Mental Decline

mental decline1

It feels like every couple of weeks since the start of the Trump presidency, Trump will do or say something that will collectively make the nation go “what?”, and out will come a handful of think pieces wondering whether or not Donald Trump is suffering a mental ailment or mental decline.  Often times the pieces are written by people who have some kind of relevant expertise in psychology or psychiatry.  Then as soon as the articles start getting any kind of circulation, there will come the rebuttals.  But the rebuttals fascinate me, because they often spend little to no time arguing against the conclusion, and more against the merit of having the conversation and the ethics of the professionals who are making the arguments.  To that I would argue, if mental health professionals are en masse coming out to suggest the guy who is responsible for launching nuclear missiles might be losing his grip on reality, I feel like we should all know about it.  As to the ethics of it…listen, if Trump’s personal therapist was coming out and telling the world that he admitted to fanaticizing about getting peed on by Russian hookers, I might suggest his ethics are questionable.  If a highly regarded psychiatrist who viewed the very public life of the President is suggesting that based on his behavior, he might destroy the world, then maybe the psychiatrist is ethically safe.