A Nation under Siege

Our Great Betrayal by the American Corporate Media

Many ask:

You predicted that a Trump presidency would be dangerous a decade ago. But did you imagine it would be this bad?

To this I must answer:

Yes. Without intervention this was only a matter of course—and worse. There is practically no limit to how bad it can get. The public would know this if it understood psychopathology.

Imagine that there is an aggressive cancer that responds quickly to medicine. Doctors know that, while the rapid spread of cancer spells death, if the patient got the medicine in time, it might even potentially cure. The patient may not know this, but wishes to go see a doctor the instant the disease appears, so as to explore treatment options. But a charlatan comes along, and although he is not a doctor, sweet talks the patient into believing that it is no big deal, and all one needs is to take some Aspirin. This is a much more attractive option, and so the patient decides to wait, quelling any gnawing pain with Aspirin. After all, the charlatan speaks so authoritatively! Then the patient feels the cancer spread, ever more rapidly, as organ after organ begins to fail. The patient cries out for a doctor, but the charlatan has cut off all access, and even the doctors who once publicly educated about medical matters are gone. The entire body is now malfunctioning, and death may be imminent. Still, the charlatan tells you that everything is all right, and all is under control. Trapped without other options, the patient convinces oneself that the charlatan is right, for the alternative has become too frightening and too painful. Each moment of doubt is quickly turned into further submission, idealization, and even deification of the charlatan, so as to suppress the unbearable reality. The charlatan has achieved his twisted goal—also from sickness—to be adored, to subjugate, and to exert ultimate control.

The nurturance of pathology usually brings only destruction and death, and when whole populations are involved, mass deaths. And a nation is sleepwalking toward it, to the tune of a pied piper.

It is easy to think that this was a natural course, that we were headed in this direction anyway, but doctors—psychiatrists and healers—think differently. Just as a viral pandemic could be entirely avoided if intervened with early and intelligently, a mental health pandemic could be completely contained if approached with science and clinical knowledge.

The difference from the contagion of physical illnesses, which requires physical exposure, is that the contagion of mental symptoms occurs through emotional bonds—via mass media and social media—and the more severe the symptoms, the faster and more inexorable the spread. Another difference is that the afflicted individuals do not know it—in fact, the more severe the affliction, the greater the denial! This is why I call the 77 million voting for Donald Trump: “the first presidential election not by choice, but by contagion.”

The responsibility, unfortunately, lies heavily with the media. First, through profit-driven models, they primed the population for him, over decades of prioritizing attention and revenue over public understanding. With deregulation and consolidation, especially after the repeal of the Fairness Doctrine in 1987 and the Telecommunications Act in 1996, editorial content became more homogeneous, aligning with advertising and corporate interests. This incentivized content that attracts mass audiences over that which deeply informs. At the same time, algorithms on social media such as Facebook or X reward emotionally-charged, polarizing material, meaning that the greatest numbers of “clicks” occur from conflict, extremism, if not overt pathology (which explains the popularity of conspiracy theorist Alex Jones).

Furthermore, when the corporate media and the political powers-that-be recognized how “powerful” (overwhelming and engulfing) mental pathology is, they chose to weaponize rather than to educate the public about it. Donald Trump himself marveled at the explosive combination of the media environment and his mental symptoms, stating: “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters, okay?... It’s, like, incredible.” They also realized that, with inequality and exploitation accelerating to a level that could no longer be rationally justified, they needed someone like Trump to “entertain” (infect), mesmerize, hypnotize, and detach the public from facts and reality. Misinformation thus turned into disinformation, deception, and ultimately delusion.

In fact, our era is perhaps the first to have instrumentalized mental pathology as a political strategy and profit scheme.

Networks are now bought, threatened, sued, and cajoled, much like universities, to toe the line. Journalism has become stenography, and the only ones who get to keep their jobs are those who keep the right stories out. This includes the major newspapers that set the tone and agenda. Jeffrey Lieberman, past president of the pharmaceutical industry-funded American Psychiatric Association, essentially dictated to the New York Times what to write, when it targeted mental health experts to be the first to sideline and silence.

When a society is denied not only full, accurate, complete, and insightful information and opinion, but also the ability to reason, to perceive with one’s own eyes and ears, and to ground oneself in reality, that is when it gets into trouble. Space also opens for a mentally-deranged dictator and followers—as in cults or street gangs—to take power, since the mentally-disturbed will be magnetically attracted to one another.

Every moment Donald Trump displays his mental impairments in public, and they are not explained or contained, contributes to the spread of symptoms. By merely airing and repeating his nonsensical comments, reckless threats, false beliefs, utter contradictions, and pathological lies—without calling on mental health experts to interpret them; to delineate clearly what is abnormal, dangerous, and deranged; and to “inoculate” the public against them, the media have only facilitated the spread of disease.

The refusal to discuss seriously about Donald Trump’s mental disturbances and dangerousness has become so pervasive, accepted, and unspoken, that a great article, even after describing a major war provoked primarily by mental derangement, makes only a passing reference to “Trump’s narcissism” as the explanation.

“Washington Week with the Atlantic” is another major example of refusal even to mention how Donald Trump is severely mentally-compromised and unstable, and that he could turn to nuclear weapons precisely because of his mental fragility.

In “Meet the Press,” even an intelligent and articulate senator as Cory Booker speaks of “chaos and corruption” but cannot utter a word about the central crisis of having a mentally-impaired president, whom Israel could manipulate into attacking Iran or with whom there is an unacceptably enormous risk of nuclear war.

Announcement:

Dr. Bandy X. Lee is in the process of establishing SURVIVAL UNIVERSITY. Please use the contact form to join and to help make this unprecedented effort successful. She is also leading a public course series with Preventing Violence Now, about which you can find out more and register here. Our next course begins on Saturday, April 4, 2026 at 1:00 p.m.

Dr. Lee is a forensic and social psychiatrist, president of the World Mental Health Coalition, cofounder of Preventing Violence Now, and a long-term consultant to the World Health Organization and other United Nations bodies on scientific approaches to violence prevention. She became known to the public through her 2017 Yale conference and book that alerted against dangerous leadership. In 2019, she organized a major National Press Club Conference on the theme of, “The Dangerous State of the World and the Need for Fit Leadership.” In 2024, she followed up with another major Conference, “The More Dangerous State of the World and the Need for Fit Leadership.” She published another book on dangerous leadership that has recently been expanded, in addition to a volume on how dangerous signs in a leader spreads and two critical statements on dangerous leadership. As many of the dangers she warned against unfolded—including millions of unnecessary pandemic deaths, the propagation of political violence, the exacerbation of economic inequality, the destruction of democracy, the devastation of the climate, the replacement of international collaboration with hostile confrontation, a renewed and accelerated nuclear arms race, a global emboldening of dictators leading to brutal warfare and genocide, and growing state-sanctioned cruelty and human rights violations—she has advocated for another way. Now, the author of the internationally-acclaimed textbook, Violence; over 100 peer-reviewed articles and chapters; 17 scholarly books and journal special issues; and over 300 opinion editorials, introduces her curriculum on rising above the current destructive course to embrace an awareness of, “One World or None.”