Hal Brown Blog
Title : Hal Brown Blog
Link : Hal Brown Blog
Click here for just Friday edition This is a blog with my opinions on news stories that pique my interest. My Bio here.
By Hal Brown, MSW
The articles are:
Would-be dictator Donald Trump would be unstoppable in a second term. That must not happen — As mental health professionals, we cannot remain silent. Trump's authoritarian presidency is a national emergency, by Alan D. Blotcky, Ph.D., a clinical psychologist, David M. Reiss, MD, a psychiatrist, and John M. Talmadge, MD, a psychiatrist.
Trump shows no empathy for others. He has an unquenchable desire for praise and adulation, but he is incapable of understanding human pain and suffering and plight. All but a very few of his personal alliances are fleeting and transactional. Trump treats others as dupes to be influenced and then dismissed at will when they are no longer of service to him.The second article is an interview with Bandy Lee, MD, the forensic psychiatrist who edited “The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump”.
Mary Trump's new book highlights many of the same concerns about Trump's mental health that you've warned about for years. What did you think of her conclusions? Did anything surprise you? Is there anything you disagree with?
Yes, I was delighted to see this. But then she is a professional who is highly proficient at what she does, as evidenced in the scholarship and clinical soundness she applies to her reasoning. Any honest and competent mental health professional has come to the same conclusion, which is why there was an astonishing consensus from the start. .
Bandy Lee has an active Twitter feed where she tweets near as I can tell something about Trump every day. That’s where I discovered she has a series in DC Report What The Media Missed In The Mary Trump Book and has been doing podcasts on the subject.
These articles don’t offer anything particularly new for readers who have been keeping up on the subject of Trump’s psychopathology and why, combined with his racism, xenophobia, and totalitarianism, it makes him dangerous.
For new insights we have Mary Trump.
She is the one mental health professional who has, at least informally, examined him in real life. In fact she has studied him for decades and once she became a clinical psychologist her observations became particularly astute. There’s no need to elaborate on Mary Trump’s analysis since if you are reading this article you are already familiar with what she had to say.
I had nothing against articles by mental health professionals about Trump and I have written dozens which I posted on Daily Kos which are assembled here. It's just that at this point publishing these articles have become an exercise in futility. Personally I can't think anything fresh or illuminating to say about this topic that Mary Trump hasn't just published and discussed on interview shows.
The previous articles about Trump’s psychopathology have been published almost exclusively on liberal websites. One of the only articles published in the mass circulation media was "Donald Trump's malignant narcissism is toxic" by John Gartner, PhD, the founder of the Duty to Warn group.
There’s a new documentary which John Gartner put together with two Hollywood producer, “#UNFIT: Malignant Narcissism Comes to Washington” due to be released before the election. It features interviews with eminent mental health professionals and examples of Trump making statements which proves the points the therapists make. Even if theaters were open and the movie opened to great reviews ask yourself whether “Michael Moore in Trumpland” which came out before the 2016 election changed any votes. I respect John Gartner and hope the film has an impact but I am trying not to let my admiration for him influence what I believe is an accurate if pessimistic prediction.
At first these articles about Trump’s psychopathology did a service in that they informed progressives about Trump's psychopathology. Of course they were not read by Trump supporters. Now the term "malignant narcissism" has become well known by those who have been reading about why he is psychologically dangerous. Just take a look at this web search for Trump and malignant narcissism.
Does this deluge of information do any good to persuade 2016 Trump voters to vote for Joe Biden? I have to say “how could it when they will never see the information?” They don’t read Salon and they don’t read Daily Kos.
Compare and contrast these efforts with those of The Lincoln Project. They run their ads on Fox News, even on Tucker Carlson’s show. They also are targeting Trump supporting Republicans currently running in their home states by running targeted ads on local TV stations.
But President Trump is unlike any other president, and reacted explosively upon seeing a Lincoln Project ad, which ran during Tucker Carlson’s program on Fox News Channel this May. Shortly after the ad appeared, Trump went on one of his trademarked Twitter tirades, denouncing a “group of RINO Republicans who failed badly 12 years ago, then again 8 years ago, and then got BADLY beaten by me” who were “loser types” don’t know how to win, who were “a disgrace to Honest Abe” (Lincoln), adding, “I don’t know what Kellyanne did to her deranged loser of a husband, Moonface, but it must have been really bad.”
Galen (a member of the Lincoln Project) responded, “we thank him for all the free publicity he has given our movement and our efforts, but his inability to contain himself further illustrates his unfitness for office.”
The Lincoln Project proved itself exceptionally skilled at getting Trump to lose his temper and go on an angry Twitter rant, an achievement that is roughly as difficult as a grown man playing basketball dunking on a kindergartener. The super PAC is the perfect political news machine: it puts together some hard-hitting attack ad, runs it in the DC market where Trump will see it, and waits for the president’s short fuse to blow — which triggers the next wave of donations, driven by the president’s furious response. Each step — the ad, the presidential tweet-storm, the wave of donations — is another bit of fodder for political blogs starved for Trump-centric content. Reference.The last dairy I wrote which related to Trump’s psychopathology was on June 26th which would have been title if there’d been enough room THANKS UNCLE DONALD Your psychologist niece’s book is poised to outsell “The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump”.
Unless and until there’s something new to write about the subject of Trump’s dangerous psychopathology that other mental health professionals aren't writing about, I can’t imagine writing another story on the subject.
I will, of course, keep subjecting readers to my often snarky musings on other subjects trying to write original opinions that other far better writers than me are writing about.
Hal Brown Blog
Enough news articles Hal Brown Blog this time, hopefully can benefit for you all. Well, see you in other article postings.
Hal Brown Blog
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