TRUMP’S MENTAL DISPOSITION SHOULD CONCERN THE NATION
On Saturday morning, I invested 77 minutes in another look at President Trump’s news conference of last Thursday. It was a remarkably strange event that rewards a second viewing.
Some in the media and on the left quickly called Trump’s performance “unhinged” and “bizarre.” But on the right, Sean Hannity called it “a historic beat down of the alt-left propaganda media.” Rush Limbaugh called it “one of the most effective press conferences I have ever seen.”
Criticism didn’t fall neatly along political lines, however. David Brooks, the conservative New York Times columnist, said that President Trump’s mental state is like a train “now careening past unhinged, unmoored and unglued.”
And Fox News anchor Shepard Smith took heat from Fox viewers for saying about Trump’s news conference: “It’s absolutely crazy. He keeps repeating ridiculous, throwaway lines that are not true at all and sort of avoiding this issue of Russia as if we’re some kind of fools for asking the question.”
In short, Trump’s performance evoked an extraordinary range of response. But let’s tweeze out several themes in the news conference that viewers could agree on:
First, Donald Trump is not a nice man. Nothing, however, says that the president has to be nice, and Trump’s supporters probably associate his gruff manner with toughness, action and plain-spokenness.
Even Trump’s supporters have to agree that the news conference was peppered with qualities that we don’t expect to see in a centered, mature person. Trump was condescending, dismissive, rude, smug, self-centered, spiteful, bullying, discourteous, disrespectful and irritable.
Here’s another theme that surfaced regularly during the news conference: Grievance and complaint. Trump often mentions being treated unfairly, particularly by the media, which he has called, “lying,” “dishonest” and “scum.” Even Melania is “so unfairly maligned.”
Other countries treat us unfairly, as well. “Every country takes advantage of us, almost,” Trump said, “I may be able to find a couple that don’t.”
We should probably be less concerned about whether this is actually true — it’s doubtful — than we are about the mindset that it implies. Generally, we think that an individual who feels that everyone is against him isn’t well balanced.
This common theme in Trump’s rhetoric shades readily into another: Blame. During the news conference Trump persistently blamed other people. “I inherited a mess,” he said. The country was divided long before he got into office. Interest in reputed contacts between Trump campaign officials and Russian intelligence officers was deflected toward Hillary Clinton and her “stupid” reset button. Blame was deflected toward the leakers, as well, who are, he said, without evidence, mostly Obama’s people.
Trump blamed his inability to consummate a meeting with Rep. Elijah Cummings on Cummings himself, who, Trump says, probably backed out because of political considerations after listening to Sen. Chuck Schumer or “some other lightweight.”
When asked about racist signs at protests, Trump said, “Some of the signs you’ll see are not put up by the people who love or like Donald Trump, they’re put up by the other side … it won’t be my people, it will be the people on the other side.”
In other words, someone else is always to blame.
Other worrisome themes emerged, as well: Trump’s rambling, near stream-of-consciousness discourse, his tendency to bend subjects back toward himself, his insistence on “facts” that are simply not true.
In an individual, characteristics such as these would strike us as extremely unhealthy. Richard Nixon notwithstanding, the United States has never had to worry about the implications of a mental disposition quite like this one in a head of state. Now it does.
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