Trump Is Mentally Ill (And His Condition Is Deteriorating)

(Cartoon image is by Clay Jones at claytoonz.com.)

For a while now, I have believed that Donald Trump is mentally ill -- and that poses a serious danger for this country.

The following is part of an article by Chauncey DeVega at Salon, and includes some of his interview with Dr. John Gartner (professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University Medical School):

Based on Donald Trump's public behavior, some of America and the world's leading psychologists, psychiatrists and other clinicians have concluded that the president of the United States is mentally unwell. Trump appears, in their opinion, to suffer from malignant narcissism. He is also a compulsive liar who lacks empathy for his fellow human beings and shows no remorse for his bad behavior. Most importantly, Trump's personality defects amplify his authoritarian values, beliefs and behavior. The results of this could be catastrophic. . . .

What role does Donald Trump's mental health play in how he governs? Is the stress of Robert Mueller's investigation and the other scandals swirling around Trump's White House accelerating his mental decline? Why are so many of Trump's supporters and other members of the general public still in denial about the global and national crisis that is Trump's assault on American democracy? Can anything be done about a president who appears unstable yet still maintains the unilateral power to order the use of nuclear weapons?

In an effort to answer these questions, I recently spoke with Dr. John Gartner, a former professor of psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins University Medical School. Gartner is also the founder of the Duty to Warn PAC, an organization working to raise awareness about the danger to the United States and the world posed by Donald Trump. Gartner was a contributor to the 2017 bestseller book "The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 27 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President." Along with Steven Buser and Leonard Cruz, Gartner has edited a new collection, "Rocket Man: Nuclear Madness and the Mind of Donald Trump." . . .

Q - Donald Trump's presidency remains a global crisis and a national disaster, yet many Americans have quickly adjusted to the situation. I don't just mean the millions of Trump supporters who are cheering on his assault on democracy and the country's prestige and well-being. Is this learned helplessness or cowardice? How do you explain the relative non-response to Trumpism?

A - Part of the reason many people do this is because it really is psychologically overwhelming. It's just almost too frightening to consider that a madman has control of the nuclear button, and he truly doesn't care if he destroys us all. In fact, there's a part of Trump that would almost take glee in it. He's impulsive, he's erratic, he's seeing the world in a grossly distorted way. He's only concerned with how things impact his own thriving and survival. Trump does not care about the well-being of literally anyone but himself. It really is a kind of dystopian nightmare. . . .

Q - Trump's political movement meets the criteria for a political cult. You are a psychologist. Is it possible to reach someone who is stuck in Trump's cult? Why does he have such influence over these people?

A - It does meet the criteria. You've got the charismatic leader, and his followers subsume their identity into his group, which makes them feel larger and more powerful. Once you have that kind of blind belief and loyalty, the leader, as Donald Trump has said, could really shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and nothing would happen. The cognitive dissonance is such that the cult members will rationalize anything. For example, something like 50 percent of Republicans say that if Trump wanted to cancel the 2020 election, that would be fine with them.

Q - This is what I have described as a "malignant reality." Trump, the Republican Party, and their supporters' sadism is a key part of it.

A - The sadism is very important. When I first started talking about Trump as a malignant narcissist, people could see the narcissism, the paranoia and the antisocial element. But the fourth component of malignant narcissism is sadism. You see it in everything he does, from the separating of the children at the border to how Trump tortures anyone who doesn't give him what he wants. There's a way in which he takes a kind of manic glee in causing harm and pain and humiliation to other people.

Q - At this point in Trump's presidency, are things better or worse than you initially thought, regarding his behavior and public evidence of his mental health and well-being?

A - Donald Trump is actually deteriorating psychologically. We've not seen the bottom. We're not in a static situation. We're actually in a dynamic situation. Now, some people look at it as, OK, he's not crazy, he's just an authoritarian and we're going through a period where American democracy is being degraded. That may be true, as horrible as it is. But from a mental health point of view, Trump is getting worse in several regards.

Malignant narcissists deteriorate. When they gain power, they become more inflamed in their grandiosity and in their paranoia. They also become more unrestrained in their sadism and in their will to power. Malignant narcissists like Trump are antisocial and have a willingness to do anything to get and keep power. The noted psychologist Erich Fromm actually argued that such personalities then begin to verge on psychosis at that point, becoming so grandiose and paranoid that they really live on the boundary of psychosis and reality.

In addition to that, I think Donald Trump is deteriorating for a second completely independent reason, which is that we're seeing clear evidence of organically based cognitive decline. If you look at the interviews that he did in the 1980s, he was actually surprisingly articulate. He still expressed what I think we would considered by many to be loathsome views, but he spoke with a high level of vocabulary that included polished sentences and complete paragraphs. If you compare that to how Trump speaks now, he almost can't complete a thought or a sentence without meandering into something nonsensical.

Q - As we've learned from history, a person can be an authoritarian and also a sociopath. 

A - They actually help each other. Nobody with a conscience could really be a good dictator.

Q - How would you respond to those people who would say that you are panic-stricken? The world hasn't ended because of Donald Trump, and this is all misplaced concern and worry. You are possessed by what his defenders call "Trump derangement syndrome."

A - It's a little bit like that patient who falls forward nine stories. He goes, "So far, so good." We just haven't hit the ground and splattered yet, but we are falling.