Being Held Hostage to a Warmonger of the Worst Kind

Annexation of Ukraine, ‘the Final Solution’ in Gaza, and Now War on Iran....

Since Donald Trump’s first election to the presidency, the most highly-respected and ethically-grounded psychiatrists and psychologists of our day came forth publicly, placing their comfortable careers and world renown on the line, to warn against a dangerously unfit “leader”. From their expert view, having such a mentally-impaired individual in the White House—no matter how attractive his rhetoric and hypnotic his style (in themselves potential danger signs)—could only presage one thing: destruction of the nation.

Indeed, when the American Psychiatric Association (APA) became the first institution to capitulate in advance, even the most revered mental health experts were sidelined, “discredited”, and silenced. Their expertise, nevertheless, has been vindicated over and over. Mental health experts’ warnings of Donald Trump as a dangerously unstable figure—a warmonger of the worst (erratic) kind who could only bring more strife, more destruction, and potential annihilation of the human race itself—still hold. Yet, we remain suppressed from public view, which is why I have called ourselves, “the barometer” for our species’ survival.

From a lack of dissemination of mental health knowledge, we are in maximal danger with minimal insight, and hence carry the poorest prognosis. In such a state, metaphors and analogies are helpful, and I quote here my eloquent political scientist colleague, Michael Brenner:

As of this writing, the Trump White House has launched an attack on the Islamic Republic of Iran—a country that already is the victim of an unprovoked aggression by Israel. [B-2] bombers have hit three major nuclear facilities; batteries of Tomahawk missiles also have been fired. The potential consequences are catastrophic. This action is in violation of the explicit Constitutional provision that Congress alone has the power to declare war. That fundamental fact gets barely mentioned in whatever public discourse has taken place.

The termination point of this reckless path to war will find us despised in the world—whatever the immediate military outcome. At home, the nation will demonstrate once again that it has become incapable of shame, and that whatever self-respect survives will be in the form of that confected adulation that egoists apply to themselves. A pariah despised abroad and a sullen, autocratic nation look to be our ignominious destiny.

Brenner then quotes from his earlier essay titled, “Americans’ Moby Dick”:

Ahab destroyed himself, destroyed his crew, destroyed his ship. He sacrificed all in the quest—a quest for the unattainable. The United States is sacrificing its principles of liberty, its political integrity, the trust that is the bedrock of its democracy, its standing in the world as the “best hope of mankind,” and its capacity to feel for others—including its fellow citizens. America’s Moby Dick has migrated and transmuted itself. It now is lodged in our innermost being.

There, it spawns fictive offspring—foremost, the Iranian mullahs and Vladimir Putin. Now, China too,… like depictions of Satan, is the dark star amidst a host of demonic furies: Iran, Assad, the Taliban, Hezbullah, Houthis, Hamas, MS-13.

To be rid of America’s transmuted Moby Dick we must kill part of our tainted being—a form of psycho-political chemotherapy….

He cautioned that our national soul would sink into the depths, just as Ahab was sucked into the ocean, “entangled in the very ropes he had fashioned to ensnare Moby Dick.” In this manner, our unwillingness to face our shadow has brought us Donald Trump, the very epitome of escape from reality. And having been sucked into “Trump Contagion”—the engulfing spread of symptoms—we have now entered an accelerating “Death Spiral.”

Mental health professionals often emphasize that avoidance does not bring relief but rather return with a vengeance (or what we call, “return of the repressed”). In the context of avoidance of all matters relating to mental health, Donald Trump’s latest mental move will come as a great surprise. Former New York Times Middle East Bureau Chief and author of War Is a Force that Gives Us Meaning Chris Hedges calls it a “Pandora’s box of evils”:

War opens a Pandora’s box of evils that once unleashed are beyond anyone’s control. The warmongers who ordered the strikes by U.S. bombers on Iranian nuclear sites have no more of a plan for what comes next in Iran than they had in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya or Syria.

Hedges closes with a dire warning:

Soon there will be retaliation. Lots of it. It will come at first with desultory missile strikes and then attacks carried out by elusive enemies on ships, military bases and installations. Steadily it will grow in volume and lethality. The death toll, including among the some 40,000 soldiers and Marines stationed in the Middle East, will mount. Ships, including aircraft carriers, will be targeted. We will, as we did in Iraq and Afghanistan, begin to lash out with a blind fury, fueling the conflagration we began…. A war with Iran will be a self-defeating and costly quagmire….

Yet, no one is analyzing the correct way to contain the immediate source of escalation—which should have been the most basic step, and which even Israelis are doing, as seen in this article by a psychologist:

Trump’s shift was dramatic—he transitioned almost overnight from a diplomatic figure advocating for mediation to an imaginary commander-in-chief, demanding nothing less than Tehran’s surrender and even calling for the city’s evacuation. It was no longer just about having information; now, Trump wanted to lead, to dictate, and to stamp the American flag on the outcome.

This, of course, is the very definition of unfitness, which we officially determined as early as April 2019. We tried so hard to prevent our current apocalyptic predicament by publishing the update, The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 37 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President. When dangers continued and no one would publish another update, despite our bestselling status, we published through our own organization, The More Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 40 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Warn Anew. As dangers only mounted four months into the second presidency we so warned against, we published yet another new edition, The Much More Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 50 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Warn Anew.

The Jerusalem Post article continues:

His response—a sharp shift from caution to aggression—is exactly what psychologists call “reactive narcissism.” When a narcissist feels neglected or when someone else steals the spotlight, they react with exaggerated behavior to force their way back into the limelight. Trump’s quotes—“We knew everything,” “complete surrender”—are not just policy pronouncements. They are shouts of “Look at me!”

Announcement:

Dr. Bandy X. Lee is holding weekly live sessions on:

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Dr. Lee is a forensic and social psychiatrist who became known to the public through her 2017 Yale conference and book that emphasized the importance of fit 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 fit leadership that has been recently expanded, in addition to a volume on how unfitness in a leader spreads and two critical statements on fit leadership. Dr. Lee warned that journalists and intellectuals are the first to be suppressed in times of unfit leadership, and it is happening here; she continues, however, to be interviewed or covered abroad, such as in France, Germany, Norway, Switzerland, the Czech Republic, Italy, Poland, Russia, Brazil, Chile, Argentina, Mexico, and Canada (with notable articles in Estonian, Lithuanian, Ukrainian, Turkish, and Korean). She authored the internationally-acclaimed textbook, Violence; over 100 peer-reviewed articles and chapters; and 17 scholarly books and journal special issues, in addition to over 300 opinion editorials. Dr. Lee is also a master of divinity, currently developing a new curriculum for public education on “One World or None.”