RAGE: What explains the rage of the right?

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 3, 2026

Wehner sidesteps Trump: Is it possible that the sitting president, in an act of rage, could go ahead and destroy the world?   

Almost everything's possible! As concisely reported by Kathryn Wilkens, here's what one medical specialist has now said:   

Nobel Prize-Winning Psychiatrist Warns He’s Seeing Signs That Trump Could Drop a Nuke ‘In a Fit of Pique or Rage’   

Dr. Henry Abraham, a psychiatrist who shared in the 1985 Nobel Peace Prize, warned Wednesday that he is seeing signs President Donald Trump could use a nuclear weapon “in a fit of pique or rage or confusion.”

Abraham received the honor as a member of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War. He was also among 36 physicians who signed an April letter entered into the congressional record calling for Trump’s removal from office, claiming he is mentally unfit to serve.

His comments came on a Wednesday edition of The Dean Obeidallah Show. When asked by host Dean Obeidallah about his April letter and if “anything’s changed,” Abraham responded, “Yeah. If anything, it’s worse.”

As you can see in the videotape included by Wilkens, Dr. Abraham went on to say this:   

"We have a system which enfolds the president's health in a shroud of secrecy, which is, under ordinary circumstances, might be indicated. But when a person has sole access to the nuclear armamentaria, it’s crazy, and this is what we’re doing. I think, you know, we’re in even more danger of Donald Trump using a nuclear weapon in a fit of pique or rage or confusion or poor impulse control than ever before. So yes, he’s more dangerous."

Dr. Abraham is 84. As you can see in the videotape, he remains highly articulate. Let's try to be clear ourselves:   

Dr. Abraham says we have "a system which enfolds the president's health in a shroud of secrecy." In part, that might be said to include the journalistic agreement, honored by every major news org, according to which concerns about a sitting president's mental health must never be reported and must never be discussed.   

"Under ordinary circumstances," Dr. Abraham says, such agreements "might be indicated." But in our current circumstance, a system which maintains secrecy and silence has become "crazy," he says. 

The traditional practice is no longer indicated, he says. This has been our way of making that point about the press corps' agreement to maintain silence:

It was always a good journalistic rule—until the time came when it wasn't.

At present, we're whistling past the graveyard. The sitting president's behavior seems to be increasingly strange.

Dr. Abraham is only one medical specialist. He's expressing one person's assessment—his own.   

That said, how likely is it that the current sitting president could use a nuclear weapon “in a fit of pique or rage or confusion?" 

How likely is it? We don't have the slightest idea. But the "confusion" to which Dr. Abraham refers seems increasingly present, a possible product of what the president's niece has called an "obvious cognitive decline." 

Meanwhile, the "rage" to which Dr. Abraham refers—the rage of Trump and Cheung and the rest—has been remarkably constant. 

Writing in the Atlantic, former Republican speechwriter Peter Wehner called it "The Wrath of MAGA." He was describing the rage directed at Jon Ossoff (and at a CNN correspondent) in the wake of an insinuation about Trump and the lady with whom he allegedly wants to travel around, inside "their palace."

(To our ear, the insinuation seemed fairly obvious. Other assessments have differed.)

Remarkable acts of tribal rage were visited on the senator, but also on the CNN correspondent. But when Wehner tried to explain the source of the rage, he explained the rage of the president's supporters, not that of the president himself:

The Wrath of MAGA 

[...]   

So why did MAGA world respond as it did? One explanation is psychological. In 2016, Trump found a constituency already primed for grievance, and taught it to want more. His supporters have kept themselves in a state of frenzy ever since. They need to be perpetually outraged, aggrieved, and insulted. MAGA world has become addicted to the feeling. It delivers a jolt of adrenaline, it provides a feeling of social belonging, and it gives people a sharpened sense of purpose. They see themselves as warriors in a drama of their own construction. They view their opponents—Democrats, progressives, critics of Trump—as personifications of evil. Inflicting pain on their enemies feels good, really good, and it feels just.

Trump is aware of all of this. It’s why, during the 2024 campaign, he spoke directly to his supporters, saying, “I am your warrior. I am your justice. And for those who have been wronged and betrayed: I am your retribution.” 

The attacks on Ossoff are also a response to Trump’s collapsing support and the fracturing MAGA movement. Trump’s supporters need to find a common enemy. The Ossoff comments have given them a chance to lash out, to go on the offensive, and to shake feelings of powerlessness and impending doom. At a time when defending Trump is nearly impossible, attacking his opponents becomes imperative.  

Strange! Having recorded the rage which was expressed by Trump himself and by his lieutenants, Wehner went on to offer an explanation for the rage of Trump's "constituency"—for the supposed rage of the president's "supporters." 

Having reported the rage of Group A, Wehner went on to explain the alleged rage of Group B. 

Without demonstrating that some such rage exists, Wehner went on to say that the explanation for that rage is "psychological." 

All in all, that was bungled work—a bit of bungled work from a very good, decent person. Wehner seemed to slip-slide away from Group A. Did the Atlantic have no editor who could spot this logical problem?   

We close today with two basic points:  

Quite probably, the rage which frequently erupts from the president himself does have a "psychological" origin. In that passage, Wehner became the latest major journalist to sidestep this obvious possibility.

Beyond that, we'll tell you this:   

Even now, President Trump has tens of millions of supporters. On a psychological basis, some of them "need to be perpetually outraged, aggrieved, and insulted." On the other hand, a whole lot of them surely don't.   

In that passage, it seems to us that Wehner has done what we Blues frequently do. He has lumped all "the others" together, describing them in a way which sounds a bit insulting.  

Sadly, the president's supporters have plenty of legitimate objections to the world we Blues inhabit and create. Tomorrow, we'll take a journey down a few of those lanes.

We Blues can be the "abusers" too! We'll even mention sacred Thoreau, composing his most famous text on the shore of Concord's celebrated Ivanka Melania Pond.

Tomorrow: "More abused than abuser?"