I recently listened to Hakeem Jeffries calling for a Congressional Independent Panel to review the 25th. Amendment - Section 4. Dr Lee, your book “Duty to Warn - The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump” was an eye opener - available free 24/7 at your local library link to HOOPLA - free ! stay safe - glad you were able to surface again -
Dr. Lee, ty for continuing to write and post. This all helps us to continue with the advocacy initiative of the need for mental health intervention. Not sure if I mentioned it, but I gave your book Trump Contagion to Senator Booker's staffer at the town hall on Sat. I had my hand raised to discuss mental health but wasn't chosen to ask my question. His staff did agree to connect me with their Healthcare staffer. I always learn something new from your posts. Ty again for all you are doing. You provide me Hope.
TR ty for sharing about Hakeem Jeffries wanting to call for an independent Panel....I am going to call his office. Do you recall what article or what host on You Tube he was speaking with? I will look and see if I can find it. I will also share this info with my upcoming call with Sen Andy Kim's staff tomorrow.
Thank you Dr Lee, I hope the morning sun rises with you feeling good immensely loved and highly regarded by so many. I espeically want to thank you from my heart. The light in me honors the light in you ✨️!! I have almost all your books and read them and mark them and posting note them. I have come to more mpments of insight and self reflection and self awareness awareness. As I've shared this macrocosmic and microcosmic relationships playing out in my life is lofe affirming when able to have the knowledge that Dr Lee has so generously shared on substack and your weekly zoom!! Much gratitude for your compassionate heart and love and care for ALL. I share your articles far and wide ❤️
Bandy, the recrudescing of a more powerful, state tyranny by this Trump regime does, almost naturally, take the form of Christo-fascism, signally because Trump shared psychosis operates omnipotently by anointing MAGA-Trumpism as that Americanism under a new incarnation of divine dispensation, the embodiment in Trump of the ‘popular sovereignty’, ‘sacralized nationhood’ and ‘social imaginary’ (see the writings of Yale Law Professor and philosopher Paul Kahn) forged by white Christian theocratic nationalism. So, with wicked irony, this devolution has brought us full-circle to the point where the original cause animating English religious exiles to seek an overseas colony, followed by a revolution and the founding of a novel democratic Constitutional republic -- namely, escaping the domination and oppression of a state Established Church -- has now been effectively reversed as the irrationalist and illiberal crusade underway trashes that republic and replaces it with the Established Church of the sacralized nation of Christo-fascist-theocratic Trumpism.
Normally, I would decline to respond to someone so morally depraved as to dehumanize an interlocutor with the aspersion of 'cockroach'. However, in your case I offer the undeservedly respectful reply that, contra your delusions, I am highly literate and well-educated, having assimilated copious philosophical and related texts in my decades of study and reflection. Among those is the Marxian corpus, as well as that of neo-Marxist, Frankfurt School and kindred critical thinkers such as Adorno, Horkheimer, Marcuse, Fromm, Habermas and Thomas McCarthy, etc. I recommend Terry Eagleton's "Why Marx Was Right" for starters.
I would never use AI in lieu of deploying my own cognitive and imaginative skills, since to do so is to prostrate oneself before a machine that cannot truly replicate human thought and certainly not the nearly infinite variability and nuance of meaning embedded in human emotion and creativity.
There is no question whether Trump Derangement Syndrome. Most definitely it does; Trump is deranged. Sadly, it is compounded by L.D.S. (I.e., little dork syndrome). 😉
We are possibly headed toward one of two likely outcomes. 1st, that our republic is already gone. 2nd, we are at the 'Bleeding Kansas' inflection point of another civil war.🤔
In 1848, Vice President John C. Calhoun, of all people, addressed the first point: "The [500-year] Republic had in reality ceased to exist long before the establishment of the [Roman] Empire. The interval was filled by ferocious, corrupt, and bloody factions. There was, indeed, a small but patriotic body of eminent individuals who struggled in vain to correct abuses and to restore the government to its . . . purity, and who sacrificed their lives in their endeavors to accomplish and object so virtuous and noble.” 💔
In 1875, President Grant foretold the second point: "If we are to have another contest in the near future of our national existence, I predict that the dividing line will not be Mason & Dixon, but between patriotism & intelligence on the one side & superstition, ambition & ignorance on the other." 😱
Bold initiatives may avert a civil conflict; they are risky for they may precipitate said violence. One idea to consider would be pre-impoundment, by the blue states subsidizing red state belligerence, of taxes owing to the national government. https://www.axios.com/2025/02/12/states-money-federal-government
=====
Time for the blue states to break the bank-transfer links from employers to D.C.; to collect the taxes in their capitals; and, withhold tax funds. Release to D.C. AT MOST the receipts from D.C. in the previous year (to eliminate the overage that blue states send to D.C. to subsidize red states). 🛑
Additionally, when Trump tries to drumpf a blue state of disaster relief funds, for example, then that state applies withheld tax funds to fund said relief. and forwards the net balance to Washington. Many people, will undoubtedly blow a gasket. (Like the Trumpanzee fake news about water released in California.) ⚖️
They may not understand human nature and conflict. They fail to account for stated Trumpian behavior and to anticipate where that authoritarianism is headed. 😵
The hearing for the nominee to direct the O.M.B. revealed open talk within the M.A.G.A. brain-drain, if not yet practice, of impoundment (e.g., suspending or ending F.E.M.A. operations). 😲
Now, with his diktat from the O.M.B., that practice has started the Trumpian attempt to shred the Constitution in favor of divine-right insanity. Where will funds for grants and agencies relegated to formaldehyde go? 🤢
Theorizing about what might cause a civil war over a wire transfer mechanism, when such civil disorder has likely started, is as brilliant as trying to bail out the Titanic with a tea-spoon. The Great Civil War of the nineteenth century did not start at Fort Sumter or even with secession; its started five years earlier with Bleeding Kansas. 😰
Now, this particular idea may not work. But some form of it can at least support initiatives. We need ideas to break down and re-assemble or refine in muscular non-violent responses if we are to avoid civil war. Or, maybe John Brown was right, after all. 😱
I "liked," but still wonder about how impervious the MAGAts can be to anything that might show destructive dedication to Trump. I'm thinking of those people who were driven with such individualistic/freedom-loving fervor not to wear masks during the pandemic and that many among them even died as a result. But of course (see election 2024), not even that horror seemed to make much of a difference to them. I'm also thinking of Jonestown, while now it can endanger more than just the MAGAt cult members. (There is also the tremendous help that the Biden administration had go to many blue states--totally disregarded by them in their madness.)
I am reminded of Germans hanging on to the bitter end in April 1945. That is why I am afraid that there will be a civil war. It seems to me that there were three components to Trump's base in 2024:
> hard-core M.A.G.A. types who have been around all along and mobilized by Trump's hateful rhetoric and policies;
> people who believe the republican experiment has given up on them; as well as,
> voters fed up with career politicians and seeking some reform, any reform.
I do not know the proportions of these groups, or if the break-down is correct. One thing for sure: the three per cent of the people who own fifty per cent of the guns likely voted for Trump.
I "liked" and sadly, basically agree. My reply had to do with those diehards who might likely react ("reactionary") with increased defensiveness. I also agree that there is always a percentage of people in populations who are what my father called "kooks" and whom Trump has now diabolically mobilized. There's the old saying, "If you don't recognize the con, then you're the mark." And as a psychologist, I know that there are also people who live for conflict and dangerously have nothing to do with peaceful change. Not coincidentally, the prime example is Trump himself, which in one of his accurate-stopped-clock-once-a-day moments he openly bragged. Sick!
I did miss the answer to you. Richard. Thank you for answering back; I went off the rails. The hard-core M.A.G.A. types -- the kooks -- will only get more defensive. I see it in call-in shows, to C-Span; these M.A.G.A. types attack the C-Span hosts for the net-work being biassed, which it is not.
From my onlooker's perspective, without training or expertise, I am not sure there is much one can do about that, except to contain the damage of the fragging M.A.G.A.s and to shut them down and out. You are a professional and so I defer to your approach.
Richard, I would welcome reading about it. Better yet, it would benefit many to hear your thoughts on Dr Lee's Friday calls.
Congratulation Dr Lee, the world is realizing that Trump is insane and dangerous. This recognition will now get more prominent with every passing day.
Dr Lee, we have wondered what will hold Donald Trump accountable? And it's probably the only thing that can hold him accountable - 'the primal forces of nature'. Explained in this article.
I’m traveling and in order to enjoy I am pretending Kamala Harris is President. Seriously, any opportunity I get, I will tell fellow travelers I am a Pro Democracy American. I’ll also message that the majority of Americans did not support even a semblance of what’s happening. If I get the chance I will do my best to talk about mental pathology and its devastating global impact.
Thank you, Dr. Lee, for this thought-provoking essay. The best individual and societal remedy for projected mental dysfunction and pathology is to oneself remain calm, cognitively sound and neurologically healthy. The contrast speaks volumes and minimizes excuses for jarring, abnormal behaviors, while also supporting total, routine processing. G-d bless!
Thank goodness for brave voices like yours- let them be amplified. Very true that fascists usurp "concepts (and language) that people rally around." This: “There could be no more heinous betrayal of American values than to use the law to terrorize the innocent and reward the wicked.” Noble words but twisted because they were uttered by Trump speaking to Reporters on 3/21/25.
Dr Bandy - I would very much appreciate it if you could contact me on clairhuthwaite@gmail.com I am in the middle of a court case in Northern Ireland. The judge has agreed I can get a complete psychological report from any Dr as long as he approves. I would like to go to someone outside the jurisdiction. Please please could you recommend someone. thanks
Normally, I would decline to respond to someone so morally depraved as to dehumanize an interlocutor with the aspersion of 'cockroach'. However, in your case I offer the undeservedly respectful reply that, contra your delusions, I am highly literate and well-educated, having assimilated copious philosophical and related texts in my decades of study and reflection. Among those is the Marxian corpus, as well as that of neo-Marxist, Frankfurt School and kindred critical thinkers such as Adorno, Horkheimer, Marcuse, Fromm, Habermas and Thomas McCarthy, etc. I recommend Terry Eagleton's "Why Marx Was Right" for starters.
I recently listened to Hakeem Jeffries calling for a Congressional Independent Panel to review the 25th. Amendment - Section 4. Dr Lee, your book “Duty to Warn - The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump” was an eye opener - available free 24/7 at your local library link to HOOPLA - free ! stay safe - glad you were able to surface again -
Gather the experts!!!
Thank you Dr. Lee for our lesson. I fear for the future if we continue down this path.
Dr. Lee, ty for continuing to write and post. This all helps us to continue with the advocacy initiative of the need for mental health intervention. Not sure if I mentioned it, but I gave your book Trump Contagion to Senator Booker's staffer at the town hall on Sat. I had my hand raised to discuss mental health but wasn't chosen to ask my question. His staff did agree to connect me with their Healthcare staffer. I always learn something new from your posts. Ty again for all you are doing. You provide me Hope.
TR ty for sharing about Hakeem Jeffries wanting to call for an independent Panel....I am going to call his office. Do you recall what article or what host on You Tube he was speaking with? I will look and see if I can find it. I will also share this info with my upcoming call with Sen Andy Kim's staff tomorrow.
Thank you Dr Lee, I hope the morning sun rises with you feeling good immensely loved and highly regarded by so many. I espeically want to thank you from my heart. The light in me honors the light in you ✨️!! I have almost all your books and read them and mark them and posting note them. I have come to more mpments of insight and self reflection and self awareness awareness. As I've shared this macrocosmic and microcosmic relationships playing out in my life is lofe affirming when able to have the knowledge that Dr Lee has so generously shared on substack and your weekly zoom!! Much gratitude for your compassionate heart and love and care for ALL. I share your articles far and wide ❤️
Namaste'
Bandy, the recrudescing of a more powerful, state tyranny by this Trump regime does, almost naturally, take the form of Christo-fascism, signally because Trump shared psychosis operates omnipotently by anointing MAGA-Trumpism as that Americanism under a new incarnation of divine dispensation, the embodiment in Trump of the ‘popular sovereignty’, ‘sacralized nationhood’ and ‘social imaginary’ (see the writings of Yale Law Professor and philosopher Paul Kahn) forged by white Christian theocratic nationalism. So, with wicked irony, this devolution has brought us full-circle to the point where the original cause animating English religious exiles to seek an overseas colony, followed by a revolution and the founding of a novel democratic Constitutional republic -- namely, escaping the domination and oppression of a state Established Church -- has now been effectively reversed as the irrationalist and illiberal crusade underway trashes that republic and replaces it with the Established Church of the sacralized nation of Christo-fascist-theocratic Trumpism.
Normally, I would decline to respond to someone so morally depraved as to dehumanize an interlocutor with the aspersion of 'cockroach'. However, in your case I offer the undeservedly respectful reply that, contra your delusions, I am highly literate and well-educated, having assimilated copious philosophical and related texts in my decades of study and reflection. Among those is the Marxian corpus, as well as that of neo-Marxist, Frankfurt School and kindred critical thinkers such as Adorno, Horkheimer, Marcuse, Fromm, Habermas and Thomas McCarthy, etc. I recommend Terry Eagleton's "Why Marx Was Right" for starters.
I would never use AI in lieu of deploying my own cognitive and imaginative skills, since to do so is to prostrate oneself before a machine that cannot truly replicate human thought and certainly not the nearly infinite variability and nuance of meaning embedded in human emotion and creativity.
But I believe that it is MAGA who has Trump derangement syndrome.
EDIT P.S., thank you, Dr Lee, for the timely warning; fine writing and thinking, as always.✍️⚖️🤝
Inasmuch as the joke below may elicit a chuckle, we need to quit fooling ourselves. We have a traitor and bent vice president in the 0val 0ffice. 🤬https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7311612324933500928/
There is no question whether Trump Derangement Syndrome. Most definitely it does; Trump is deranged. Sadly, it is compounded by L.D.S. (I.e., little dork syndrome). 😉
We are possibly headed toward one of two likely outcomes. 1st, that our republic is already gone. 2nd, we are at the 'Bleeding Kansas' inflection point of another civil war.🤔
In 1848, Vice President John C. Calhoun, of all people, addressed the first point: "The [500-year] Republic had in reality ceased to exist long before the establishment of the [Roman] Empire. The interval was filled by ferocious, corrupt, and bloody factions. There was, indeed, a small but patriotic body of eminent individuals who struggled in vain to correct abuses and to restore the government to its . . . purity, and who sacrificed their lives in their endeavors to accomplish and object so virtuous and noble.” 💔
In 1875, President Grant foretold the second point: "If we are to have another contest in the near future of our national existence, I predict that the dividing line will not be Mason & Dixon, but between patriotism & intelligence on the one side & superstition, ambition & ignorance on the other." 😱
Bold initiatives may avert a civil conflict; they are risky for they may precipitate said violence. One idea to consider would be pre-impoundment, by the blue states subsidizing red state belligerence, of taxes owing to the national government. https://www.axios.com/2025/02/12/states-money-federal-government
=====
Time for the blue states to break the bank-transfer links from employers to D.C.; to collect the taxes in their capitals; and, withhold tax funds. Release to D.C. AT MOST the receipts from D.C. in the previous year (to eliminate the overage that blue states send to D.C. to subsidize red states). 🛑
Additionally, when Trump tries to drumpf a blue state of disaster relief funds, for example, then that state applies withheld tax funds to fund said relief. and forwards the net balance to Washington. Many people, will undoubtedly blow a gasket. (Like the Trumpanzee fake news about water released in California.) ⚖️
They may not understand human nature and conflict. They fail to account for stated Trumpian behavior and to anticipate where that authoritarianism is headed. 😵
The hearing for the nominee to direct the O.M.B. revealed open talk within the M.A.G.A. brain-drain, if not yet practice, of impoundment (e.g., suspending or ending F.E.M.A. operations). 😲
Now, with his diktat from the O.M.B., that practice has started the Trumpian attempt to shred the Constitution in favor of divine-right insanity. Where will funds for grants and agencies relegated to formaldehyde go? 🤢
Theorizing about what might cause a civil war over a wire transfer mechanism, when such civil disorder has likely started, is as brilliant as trying to bail out the Titanic with a tea-spoon. The Great Civil War of the nineteenth century did not start at Fort Sumter or even with secession; its started five years earlier with Bleeding Kansas. 😰
Now, this particular idea may not work. But some form of it can at least support initiatives. We need ideas to break down and re-assemble or refine in muscular non-violent responses if we are to avoid civil war. Or, maybe John Brown was right, after all. 😱
I "liked," but still wonder about how impervious the MAGAts can be to anything that might show destructive dedication to Trump. I'm thinking of those people who were driven with such individualistic/freedom-loving fervor not to wear masks during the pandemic and that many among them even died as a result. But of course (see election 2024), not even that horror seemed to make much of a difference to them. I'm also thinking of Jonestown, while now it can endanger more than just the MAGAt cult members. (There is also the tremendous help that the Biden administration had go to many blue states--totally disregarded by them in their madness.)
I am reminded of Germans hanging on to the bitter end in April 1945. That is why I am afraid that there will be a civil war. It seems to me that there were three components to Trump's base in 2024:
> hard-core M.A.G.A. types who have been around all along and mobilized by Trump's hateful rhetoric and policies;
> people who believe the republican experiment has given up on them; as well as,
> voters fed up with career politicians and seeking some reform, any reform.
I do not know the proportions of these groups, or if the break-down is correct. One thing for sure: the three per cent of the people who own fifty per cent of the guns likely voted for Trump.
I "liked" and sadly, basically agree. My reply had to do with those diehards who might likely react ("reactionary") with increased defensiveness. I also agree that there is always a percentage of people in populations who are what my father called "kooks" and whom Trump has now diabolically mobilized. There's the old saying, "If you don't recognize the con, then you're the mark." And as a psychologist, I know that there are also people who live for conflict and dangerously have nothing to do with peaceful change. Not coincidentally, the prime example is Trump himself, which in one of his accurate-stopped-clock-once-a-day moments he openly bragged. Sick!
I did miss the answer to you. Richard. Thank you for answering back; I went off the rails. The hard-core M.A.G.A. types -- the kooks -- will only get more defensive. I see it in call-in shows, to C-Span; these M.A.G.A. types attack the C-Span hosts for the net-work being biassed, which it is not.
From my onlooker's perspective, without training or expertise, I am not sure there is much one can do about that, except to contain the damage of the fragging M.A.G.A.s and to shut them down and out. You are a professional and so I defer to your approach.
Richard, I would welcome reading about it. Better yet, it would benefit many to hear your thoughts on Dr Lee's Friday calls.
Here is a ninety year old poem I chanced upon -- golly, what a chance! -- this a.m. that captures the current feeling for me: https://allpoetry.com/Let-America-Be-America-Again. And while I am at it, Artie Shaw captures the mood, too, from eighty seven years ago: https://youtu.be/-vbghyhIZCk.
We need a marketing strategy for Dr Lee.
Congratulation Dr Lee, the world is realizing that Trump is insane and dangerous. This recognition will now get more prominent with every passing day.
Dr Lee, we have wondered what will hold Donald Trump accountable? And it's probably the only thing that can hold him accountable - 'the primal forces of nature'. Explained in this article.
Last 'Checks and Balances' against Trump
https://3rdworldecon.substack.com/p/last-checks-and-balances-against
I’m assuming he scored high on the Psycopathy Checklist. Not at all surprising.
I’m traveling and in order to enjoy I am pretending Kamala Harris is President. Seriously, any opportunity I get, I will tell fellow travelers I am a Pro Democracy American. I’ll also message that the majority of Americans did not support even a semblance of what’s happening. If I get the chance I will do my best to talk about mental pathology and its devastating global impact.
Thank you, Dr. Lee, for this thought-provoking essay. The best individual and societal remedy for projected mental dysfunction and pathology is to oneself remain calm, cognitively sound and neurologically healthy. The contrast speaks volumes and minimizes excuses for jarring, abnormal behaviors, while also supporting total, routine processing. G-d bless!
Thank goodness for brave voices like yours- let them be amplified. Very true that fascists usurp "concepts (and language) that people rally around." This: “There could be no more heinous betrayal of American values than to use the law to terrorize the innocent and reward the wicked.” Noble words but twisted because they were uttered by Trump speaking to Reporters on 3/21/25.
Dr Bandy - I would very much appreciate it if you could contact me on clairhuthwaite@gmail.com I am in the middle of a court case in Northern Ireland. The judge has agreed I can get a complete psychological report from any Dr as long as he approves. I would like to go to someone outside the jurisdiction. Please please could you recommend someone. thanks
Absolutely Dr. Bandy. Exactly.
Normally, I would decline to respond to someone so morally depraved as to dehumanize an interlocutor with the aspersion of 'cockroach'. However, in your case I offer the undeservedly respectful reply that, contra your delusions, I am highly literate and well-educated, having assimilated copious philosophical and related texts in my decades of study and reflection. Among those is the Marxian corpus, as well as that of neo-Marxist, Frankfurt School and kindred critical thinkers such as Adorno, Horkheimer, Marcuse, Fromm, Habermas and Thomas McCarthy, etc. I recommend Terry Eagleton's "Why Marx Was Right" for starters.