WHAT IS MENTAL ILLNESS: No discussion of mental illness...

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 1, 2025

...could ever have saved us from this: Today we have naming of mental disorder. We want to start with a basic point:

No discussion of "mental illness"—no discussion of mental health or "mental disorder"—would or could have saved us from this, or from what is likely to come.

Remember, "it's all anthropology now"—and it has been for a long time. For a long time, there has been no apparent way out of this mess, nor was there any sign that those of us in Blue America would ever know how to find such a path.

Our analytical skills and our powers of empathy simply weren't bult for the task. That said, Lawrence O'Donnell has been speaking about mental illness, quite directly, over the past two nights. 

We'll show you a bit of his language below. Last night, he discussed the speech the sitting president delivered in front of 800 admirals and generals in a crowded and silent room. 

One commentator after another has marked the inanity of the president's "rambling" address. According to CNN's transcript, the president started his address shortly after 9:25 a.m. 

According to that same transcript, this is what the president was saying as 9:50 a.m. came and went—as it came and dragged on by:

PRESIDENT TRUMP (9/30/25): ...One of the first executive orders I signed upon taking office was to restore the principle of merit. That's the most important word, other than the word "tariff."

I love tariffs. Most beautiful word. But I'm not allowed to say that any more. I said, " 'Tariff' is my favorite word. I love the word 'tariff.' " 

You know, we're becoming rich as hell. We have a big case in front of the Supreme Court, but I—I can't imagine, because this is what other nations have done to us. And we have, you know, great legal grounds and all, but you still have a case would be very bad. 

Something happened. But I said, "my favorite word in the English dictionary is the word 'tariff.' " And people thought that was strange. And the fake news came over and they really hit me hard on it.

They said, "What about love? What about religion? What about God? What about wife, family?" I got killed when I said "tariff" is my favorite word. So, I changed it. It's now my fifth favorite word. And I'm OK with that. I'm OK with that. But they hit me hard.

But it is. I mean, when you look at—we've taken in trillions of dollars. We're rich. Rich again. And they'll never be, when we finish this out, there will never be any wealth like what we have. Other countries were taking advantage of us for years and years. You know that better than anybody. And now we're treating them fairly. But the money coming in is—we've never seen anything like it.

The other day they had 31 billion that they found—$31 billion. "Sir, we found $31 billion. And we're not sure from where it came." 

A gentleman came in. A financial guy. I said, "Well, what does that mean?"

 He said, "We don't know where it came." I said, "Check the tariff shelf."

"No, sir, the tariffs haven't started in that sector yet." I said, "Yes, they have. They started seven weeks ago. Check it."

Comes back 20 minutes later. "Sir, you're right, it came from tariffs. $31 billion." 

That's enough to buy a lot of battleships, admiral, to use an old term. 

Well, I think we should maybe start thinking about battleships, by the way. You know, we have a secretary of the Navy. He came to me, because I look at the Iowa out in California, and I look at different ships in the old pictures. 

I used to watch Victory at Sea. I love Victory at Sea. Look at these admirals. It's got to be your all-time favorite. Black and white. And I look at those ships. They came with the destroyers alongside of them. And, man, nothing was going to stop. They were 20 deep and they were in a straight line, and there was nothing going to stop them.

And so on from there.

He used to watch Victory at Sea? It was an early TV show (in "black and white"), first broadcast when he was five years old. The leading authority tells us this:

Victory at Sea

Victory at Sea is a documentary television series about warfare in general during World War II, and naval warfare in particular, as well as the use of industry in warfare. It was broadcast by NBC in the United States during 1952–53....The original TV broadcasts comprised 26 half-hour segments—Sunday afternoons at 3:00 p.m. (EST) in most markets—starting on October 26, 1952 and ending on May 3, 1953.

[...]

After the first run, NBC syndicated it to local stations, where it proved successful financially through the mid-1960s.

And so on from there. The program continued to air through his high school years, which he spent at New York Military Academy, a boarding school which was mocked by his siblings as a "reform school." 

As has been widely reported, he was sent to NYMA because of his aggressive behavior toward younger children at the New York City prep school where his father had sat on the board of directors. After the seventh grade, his father had agreed that his son had to leave the school.

Back to Victory at Sea! Admirals and generals had been flown in to listen to the sitting president dodder along in this way. With respect to his widely-reported mistreatment of the younger children at his original school, we'll offer these deeply unfortunate, tragic facts from the leading authority on the topic of the colloquial term, "sociopathy:"

Antisocial personality disorder

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.

[...]

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.

At present, "sociopath" is not a technical diagnostic term. That said, to be diagnosed with the associated personality disorder, "evidence of onset of conduct disorder" must have appeared before age 15.

The gentleman's niece, a clinical therapist, said in her 2020 best-seller that her uncle could likely be diagnosed with this disorder. To her credit, she was able to pity the child as she laid out the circumstances which may have contributed to this possible state of affairs. 

To what circumstances do we refer? The niece included the fact that sociopathy is believed to be heritable. Also, the fact that president's father, her own grandfather, was, in her stated view, a "high-functioning sociopath."

We're describing here a terrible tragedy, in much the way that it's a tragedy whenever any child is born with any serious illness. That said, whatever the medical truth of this matter might be, no discussion of any such possibility could have saved us in Blue America from what will be coming next.

With that, we return to yesterday's rambling, inane address. Simply put, this president seems to be out on his feet—but very few Blue American journalists or academics, aside from MSNBC's O'Donnell, seem prepared, in any way, to take a stab at a discussion of this apparent fact.

Back to yesterday's crowded hall! The generals and admirals sat in the room, condemned to listen to more than an hour of drivel like the drivel we've posted. And no, our country isn't suddenly "rich"—and no, we haven't been "taking money in" in the way the sitting president insists on saying we have, no matter how many times his misstatement is corrected.

In the passage we have posted, the president even made use of his favorite format—the format which goes like this:

A noun + a verb + "no one has ever seen anything like it."

Also, he made use of this favorite:

A noun + a verb + someone calling him "Sir."

Admirals and general sat in the hall, condemned to well over an hour of this. With regard to those battleships, here's the start of the column by David Ignatius in today's Washington Post:

Trump and Hegseth’s backward-facing message to the generals

Here’s the scariest part about Tuesday’s military pep rally: President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth—in their focus on grooming, fitness standards and “the enemy within”—seem oblivious to the reality that 21st-century combat will be dominated by drones and artificial intelligence, plus commanders who understand these high-tech weapons.

America’s generals and admirals sat stone-faced as they listened to Trump and Hegseth. They had been summoned to Washington at a moment when they’re struggling to adapt America’s military to dizzying changes in combat systems and doctrine. What they got was a lecture from Hegseth about the threat of facial hair, “fat generals” and lax training—along with a meandering speech from Trump bashing his political enemies.

Trump’s and Hegseth’s speeches were an exercise in military nostalgia. Trump talked about bringing back battleships, a Navy fighting platform that was already outmoded during World War II...

Is Ignatius right about those battleships? At this site, we have no idea. Of one thing you can feel certain:

The admirals and generals do.

Ignatius went with "meandering" as she described this address. Many others settled for "rambling."

Was Tuesday's unusual twin-bill address scheduled as a distraction from the impending government shutdown which was destined to land on that day? We have no idea, but the generals were condemned to hear about how fat some of them are—but also about the 1950's TV show, Victory at Sea.

Also, they head about using American cities as a place to train the military, which Hegseth would make more lethal. On last evening's PBS NewsHour, the highly articulate Capt. Margaret Donovan (ret.) voiced concern about that combination. 

Other observers have sussed that out as the one new thing the president said.

Ignatius went with "meandering" as he described this address. Few observers went where O'Donnell did, giving voice to direct concern about the president's mental functioning.

As for the president himself, he proceeded from the lecture hall to his hall of mirrors. Last evening, he posted another bizarrely insulting deep fake video of his Democratic counterparts.

Is something wrong with President Trump? If so, that's a human tragedy. Once again, Mediaite was willing to report the remarkable thing he did:

Trump Doubles Down With Another Bizarre AI Attack on Hakeem Jeffries

President Donald Trump doubled down on his AI smear campaign against House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries on Tuesday with a second doctored video cut over the Democrat’s MSNBC interview, during which he slammed an earlier deepfake as “disgusting.”

[...]

In the clip ripped from the MSNBC appearance by the president, posted to both X and Truth Social, Jeffries condemns the earlier video as “disgusting” before the video morphs, placing a sombrero and moustache on the Democrat’s face, while an AI-generated mariachi band—each member with Trump’s face—played in the background.

The White House has not yet commented on Trump’s latest video.

The president did that for the second straight night. You can see last night's crazy video as part of the Mediaite report. That said, even Mediaite hasn't yet been willing to report O'Donnell's discussion from last evening's Last Word. 

Over at the Last Word site, you can watch the heart of O'Donnell's opening monologue, in which he comments on the president's apparent mental and physical health. Thanks to the invaluable Internet Archive, you can also watch O'Donnell's opening monoloue, shared at first with Jen Pskai, simply by clicking here.

At the Last Word site, you can see what O'Donnell had to say after Psaki departed. You'll see him start with this:

O'DONNELL (9/30/25): ...The emergency the United States of America is facing tonight is an emergency the United States of America has created for the world. And that emergency is that the president of the United States, in his public appearance today, proved that he is mentally incapable and emotionally incapable of fulfilling his constitutional duties as president of the United States. 

In other words, there is no president of the United States as we knew it. There is no functioning intelligence, no functioning judgment mechanism within the mind of the current holder of that title, and that person is also the holder of the nuclear codes that could destroy the planet in seconds.

We can't tell you that assessment is wrong. Unfortunately (in our view), the videotape at the Last Word site is headlined and summarized like this:

Lawrence: Trump was 'on the verge of outright insanity' in deranged speech to military commanders
MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell details how military commanders who listened to Donald Trump’s “deranged” speech have to be wondering “just how much more dangerous their jobs are now that they've seen just how lost and sick their Commander-in-Chief is.”

We can't tell you that those assessments are wrong. But television is said to be "medium cool," and O'Donnell's anger and disgust have tended to outpace his empathy and intellect as he engages in his discussions of the sitting president's possible mental disorders.

In our view, there's no discussion of mental health or mental illness which could have saved us from what will be coming next. In part, that turns on a massive irony—on the way we Blues refused to acknowledge a somewhat similar fact about the previous sitting president, who had plainly lost several steps, despite Blue America's insistence that there was nothing to look at.

Over here in Blue America, there was nothing to see at the southern border. There was nothing to see about President Biden.

The cost of living? That was all in the public's heads! We joined to that a string of difficult claims about social issues which came to be described as "woke," and we had spent the past sixty years alienating last segments of the population through our insistence that they were perhaps a bit "less."

(Last night, PBS began exploring the start of this era with the debut of its American Experience program, Hard Hat Riot. Question: Does the title of the program undermine its larger point?)

Like the fictional citizens of Camus' Oran, we Blues just haven't been up to the challenge. That said, giant empires have always come undone. Our human wiring wasn't built for the task of keeping behemoths intact.

Joined by almost no one else, O'Donnell is willing to see what's sitting right there before him. But he's speaking too late, and his tone is too hot, and the die had long been cast.

No discussion of mental illness could ever have saved us from what will be coming next. That said, if you plan to discuss mental illness, it's important to recognize this:

Severe "mental disorder" / mental illness is always a human tragedy. A person needs to establish that point.

It helps if he really believes it. Within the tribal context, almost no one does.

Tomorrow: In search of human capability! The New York Times profiles Kat Timpf

Friday: Wikipedia on "Human"