FRIDAY, JUNE 19, 2026
It's sometimes a medical term: We tip our hats to Jonah Goldberg for his rumination about the sitting president on today's Inside Politics.
At Mediaite, Jennifer Bahney provides transcript and videotape, along with a bit of background. Here's part of what Goldberg said, with us saving the highlight for last:
‘So Unbelievably Radioactive’: Jonah Goldberg Slams ‘Delusional’ Trump For Alienating US Allies
Conservative journalist Jonah Goldberg slammed President Donald Trump on CNN’s Inside Politics for alienating U.S. allies like Italian Prime Minister Georgia Meloni.
[...]
“Let’s go back to the context of that interview [with Axios] where he says, ‘We totally defeated Iran militarily. There are no limits to my power,'” Goldberg said. “The fact that he’s coming out of this week with this deal, saying that there are no limits to his power when he was forced to negotiate ending a blockade to open up the Strait of Hormuz is preposterous.”
Goldberg continued:
"And why was the Strait of Hormuz such a problem? They begged to get allies to come in and help with the minesweeping, because our European allies have better equipment for that kind of stuff. Couldn’t get them to do it. Why couldn’t they get them to do it? Because he threatened to militarily take over Greenland, and made himself so unbelievably radioactive...
"... I think his approval rating in Denmark is like 4%, right? So like, those are limits to his power! We would be a much more powerful country if we had allies that were willing to get our back and help us out. Those are limits. What’s disturbing is he’s so delusional he can’t see the limits to his power, and that’s something that’s going to get him into more mistakes.
Trump is delusional, Goldberg said—and that can be a colloquial term. That said, we think you should consider this:
"Delusional" can also be a diagnostic medical term.
"Delusional disorder" is the name of a related set of "mental disorders," medical conditions which are also described as "mental illnesses." If you click that link and scan the leading authority's overview of that set of disorders, we'll recommend that you click the links for this pair of diagnoses:
"Grandiose type (megalomania)" and "Persecutory type."
Let's be clear—the upper-end press corps is never going to consider the possibility that the sitting president is in the grip of a serious mental illness. They're never going to interview (carefully selected) medical specialists who might (or might not) be able to shed some light on his increasingly peculiar behavior.
Our journalists would rather go down with the ship, at the direction of their news org's paymasters.
Nearer My God to Thee? As they color inside the lines, our shipmates won't even hum that!
ReplyDelete@MeidasTouch
TRUMP SPARKS DIPLOMATIC CRISIS WITH ITALY: Italy’s Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani has canceled his planned June 21–22 trip to Washington after President Trump insulted Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, claiming she “begged” for a photo with him at the G7 and that he “felt sorry for her “
How much longer, dear Lord?
Trump lies. (Sorry, but it’s true, Bob). Also, no pity.
Delete"Trump lies."
ReplyDeleteCertainly, he makes many false statements. But a "lie" requires that he knows the statements to be false, and if he's delusional, as Somerby suggests he might be, then it is possible that he believes the false statements that he makes.
George Costanza explained all this long ago. It's not a "lie" if you believe it.
He lies. All the time. He always has. It’s part of his shtick. He doesn’t “believe” meloni begged him for a photo any more then he believed there were more people at his inauguration than there were at Obama‘s. It’s just pure unadulterated lying bullshit, It’s a power play. You can’t say whether the fucking asshole believes anything at all that he says. But what I know is from his past history and his fucking book, that he deliberately lies about stuff in order to manipulate people. And that’s what we know. That’s part of what makes the asshole a sociopath.
DeleteFuck off. He doesn’t believe his fucking lies and it’s easily proven
DeleteIf Trump believes such fantastical clearly provably false things, then he is way beyond delusional. He is stark raving mad. And yet he’s quite competent at corruption, grifting and bringing the entire GOP to heel. How’s that for a stark raving mad individual, DG?
DeleteTrump is like a man playing poker and always declaring he won the hand but never allowing the other players to see his cards. That works for him because the enablers he surrounds himself with allow him to fucking bluff all the time . Why can’t people see ths?
DeleteHe’s such a chickenshit fraud that he never gets into a game with men who would make him turn over his cards
DeleteThat is Trump’s superpower - no fucking shame and idiots like Somerby too scared to call him a liar
DeleteThe rising opposition to data centers is the latest threat to the neoliberal technocrats who run the Democratic Party and they’re already working on ways to snuff it out the way they did the Medicare for All movement.
ReplyDelete