I do not wish to dampen the buoyed feeling of relief from a better-than-expected performance at the State of the Union address. I, too, celebrate that the speech went well, and that Joe Biden has consolidated his support considerably more. The very versatility with which he could surprise people or rise to the occasion is a sign of mental fitness, and I never believed he showed anything other than fitness, as I have made clear since several years ago. It was a peak performance, scripted and practiced over weeks.
Within a few days, however, Donald Trump will hold another rally, and another and another, not because he is better or more capable, but precisely because he is diseased and unfit, driven by abnormal compulsion (or “big lunatic energy,” as some have called it). The very reason Biden’s mental capacity is such a noisy topic for him and his supporters is because Trump must deny and distract from his own severe disorders, of which “cognitive decline”—in his case abnormal decline—is only the most benign of his symptoms.
Here is what I wrote almost exactly four years ago:
One of the reasons why people are hearing a lot about Joe Biden’s cognitive problems is because of projection: Biden’s minor and insignificant issues will be magnified to the degree to which they are real problems in Donald Trump…. “Projection” is a psychological defense of denying characteristics that one cannot tolerate in oneself by attributing them to others.
I go on to make suggestions for dealing with Trump supporters:
(a) do not confront them with facts, for it will only rouse resistance (subconsciously, they already know what is true, which is why they project very accurately); (b) do not invest in trying to persuade, for the problem is in granting an impaired individual power (which spreads pathology in a previously healthy populace), not in their cognitive system; and (c) continue to state the facts elsewhere, without intimidation, so that a delusional narrative does not overtake the truth.
For Donald Trump, if he does not get back in the White House, he will go to prison. For Trump, if he does not receive his “infusion” from adoring crowds, he has no other resources for self-love. And for Trump, he needs a greater and greater “kick”—be it “retribution” against his enemies, assassinations, or show of military might—to feel that he is alive. Any rational approach is not going to match this drive, which is why we have the situation of a pied piper garnering more “support” than anybody.
To illustrate, an alarmed colleague called my attention to the below email from the Trump Campaign a few days ago. One can see the language and the subject line he uses to manipulate his supporters:
Subject: I’ll never stop loving you
This is President Trump, and I’ll never stop loving you.
Why? Because you’ve always loved me!
You stuck by me every single time the Radical Left tried to KICK ME DOWN….
Through all the HOAXES, WITCH HUNTS, and FAKE INDICTMENTS, you never left my side!
True MAGA Patriots like you are the only reason I’m still standing.
I’ve just got one thing to say:
I’LL NEVER STOP FIGHTING FOR YOU.
I need you to take your support to the next level, and show every single Democrat that the MAGA movement is STRONG AND POWERFUL.
[Donate button:] SAVE AMERICA
Together we will Make America Great Again!
Thank you,
Donald J. Trump
45th President of the United States
When Michelle Obama said many years ago, “When they go low, we go high,” she was correct but only partially so. When the “low” is very low—i.e., beyond the range of human normalcy—we must go beyond the normal “high” (by which she meant civility) to consult with the very high of specialized knowledge (which is the wealth of a civilization). In this case, what was necessary was advanced psychiatric knowledge, the kind involved in evaluating, treating, and containing mass murderers and serial rapists. This happened to be my area of specialty, having spent my twenty-five-year career working at psychiatry’s interface with the law with some of the most violent individuals our society produces. The type and degree of intervention that was necessary to protect society were therefore very clear to me at every stage.
I wish further to emphasize that I do not come at these issues with a political perspective, supporting one candidate or another, but from a health perspective, since Donald Trump’s presence makes the mental health aspects overwhelming and even species extinction-threatening. My concern as a health professional is societal health and survival—and this kind of neutral medical perspective was critically necessary from the very beginning. It is still perhaps the only perspective that has a real chance of stopping a “Trump Calamity” from happening. Consider how odd is our current approach: would you go to a foot doctor when what you need is a brain surgeon? Doing so will not keep the tumor in the brain from expanding.
Biden is currently the candidate we have. He could vastly augment his chances if he considered addressing the central issue of Donald Trump’s destructive presidency and his current, disordered candidacy: his unfitness.
Joe Biden’s use of the State of the Union address as a campaign rally is to stoop to Donald Trump’s level, not to rise to being the truly-needed president of the United States. Biden could have gone “very high” to consult with us far before he even came to this state of being held on a par with Trump—we, certainly, reached out to him since his first campaign that he voluntarily take a mental fitness test to set a new standard for the office of the presidency. Instead, by choosing politics over intelligence, standards commensurate with the science of our times, and the truth of Trump’s unfitness even to run, he rather played into the Trump-created paradigm, which made any mental health discourse merely partisan. It is not. There is another option, and he still has the chance to embrace it: that is, he can choose a new paradigm that includes mental health, so as to employ real solutions to the problems that gave rise to the Trump phenomenon in the first place.
As a retired clinical counselor, wish you could emphasize the "fascination" we have as social creatures when presented with aberrant behavior. Takes awhile for us to process and figure out. Also, our truth bias, again as pro-social creatures, that what we are told is true, and must be "taken in" and processed to determine if actually false. Takes time and effort and is exhausting. Thanks for your courage, commitment and continued work, Bandy.
Brilliant. Strong piece.