EMPATHY AND ILLNESS: The whiteness of the whale gives way...

MONDAY, DECEMBER 22, 2025

...to the flooding of the zone: Long ago and oceans away, sacred Melville famously pondered "the whiteness of the whale."

In fact, that was the title of Chapter 42 of his most famous novel. If Project Gutenberg can be trusted, the chapter starts like this:

CHAPTER 42. The Whiteness of the Whale.

What the white whale was to Ahab, has been hinted; what, at times, he was to me, as yet remains unsaid.

Aside from those more obvious considerations touching Moby Dick, which could not but occasionally awaken in any man’s soul some alarm, there was another thought, or rather vague, nameless horror concerning him, which at times by its intensity completely overpowered all the rest; and yet so mystical and well nigh ineffable was it, that I almost despair of putting it in a comprehensible form. It was the whiteness of the whale that above all things appalled me. But how can I hope to explain myself here; and yet, in some dim, random way, explain myself I must, else all these chapters might be naught.

"It was the whiteness of the whale that above all things appalled me," Melville admitted. Today, what's actually bringing the American project down is the "the flooding of the zone."

In the main, that flooding tracks to one famous man. In last Saturday's news analysis piece, Peter Baker starts to list the ways. His essay starts like this:

NEWS ANALYSIS
Shouting, Ranting, Insulting: Trump’s Uninhibited Second Term

It all might make more sense if he actually were drinking. By all accounts, President Trump doesn’t touch the stuff. So when his own chief of staff said that he has “an alcoholic’s personality,” she was talking about his larger-than-life nature rather than his consumption.

Yet in some ways, it may be an apt description for a president who seems even less inhibited than ever in a way that has many in Washington and beyond shaking their heads or even wondering if the leader of the free world has lost it. The word often whispered by Republicans and shouted by Democrats and Never Trumpers is “unhinged.”

Is it possible that President Trump has "lost it?" In Washington, some observers are "even wondering" about that possibility, Baker says as he starts. Some are whispering, or even shouting, that the president is "unhinged."

"Unhinged" is one of the euphemism-adjacent terms on which the guild has settled. According to Baker--and Baker is plenty sharp--the word is "often whispered by Republicans," but it's "shouted by Democrats."

With that, Baker began listing the recent episodes which have been part of the flood:

(continuing directly from above)
It was one thing when Mr. Trump called a reporter “piggy.” Or casually threatened to put a half-dozen members of Congress to death for accurately stating the laws of war. Or labeled all Somali immigrants “garbage.” Or declared that daring to question his physical energy level at age 79 was “seditious, perhaps even treasonous.” But when Mr. Trump cavalierly attacked the Hollywood icon Rob Reiner just hours after his body was found in a grisly murder scene, it sickened even some of his own political allies.

He followed that no-he-didn’t-just-say-that-did-he performance this week by adding a series of plaques underneath portraits of past presidents on the wall of the Colonnade at the White House that brazenly denigrated some of his predecessors. In effect, he bronzed some of his cartoonish social media juvenilia and bolted it to the taxpayer-owned building where two Roosevelts, John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan once lived.

“He’s just lost it,” Senator Chris Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut, wrote on social media after the president lashed out at Mr. Reiner. After seeing pictures of the new White House plaques, Mr. Murphy added, “He is such a sad, damaged person.”

Baker listed several recent iterations of the relentless flood:

The insults aimed at female reporters. The suggestion that execution might be appropriate in the wake of a somewhat odd though accurate video statement concerning the laws of war.

The astonishing claim, stated in the Oval Office on two successive days, that Rep. Omar (and all Somali immigrants) are just a pile of "garbage." And then, the astounding attack on the late Rob Reiner--on a widely popular public figure who had just been murdered by his troubled son.

On and on the incidents went, nor did the flood stop there. Colloquially, there is only one word for "a series of plaques underneath portraits of past presidents [in] the White House that brazenly denigrated some of his predecessors." In the realm of colloquial speech, that one word is this:

Insane.

That would, of course, be a colloquial assessment. "Insane" is not a diagnostic term within the current realm of what gets described as "medical science." With respect to Senator Murphy, he may have started losing us when he grew that JD Vance look alike beard in the aftermath of last November's election.

Alas! Within the groves of Blue America, our own tribal leaders began reshaping their public profiles in the aftermath of that stunningly bungled election. In the reports to which we link you below, Newsweek reported one part of the makeovers. 

This still gets laughed about in Silo Red, got disappeared in Silo Blue;

AOC Removes Pronouns From X Bio: What We Know
The right-wing media sphere flew into a frenzy on Thursday when several users on social media pointed out that U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York had removed her pronouns from her bio on X, formerly Twitter.

The overarching sentiment was that Ocasio-Cortez's decision to remove her pronouns from her bio underscored President-elect Donald Trump's decisive victory in the 2024 election, and was an inflection point in "woke" ideology—a derisive term that many conservatives use to describe identity politics and progressive values.

Has Pete Buttigieg Removed Pronouns From His Bio? What We Know
Former transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg has removed his pronouns from his biography on X, formerly Twitter, according to a prominent account on the social media platform.

Screenshots from the Libs of TikTok account, which is run by conservative activist Chaya Raichik and has over 4 million followers, appear to show that Buttigieg deleted his "he/him" pronouns from the account.

Newsweek has contacted Buttigieg for comment via Facebook and Instagram direct messages.

Uh-oh! Politically speaking, had we Blues possibly moved a bit beyond our skis when it came to some of the stuff which got assailed as "woke?" 

Our answer to that question would be yes. For others, mileage may differ.

But in the face of all that, it's President Trump who is the most powerful player of all. And the sheer (colloquial) insanity of those plaques, right there in what's left of the White House complex, helps us see the basic question from which Blue journalists continue to flee:

Is something "wrong" with President Trump? More to the point, is it possible that hie niece was right when she published this (tragic)assessment in the prologue to her best-selling book?

Prologue

[...]

None of the Trump siblings emerged unscathed from my grandfather’s sociopathy and my grandmother’s illnesses, both physical and psychological, but my uncle Donald and my father, Freddy, suffered more than the rest. In order to get a complete picture of Donald, his psychopathologies, and the meaning of his dysfunctional behavior, we need a thorough family history.

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...

The niece, a Ph.D. holding clinical therapist, was speaking about "psychopathologies" which qualify as examples of diagnosable "mental illness." 

The fact that she wrote what she wrote doesn't mean that she was right. But this remains a part of contemporary medical science which our journalists refuse to discuss, except through the use of euphemisms:

The guy has "lost it," some might say. Some might even say he's "unhinged!"

Major questions remain about this possible source of the flood. Example:

Is a mental illness really a form of an actual illness? Should we regard the behaviors which result as we typically do--as a straightforward expression of a lack of "character?" Or should we regard those behaviors as the (perhaps unavoidable) results of a (physical, bodily) illness?

Also this:

Under current rules of the game, it's reasonably safe to attribute the president's flood of behaviors to a "cognitive decline." Under current rules of the game, that's a more acceptable speculation. 

But is it possible that his recent behaviors could be the result of some sort of cognitive decline piggy-backed onto a pre-existing "mental illness"--a pre-existing "mental illness which may have been bred in the bones, passed on at birth through the genes?

Here on this campus, we continue to explore these questions for the benefit of someone ages and ages hence. At our present stage of intellectual evolution, we Americans aren't ready to discuss such questions.

For the record, sacred Melville ended his chapter in a typically thoughtful way:

[P]ondering all this, the palsied universe lies before us a leper; and like willful travelers in Lapland, who refuse to wear colored and coloring glasses upon their eyes, so the wretched infidel gazes himself blind at the monumental white shroud that wraps all the prospect around him.

And of all these things the Albino whale was the symbol. Wonder ye then at the fiery hunt?

Wonder ye then at the fiery hunt? That's what Melville asked! 

At any rate, we Blues (correctly) note the president's apparent lack of empathy. He seems to display the absence of empathy, but what is the state of our own?

Tomorrow: The possible road not taken

Has Pete Buttigieg Removed Pronouns From His Bio? What We Know
Former transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg has removed his pronouns from his biography on X, formerly Twitter, according to a prominent account on the social media platform.

Screenshots from the Libs of TikTok account, which is run by conservative activist Chaya Raichik and has over 4 million followers, appear to show that Buttigieg deleted his "he/him" pronouns from the account.

Newsweek has contacted Buttigieg for comment via Facebook and Instagram direct messages.