Dem
47
GOP
53
This has come up on this site, at least in passing, before. If you teach at the university level, and you have 50-1,000 students for a quarter or a semester, some of them are going to have mental health issues. It's just math. In some cases, the student volunteers information. In other cases, it's clear from their behavior that there's some underlying condition. And often, the university gives some information, in the form of instructions about special accommodations. But while we may have a general sense there is an issue, we rarely know what the specific diagnosis is. It's not legal to ask and, truth be told, we don't particularly want to know the details. In many cases, the student themselves probably doesn't know. There's still plenty of stigma attached to mental health issues, particularly in some cultures.
We write all of this because we understand well why mental health professionals do not presume to diagnose Donald Trump from a distance. And we also understand well that we have neither the information nor the expertise to diagnose Trump ourselves. But there is clearly something wrong with him (and has been for a long time, though it seems to us that he's getting worse). The 24 hours of Memorial Day provided plenty of reminders of this.
To get the holiday off to a "rousing" start, Trump fired up his barely functional social media platform (it was down for much of last night) and, shortly before 7:00 a.m., sent out this:
HAPPY MEMORIAL DAY TO ALL, INCLUDING THE SCUM THAT SPENT THE LAST FOUR YEARS TRYING TO DESTROY OUR COUNTRY THROUGH WARPED RADICAL LEFT MINDS, WHO ALLOWED 21,000,000 MILLION PEOPLE TO ILLEGALLY ENTER OUR COUNTRY, MANY OF THE BEING CRIMINALS AND THE MENTAO INSANE,THROUGH AN OPEN BORDER THAT ONLY AN INCOMPETENT PRESIDENT WOULD APPROVE, AND THROUGH JUDGES WHO ARE ON A MISSION TO KEEP MURDERERS, DRUG DEALERS, RAPISTS, GANG MEMBERS, AND RELEASED PRISONERS FROM ALL OVER THE WORLD, IN OUR COUNTRY SO THEY CAN ROB, MURDERERS, AND RAPE AGAIN, PROTECTED BY THESE USA HATING JUDGES WHO SUFFER FROM AN IDEOLOGY THAT IS SICK, AND VERY DANGEROUS FOR OUR COUNTRY. HOPEFULLY THE UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT, AND OTHER GOOD AND COMPASSIONATE JUDGES THROUGHOUT THE LAND, WILL SAVE US FROM THE DECISIONS OF THE MONSTERS WHO WANT OUR COUNTRY TO GO TO HELL.
If he were anyone other than the President of the United States, this alone—the unhinged ranting and raving, and in ALL CAPS—might be enough by itself to justify a few days of involuntary commitment and observation. Even by the standards of the Internet, it's... pretty disturbing.
Trump followed that up by reposting this message from one of his supporters:
They stole the 2020 election and hijacked the country using a decrepit corpse as a frontman
They used an autopen to start wars, steal from our treasury, and pardon their friends
Arrest those responsible and charge them with TREASON
This is crazypants in a manner different from the ALL CAPS message, but it's still... disturbing. To STILL be obsessing about the 2020 election is nuts. To have such a deep and abiding hatred of Biden is nuts. And to take cheap shots at a man who may well be dying from cancer is some blend of low-class and deeply concerning. We'll have more on this subject tomorrow and the next day, by the way.
And it did not end there. Before participating in a wreath-laying ceremony at Arlington, Trump delivered a 17-minute speech. This is as close as it gets to a slam dunk in politics. Say a few things about military heroes and sacrifice and honor, and you're done. A president could literally give the exact same speech every year, nobody would notice, and everyone would love it, because the beats you need to hit are obvious, and they are the beats that listeners want you to hit. But Trump couldn't do it. He started out normal, but he just had to throw away the script and go on an extended harangue about "his predecessor" and the incompetence therein. And this follows, by two days, the bizarro and meandering West Point commencement address where Trump talked about Al Capone (yet again), the downsides to trophy wives, and his golf game, among many other topics.
We dislike writing an item like this, but we dislike ignoring evidence even more. None of this is normal, none of it is healthy, and again, if it were ANYONE else, the talk would be about how the person is unwell and needs help. Well, just because it's Trump, we don't think the rules are different. He's clearly unwell, and he needs help. (Z)