Containing ‘Trump Contagion,’ Part 2

As We Shall Soon See, All We Had to do was Hold Donald Trump Accountable

Justice Arthur Engoron delivered Donald Trump a crushing defeat with his verdict on February 16, 2024, when he ordered Trump to pay 355 million dollars plus interest, pushing the total to exceed 450 million dollars, in a civil fraud case.  This carries extraordinary significance, for it is precisely the kind of “containment” I and other mental health experts have been advocating for years—and it discredits, above all, his method of hinging everything on a false façade. It is interesting that a New York trial court (which New York uniquely calls “supreme court,” and hence “Justice” Engoron) would take on what the presidential cabinet, the U.S. Congress, and the U.S. Department of Justice failed to do.

Finally, someone did his (and her, for we cannot forget Attorney General Letitia James) job!  And it is powerful when principle is upheld before person of power.  This is the democratic ideal and, contrary to what those who would scheme and hoard believe, the source of prosperity, authority, and strength.  We have nothing to blame for America’s decline but the loss of belief in this principium.

This is what Mike Pence, Mitch McConnell, Merrick Garland, and the American Psychiatric Association (and I would add Yale and the Connecticut District Court) failed to recognize when they decided to “go along to get along” with a dangerous criminal and fraud.

We will soon find that all that we had to do to stop the chaos, the violent upheavals, the collective psychosis, the crisis of democracy, and the destabilization of the globe was to contain the destructive Trump Contagion.  Like any out-of-control, exponential spread of malignancy, we may not be able to contain it all at this late stage, but we can do a lot by getting at the source.  And we have to continue.

”No matter how rich, powerful or politically connected you are, everyone must play by the same rules,” James laid bare.  “White-collar financial fraud is not a victimless crime.  When the powerful break the law and take more than their fair share, there are fewer resources available for working people, small businesses, and families.”  Not only that, structural violence—which such fraud creates—is responsible for far greater numbers of premature deaths than all the suicides, homicides, and collective violence combined.  It is also the greatest stimulant of behavioral violence.  Therefore, holding Donald Trump accountable not only contains him but curtails his massive influence by imitation and his spread of mayhem.

Engoron was also cogently candid when he said Donald Trump’s “complete lack of contrition and remorse borders on pathological.”  In my assessments, before looking at any evidence, this lack almost always gives away the degree of criminality, in my twenty-five years of specializing in evaluating violent offenders (what is most impressive upon entering any maximum-security prison is that there are never any perpetrators—only victims—for no amount of heinous vengeance can assuage a violent offender’s sense of “victimhood”, which is how they usually start perpetrating in the first place).

Engoron added that Donald Trump’s refusal to admit error left him with no choice but to conclude that the former president would continue to commit fraud unless he was stopped—which is what mental health experts have been saying for years!

A member of the public wrote to me a couple weeks ago:

Dr. Lee, I was very happy to see the 25 historical scholars send the U.S. Supreme Court a brief on their position that Trump is ineligible to hold any office, including the Presidency, ever again in this country.  Thanks to you, people are finally waking up and speaking out in favor of our democracy.  I wish that MSNBC, CNN, and others would have you on air….  One thing that Americans need to understand better is how what Trump is saying is a projection of him when he speaks of others—and of them when he speaks of himself.  You have shed the light on this many years ago.  What may help the people of this country and the world understand better is by showing them.  Take for instance the peaceful protest when Trump was President in DC.  Then he marched his people out, held the Bible, and unleashed his violence on a peaceful protest.  Much the same in Portland.  Yet, when he orchestrated his march to the capital and witnessed the violence in his rioters, he sat and did nothing.  These videos should be shown in each context….

Thanks to you, others are taking a willing position for what they understand is best for our fellow American’s and American democracy.  I’m sorry you’ve had to go through what you did—with the APA, losing your position at Yale, and who knows what threats and intimidation you’ve had to go through over the years.   To be silent is to be complicit.  Thank you, Dr Lee.

It is a matter we must tackle from all directions: legal, constitutional, educational, and by personal example.  It is because, at the base, it is about not succumbing to mental pathology.  If we can stand our ground, act with conviction, and contain the aggressive forces by saying: “Conspiring to inflate one’s net worth by billions, unjustly enriching oneself through fraud, cheating the system through fantastical claims, and manipulating the masses to get oneself elected is not okay!”—we can finally regain our bearings, our collective sanity, and our democracy.

While I have been invited to do several interviews on the recent ruckus over Joe Biden’s mental capacity, I have continued to emphasize that Donald Trump’s psychological dangerousness is “no comparison.”  I will use this occasion to respond also to an objection I received from the public: “I like so many conclude that Biden and his Administration are complicitous in genocide in the Middle East….  A very comprehensive poll [concluded that if] Biden is the Democratic Party’s candidate, the incumbency does not work to his advantage, and the chances of returning to the White House look slim at best.  [Also, a] CNN ‘Fact Checker’ Slams Biden Point-by-Point.  So, for me, Biden [is] progressively cognitively declining at same time [as] he is self-servingly and egotistically willing to risk Trump becoming president again….  I understand why it seems you have been very reluctant to strongly speak out about Biden.  If our choice is, as seems to be the case, Biden or Trump, it’s the much lesser evil you understandably want people to choose.  [In one of your recent essays, you said] the choice between the two is not a difficult one, even though, to use your term, ‘not ideal.’  But Dr. Lee, I wonder if at this point, while there is still time, whether you should be using your special influence and credibility and insights to be advocating Biden stepping aside.”  I concede that both candidates are at risk of endangering us all, even terminally.  However, only one of them is endangering us by a mental unfitness that lays the groundwork for perpetual war, whereas the other endangers us through complicity with a dangerous war machine.  Perhaps this would serve as a great occasion to ask both candidates to step aside!  Certainly, out of a population of 340,000,000, we could come up with better choices than these?  Surely, in a true democracy, we should.