Trump's legacy: The end of the "Goldwater Rule," because he frightens the shrinks

[KingOrfeo]

Trump's legacy: The end of the "Goldwater Rule," because he frightens the shrinks

Discussed here.

The president's health records have ranged between totally opaque and incredibly vague and prone to generalizations (laughter) very positive generalizations. But a group of 35 psychiatrists sent a letter to The New York Times questioning President Trump's mental fitness to serve. What did that letter say?

OSNOS: You know, that letter was extraordinary, partly because there are a lot of reasons why mental health professionals do not go public with their concerns about the mental health of politicians. You know, for a long time, this has been a taboo. They really do not talk about it.

GROSS: Well, actually violated a kind of ethical standard within the psychiatric profession...

OSNOS: Exactly.

GROSS: ...That's been the rule since 1973. Do you want to describe that?

OSNOS: Yeah. Yeah, well - so in 1964, when Barry Goldwater was running for president, a magazine called Fact asked psychiatrists, psychologists and others whether they believed that he was fit for the presidency. And more than a thousand of them came forward and said they did not. Goldwater, who lost the race, ended up suing for libel. He won, and as a result, the American Psychiatric Association created this ethical taboo against publicly diagnosing people who you have not directly examined and have not received their permission to talk about publicly. And that's known as the Goldwater Rule.

And for years, it really was - it obtained without question. You just did not see psychiatrists opining in the press about whether or not a political persona was - suffered some sort of psychiatric problem. Donald Trump has changed that completely. There have been more than 50,000 mental health professionals who have come forward and signed a petition using their names, exposing themselves professionally to some sort of, you know, potential sanction, to say that they believe that he is - poses a risk to the public because, in their view, he demonstrates many of the characteristics of psychiatric disorders, including narcissistic personality disorder or what's known as malignant narcissism, which is a combination of grandiosity, sort of hypersensitivity to criticism, an aggressive personality, sadism of one kind or another.

And so you have this really fierce debate going on right now in the psychiatric community, in the mental health community, about whether or not it's appropriate to be talking about Donald Trump's mental health. But what you hear from the people, like the 35 mental health professionals who wrote to The New York Times, is that they believe that above and beyond the Goldwater Rule that they have a more urgent ethical commitment. And that's what's known as the duty to warn. What that means is that if they in their practice come to believe that somebody, either a patient or somebody that they've encountered, poses an urgent risk to others, to the public, well, they have a responsibility to talk about that.

And that goes beyond their other commitments because they have to protect the public. And so what they say is that they believe that Donald Trump, because he is so impulsive and so sensitive to criticism and is now in possession of such extraordinary power, both in national security terms and in legal terms, they're concerned that he could use that either in national security to start a war or in some ways to harm Americans. And that's why thousands of them have come forward. And for that, we are really in an unusual territory because that doesn't - we haven't seen that before.

 

[OldJourno]

If those psychiatrists back in '64 had a fucking clue, 55,000 young men wouldn't have died in Vietnam. That was LBJ's war after he spent the campaign painting Goldwater as a war monger.

 

[KingOrfeo]

If those psychiatrists back in '64 had a fucking clue, 55,000 young men wouldn't have died in Vietnam. That was LBJ's war after he spent the campaign painting Goldwater as a war monger.

He spent the campaign painting Goldwater as a nuclear warmonger, and that was true enough that a Goldwater victory might well have ended the world.

I'm basing all this on Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus, by Rick Perlstein. It's a doorstopper, but very readable and you should read it -- likewise with Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America, and The Invisible Bridge: The Fall of Nixon and the Rise of Reagan.

 

[Hard_Rom]

If those psychiatrists back in '64 had a fucking clue, 55,000 young men wouldn't have died in Vietnam. That was LBJ's war after he spent the campaign painting Goldwater as a war monger.

Then perhaps it is a good thing they spoke up now. Maybe a tad over 100 days late but maybe soon enough to save a few thousand US soldiers.

 

[KingOrfeo]

Then perhaps it is a good thing they spoke up now. Maybe a tad over 100 days late but maybe soon enough to save a few thousand US soldiers.

Trump now has the power to kill a great many more than that, American and foreign, soldiers and civilians, in fifteen minutes, and nobody has the authority to countermand him, unless they invoke the 25th Amendment, which looks like a better idea every day.

 

[AnAmericanDarling]

I think Goldwater may be Trump's long lost twin.

 

[OldJourno]

He spent the campaign painting Goldwater as a nuclear warmonger, and that was true enough that a Goldwater victory might well have ended the world.

No, that didn't happen until Reagan was president. Remember all those bombs, the sirens, the radioactive cloud choking what life remained. And Reagan hiding out in his bunker laughing and joking while babies cried.
Jesus, you guys have one moronic talking point and you're still sticking to it 60 years later.

 

[Mello_SixtyNine]

Hillary is more of a Neocon than the Neocons. Had she won, I have no doubt that she would have brought us into war with Syria.

 

[Hard_Rom]

Hillary is more of a Neocon than the Neocons. Had she won, I have no doubt that she would have brought us into war with Syria.

The US destabilized the entire region when it got rid of Saddam. Maybe the US should step up, take responsibility and finish the job properly. Which includes a massive rebuilding on the scale of Germany after WWII and a Marshall Plan.

 

[Rightguide]

He spent the campaign painting Goldwater as a nuclear warmonger, and that was true enough that a Goldwater victory might well have ended the world.

Total bullshit.

 

[phrodeau]

Hillary is more of a Neocon than the Neocons. Had she won, I have no doubt that she would have brought us into war with Syria.

Hillary wanted to establish no-fly zones over Syria. Some pundits say that would inevitably escalate to a shooting war.

Guess what Trump and Putin just decided to do.

 

[KingOrfeo]

No, that didn't happen until Reagan was president. Remember all those bombs, the sirens, the radioactive cloud choking what life remained. And Reagan hiding out in his bunker laughing and joking while babies cried.
Jesus, you guys have one moronic talking point and you're still sticking to it 60 years later.

In the Cold War, Goldwater was committed to a policy of "rollback" as opposed to "containment," and rollback was extremely dangerous thinking at the time. If Goldwater had been in charge during the Cuban Missile Crisis, almost certainly there would have been nuclear war.

 

[KingOrfeo]

I think Goldwater may be Trump's long lost twin.

Goldwater was a lot smarter than Trump. And saner, too.

 

[KingOrfeo]

And more:

Is it all for effect, to rile up his base, deflect blame and distract from his shortcomings, or does Trump really believe the insane things he says? It’s often hard to know, because as Harvard psychoanalyst Lance Dodes put it, Trump tells two kinds of lies: the ones he tells others to scam them, and those he tells himself. “He lies because of his sociopathic tendencies," Dodes said. "There's also the kind of lying he has that is in a way more serious, that he has a loose grip on reality." Is he crazy like a fox or just plain crazy? Not a question we want to be asking about our president.

Much has been written about Trump having narcissistic personality disorder. As critics have pointed out, merely saying a leader is narcissistic is hardly disqualifying. But malignant narcissism is like a malignant tumor: toxic.

Psychoanalyst and Holocaust survivor Erich Fromm, who invented the diagnosis of malignant narcissism, argues that it “lies on the borderline between sanity and insanity.” Otto Kernberg, a psychoanalyst specializing in borderline personalities, defined malignant narcissism as having four components: narcissism, paranoia, antisocial personality and sadism. Trump exhibits all four.

His narcissism is evident in his “grandiose sense of self-importance … without commensurate achievements.” From viewing cable news, he knows "more about ISIS than the generals” and believes that among all human beings on the planet, “I alone can fix it.” His "repeated lying," “disregard for and violation of the rights of others” (Trump University fraud and multiple sexual assault allegations) and “lack of remorse” meet the clinical criteria for anti-social personality. His bizarre conspiracy theories, false sense of victimization, and demonization of the press, minorities and anyone who opposes him are textbook paranoia. Like most sadists, Trump has been a bully since childhood, and his thousands of vicious tweets make him perhaps the most prolific cyber bully in history.

A year ago, I warned that “the idea that Trump is going to settle down and become presidential when he achieves power is wishful thinking.” Trump, like many successful people, shows biological signs of hypomania — a mild and more functional expression of bipolar genes that manifest in energy, confidence, creativity, little need for sleep, as well as arrogance, impulsivity, irritability and diminished judgment. As is often typical, when Trump has achieved great success, his hypomania has increased with disastrous consequences.

 

[KingOrfeo]

A non-shrink weighs in.

But why insist on a diagnosis? If labeling him is the main obstacle to talking about Trump’s disorder, let’s ditch it. When I asked my psychiatrist about the issue, he admitted that diagnosing personality disorders is “squishy” at best. Mental illness often blurs the lines between nature and nurture, and diagnosis is both an art and a science.

There are blunt criteria set out in the “Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders,” or DSM-5, but they require finessing in person. Diagnosing personality disorders may come down to — hold onto your hat here — how the person makes you feel. Are you a shadow in their presence? Do they show remorse or consideration for others? Do they seek to manipulate and distort reality? Imagine real-life vampires who have conned you into thinking it’s natural for them to suck the life out of you. It’s understandable that people are cautious about labeling such a person.

Our inability to diagnose has led to de facto censorship on the subject. For purposes of saving the republic, all we need to know is that our president is delusional, dangerous and incurable. He’s a 70-year-old con man who relishes violence, abuse of power and deception. He will never, ever change.

The silence was broken last week by several renowned psychiatrists at a Duty to Warn conference organized by Dr. Bandy Lee. She has formed a coalition of more than 800 mental health professionals who believe that Donald Trump is dangerous to the health and safety of their patients. Dr. Lee is working in conjunction with Dr. John Gartner, whose online Duty to Warn petition has already accumulated more than 52,000 signatures from fellow mental health professionals.

Though Lee’s town hall meeting was initially sponsored by Yale’s School of Medicine, Department of Psychiatry and School of Public Health, they all bailed out before the event, leaving Lee, a Korean-American woman, to run the conference alone. Despite the positive coverage of her conference, Lee told New York magazine that she has become a pariah in her department. This is not an accident: The academy and professional associations are old boy’s clubs that respond to challenges to their authority by circling the wagons.

 

[OldJourno]

In the Cold War, Goldwater was committed to a policy of "rollback" as opposed to "containment," and rollback was extremely dangerous thinking at the time. If Goldwater had been in charge during the Cuban Missile Crisis, almost certainly there would have been nuclear war.

No, if Goldwater had been in charge the Russians wouldn't even think about putting nukes in Cuba.

 

[KingOrfeo]

No, if Goldwater had been in charge the Russians wouldn't even think about putting nukes in Cuba.

Remember, the Bay of Pigs came before the Missile Crisis. The Russians had no reason to think JFK was soft on Cuba.

 

[oggbashan]

Opinion from another non-shrink - me.

Anyone who wants to be President of the US must be insane.

Ditto for anyone wanting to lead a democratic country.

Whatever you do if elected nearly half of the people of your country will think you are a dangerous asshole. The other half think you're their dangerous asshole and will get angry with you if you don't deliver what they voted for.

 

[Conager]

A non-shrink weighs in.

Yeah, that must be it. It's because she's a woman and not because she is a kook herself, and violating professional standards.

 

[KingOrfeo]

Yeah, that must be it. It's because she's a woman and not because she is a kook herself, and violating professional standards.

She is a journalist, and is not violating the standards of that profession, to say the least.

 

[RobDownSouth]

No, if Goldwater had been in charge the Russians wouldn't even think about putting nukes in Cuba.

^^^ This inane conjecture is Conager-class stupid and borderline AJ-class stupid.

 

[southfl_bicur]

Legacy? You mean legacy so far? Legacies arent determined in the first 150 days. Acutally, its determined in the last 150 days.

Im so sick of hearing about obamacare. I agree with Trump that it did NOT work. My ins rose bewteen 30% - 60% each year AND the amount of insurance companies got less and less. There was only 1 company that covered me in 2017 and their rate was enourmous. At the end of 2017 there will be roughly 5% of cities in America where insurance companies covered them.

SO, YES, I agree with coming up with a new plan. The current plan that got approved is slightly better then obamacare and I heard the Senate is going to come up with a totally new plan so the one that was approved will NOT be the one being put into law.

As one with preexisting condition and has gotten rejected from many companies in the past this means a lot to me. This was the ONLY thing that worked with obamacare.

As one that see medicare in the near future I am watching this too.

As for Trumps legacy I like what hes been doing with Isis and the military. I love when he was asked "did you give permission to drop the bomb in Syria" and he said " NO. My military leaders have full control to do whats right. Why should I (who never served in the military) tell someone thats full time job is the military what he or she should do. Dont you think they know more about this then me so let them do whats right.

 

[RobDownSouth]

As one with preexisting condition and has gotten rejected from many companies in the past this means a lot to me. This was the ONLY thing that worked with obamacare.

As one that see medicare in the near future I am watching this too.

So you're old and have a pre-existing condition?



You are seriously fucked.

If you're not dead by the time you're eligible for Medicare, you're more than likely to be bankrupt.You'll be hoping and praying for a return to the days of 30-60% premium hikes.

But hai, you won't die (not immediately, anyway)...you'll still have "access" to health care (i.e. "you get to go to the emergency room when it gets life threatening")

YOU are the demographic that Trumpcare threatens the most...and if you voted for him, you deserve exactly what you get.

Actions have consequences.

 

[hashtag46]

Jesus Rob.
How can you even say such tasteless things?
Health is nothing to joke about.

And this isn't me trolling you.

 

[RobDownSouth]

Jesus Rob.
How can you even say such tasteless things?
Health is nothing to joke about.

And this isn't me trolling you.

Who's joking?