Trump’s sanity is not for us to diagnose

As President Trump’s behavior becomes more antic, some psychiatrists find it appropriate to issue diagnoses of Trump’s mental state, even though they have not examined him. This approach, most strikingly experienced when Barry Goldwater ran for president in 1964, provoked a professional association of psychiatrists at that time to advise that making complex diagnoses in the absence of personal examination was unprofessional, an advisory that became known as the Goldwater rule.

Leaving aside the fact that the Freudian edifice has largely crumbled, psychiatrists remain a professionally cohesive group convinced that they possess knowledge and insight that is alien to everyone else.

Well, sir, psychiatric pronouncements from afar by a closed guild of know-it-alls warrant attention not to exceed what each of us thinks on our own. The Goldwater rule has as much relevance now as it did when first suggested. Psychiatrists who disavow this rule diminish the science they practice. Paul Bloustein Cincinnati

James S. Robbins’ column saying the 25th Amendment wasn’t meant to facilitate a coup misses the point. Robbins, like President Trump, confuses genius with sanity.

Racism isn’t genius, it’s the height of stupidity. Trump’s history of racism has played out over the decades through breaking fair housing laws, refusing to believe the truth about the Central Park Five, birther lies about America’s first African-American president, his defense of neo-Nazis, the awful conditions in Puerto Rico months after a hurricane and the threat of deportation of those who came into the country decades ago when their countries suffered disasters. President Trump’s fitness for office should be evaluated because of his belief in the insanity of white supremacy. But, I guess, the 25th Amendment wouldn’t be used to remove him. Marvin Schwartzwalder Walden, N.Y.

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