[FRIAM] Is the new president mentally ill?

[Nick Thompson]

Hi, Jochen, 

 

I tried a couple of weeks ago to get everybody worried about this and nobody bit.  Briefly, in the first few months Trump discovers that he cannot do anything domestically because … alas …. of the constitution.  He then promotes riots in the streets followed by the “reluctant” imposition of martial law.  Or, he turns to foreign policy and gets into a lovers spat with Putin and reaches for the football.  

 

The only comfort I have is that I knew people in 2008 and 2012 who were as afraid of Obama as I am of Trump, and nothing bad happened.  Well, nothing bad happened because of Obama.  

 

The problem may be that it’s SO scary that we don’t know where to start.  There are demonstrations planned all over the country, locally this week, and in Washington after the Inauguration.  While these may prevent Trump from doing anything legislatively,  it surely does address the existential crisis that lurks beyond these early frustrations.  

 

According to the Constitution, the present may be declared incompetent by a majority of his senior administration … Cabinet, mostly I think.  But notice that he has stacked the cabinet with people who are, if anything, loonier than he is, so I very much doubt that any of them would vote to remove him.  Maddis, perhaps, but that’s about it. 

 

Impeachment is a very real possibility, but it takes a lot of time, and a crazy President has enormous power to make the country pay for trying. 

 

I have a few pro-Trumpers who reassure me that no rational man would take the kinds of risks that I fear, that like all bullies he will back down when he sees that his tantrums aren’t getting anywhere.  But what if he’s not a rational man?  What then?

 

Nick 

 

 

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com] On Behalf Of Jochen Fromm
Sent: Tuesday, January 10, 2017 11:55 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com>
Subject: [FRIAM] Is the new president mentally ill?

 

I posted this on Google+, since we have a lot of psychologists here you might be interested too?

 

Psychologists, therapists and mental health professionals seem to be fascinated and terrified alike by the new president who has not only become a brand, but is nothing but a brand: 

1. he seems to be a textbook case of a narcissistic personality disorder
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/richard-greene/is-donald-trump-mentally_b_13693174.html

2. he was elected although he imitates the behavior of an massive Internet troll
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-embodied-mind/201701/unified-theory-trump

3. he displays a total lack of honesty and truth-telling
http://www.politifact.com/personalities/donald-trump/

All DSM-5 criteria of a narcissistic personality disorder seem to be fulfilled. Should we be worried? What do you think? He shows a clear need for instant retaliation if someone criticizes him, which is obviously some form a narcissistic rage. It is clearly more than a self-serving bias, and such a deep personality disorder is not harmless at all. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-serving_bias

The problem is he is in a position where he can pull the strings now, as the commander in chief of the most powerful army. The US has about 2000 nuclear weapons on high alert, and there is a soldier with the nuclear football following the president at all times. What could go wrong?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_football

 

-Jochen

 

 

 

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