The Trump Dx – have we seen the clincher?

Code: Dx = diagnosis. ‘The clincher’ = a fact, argument, or event that settles a matter conclusively.

How many times have we questioned the mental status of POTUS Trump?

It was as far back as November 2016 that we began to do so with Let’s welcome President Trump. Even then, Michael Moore expressed his doubts about Trump’s surprise election and predicted, albeit incorrectly:

This is why we’re not going to have to suffer through four years of Donald J. Trump, because he has no ideology except the ideology of Donald J. Trump. And when you have a narcissist like that, who’s so narcissistic where it’s all about him, he will – maybe unintentionally – break laws. He will break laws because he’s only thinking about what’s best for him.
In May 2107 we began to ask questions about Trump’s competence and performance in 100 days of President Trump.

In June 2017 we were already asserting Trump becomes irrelevant.

In July 2017, just a few months after his election, we first asked: Is Donald Trump Mad?.

In October 2017, even more alarmed, we posted: Who thought Trump couldn’t get worse?  

In March 2018 there was an anguished: What can be done about President Trump?

In April 2018, already convinced of his unsuitability as POTUS, we wrote: Morally unfit.

In July 2018, somewhat desperately, we wrote: The folly of trying to comprehend Trump.

Seeing the end possibly approaching in November 2018, we posted: Is Donald Trump Crumbling?  

Last October we asked the question again with: Is Donald Trump Mad - Revisited?

It concluded with:
What a dilemma Trump is for international statesmen and ordinary folk the world over, all of whom fear what this erratic, unpredictable, unbalanced, loud-mouthed, egocentric man will do next. Just listening to his daily harangues from the White House forecourt, and reading his endless Tweets, is enough to alarm any sensible observer. Time and again his pronouncements on trade and economic issues have confused the stock market and sent it into disarray.

Which is why we ask once more: Is Donald Trump mad? Let us have your opinion.
Finally, that piece extended an invitation: If you still have lingering doubts about Donald Trump’s mental state, take a look at this YouTube videotape from MSNBC: The Dangerous case of Donald Trump; 27 Psychiatrists Assess. You may care to review it.

All of the above may evoke readers to ask: “Why then do you seek to provide still more evidence about Trump’s mental state? Haven’t we seen enough already? In medicine, when we believe we’ve nailed the final diagnosis, we declare we’ve got ‘the clincher’, a fact, argument, or event that settles the matter conclusively.

I use ‘clincher’ here since Trump’s performance in recent weeks sounds like one to me. He has sought to give advice about the treatment of people suffering from COVID-19, which has been not only uninformed and stupid; it’s been downright dangerous. You’ve heard his suggestions, reported by SBS News
Medical authorities should look into whether injecting disinfectant into people’s lungs and exposing them to a “very powerful light” could cure coronavirus. These comments that came after Department of Homeland Security spokesman William Bryan, told the daily coronavirus briefing at the White House that early research was indicating the coronavirus dies faster in warm and humid weather than in cold and drier conditions. “Increasing the temperature and humidity … is generally less favourable to the virus,” he said. He also said common disinfectants and bleaches were also extremely effective in killing the virus. This evoked Trump to ask: “Supposing we hit the body with a tremendous, whether it’s ultraviolet or just very powerful light ... and supposing you brought the light inside the body, which you can do either through the skin or in some other way. And I think you said you’re gonna test that,” Mr Trump said, gesturing towards Mr Bryan.

“And then I see disinfectant, where it knocks coronavirus out in a minute; is there a way we can do something like that by injection inside, or almost a cleaning. It gets in the lungs and it does a tremendous number on the lungs.

“So, it’d be interesting to check that. So, that you’re going to have to use medical doctors with. But it sounds interesting to me.”
Since mid-March Mr Trump has advocated the use of chloroquine to treat COVID-19 infections, with scant evidence of its safety or effectiveness. Now medical experts are warning the dangers of this drug, which they fear might make matters worse. Earlier this week the head of the US agency in charge of developing a vaccine against coronavirus said he was removed from his job for questioning chloroquine.

Yet all this rhetoric has been offered by Trump in the face of 13.8 million more Americans losing their jobs, and an unprecedented 30 million seeking unemployment benefits during the last six weeks.

That’s not all: he has to contend with the fact that the US economy is shrinking at the fastest rate since 2008, as reported by the BBC.
The Commerce Department reported that consumer spending - which accounts for about two thirds of the US economy - dropped 7.6% in the first three months of the year. Spending on food services and accommodation plummeted more than 70%, while clothing and footwear purchases were down more than 40%. Health spending also plunged - despite the virus - as concerns about infection prompted doctors to postpone routine treatments and other medical care.

The economic pain in the US is expected to be even more severe in the April-June period, but economists say even the estimate for the first quarter is likely to be revised lower, as the government receives more data. "It's very difficult to gauge the depth of the decline," said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics: "The economy has just been flattened. We won't really know the extent of the economic damage for years."
To add to this lamentable picture, Trump is witnessing the rapid spread of COVID-19 in the US, with over 1.2 million confirmed cases and already almost 70,000 deaths, the highest rate in the world.

Against all of this background, are you now convinced about the dangerous mental state of the POTUS? What is the Trump Dx? Have recent events been a ‘clincher’ for you too?

If you still harbour doubts, read this article in Salon. Are you alarmed? Is the whole world in peril with this man at the helm?

What can be done?

Rate This Post

Current rating: 5 / 5 | Rated 17 times

Phil Pryor

11/05/2020

One can not comment easily without carrying over to instinct, to malice, to a thrust towards relief, from an orange orifice, a self fixted idiot, a vicious filthite and greedite, a rooter, rorter, raver, robber, ratty ridiculous rotten rump of rubbish. To inflict Trump the Tremendous Pile of Poo on all of us, USA voters in enough numbers, through desperation, greed, misery, plotting, hopelessness, avarice, helplessness, disconnection, whatever, have installed the most inadequate public figure in office since Caligula is said to have made his favourite horse a tribune of the Roman People. We'd prefer a horse, even a slow one...

Ad Astra

12/05/2020

Phil Pryor

Touche!

TalkTurkey

12/05/2020

Ad astra I nave been utterly convinced that Trump is beyond crazy since before Bill Shorten called him "barking mad" in 2016 - even before he was POTUS. Since then his every action and utterance only reinforces that conclusion. Interestingly Turdball criticised Shorten for saying that, what a weak sleaze he was.    

https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/election-2016-bill-shortens-deion-of... 27/05/2016 · Election 2016: Bill Shorten's deion of Donald Trump as 'barking mad' draws ire of Malcolm Turnbull By Fergus Hunter d May 27, 2016 —

But Phil Pryor, why do you only focus on Trump's better qualities?  :


Ad Astra

13/05/2020

Talk Turkey

I enjoy your sense of humour.

Here's another missive directed at Trump. There're everywhere;

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/cnn-demands-trump-campaign-stop-running-false-and-deceptive-ad/ 

Wam

18/05/2020Fortunately I am too dumb to see the results of another 4 years of trump so I welcome the second term in preference to biden. 
Surely Ronnie Reagan was the most inadequate and inappropriate President? The difference being his damage was caused by his stupidity of taking his advisers’ ideas and trump by his stupidity alone. But the Caligula reference was eerie trump’s mental excursion into incest and his uncanny resemblance to an incitatus approach to problem solving.

TalkTurkey

20/05/2020

Since Anubis & Osiris

There has always been a virus

But since Cicero & Ovid

This is our first COVID

Since Emperor Magnus Maximus

There's never been no Vaccimus

And as Caesar said to his would-be donor,*

I don't want that damn Corona!

*Julius Caesar Act 1 Sc II  

Patriciawa

11/06/2020

You've trumped us all, TT!

I have two politicians and add 17 clowns and 14 chimpanzees; how many clowns are there?