He is mentally ill. Use whatever other more colorful terms you care to---unhinged, erratic, loony,

[Atticus]

not right in the head, even "evil"---but, the basic fact remains: Donald Trump is mentally ill.

We are watching in collective horror as this person with the morals of an alley cat and the impulse control of a spoiled 5 year old "runs" our nation's governmental apparatus. He has filled the room with crumpled newspapers, sprinkled gasoline onto the furniture and is now smiling insanely as he opens a large box of matches

Wait? Be patient? Build the case?

[handmade34]

1. I agree with your assessment

and have the same questions... but I also question how this came to be and why the Republicans are acquiescing??

[Saviolo]

22. Because they're getting what they want.

They're getting far right judges appointed everywhere, they're getting tax cuts on the wealthy, they're probably getting Roe overturned, they've got a case in front of SCOTUS about whether LGBTQ+ are protected by federal nondiscrimination laws, they're getting the votes of groups they fear suppressed, they're getting environmental regulations softened or rolled back. Not that Trump is directly doing this, but he's super cool with it all happening. The GOP have been dreaming of a president like Trump since Nixon.

If you've ever read Frank Herbert's Dune, I sort of think of Trump as the GOP's kwisatz haderach.

[Anon-C]

28. ...

[Poiuyt]

31. You forgot: Trump is making it okay to be racist again.

I have no doubt that much of his base support are racists, bigots, and xenophobes, and they know that Trump has their back.

[Saviolo]

34. There's that, too...

... but this is more about the party itself. I have no doubt that a bunch of the GOP are casually racist, but I think there are few that are actively white nationalists like Steve King (R-obviously).

[kentuck]

2. I think a lot of people have felt that way since the day the election results were announced.

There has been a foreboding feeling since the beginning. The boy ain't right!

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

3. Been more like a nightmare, except you never wake up from it...

My theory is that Dolt45 has syphilis, which has caused severe brain damage.


Bernie & Elizabeth 2020!!!
Welcome to the revolution!!!

[crazytown]

17. That 'sex tour of duty' in the '80s

r u OK Donald?
A: It’s only a flesh wound.

[certainot]

30. it's about sex sex on the wrong brain nails it

impatient satisfaction-demanding sex energy diverted to parts of the brain that do logic and mathematics. it wants more bigger faster with numbers/calculation etc resulting in greed, materialism, unregulated capitalism and when it power logic it wants to get the thinking over with as fast as possible, resulting in an irrational need for certainty. since nothing is certain it causes fear so it has to be created. that's when logic connects with the creative side of the brain to deny reality and rationalize the lies, releasing trapped sex energy for emotion and pleasure. that's why he's always so certain, never wrong.

most humans have some sex on the wrong brain, females less. there are a lot of factors making it worse. we have to start sex ed to make sure kids stop learning sex with the wrong hand.

[demigoddess]

35. or he was spoiled rotten as a child. Or he has that family trait of everyone in the

family thinking they are superior to the whole world. Have a sister in law like that!

[hlthe2b]

4. This guy went to bed each night with Hitler speeches on the bed table, per Ivana...

Yet everyone seems to feel that taking this seriously is inappropriate. We are to believe that he did not learn and emulate in order to message and control effectively.

I noted this cautious retweet from the preeminent Laurence Tribe. I share his concern.

Link to tweet

[world wide wally]

8. Those pictures say it all

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

40. They sure do!!

Bernie & Elizabeth 2020!!!
Welcome to the revolution!!!

[dawg day]

5. The description that makes me go huh is-

"He is not well."
"He is unwell."

That sounds like he's got a stomach upset from eating too many Big Macs, like this will go away and tomorrow he will be "well".

He's not "unwell." He's a vicious nut.

[Sneederbunk]

6. As my father would say: He ain't right.

[dalton99a]

7. He is a crazy and dangerous criminal.

[BigmanPigman]

37. A firest, to the point and accurate assessment.

[colsohlibgal]

9. Fruit Loops Nuts

Crazy and evil, a complete bad actor, yet 35 or so percent think he is great no matter how unhinged he acts.

[pdsimdars]

10. Totally agree, they need to stop worrying about rocking the boat and do their JOBs!

[Honeycombe8]

11. Yep. I've said since late in his campaign that there's something wrong with him.

It was obvious.

If this were grandpa or a great-uncle, I'd be called him crazy Uncle Don, and make sure someone is keeping an eye on him.

[KPN]

12. Yes. ITMF now! What the hell are we

waiting for?

[sarge43]

13. Barking mad or bat shit

He'd give a nuke to a spider monkey. Wait. He is a spider monkey. (My apologies to the League of Spider Monkeys)

[Blue Owl]

14. Insane in the membrane...

n/t

[ananda]

15. Well he's a white male with towers...

That’s all that matters and he’s got a bunch
of other whites in the Senate and the courts
to rubber stamp his malicious idiocy.

[CaptYossarian]

16. There isn't just one word that describes him.

He's narcissistic, not well-read, evil, xenophobic, a traitor, hates the environment, flippant, a poor businessman, and has dementia.

And 60 million people voted for him to lead America.

[mopinko]

18. the word i've been using is rigid. whatever the cause, his brain is rigid.

he can no longer take in new info, and especially cannot jettison wrong info.
it is probably, physically, calcifying or something.

there was never gonna be a pivot, because his brain can no longer pivot.

i heard barbara res, his former, long term employee, say that his business went into a long slide in the 80's because he refused to take advice.
it was an aha! moment for me.
i think the coke broke his brain back in the day.

[watoos]

19. He's touched.

with a sprinkling of syphilis.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

20. Please don't insult alley cats. For one, they don't usually want incest with their daughter. . . .nt

[PatrickforO]

21. So...you think his morals are that good? Because I have a cat who was once feral and

he actually turned into a good cat.

I don't think we can turn Trump around so he's good.

[certainot]

23. sounds like a severe case of sex on the wrong brain, or sowb

and that explains his followers too. the researchers really need to look into this

It’s not human nature or lizard brains causing these cycles of greed, war, and self destruction. For hundreds of thousands of years life was short and humans reproduced as soon as possible. In the last few thousand years we began to delay the age of reproduction and our brains weren’t wired for it.

Sex on the wrong brain explains how the extra frustration and sexual repression leads to long-lasting neural associations that divert impatient satisfaction-demanding reproductive impulses meant to fuel emotion, creativity, and orgasm to brain functions that are supposed to be patient and objective, like mathematics and logic.

Sex on the wrong brain exacerbates greed, fear, authoritarianism, racism, misogyny, terrorism, and even sexual dysfunction. Symptoms vary widely on individual and societal levels, affected by behavior, culture, genes, and even by gender.

Greed, materialism: In parts of the brain where numbers are processed the misplaced reproductive energy demands more, bigger, faster.

Irrational need for certainty: When reproductive energy fuels logic it wants finality, conclusion, and certainty. Humans evolved in complex natural environments surrounded by uncertainty. Uncertainty is supposed to stimulate curiosity and creativity but sowb wants to end the thinking and turns everyday uncertainties into sources of suspicion, stress, anxiety and fear.

Uncertainty avoidance and certainty creation: Humans try to avoid uncertainty by using order, structure, conformity, and destruction to impose simplicity and predictability. Artificial certainty can be created by reducing degrees of belief and judgement to binary absolutes like good or evil, right or wrong, black or white.

There are various ways to reduce sowb in adults but the ultimate cure is sex education to reduce the number of adolescents who learn sex with the wrong hand.

Misogyny: Sex on the wrong brain explains why sowb is generally worse in men. It suggests the disparity can cause men to view women as a source of uncertainty needing to be controlled and that pushes our belief systems to institutionalize and normalize misogyny, paternalism, and sexual abuse.

Authoritarianism: The need for certainty is a defining characteristic of authoritarianism, which is measured with the Uncertainty Avoidance Index, or UAI. For authoritarians and fascists certainty is the currency of power and more important than truth. Authoritarian leaders like Trump must appear decisive, certain, and never wrong. They describe the world in absolutes and offer order and quick easy answers to create certainty and ease the fear. You're either white or you're not. You’re on one side of the wall or the other. Fear and chaos increases the leader’s appeal.

Capitalism: Unregulated free market capitalism reduces uncertainty in complex problems like climate change and poverty, which can be simplified, ignored, denied, and conveniently left to market forces.

Fundamentalism, extremism, racism, nationalism, and terrorism: All are made worse by sowb-driven fear and binary belief systems that promote absolutism.

There are various ways to reduce sowb in adults but the ultimate cure is sex education to reduce the number of adolescents who learn sex with the wrong hand.

Reward for denial and accepting lies: sowb-based belief systems cultivate thinking patterns that redirect sowb to creative areas of the brain to deny reality and rationalize lies. That is when the misdirected reproductive impulses can finally fuel emotion and pleasure, as a reward for accepting the fake reality.

Age: sowb can get worse with age, with brain circuitry reinforced through repetition, ritual, dogma.

Sexual dysfunction: More sowb means less energy for emotion and orgasm. Humans may also use behavior such as violence to trigger emotions to help redirect sowb for pleasure.

Cannabis, marijuana: THC may reduce some sowb symptoms.

The 'sowb gene': Susceptibility to particular sowb symptoms may be inherited when populations favor them for competitive advantage, survival value, or cultural preference. How long ago our ancestors began to delay the age of reproduction may be a barometer of sowb levels in particular gene pools. Native Americans and African Americans generally may exhibit less sex on the wrong brain than Americans with European ancestry, for example.

Sowb vs democracy: Sowb favors authoritarian patriarchal top-down leadership, which inhibits its recognition and prevention. Strong democracies regulate and moderate sowb symptoms but with global warming and the proliferation of nuclear weapons it’s even more important now to finally treat the central problem.

[TommyCelt]

24. Early on, I had been hoping for SOME kind of pivot...

...or at the very least that the bureaucratic apparatus/checks and balances would shield us from this trump's very worst tendencies. He has been dutifully chipping away at said apparatus since 1/20/2017. His daily twitter insanity has electrified the easily-lied-to and has benumbed the rest of us. We are punch drunk.

I had no idea it would be this bad. I hoped against hope and tried to have faith in the process. This trump is sledge-hammering that process to splinters.

[leftstreet]

25. No. He's just an asshole

He knows right from wrong. He can control his behavior. He just likes to fuck people over.

Narcissism isn't mental illness, it's a personality disorder

[BigmanPigman]

38. I agree except for the

"he can control his behavior" part. He is a sociopath and a narcissist (and a sadist) and those personality disorders are almost impossible to control or cure even if you really want to and work hard at it with a therapist for a long time. He IS dangerous to the country.

[oldlibdem]

26. I think he is a shrewd, ruthless, manipulative, narcistic ,lieing megalomaniac.

With an ego the size of his comb-over. Crackers? Not so much.

[calimary]

27. With apologies to alley cats everywhere. But I get your point.

[BlueJac]

29. K&R

[nocoincidences]

32. It is entirely possible to be

shit-house rat crazy (thanx to my father for that phrase), demented, and psychopathic at the same time, one does not preclude the others.

He's a perfect example of that kind of shitstorm.

And the good old USA allowed him to become president.

Yeehaw.

[Bettie]

33. Mental illness gives him an out

it assumes that he could be different.

I don't accept that. He's just an evil, nasty POS.

[EleanorR]

36. He is leading the republican party, with few if any objections by any of it's members

The fight is against the whole, complicit, corrupt cabal.

[ecstatic]

41. And it's not just trump. With barr as AG, he is above the law, as is barr.

Failure to do anything and quickly will be unforgivable. We are so close to becoming russia. Infrastructure, healthcare, etc. will be meaningless if we morph into russia.

[kimbutgar]

42. He is koo koo cray cray

[vapor2]

43. Mentally ill and clearly UNFIT for office

My dad said he was mentally ill months ago and I have to agree. Your analogy is spot on. Recently saw Elizabeth Warren at a rally and while her staffer was taking our photo, I told her that "this man scares me" and she said, "me too". The 25th amendment should be invoked and who gives a crap about any consequences. He needs to be removed from office immediately.