of the stupid from the right. Quit trying to make theories pulled out of asses as the real reason for whatever. Grow up and pay attention. Have a functioning BS filter. David is not dumb, he just plays one. (And I turned down doing more work with them as the smell and those beady little caged eyes stayed with me for a few weeks before I could eat eggs again.)
Delete"Your figures are a little different from the ones I found,"
DeleteYou linked to a story at Breitbart, one that wasn't actually about eggs, but rather about attempting to prove that Whoopi Goldberg is wrong, Wrong, WRONG!
And the Breitbart story wasn't even original reporting. They cadged the whole story from the Daily Caller. The Caller, like Breitbart claimed to be quoting the USDA, but were in fact getting data from a site called "Trading Economics." And that source quotes contract prices for "wholesale, loose eggs in 30 dozen cartons."
All of which begs the question. What are people paying in the supermarket?
It’s a stage persona and a sense of humor. His fans love it and enjoy the triggering of leftists who hate that he mocks them one minute and impresses the normals with his leadership the next. He has won the presidency three times with these instincts.
ReplyDeleteIt would be nice to think that this is all a put-on by Trump, but the difficulty mimicking symptoms that Trump is plainly totally ignorant of makes it very unlikely he can put on the exact kind of deterioration that someone with dementia exhibits.
DeleteI would buy this explanation if his rally routines were like Carrot Top instead of Rainman.
Trump won the presidency twice, both times with the help of people who seek financial and political gain from his actions once elected. Putin benefitted hugely from Trump's favors. Musk has done the same, to the tune of billions in contracts and unlimited power to slash and burn within the govt. Now Trump's other billionaire cronies are benefitting from the stock market crash and for some reason, Russia is exempt from tariffs. Go figure!
These aren't instincts. This is criminal behavior and corruption, if not outright treason. Those who cannot admit what is happening are most likely benefitting from it financially.
It's hilarious when the Dow falls 2,000 points in the space of a few hours.
DeleteTrump is not deferring all of his economic policies to Putin, because Putin knows more abut economics than every Republican politician who ever lived.
DeleteTrump is deferring all his economic policies to Putin, because Trump is a Russian asset.
Somerby asks what an idee fixe is. Can't he use google or some other search engine, like the rest of us?
ReplyDeleteWhen he asks such a dumb question, he seems to be implying that the term itself (which goes back to the early 1800s) is somehow at fault. There are technical terms in many fields. When you don't know them you look them up:
creme brulee definition: scorched cream, a sweet desert made from 5 simple ingredients involving scorching cream.
See how easy that is? If Somerby has some beef with psychiatric terms used by professionals with specific meanings (requiring training to recognize in patients), he should say so and not use a mocking tone to imply that psychiatrists (unlike engineers, biologists, meteorologists, even politicians) shouldn't have specialized vocabularies that he perhaps doesn't fully understand.
This is one of the ongoing examples of Somerby's anti-intellectualism, where he implies that if people can't speak to him like a 5-year old, they shouldn't be flaunting their knowledge like phony elitist fake experts. The word crazy is good enough for the unwashed masses, so who needs words like idee fixe or dissociative identity disorder. Meanwhile, it is apparently OK if your dentist knows that incisors are different than molars, amirite?
sorry for typo: dessert
DeleteGarcia the gangbanger will be deported to a different country than El Salvador if El Salvador decides to release him. Either way, gratitude to the Trump administration for identifying and ridding our country of this criminal.
ReplyDeletePlease cite any proof or evidence you have that this person ever committed a crime (in the US or El Salvador). It is not OK to just label people criminals without proof. That is what our libel laws are intended to protect people from.
Deleteanon 8:52 imitates Goebbel's style of communication, isn't bad at it
Delete8:52 thinks they are special, but actually all white people get totally outclassed by illegal immigrant gangbangers in the job market. Down take my word for it, ask any Fortune 1000 hiring manager.
DeleteSomerby is musing about psychiatry, but what is wrong with simple corruption as an explanation for Trump's recent behavior?
ReplyDelete"Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) flagged a social media post by president Donald Trump as possible evidence of insider trading.
The president urged investors to buy as the stock market dipped Wednesday morning, saying "this is a great time to buy" on Truth Social at 9:37 a.m., but less than four hours later Trump announced a 90-day pause on nearly all of his tariffs, sending stocks soaring.
"So I have questions about the tariff announcements today," Murphy said in a video posted to X. "Who benefitted, and who made money? This should matter to you, too, because this could be an enormous scam. What we know is at about 9:30 [Wednesday], Trump posts on social media that people should buy, it's a good time to buy, and then three hours later, guess what? He announces that there's going to be a 90-day suspension of many of the tariffs." [Rawstory]
Bob is unknowingly using motivated reasoning. Having decided that Trump is mentally ill, Bob favors things that support that view and tends to reject new info that contradicts it.
ReplyDeleteTrump is a stable genius.
DeleteNo, he's just making "brilliant use of hyperbole."
DeleteAnd for MAGAs every accusation is a confession.
DeleteSomerby is exaggerating for effect, to own the conservative media.
DeleteGood one, Quaker.
DeleteFuck you, Dickhead in Cal.
DeleteThese comments are the same debates and arguments being relitigated on the exact same premises by the exact same people using the exact same arguments for at least 10 years … with no meaningful political change at all in that time.
ReplyDeleteYou are all using the internet and this comment section as a coping mechanism for the lack of real political opportunity and political powerlessness you have in your real lives. You’re pretending to express political beliefs but are really captured in a delusion that you are acting politically when you are actually stuck in an environment that neutralizes it. You are mistaking the circulation of opinions for action, while real power remains untouched. Years and years of the exact same debates with no political change at all. Using faux political debate and this comment section won’t change anything politically or fill the empty hole in your lives. You’re all pissing in the wind.
You've posted this commentary multiple time. Let us know when you get tired.
Delete7:55,
DeleteIt's worse than you make it out to be, because they already have the 2nd Amendment to effect change, if they want to.
ReplyDeleteThe Stock Market is falling! The super-rich are suffering, poor souls!
As an idiot-Democrat, my heart is bleeding for the super-rich brothers and sisters!
You f-ing dumbass.
DeleteIs 8:15 Karl Marx, or David in Cal? It's hard to tell the difference, nowadays.
Delete8:15,
DeleteNo worries, Trump will bail them out, like he gave them that HUGE tax break, that Republican voters were too busy losing their jobs to illegal immigrants to protest.
DeleteAs an idiot-Democrat, DJIA and the well-being of the super-rich brothers and sisters are my only concerns.
Economically anxious Republican voters, who aren't just a shit pile of bigots (hat tip liberal media), are cheering along the destruction of Wall Street.
DeleteThat'll teach corporate America to hire better qualified workers over them.
8:15 thinks this is a winning message for MAGA world. He apparently hasn’t gotten the memo that 62% of Americans are invested in the stock market. Including many whose retirement savings are there. But keep it up, 8:15. Your message is sure to win with all those trump voters in the stock market.
Delete
DeleteWas that memo from Mr. Soros? I didn't get it. Probably went straight to Trash.
As an idiot-Democrat I only care about DJIA and the super-rich!
Elon Musk has now downgraded his DOGE savings goal from 2 trillion to 150 billion. Nice.
ReplyDeleteActually Musk says he has already saved $160 billion. In 2 or 3 months. That’s a remarkable achievement. Past Presidents all said they would cut waste. AFAIK none of them saved this much money in their full term
DeleteLet's face it.
DeleteAll Americans owe Colin Kaepernick a gigantic thank you for exposing the United States of America as a shit hole country larded with waste, graft, and corruption. If it wasn't for his brave stance in the face of a bunch of a bunch of dead-end losers giving him shit, we wouldn't finally, after almost 250 years, to being good (let's not say "great", because that's still obviously, a LONG way off).
You can clearly see why the campaign to replace Ben Franklin with Kaepernick on the $100 bill, continues apace.
Because the USA is God's favorite, he made it the 187th best country in the world.
Delete9:26. Learn how to use a search engine. There are stories about this in Forbes, USA Today, The Independent and others. All indicating that Musk's GOAL FOR THIS YEAR is a projected savings of 150 billion dollars. And no, it isn't that much money, considering the potential risks involved in cutting agencies responsible for our health and security with little or no rationale. The asshat stands in front of an audience with a chainsaw to demonstrate his precision and thought processes in making these cuts.
Delete