The panel on MSNBC’s show “Morning Joe” had an interesting discussion today about the mental stability of the leader of the free world. Since President Trump has the nuclear codes, it is certainly important to have confidence that he is mentally stable, but that does not always appear to be the case.
Co-host Joe Scarborough — not for the first time — questioned whether the president is of sound mind, as many others have done before.
‘The guy’s not right’: Morning Joe raises new questions about Trump’s mental health”
‘The guy’s not right’: Morning Joe raises new questions about Trump’s mental health https://t.co/oOw4IL1L91
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Scarborough said he has been quite surprised that Trump has not been able to enlarge his base of support while he has been president. He said he thought he would use his core “base” to get elected but then put in place programs and policies with broader appeal. But his actions, like the zero tolerance border policy and the tariffs that have caused a global trade war, have shown that he is still trying to appeal to a narrow group of his hardcore supporters.
Scarborough said he believes that the president has a pathological need to be liked which leads him to take irrational steps with the sole purpose of getting praise and support from people who already like him.
The other panelists agreed the president was obsessed with public approval, and they gave examples of how this affects his relationships with world leaders and with his own White House staff.
MSNBC contributor Donny Deutsch, a longtime Trump associate, was on this morning’s panel and discussed how the president’s pathological needs result in him focusing only on voters who already support him.
“Donald Trump now is at the point he’s so fragile and cannot ever, ever be in any interaction, any exchange in any room that’s just not pure lionization, canonization, and it defies any left-brain logic. He’s built so fragilely now that he can only exist in an alternative universe, regardless of whether it’s the smart or dumb political thing, where he is basically pillowed around by that 30 percent.”
Scarborough also said that Trump appears to have a personality or mental disorder which results in him doing and saying things that can “destroy himself politically.” He then added:
“I’ve got to say, really — the guy’s not right. He’s not acting logically, and I don’t know how to say without people saying, ‘Don’t act like you’re a doctor.’ I’m not acting like I’m a doctor, I’ve known the guy 10 years, though. Nobody rationally behaves this way, unless they want to get wiped out in elections, unless he want to have 38 percent, 39 percent approval rating.”
Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson was also on the panel and added that the president and his base of core supporters have become “addicted to his self-aggrandizing rally rants.”
Robinson then added:
“This is an insane way to behave. Then other things, the way these sort of what I suspect were sort of deeply buried prejudices have come out, about Latinos, about African-Americans, about women — certainly, the way he treats women — but those are things that, know, an adult in control of himself manages to bury, manages to realize that they’re not appropriate, certainly not appropriate to sort of trumpet the way he — but he can’t control those things.”
“They just sort of erupt out of him. He learned to do one extraordinary thing during the campaign, which is the sort of stream-of-consciousness rallies in which for a segment of the electorate, they are catnip, they are amphetamines. They are whatever you — some kind of drug that really pump people up — and that’s really what he knows how to do. So that’s what he’ll continue to do, and it turns out the other 60 percent, more and more, but this is not just all some diabolical plot. This is a man out of control.”
Scarborough, Deutsch and Robinson seem to have really nailed the correct interpretation of Trump’s actions and the diagnosis of his mental health issues. The concern for America — and for the entire world — is that if the president’s mental state continues to decline he may lose touch with reality even more and take steps harmful not just to himself but to everyone else as well.
I am a lifelong Democrat with a passion for social justice and progressive issues. I have degrees in writing, economics and law from the University of Iowa.
