Coming Soon...
Trump Contagion: The More Dangerous Case of Donald Trump
The critical and existential election of 2024 is less than seven months in our future. I am not a political but a medical person, who has jumped into this arena because of the existential threat that Donald Trump posed to our collective health and to the survival of our species. My interest is not in partisan politics but in the health, wellbeing, and safety of society, which is one of my ethical responsibilities, according to the universal Declaration of Geneva and all the core tenets of medical ethics. Our public discourse desperately needs this kind of medically neutral, non-partisan grounding in reality right now.
We are in the place we are today because so many of those possessing authority and power have been unwilling to take responsibility in a timely, proper, and determined manner. We have seen how political, legal, and medical individuals or entities could serve only to facilitate and cover up misdeeds to serve their own special interests in lieu of the interests of the public. Foremost among them were Jeffrey Lieberman and the American Psychiatric Association, who chose to protect a dangerous political figure over society.
In authoritarian times, when standing up for truth can be costly, many look out primarily for themselves and cower to the ruthless, threatening, and dangerous “cult leader,” who in our situation has totally reconstituted one of the two major political parties in his own image. As a result, our institutions—be they governmental, journalistic, or academic—are failing us. Those who have the responsibility to act and lead do not seem to recognize fully that we are in this desperate situation because they themselves have failed to step up in the past and are continuing to do so now. The more time passes, the harder it will only become. And again, foremost among these is the politically-driven and federally-funded, antiscientific American Psychiatric Association.
Once our ship goes down, however, it will be too late, as we will all go down with it.
It is for this reason that, starting on April 15, 2024, I will be publishing my new book, The Psychology of Trump Contagion: An Existential Threat to American Democracy and to Humankind, on this Substack page. Paid subscribers will receive one chapter per week, for a total of thirteen weeks (a sneak preview of the content is in my recent interview with Scott Dworkin).
As many of my readers know, I believe that the current political crisis is actually a mental health crisis, which was fully preventable, since it was fully foreseeable—and with in-depth knowledge and understanding, there was and still is much we could do! My book aims to help counter many of the lies, disinformation, and indeed psychological violence that are underpinning these dystopian times.
Things have greatly advanced since 2017, when I first organized my conference at Yale School of Medicine and published the proceedings in an unprecedented New York Times bestseller of its kind, The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 27 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President. The problem has now expanded and metastasized to involve the whole society, as we already began warning against at our 2019 National Press Club, C-Span broadcast event, “The Dangerous State of the World and the Need for Fit Leadership.” In fact, the current societal mental health crisis is crippling all other endeavors—which is one of the consequences of what I have been calling, “Trump Contagion.”
The statue on the right of the main entrance of the National Archives in Washington, DC, bears the inscription: “Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.” I have always believed that, with vigilance, intelligence, and public empowerment through education, we could extract ourselves from this public mental health crisis and refrain from surrendering our 250 years of precious freedom to a mentally-impaired, pathological, would-be dictator. This is the essential message of my book, which you will receive, chapter by chapter each week, once you become a paid subscriber (or please contribute what you can—even become a Founding Subscriber—as your contributions will be applied toward organizing the next emergency National Press Club event, scheduled for September 2024). Thank you again for all your support!
*** To be released, one chapter per week, beginning on April 15, 2024 ***
The Psychology of Trump Contagion:
An Existential Threat to American Democracy and All Humankind
By Bandy X. Lee, M.D., M.Div.
Chapter 1. Introduction: What does mental health have to do with it?
Chapter 2. ‘The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump’ in 2017
Chapter 3. Contagion and ‘the More Dangerous Case of Donald Trump’
Chapter 4. ‘The Much More Dangerous Case of Donald Trump,’ from Covid to Coup
Chapter 5. Election 2024 and ‘the Extremely Dangerous Case of Donald Trump’
Chapter 6. What is ‘Trump Contagion,’ and What is ‘Shared Psychosis’?
Chapter 7. ‘Narcissistic Symbiosis’ and an Epidemic of ‘Sociopathy’
Chapter 8. Institutional Complicity and Individual Corruption
Chapter 9. Societal Disorder through an Unfit ‘Leader’
Chapter 10. First Solution: Accountability and Limit Setting
Chapter 11. Second Solution: Norms, Standards, and Public Empowerment
Chapter 12. Third Solution: Societal Health, Thriving, and Democracy
Chapter 13. Ultimate Solution: A New Paradigm
About the Author:
Bandy X. Lee, M.D., M.Div., is a forensic psychiatrist, social psychiatrist, and expert on violence. She is president of the World Mental Health Coalition, co-founder of the Violence Prevention Institute, and project leader for the Violence Prevention Alliance of the World Health Organization (WHO). She served as director of research for Harvard’s Center for the Study of Violence, as well as co-founded Yale’s Violence and Health Working Group at the MacMillan Center for International Studies. She was also research fellow of the National Institute of Mental Health and recipient of the National Research Service Award. She taught at Yale School of Medicine and Yale Law School for 17 years before transferring to Harvard Medical School, where she is faculty member of the Harvard Program in Psychiatry and the Law. She has consulted with governments on prison reform and community violence prevention, such as for France, Ireland, Alabama, California, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York, and the U.S. Senate. She also played a key role in initiating reforms at Rikers Island, a correctional facility in New York City known for extreme levels of violence. She authored a widely-used, authoritative textbook, Violence: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Causes, Consequences, and Cures (Wiley-Blackwell, 2019). She published over 100 peer-reviewed articles and chapters, 17 edited scholarly books and journal special issues, and over 300 op-eds in outlets such as the Guardian, the New York Times, the Boston Globe, the Independent, and Politico. In addition to the WHO, she has served as an expert consultant for the United Nations, UNESCO, and the World Economic Forum.
It is unmistakably clear that Dr. Bandy Lee was absolutely correct in her forewarnings about Donald Trump. It has now become unmistakably obvious that Donald Trump lacks any traits desirable in a President and that he has an astonishing configuration of most every conceivable undesirable trait that one could assemble in a President. Trump is scary, but his millions of followers and their cult-like following of him is even more scary. Trump has likely caused great harm to the zeitgeist in America and it may take decades or generations to restore it to some level of normalcy.
Would it be possible to give some insight or comment on the possibility that there is more going on than just a malignant narcissist that can fool not just the poorly educated but has been able to take over a political party along w many educated and ranking politicos that do not like him or have the same conservatism. That is, what explains this “getting in line”. I honestly believe he running his campaign ( as well as his previous administration) like an organized crime syndicate. Do you think there are threats to these people as well as their families? Supposedly some young women he and Epstein “knew” are no where to be found.