The More Dangerous State of the World, the Need for Fit Leadership, and the Much More Dangerous Case of Donald Trump, Part 2

A Continued Summary of Expert Opinions by U.S. Security and Mental Health Professionals

Below is the continued summary review of the critical themes from our major National Press Club conference, offered to us by Dr. Sally Adnams Jones, author, psycho-educator, and therapist. Video headings are credited to Dr. Madeline Taylor, also author, psycho-educator, and therapist.

Following are the conclusions drawn by the panelists.  The nine security experts included lawyer and former presidential candidate Attorney Ralph Nader, who spoke about Trump’s instability, grandiose boasting, pathological lying, his operation of non-reality, and false promises of solutions.  Nader believed Trump is unlawful, and a chronic violator, as a way of life.  He described his abuse of children, women, and workers, and his failures on land use, economic policies, crime, and unions and his threats to blow up Iran.

Attorney Richard Painter, chief White House ethics counsel of the G.W. Bush administration, admitted this problem is now beyond the law, once the president is given this much power.  He added there has been a steady exponential growth in presidential power since Abraham Lincoln, with fewer checks and balances coming from Congress or the courts.  Impeachment of presidents is seldom successful, because bipartisan courage is missing.  Trump’s impeachments failed twice.  And now the Supreme Court has granted absolute immunity from criminal prosecution, including war crimes and torture.  He said we cannot accept this legal regime.  Democracy cannot survive this.  The Supreme Court has failed to stand up to abuse of presidential power.  Country must be placed above party.  Ensuring mental and moral fitness for office remains critical.  We must have safeguards.  The silencing of mental health professionals by private associations only does grave harm to democracy.

Professor Claire Finkelstein of the University of Pennsylvania Law School, director of the Center for Ethics and the Rule of Law and an expert on national security and professional ethics, said moral fitness bore a close relationship to psychological fitness, especially concerning the president and commander-in-chief.  Whoever holds those powers is the least constrained, as neither the courts nor Congress are, in general, willing to constrain the president.  They are pulling back more and more from intervening on Presidential action.  The last time Congress declared war was World War II, and there have been seventeen wars fought since then.  Congress has turned over the war function to the president without question.  All it does now is appropriate funds for these wars, after the conflict is initiated.  The president now has near dictatorial powers, and so moral character is now of profound importance and must be closely monitored.  National security demands the highest moral fitness in this role, and amongst all military leaders.  It is recognized that the hardest thing to train at West Point is character, as it must be innate.  There are currently no penalties for the president to issue an illegal order and can pressure commanders into illegal acts, such as threatening court martials or dangling pardons to absolve them from participating in illegal orders.  Impeachment and prosecution are now gone.  All we have left now is moral character—the most important issue in this election.

Honorable Claudine Schneider, a five-term Republican Congresswoman from Rhode Island, and founder of Republicans for Integrity described her parents’ experiences of war, which set her on her path working for the people, not the president.  It is her duty to speak truth to power, and presidents need to listen.  Trump is not interested in listening, only in agreement with him.  The House and the Senate must have a mind of their own, and not march in lock step with the president.  This is integrity.  She affirmed that Congress is now at its most dysfunctional, proposing to eliminate the Department of Education, because they want followers, not thinkers.  Defunding Ukraine and pulling out of NATO fortunately did not come to pass.  The current Congress is unproductive, disrespectful, wasting time, and consumed with conspiracy theories.  Their output over time is the most “Do Nothingness” since 1859.  This is to the advantage of the man in the White House, who now wants to control all policy.  Partisanship has led to complete dysfunction.  Democracy will not stand without guardrails, and the media’s commitment to truth telling.  But they are threatened and silenced if they speak truth to power.  Fact checking becomes essential, but Trump exacerbates violence, hatred, and lies.  This election is the moment of truth.  We either: 1) make things happen, 2) let things happen, or 3) wake up one day, and say, “What happened?”

Professor Peter Kuznik, historian and director of the Nuclear Studies Institute at American University, said that Trump is a little man moved by fear and pride and should never be in control of America’s nuclear arsenal.  We were lucky to survive his first presidency and cannot risk our luck enduring.  The position of presidency requires rational judgement, sober circumspection, wisdom, knowledge, restraint, understanding of adversaries, careful consideration, and empathy.  The president is one of two people in the world who carry veto power over future existence of life on this planet.  But Trump is one of the most egregiously unfit people to have that responsibility.  No one should have that power.  Mumford said, “Mad men govern our affairs,” and this has not abated eighty years after Hiroshima.  With 12,000 nuclear bombs in the world, the world is once again on the brink of nuclear war.  No one stands between the president and the authority to launch America’s arsenal.  It is madness to think we can launch an attack against our adversaries to which they will be unable to respond.  It is madness to ever allow Trump to regain access to those nuclear codes, who is a shallow, rash, impulsive, misanthropic, pathological narcissist.  Trump has asked, “What’s the point of having nuclear weapons, if we can’t use them?”  No one is constraining him.  He pulled out of the Iran deal, which has now built up its own arsenal, and is within a month of developing a nuclear bomb.  Trump has warned of “fire and fury like the world has never seen.”  Trump’s bellicosity has put the world on the path to WWIII.  The White House has become an adult daycare center.  He described in detail particular conversations about the latest nuclear posturing.  Project 2025 wants to increase the arsenal, and lower the threshold for their use.  Because Trump is vengeful and impulsive, a second presidency is far too dangerous to even contemplate.

Dr. Joseph Romm, physicist, climate expert, and former acting assistant secretary at the U.S. Department of Energy, warned of the climate changes that are happening faster than expected.  The next chosen U.S. president is critical to avoid catastrophe.  The number of people losing their homes is significant now, due to ocean warming and rapid intensification of weather systems.  He said he wants our children to have a future and concluded that it is immoral to pass this problem onto them.  Narcissistic leaders simply do not care, and so we are incumbent to speak out and demand they deal with this.

(To be continued.)

Announcement:

Dr. Bandy X. Lee will hold a live session on:

“Containing Trump Contagion –
Healing Our Collective Mental Health”

Tomorrow, November 1, 2024, at 12 noon EDT/9 a.m. PDT on Zoom.  A paid subscription is required to receive a link the morning before.  Thank you!

Dr. Lee is a forensic and social psychiatrist and an expert on violence whose latest interview with Gaslit Nation is here. She became known to the public with her 2017 book, The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 27 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President.  During this crucial election season, she organized a major National Press Club Conference on the theme of, “The Much More Dangerous Case of Donald Trump”—of which the summary video is here.  We have also successfully published our new book, The More Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 40 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Warn Anew. This was all made possible because of the generosity of the public—and we now ask for your help once more to reach millions with our vital message from the Conference, in these critical moments before a critical election!