The More Dangerous Case of Donald Trump

We Cannot Simply Hope that He will Not Return to the White House

As much as we would like to believe that Donald Trump will not return to the White House, it could actually happen, if we do not remain vigilant.  What about all the legal crimes and gross ethical misconduct?  These are badges of honor, if there are no consequences. He and his followers will be celebrating this January 6, 2023.

I remember in November 2016, on the morning after his election, how my phone kept ringing and my email kept bleeping.  Friends, peers, and members of the public were shocked as well as afraid.  Right away, my colleagues and I began organizing and within months held our conference at Yale that led a few months later to our book that tried to warn the nation—The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 27 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President.

We warn the nation again, for his second election would be even more dangerous.

Even if the Trump Contagion, on which I have spoken and written extensively, does not spread further, we are in a sense already in a psychiatric pandemic.  Even with his serious mental impairments—or rather because of them—Donald Trump is a master par excellence at relentless manipulation.  He has spent a lifetime, Harry Houdini-like, practicing his escape from innumerable lies, deceits, and crimes.  And in our society as well as internationally, there are many who know how to manipulate him, for their own reasons, and will wish to do so again.  We know from articles like this that his comeback is being vigorously prepared.

Pathology can appear incredibly effective at achieving its goals, which are not what the afflicted person believes they are: the destruction of society, others, and oneself. It tests our trust that we can be healthy again, but health is stronger—and true resistance can defeat seemingly relentless progressions of disease.