SORROW? PITY? FEAR?: There's no way to know how this will end!

FRIDAY, APRIL 24, 2026

This seems to be where it started: "Conduct disorder?"

Believe it or not, that innocuous sounding designation is an actual clinical term. Behind that innocuous formulation lies a vast amount of human tragedy and personal hurt. 

We've discussed this topic in the past, but for today, let's go there again. The leading authority speaks:

Conduct disorder

Conduct disorder (CD) is a mental disorder diagnosed in childhood or adolescence that presents itself through a repetitive and persistent pattern of behavior that includes theft, lies, physical violence that may lead to destruction, and reckless breaking of rules, in which the basic rights of others or major age-appropriate norms are violated. These behaviors are often referred to as "antisocial behaviors," and is often seen as the precursor to antisocial personality disorder; however, the latter, by definition, cannot be diagnosed until the individual is 18 years old. Conduct disorder may result from parental rejection and neglect and in such cases can be treated with family therapy, as well as behavioral modifications and pharmacotherapy. It may also be caused by environmental lead exposure. Conduct disorder is estimated to affect 51.1 million people globally as of 2013.

So says the leading authority, at the start of a lengthy discussion. That said, can there really be some such "mental disorder"—some such clinical diagnosis?

The innocuous name of this disorder may trigger a skeptic's instinctive denial. That said, for the Cleveland Clinic's thumbnail on "Conduct Disorder," you can just click here.  For the overview by Johns Hopkins Medicine, you can just click this.

We're telling you these things, as best we can, because our major news orgs and journalists won't. In truth, the American discourse barely comprehends the basic fact that "mental illness" exists. Our society's understanding of "mental illness" is extremely limited. 

Within this branch of medical science, "Conduct Disorder" is an actual thing! And then the story leads on from there. The leading authority on Antisocial Personality Disorder (colloquially, "sociopathy") says this about the connection between these two disorders:

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 the main section (section II) of the DSM-5...antisocial personality disorder is defined as being characterized by at least three of seven traits. 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. 

We're telling you this, as best we can, because our high-end journalists won't. But yes—it seems that a diagnosis of antisocial personality disorder requires evidence of "conduct disorder" before the age of 15.

We pity the child who's so disordered—the child who badly needs some help. For the child who doesn't get that help, a troubled future may well beckon. That brings us back to the (widely reported story of the sitting president's early life.

For ourselves, we pity the (disordered) child who doesn't get the help he needs, though it isn't clear that every such child actually can be helped.  We think of one profoundly troubled child who was once in our fifth grade class—a plainly troubled child who was later murdered in the street when he was still quite young.

(He plainly seemed to be deeply troubled during the short time he was in our class. Did he ever get the help he seemed to need? We don't know that part of the story, but we mourn the loss of that child.)

With that, we return to the sitting president—to the troubling behavior he evidenced when he was still a child. He grew up as part of a wealthy family—and ss we mentioned the other day, both his brothers prepped at the tony St. Paul's.

Among the trio of brothers, he alone didn't prep at St. Paul's. 

The basic facts are not in doubt. That said, this is the way his niece, a doctorate-holding clinical therapist, told this part of her family history in her best-selling book, Too Much and Never Enough:

CHAPTER THREE: The Great I-Am

[...]

Encouraged by his father, Donald eventually started to believe his own hype. By the time he was twelve, the right side of his mouth was curled up in an almost perpetual sneer of self-conscious superiority, and [his older brother] Freddy had dubbed him “the Great I-Am,” echoing a passage from Exodus he’d learned in Sunday school in which God first reveals himself to Moses.

[...]

Though Donald’s behavior didn’t bother [his father]—given his long hours at the office, he wasn’t often around to witness much of what happened at home—it drove his mother to distraction. Mary couldn’t control him at all, and Donald disobeyed her at every turn. Any attempt at discipline by her was rebuffed. He talked back. He couldn’t ever admit he was wrong; he contradicted her even when she was right; and he refused to back down. He tormented his little brother and stole his toys. He refused to do his chores or anything else he was told to do. Perhaps worst of all to a fastidious woman like her, he was a slob who refused to pick up after himself no matter how much she threatened him. “Wait until your father comes home” had been an effective threat with Freddy, but to Donald it was a joke that his father seemed to be in on.

Finally, by 1959, Donald’s misbehavior—fighting, bullying, arguing with teachers—had gone too far. [The private] Kew-Forest [School] had reached its limits. Fred’s being on the school’s board of trustees cut two ways: on the one hand, Donald’s behavior had been overlooked longer than it otherwise might have; on the other, it caused Fred some inconvenience. Name-calling and teasing kids too young to fight back had escalated into physical altercations. Fred didn’t mind Donald’s acting out, but it had become intrusive and time consuming for him. When one of his fellow board members at Kew-Forest recommended sending Donald to New York Military Academy as a way to rein him in, Fred went along with it. Throwing him in with military instructors and upperclassmen who wouldn’t put up with his shit might toughen up Fred’s burgeoning protégé even more. Fred had more important things to do than deal with Donald.

I don’t know if Mary had any say in the final decision, but she didn’t fight for her son to stay home, either, a failure Donald couldn’t help but notice. It must have felt like a replay of all the times she’d abandoned him in the past.

Over Donald’s objections, he was enrolled at NYMA, a private boys’ boarding school sixty miles north of New York City. The other kids in the family referred to NYMA as a “reform school”—it wasn’t prestigious like St. Paul’s, which Freddy had attended. Nobody sent their sons to NYMA for a better education, and Donald understood it rightly as a punishment.

(For much fuller background from that part of Mary Trump's text, see THE DAILY HOWLER, 4/24/25.)

That's the way Mary Trump told the story in her best-selling book. Based on her acknowledgments, she was likely relying on Marianne Trump, the sitting president's older sister, as a primary source concerning these childhood years.

His two brothers prepped at St. Paul's! He himself was shipped off to "reform school," the result of his misbehavior—including the bullying of younger children—at the local private school where his father sat on the board. 

His early conduct had become so bad he couldn't even stay there!

By the end of seventh grade, his misbehavior at the local private school was no longer tolerable. Was this an example of "Conduct Disorder?" In his years at NYMA, did he get the help he needed?

We feel sorry for the horrible kid who had to shipped off that way. However horrible their anger and their conduct may be, we don't blame 11- or 12-year-old children who are badly in need of help.

When children don't get the help they need, the consequences may be profound. One child was later murdered in the street. Yesterday, the absurd behavior of the other child continued in a string of gonzo statements as he insulted the press and lauded himself in new yet familiar ways.

He'll be in office for almost three more years. We can always hope for the best, but we regard that as a dangerous state of affairs.

We pity the child who didn't get helped. Right to this day, our vaunted press corps refuses to discuss the apparent medical dimensions of this dangerous state of affairs.

For better or worse, they're following a long-standing rule of the guild. In our view, that was always a very good rule—until the time came when it wasn't.