It is my firm but unprofessional opinion that Donald Trump is not mentally fit to be president of the United States. I do not make that statement lightly nor without a great deal of consideration. We should be very careful about debating the mental fitness of an American president. One had better have a very strong argument before venturing forth with their diagnoses. Labeling a person’s mental state from afar and without personal interaction is an inherently flawed endeavor and should not be taken lightly. Nevertheless, I am ready to make that judgment, and I do so, not merely from my personal observations, but of the observations of many others.
Tony Schwartz, ghostwriter of Trump’s “The Art of the Deal,” said if he had written that book today he would title it “The Sociopath.” He based that statement on his personal observations of Trump, who famously told the writer he was proud that he had not changed since the eighth grade. That appears to be an accurate self-description, but we must remember that a person’s frontal lobe, that which is most responsible for making wise decisions, is not fully formed until age 19.
Mitchell Anderson, a free-lance writer, wrote in the January 2018 issue of the Canadian news magazine The Tyee that Trump shows obvious signs of emphatic impairment, commonly referred to as sociopathy or psychopathy. It is true that Mr. Trump is known for lacking empathy. Anderson noted that “the one superpower sociopaths possess is an emotional deafness that allows them to act with a shark-like self-interest beyond the normal bounds of even the most hardened humans.” They can act, he said, without conscience, effortlessly lying to manipulate those around them.” Even Trump’s most ardent supporters must admit that statement can easily describe this president.
In the 2017 publication, “The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump,” over two dozen mental health experts assessed Trump’s fitness for office. One, Dr. Lance Dodes, professor of psychiatry at Harvard, said the president’s “speech and behavior show that he has severe sociopathic traits.” I am of the opinion that Trump can, arguably, be said to exhibit eight of the thirteen traits mental health experts associate with sociopathy. No one who has paid attention these past few years can deny that “the Donald,” as he has often referred to himself, has an inflated sense of his own importance. “I know more than the Generals.” No one else can drain the swamp.” “Only a President Trump can bring millions of jobs back to America.” Sociopaths also have a deep need for excessive attention and admiration. They have troubled relationships.
These are not my words, they come from the world renowned Mayo Clinic, which also describes psychopathic individuals as having “a sense of entitlement and require constant, excessive admiration” and they “believe they are superior” and “belittle or look down upon people they perceive as inferiors.” These are all traits easily observable with the president. Another associative trait is attachment disorder, and much of Trump’s behavior, before and during his presidency, is consistent with that disorder.
So, it is not a stretch to consider that our president might be a sociopath. Why that is important to grasp was summed up by Dr. Craig Malkin of Harvard. “If pathological narcissists, in their reality-warping efforts to feed their addiction, bring themselves to the precipice of disaster, why should we, as nations, allow them to pull us into the abyss with them? It’s this urgent existential question” he says, “that faces Democracies throughout the world today.”
Michael Adkins formerly was chairman of the Hancock County Democratic Party. Send comments to [email protected].
