Unfortunately, I think he is. Trump has made and continues to make a host of assertions which are blatantly untrue. If he really believes what he has said, then he is living in an alternate reality, and that should cause everyone concern. http://www.denverpost.com/2017/02/18/is-donald-trump-sane/ http://money.cnn.com/2017/02/12/media/andrew-sullivan-donald-trump-mental-health/ https://www.usnews.com/news/the-rep...-donald-trumps-personality-make-him-dangerous I think we need to put partisanship aside here and look at the facts for the good of mankind. I think it's time to evoke the 25th Amendment. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty-fifth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution We've had presidents that I don't like. But until now, I have never doubted their sanity.
I'm not sure what a clinical verdict would be. You have to take diagnosis at a distance with a certain amount of salt. Personality disorder, sure - three distinct personality disorders: narcissism, megalomania and sociopathy - but I don't believe any of them, or even the combination, amount to certifiable psychopathy. By which I mean, he is clearly out of touch with some realities; oblivious to much of the information relevant to his office - but not living in an alternate reality. (Which is not to say that the addition of senile dementia won't push the package over that precipice any day now.) The questionable traits passed as a functional human being in billionaire circles, in business dealings, in the direction of his enterprises, and even in the television series. (They might not have passed with impunity in a middle-management office employee or bus driver -- well, not since Jackie Gleason, anyway --- but the rich and famous usually get away with it.) What's happened is: this deeply flawed personality, thrust into a much bigger limelight than he had been accustomed to, failed to meet the challenges of the position to which he aspired. He had passed his level of incompetence many deals ago and was coasting, even in business life, on a brand and an ego for some time. But 1. he lacks the self-critical faculty to recognize when he's out of his depth, and 2. doesn't know how to back down from confrontation. So he tries to brazen it out or fake it: plays dirty, blusters, deflects, throws tantrums, blames others, and generally flails about in the style of a petulant pre-schooler. In this new situation, he certainly cannot function effectively, let alone competently. I do think there is solid ground for impeachment. I also think it will happen when he's alarmed enough Republicans.
The gamble there is that these are Republicans you're talking about. It is uncertain, at this point, what it will take to alarm them to such a degree. We need something a bit more demonstrative before I'm comfortable with an Amendment XXV removal, but waiting could be dangerous. Articles of Impeachment could force the situation by compelling President Trump to respond in a manner illustrating the absolute necessity of Amendment XXV intervention. We shouldn't wait for him to actually bring disaster. But given how close he came to confessing this morning ... either there is no real threshold for Republicans, or else ... I mean, any proper, rational threshold must necessarily draw nigh, it would seem. And, face it, you know I haven't any real faith in Republicans. They're running out of time to throw down, and a lot of them seem to really, really want to line up behind the President.
So here in Aus we recently had a young woman attempting to drown her two kids, (under 10 yoa) succeeding with one and claiming later to police she had to drown them. The family have been discussing the worrisome signs for ages. ...now there is one son dead by being held under water. "She was obviously a very troubled woman, the mother of these kids, and there just does not appear to have been enough action taken about some of those early warning signs," he said. src: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-03-...rged-with-sons-attempted-murder-moama/8324598 So your question is your solution. IMO To the Republicans... Why take the risk when Trumps mental health has been in serious question for some time...? It is no longer about politics (actually it never has been)..IMO
Without Trump, we end up with Pence................. ............................................ Eeeeeekkk..........Oh Noooooo Pence.........................really? Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it My suggestion pray for Trump and support the silly bastard with every fibre of your being
Aye; it's rattling, to say the least. I actually happened to be discussing it with a friend, in another context, but part of the question is why we don't say things, or respond in certain ways, and, you know, as an American, part of it seems, to me, like everybody has a reason. And, yeah, that's cheap, but somewhere between cynicism and tinfoil is a genuine slippery slope, and once upon a time in Irvine, California, I actually did fall down a slippery slope, which has nothing to do with the moment, but I never did find my glasses, so there. Anyway. Oh, right. In terms of impeachment, remember that everyone with an actual say wants to make certain they're not cutting their own political throats in the process; Americans have a joke about "future presidents", and I recall we even heard Obama pull out the line at some point. We haven't heard it explicitly from the Trump administration, yet, but when it comes to impeachment, everything is supposed to become judicially precise. The difference between you and me, to the one, saying, "Yeah, he needs to be impeached", and the process of actually doing so terrifies most politicians. We don't have a standard for a successful impeachment and removal; once we do, well, you can imagine how poorly we'll treat it. Even more so, I think, in terms of Article XXV. Consider the idea of cottage industries whose job is to lobby the appropriate players in order to remove whichever president happens to hold the job. Not that the industry itself is the symbol, but if we have one today it reaches after abstraction. But I do think we're approaching a threshold: • A Breitbart article. • The timing of Trump's tweet tantrum, coming after a week of getting their asses kicked by Russia scandal headlines, including a meeting at Trump Tower. • Republicans have a habit of slipping certain falsehoods in because someone, somewhere, comprehends the value in doing so. Examples↱: Vice President Pence describing President Trump's response to NSA Flynn's exposure as "timely"; Press Secretary Spicer reiterating over and over how Donald Trump makes his own decisions, even using the phrase, "unbelievably decisive"; President Trump going after Barack Obama in a Fox & Friends interview so that he could explain that he has "a very thick skin". That last is really, really important. It's this weird saturation idea. The first part is easy enough to explain if we think of, say, presidential campaign debates: Cram enough excrement into your answer and your opponent can't cover it all. The second part is that repetition just leaves a lot of detritus around the historical record. And that's all there is to it. Someday, someone will survey the history of what happened in order to tell the tale, and this kind of stuff loads up the sample. Is the loudest voice the truth? Democracy will out because, hey, it's history by volume and not accuracy? I know, it sounds like a cynical gamble, but it also reflects a part of the conservative political ethos that is really hard to pin down because it ranges broadly. Think of the idea of a political jab that this or that only because the feminists or liberals or whoever says so. Now, maybe you and I are looking at it saying something about how gravity generally means there is a reason evaporation rises and rain falls, but what if they really, really believe whatever their latest disgusting superficiality? And then apply that perception, accommodation, and assimilation to everything in a person's outlook, and, yeah, the messaging is the map is the territory. I run with the thesis because it seems be least surprised among the handful of political behavioral theses I keep close. Like Pence's debate performance. Maybe not these days, but he sounded about as superficial as an internet argument from sometime during Sciforums' history. At some point in the past I failed to recognize Poe's Law in effect; I considered a range of ideas not necessarily satire, but, rather, artifice and façade, because they seemed too unreal to be genuine articles. The "timely" talking point may have worked, or not, or simply to some degree and it will bite us in the ass sometime later. And so, what are we supposed to think? Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my "wires tapped" in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism! (President Donald J. Trump↱) "Nothing found". Pence says timely. Spicer says unbelievably decisive. Trump says he has a thick skin. He also says, "Nothing found." That two-word sentence is really, really important. And, yes. Timing is everything. Presently, the question would seem to be whether or not Donald Trump just confessed to something. ____________________ Notes: Trump, Donald J. "Terrible!" Twitter. 4 March 2017. Twitter.com. 4 March 2017. http://bit.ly/2lr76kP
So... they're all nuts? I wouldn't be astonished. Tiassa, you have made points that ought to be considered seriously, but my sense of the present players is that they are either incapable of that intellectual task or have rejected reason as a party policy, a matter of principle or a rite of passage - else, how could they be here, this, now?
The same family also said and did nothing when she snatched the children, sms'ed her parents with a message that was a good indication of what she intended to do.. They did not call the police to say the boys had been taken, nor did they call the police when days later, they received that sms. Now they have indicated they intend to sue the authorities for having failed, resulting in the death of those boys. They may have been telling the authorities of the worrisome signs since she was released from prison, but they also failed to notify the authorities when she "snatched" those boys or when she sms'ed them with that dire message about the children days later. In a way, in context with this issue, no one says anything. More to the point, people seem to be more hooked or interested in the visuals regarding Trump. And not his appalling policies or equally appalling actions. For example, his cabinet members have been approved.. How? These are problematic individuals, and at least some Democrats would have had to have voted for their confirmation. How and why? His executive orders (so much so that Congress seems to be doing nothing because he is doing everything himself by badly worded executive orders), the biggest concern was the migration one. Very little has been said about the others. Instead, the opposition respond with posturing.. His costing the American taxpayers $11 million in one month in travel expenses because he likes to spend his weekends in his Florida hotel to play golf.. He has spent the same amount in a month that Obama averaged in a year. His travel plans are disrupting businesses in Florida (not to mention in New York due to his wife's living arrangements).. Very little is said about that. It took a conservative watchdog to flag the issue and try to raise it to the forefront and still, zip from Democrats. Just calls for the cabinet members (who they confirmed) to resign here and there because they are too busy jumping on the next bad visual via tweet from Trump. Instead, we get the same talking points, the same reactions to the person. Yes, the person is a "yuuuuge" problem, but his policies and actions are a bigger problem. Instead of addressing those, they are confirming his cabinet appointments and saying very little about it. In other words, Trump is directing the narrative. From the positive to the negative. He controls it. Just like the grandparents of those two poor boys were more interested in the visual, in complaining about the authorities, than they were in calling the police when their daughter effectively kidnapped both children, told everyone she planned to drown them and not a single person called the authorities or attempted to remove the children from her. Instead, they were all too focused on the visual, on complaining about the problem than doing anything to stop the problem, which in her case, it would only have taken her parents calling the police when she kidnapped those boys days before and when she sms'ed them with that warning.. Not to mention her friends, who said and did nothing when she told them she was going to drown them both the next day.
The reason I brought up that news item was to demonstrate the huge vexation that a family member slipping into a state of mental dysfunction creates. For example: when having to deal with elderly parents that are diagnosed with dementia or a sibling that starts banging his head against the wall in the middle of the night whilst talking to angels...at what point in time or events that have to happen, does one suggests that the persons power of attorney is removed from them. Let us not be mistaken, it is indeed the "power of attorney" that is critical in these matters. The ability to make critical decisions for oneself by oneself. The USA people are faced with a dilemma, a question and that is: What does Trump have to do or not do, to be removed from office due to mental health issues? At what point does it become startling clear that he is indeed a significant threat to himself and those he has influence over***? To me, he crossed that thresh hold years ago, mainly because of the significance of the office he aspired to, meant that the "fit for office" bar is a lot higher than for many other vocations. Would you agree to fly in a commercial jet piloted by Trump? Would you allow him to captain a cruise ship with a couple of thousand guests on board? Would you allow him to have control over the worlds most advanced military with the potential to impulsively destroy the world dead, not just once, but many times over? Do you trust him with your life? (This is actually what the world is doing!) The fall of a lunatic is always extremely painful to those who depend on him maintaining his sanity... Yes, even the Russians depend on Trump maintaining his sanity.... Yet I ask again... why take the risk? He is only a frail 70 year old male, that is totally dispensable... it is the office and not the man the USA needs to consider here as a priority. IMO *** Trump has by virtue of his office, a huge capacity to inflict harm upon others under his influence. Capacity does not automatically translate into actual harm. At what point does his ability to inflict harm on others be deemed a mental health issue? In other words how many people need to die before someones says the "Emperor has no clothes on"?
What upsets me the most about all this is that my family and I, including my grandchildren are entirely dependent on Trump maintaining a rational state. We have NO VOTE in who WE trust with our lives... nor do we have any say in whether he stays in office or not. All our plans for the future hang on what Trumps next friggin' Tweet will be...and that is entirely unacceptable...IMO
At least Pence isn't crazy. He has some weird religious ideas about evolution and abortion (typical right-wing Republican) but at least he's a known quantity. Trump is f**king insane and could get us all killed.
Of course. But we also have a situation, with that family, when the insane person does something bad, they say and do nothing about it, until tragedy happens and they blame everyone else, when one simple phone call could have prevented that boy's death, not to mention prevent the heartache of the first one's on the scene who rushed that child to hospital and are so distressed, they apparently cannot even speak, the police who had to dive for over a day to find the body.. What we are seeing with Trump and those from his circle, be it the party and his immediate circle (family and his advisors) is silence. Much like the grandparents silence when the mother kidnapped the two children, told her friends and her parents that she intended to harm the kids, they too stayed silent and did nothing. So to with Trump. While the family's tragedy is localised, in that the country is horrified, but it is the family and immediate community who are suffering the most, next to the child who survived and has to live with his injuries and the memory of seeing his own mother drown his little brother after he was able to struggle free and then being mauled by a dog on top of it, with Trump, the whole country is negatively affected, if not the world in various ways. But Trump also has a group of people enabling him, supporting his lunacy and no one is actually saying "no". Instead, the opposition, be it on the left and right, are simply focusing on the visuals of what he is doing. For example.. While all of this was happening, Trump wound back protection for transgender students in schools and is now contemplating a policy which would result in children being removed from their parents care if the parents attempt to enter the country illegally. The children would be placed in care while the parents are detained in detention centers.. Not to mention that he also removed environmental protections, such as using lead in national parks (be it bullets or fishing lures), that directly damage the environment and wildlife in said environment. And what is the country focusing on? The lunacy of Trump's latest tweet about Obama bugging his residence in Trump tower. What they fail to note is that those tweets are designed to focus their attention elsewhere, while he commits to policies that are abhorrent and deny people their fundamental human rights. The top headline news is not about that. It's about his tweet, Steve Bannon's right wing reading material, and their contact with Russia. While the latter is important, the big fight has to be about his policies and the cabinet members he is having confirmed by Republicans and Democrats who implement those obscene policies. So all parties are enabling him by allowing him to control the narrative and control what the media focuses on. Well that would depend on the family, their motives, for example. To compare that to the Trump scenario, it would mean allowing someone who suffers from dementia, is half blind and deaf drive a car and instead of focusing on how that person could be allowed to drive a car, everyone is more focused on the car being unregistered, the person being unlicensed and a dent on the back bumper.
That was clear prior to the election. When his own party were up in arms at his bizarre antics, conspiracies about other Republican candidates and their families, and his behaviour and tweeting. But notice how they have all fallen into line? How they defend him? How even the Democrats have confirmed his candidates for his cabinet, despite full knowledge and history that they would constitute a disaster for the country and its inhabitants, not to mention for many around the world? Instead, they focus on the visual. While the visuals are important, it is their lack of sufficient response to the actualities of his presidency that should be concerning. But hey, we all apparently need to know that Pelosy thinks Session should resign.. But session was confirmed by her fellow Democrats, despite the dubious nature of his history in the legal sphere and as a politician. Most sane people would say no. But the problem is that while he is doing all of that, few are actually noting what he is actually doing. All they are concerned about is how it all looks, how he looks. As I said, in this past week, he has removed protection from discrimination for transgender students in schools, is considering a policy that would see people attempting to cross the border illegally lose custody of their children, and allowing lead to be brought into national parks that are currently as pristine as they can be. Today's headline, on Huffington Post is about Steve Bannon's right wing reading material that he quotes from and Trump's crazy tweets about Obama and bugging Trump tower. Look at the speech he gave to congress this week. People were more focused on what his daughter wore, than they were about what he actually said. He sounded Presidential, but lets focus on that and what his daughter wore and who stood up and did not stand up, than listen to his actual words.. The fact that it took him what? A week to comment on the attacks on Jewish community centers or the hate crime murder in the past week?.. How was that not front page news? How about when he made dubious claims about the border and comments about the need for the wall.. Nope, instead, he sounded Presidential, used both hands to drink a glass of water and what his daughter was wearing.. His comments about "draining the swamp".. the fact that he refilled "the swamp" with his own slugs did not make front page news. How about his comments about eliminating 2 regulations for every one they create? Nothing. That wasn't worthy of the front page either. Or his comments about coal miners? Nope, nothing about the fact that those coal miners aren't going back to work and the dangers of fracking to the environment.. Nothing at all. His comments about the pipelines.. Nothing in the media at all about the leaks from existing pipelines and the damage they are doing to the environment and water supplies. Not one thing. How about his raising wages, tacking unemployment? Nope. Nothing about how he would achieve this financially or policy wise. No one really questioned it. That didn't make front page news either. What about his comments about terrorism, terrorist attacks in the US and how he is saying this means his border protection policies of denying entry for people from certain countries matters? Very little. It's all false. Terrorists after 9/11 were all home grown. Meaning radicalisation occurred in the US to US citizens (the same applies elsewhere). Instead of focusing on how his policies raise the risk of home grown radicalisation, we got a good little spiel about the French design of Invana's dress and how the Democrats responded to his comments about the gold star widow... And don't even get me started on the reaction to his spokesperson sitting on the couch with her shoes on.. No one focused on the fact that black leaders of colleges were meeting with a President who is going out of his way to deny the black community rights and reduce funding to public schools which will affect the black community and minorities in the worst way... Everyone is focused on the visual. And he is taking advantage of it. No one is willing to tell him no. Everyone whines, and then focus on the new visual and how it all looks. The last time people pushed and pushed was weeks ago, when he denied entry to people from Muslim countries.. But in doing so, few noticed that he was not denying entry from countries that actually do enable and fund, not to mention have seen many foreign fighters join ISIS, for example. Where were the bans from former Soviet bloc countries and Russia itself, when a large portion of ISIS fighters are from that region? Saudi Arabia? Nope. Visuals while he gets away with doing what he wants, because he knows everyone is focused on what he is tweeting. No. The Russians want him to be more unhinged and out of control. Sure, it is very painful for everyone else, but why isn't everyone else focusing on his insane policies? When his party and its members that supporting him so tell everyone they aren't holding town halls anymore, because demonstrators are being bused in, or they hold party townhalls, to prevent having to deal with questions.. Why isn't more being said about this? Why isn't more being said that they are willing to ignore a large portion of their constituents because they cannot answer those questions? Instead, we get this chuckling about their cowardice, but nothing about those who do support him and nothing about what attracts them in the first place. Why aren't these people also demanding from Democrats how the hell they confirmed all of his appointments? He is already inflicting harm. But we are all more focused on his tweets and his words, not what he is actually doing behind those tweets and words.
I don't think Trump's insane. He doesn't appear to be competent to do the job he currently has. He's out of his depth, as Jeeves said above. And I think he has always been insecure about his own capacities. He'd rather pretend that facts were different than admit to himself that he is failing in some way. He is deeply sensitive to anything he perceives as criticism, and deeply narcissistic, too. Trump has some personality issues, but he functions in normal society. Unstable he may be, but not certifiable.
I don't think I have ever felt the need to disagree with one of James' posts - here we are... "Appear?" Agreed. Facet of narcissism. Correct, he is delusional. Redundant. So far. Until he doesn't. This isn't your garden variety whacko, he has nukes... Until he is. Until he is no longer able to "function in normal society". When that happens we will all have hell to pay. Not just Americans but every human on this planet. Or not, perhaps conventional norms will carry us - I have my doubts...
I can't count the number of deaths Obama and Hillary have caused. If we were to keep a running count on insanity, I think those two would outpace Trump by miles. Just ask someone in Libya or Syria
Well, technically there are no actual qualifications needed to be President, as far as I'm aware. You just need to be born in the USA and get yourself elected. We make various assumptions about what might make one suitable for the job, but who knows?
I think the point that Randwolf was attempting to make is that there is not just appearance of incompetence, as he is actually provably incompetent. There is no doubt: Only one of many examples: Sacks AG for attempting to save his arse over the Muslim ban thingo. Causes enormous chaos world wide due to terrible implementation and role out strategy. Has ban suspended by judge awaiting appeals process Ban suspended by three judges on appeal. - Incompetence... no doubt about it...not just "appears" to be but definitively is....
