| THE DANGEROUS CASE OF DONALD TRUMP 27 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President Bandy X. Lee, M.D., M.Div. (Editor) New York: St. Martin's Press, October 2017 |
Rating: 5.0 High |
|||
| ISBN-13 978-1-250-17945-6 | ||||
| ISBN-10 1-250-17945-9 | 360pp. | HC | $27.99 | |
There has never been a president who vowed to lock up his opponent, who thought the libel laws of the country should be changed to make it easier for him to punish news media where criticisms of him appear, or who imagined that the Justice Department was there to protect him. Until Trump.
These and many other aberrant behaviors and character traits have prompted Dr. Lee to assemble a panel of medical professionals with the charge of evaluating Trump's fitness to occupy the Oval Office. In his Foreword to the book, Robert Jay Lifton illustrates the concept of malignant normality with examples from recent history1 and warns that people exposed to it can easily become inured to the danger it represents.
"There is still another kind of malignant normality, one brought about by President Trump and his administration. Judith Herman and I, in a letter to the New York Times in March 2017, stressed Trump's dangerous individual psychological patterns: his creation of his own reality and his inability to manage the inevitable crises that face an American president. He has also, in various ways, violated our American institutional requirements and threatened the viability of American democracy. Yet, because he is president and operates within the broad contours and interactions of the presidency, there is a tendency to view what he does as simply part of our democratic process—that is, as politically and even ethically normal. In this way, a dangerous president becomes normalized, and malignant normality comes to dominate our governing (or, one could say, our antigoverning) dynamic." – Pages xvi-xvii |
In their Prologue, Drs. Lee & Herman do not evince the most polished writing style. But they write clearly and reason closely. They praise the Goldwater Rule as a vital protection for the welfare of psychiatric patients and the integrity of the profession. Yet they point out that psychiatrists also have a duty to society if patients under treatment show signs that they might endanger themselves or others. In the case of the presidency, they argue, the vastly greater power to endanger, and its corresponding immunity to ordinary restraints, impose on professionals a "duty to warn" that transcends the Goldwater Rule. Their reasoning comes down to this: Trump will never submit to the standard psychiatric evaluation the Goldwater Rule demands; therefore, given the abundant evidence of his unfitness for the presidency, professionals must speak out despite the absence of a standard psychiatric diagnosis.
There is a good deal of objection to their stance. Commonly mentioned is the case of the Soviet Union, where under Stalin enemies of the state were given trumped-up diagnoses of mental illness and shipped off to a gulag. However, this is a specious objection — as Drs. Lee and Herman explain:
"We would argue that the key question is whether mental health professionals are engaging in political collusion with state abuses of power or acting in resistance to them. If we are asked to cooperate with state programs that violate human rights, then any involvement, regardless of the purported justification, can only corrupt, and the only appropriate ethical stance is to refuse participation of any sort. If, on the other hand, we perceive that state power is being abused by an executive who seems to be mentally unstable, then we may certainly speak out, not only as citizens but also, we would argue, as professionals who are privy to special information and have a responsibility to educate the public." – Pages 6-7 |
Bandy Lee and Judith Herman organized a conference, entitled "Does Professional Responsibility Include a Duty to Warn?", at Yale in March 2017. The essays in this volume, selected from a larger number, together with the "Duty to Warn" coalition of 1,700 members and a related online petition bearing 55,000 signatures, undoubtedly suggest that there is a general consensus among psychiatric professionals that Trump is at least unqualified.
Diane Jhueck is a Licensed Mental Health Counsellor with several decades of private practice. She also worked as a women's specialist at the United Nations and founded two social welfare organizations. In "A Clinical Case for the Dangerousness of Donald Trump," she relates the following anecdote:
Major Harold Hering, USAF, served five tours in Viet Nam, where he earned the DFC flying helicopters. During Richard Nixon's period of erratic behavior, Major Hering was attending a missile training class. There was a question that troubled him. He finally asked it: How could he be sure that the order to launch his missiles came from a sane and mentally competent president? Apparently he never got an answer. What he did get was an administrative discharge from the Air Force.
The same question looms over us today, imbued with even more urgency. No psychiatric examination of Trump is needed; we already know he is impulsive and vindictive. It's not likely he would choose to plunge the world into nuclear war, but he might stumble into it when faced with a crisis. If military service members who can launch missiles are vetted for mental fitness, the CinC should meet a similar standard.
The essays in this volume approach the dilemma of Trump from various angles. But the most cogent approach may be the last, which Dr. Lee condenses into: "Gartrell and Mosbacher note how, while military personnel must undergo rigorous evaluation to assess their medical and mental fitness for duty, there is no such requirement for their commander in chief..."
I'll use this final essay, "He's Got the Whole World in his Hands and his Finger on the Trigger," as a stand-in for the others, until I have time to read them. Written by Nanette Gartrell and Dee Mosbacher, both medical doctors, it summarizes Trump's unsettling behavior since taking office and makes detailed recommendations for a permanent commission of mental health professionals to evaluate Trump and all future presidents and vice presidents under the authority of Section 4 of the 25th Amendment.
The essays are a mixed bag, as you might expect. The authors (with two exceptions) are all medical professionals, with impressive credentials and extensive experience. However, in my opinion they react here more as citizens than clinically detached mental-health professionals. That is their protected right. While some go over the top, and even make careless errors of fact, I find their assessments justified. It was abundantly clear before the election that Trump should not become president — clear to the 27 mental health professionals who contributed to this volume; clear to Robert Jay Lifton and Noam Chomsky, who also contributed; clear to the fifty Republican senior national security officials who wrote to the New York Times in August 2016;3 clear to Republican members of Congress including Lisa Murkowski, who refused to endorse him; clear to the staffs of the 425 media outlets4 who likewise refused. And it was clear to the 65,853,516 voters5 (including myself) who voted for Hillary Clinton.
Despite the lack of an index, I believe this book is worth reading. There is no doubt that Trump is a problem. He has made a mess of foreign policy and failed to come through on the promises he made on domestic affairs like jobs, health care, and tax reform. The assessments made here may not reveal much new information, but they organize it in useful ways and provide new perspectives. Full marks. Dr. Lee remarks on the way Trump has ignited resistance in many places. I'll give her the last word.
"Perhaps the movements we have been witnessing, starting with the Women's March on the day after the inauguration, represent the force within humankind that resists annihilation and gropes toward health and survival. Like Dr. Chomsky, who has worked tirelessly to inform and engage the public, we as mental health professionals and healers should welcome and assist any action in this direction, regardless of political attribution." – Bandy Lee, Page 359 |
To contact Chris Winter, send email to this address.