Howdy Suze!

For the GOP, it’s a dream come true. Since at least Newt, they’ve wanted a single-party pseudo-democratic authoritarian state. His line about a permanent majority is just the democratic equivalent of president-for-life. In a democracy, you can’t have a permanent majority and you can’t not compromise with the opposition party. Anything less is just inviting groupthink into the Oval Office with the resulting disasters that that entails.

For the GOP, Trump is a means to that end. It is why they support him. For the Dems, I think they just can’t believe that it is true. Just like Obama kept trying to compromise and reach out to the GOP because he couldn’t conceive of an American political party that wouldn’t compromise. Pelosi, other Dem leaders, and most of the punditry cannot conceive of an American political party that is willing to hollow out our democratic institutions and traditions and fill them with an authoritarian regime.

Watching it unfold in real time is as distressing, unnerving, and unbelievable as watching the minor character in a slasher movie go into the basement to “investigate” the noise or clue or whatever. We all know how that is going to end, just like we know how our American dream is going to end.

Huzzah!
Jack

My response to a comment on Just When You Thought It Couldn’t Get Any Worse, It Does! Or Groupthink

I share my response to friend of the blog, Suze, comment commiserating with our national misery because I thought it one of the clearer succincter explanations of what is ailing our country and why it is continuing.

The mental health of the Ol’ Pussy Grabber has been much in the news of late. If we could graph the number of stories on his mental health, it would probably be spiking about now having reached greater heights than at anytime in his rein. It would be like looking at a staircase to insanity.

Of course, we here at Ye Olde Blogge have been warning about the dangers of having an unproductive malignant narcissist in the WH since May of 2016 when the blog started. I’ve written of many aspects and facets of his mental health and the dangers they pose.

Stress exacerbates mental health issues. It’s like inflating a balloon and adding more air to it. It stretches the latex thinner and thinner until a flaw in the surface cannot take the stress any longer and the whole thing explodes. That’s what we’re witnessing with the Ol’ Pussy Grabber. As the prospects for his re-election dim because his cray-cray is beginning to scare his only mildly racist supporters and the Obama recovery is beginning its inevitable weakening and slowing, his impending-doom-sensing superpower is tingling, and his recklessness escalates to match his desperation.

In other words, his usual tricks are no longer soothing his highly distressed ego. They are not salving his narcissistic wound. They are no longer furnishing him with enough of a false sense of accomplishment to lower his teeming anxiety.

Without a cabinet, aides, or party members willing to challenge his narcissistic delusion of bestness, we are left with his presumption of perfect decision making and all of the danger it entails. In other words, groupthink. And, it leaves us all at grave grave risk from reckless immoral decisions.

The solution to this problem is political. The solution is to check and balance his narcissistic ass. The ultimate solution is to remove him from office as quickly as possible, so conviction of impeachment or the 25th amendment.

Failing immediate removal, his belief in his own infallibility needs to be challenged. His reckless decision-making needs to be curtailed. Impeachment just might prevent the world from being consumed by his narcissism.

But, don’t take my word for it. Here’s Dr. Bandy Lee forensic psychiatrist, expert on violence at Yale School of Medicine, and president of the World Mental Health Coalition. You may have heard of, or, indeed, read the book she edited, The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 37 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President. Last July she hosted a town hall meeting on the Capitol Hill the day before Mueller’s testimony to present five questions that she hoped the committees would ask him.

Here is a menu of options for finding out Dr. Lee’s views of the Ol’ Pussy Grabber’s mental health and mental capacity. These are presented in chronological order.

Yale psychiatrist Bandy Lee: Trump’s mental health is now a “national and global emergency”

Dr. Bandy Lee convened experts to study the Mueller report. They conclude that Trump “can no longer see reality”

Chauncey DeVega June 14, 2019 12:00PM (UT)

Dr. Bandy Lee, who is a professor of psychiatry at the Yale School of Medicine and editor of the bestselling book “The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump“ convened a panel comprised of leading mental health experts to evaluate Donald Trump based upon his behavior as detailed in the Mueller report.

Their definitive conclusion: Trump is mentally unfit, a threat to the United States and the world, and as such should have his powers severely restricted. At the invitation of several Democratic members of Congress, Lee and other mental health professionals will present their findings about Donald Trump’s mental health at what they hope will be a bipartisan congressional meeting in Washington next month.

Does Donald Trump pose a significant threat to both American society and the world? By what standards is he mentally unfit to serve as president? Should a person with Trump’s apparent mental health issues and other behavioral problems be allowed to command the United States military and order the use of force — up to and including nuclear weapons? Why are more Americans not actively resisting Donald Trump’s regime and movement? Have Trump and his movement broken the will of the American people by creating a state of malignant normality?

Continue reading at Salon.com: Yale psychiatrist Bandy Lee: Trump’s mental health is now a “national and global emergency” | Salon.com

Critical Mental Health Questions for Robert Mueller

Washington, DC, and nationwide locations — At our online town hall on 23 July 2019, we opened with a 10-minute highlights video from our interdisciplinary conference in March, a 6-minute video illustrating our report on the Special Counsel’s report from April, and a presentation of five critical questions we were posing to Robert Mueller on the day before his testimony.  The same content was provided to Congress members in a private session earlier that day.

To watch the town hall, please click below:

Yale psychiatrist Bandy X. Lee predicts President Trump’s “disgrace and downfall”

Lee argues that Trump suffers from a uniquely dangerous pathology that will end up wrecking the country

Tana Ganeva July 12, 2019 5:05PM (UTC)

Raw Story: Do you think Robert Mueller will be testifying as planned next week? Will it be helpful to your case?

Dr. Bandy X. Lee: His testimony will be helpful insofar as it is a presentation of facts and evidence. My understanding is that it may possibly be blocked, severely limited, or even sabotaged, and this is not surprising, given the magnitude of its importance. It is similar to the president’s relentless pursuit to include the citizenship question in the 2020 census — the sheer drive gives away the level of its importance to his and his party’s retention of power. Mental pathology usually views power differently: it is a fight for survival, rather than just a useful tool, and a strong, “primitive” drive often kicks in.

Robert Mueller’s response of requiring a subpoena to appear and posing severe time restrictions is consistent with his constraints on stating facts directly. Why didn’t he say more simply, “There were a dozen counts of criminal wrongdoing, but because of department policy, we cannot convict him?” It is a common psychological phenomenon. Those around a mentally impaired person who is unable to face facts will often give into that person’s wishful narrative—the sheer drive is often difficult to overcome. Entire households and entire nations can be vulnerable. This is why it is extremely important to prevent those who show signs of mental pathology from taking over powerful positions and why this is a public health problem.

Given the situation, in line with our societal responsibility as outlined in our professional ethics, we performed a mental capacity evaluation of the president with the information that Mr. Mueller provided. The wealth and quality of relevant information in his report made this possible. Having such high-quality reports, by both allies and opponents, allowed us to answer every question in a capacity evaluation with uncommon confidence. A personal interview is not as relevant in a functional exam. As someone recently said, you do not need to diagnose whether someone is drunk, has a brain tumor, or is not wearing one’s glasses to know that the person should not be driving. It is more useful to interview other drivers who witnessed the dangerous driving.

Continue reading at Salon.com: Yale psychiatrist Bandy X. Lee predicts President Trump’s “disgrace and downfall”