Trump Contagion: Burning the House Down

We Again Have a Critical Opportunity to Contain His Dangers

He is at last federally indicted—but this is no time to relent.  “The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump” is actually more dangerous than ever.

What I have been calling “Trump Contagion” is well-advanced, like any other infectious disease that is allowed to spread without limit.  If it had been properly handled long ago—which was the purpose of mental health experts publishing our book back in 2017 and doing all we have since—we would not be entering what I have also been calling a “death spiral.”

Donald Trump and his cohorts, like most other criminals who have not been contained, are now threatening to burn the house down than to face the legal consequences of what he and they have done.  No doubt, they are outraged that they are being held accountable at all—and they have already set the house on fire.  Yet, even with the eight years that the nation has had to learn about Trump’s propensity for violence, it has not managed to gather the necessary fire-fighting equipment and the wherewithal to deal with the situation we are now finding ourselves in.

This is precisely why I and my colleagues believed that our expertise was critical for the public to prevent such crises and to protect itself.  When pundits were saying with his inauguration that he would “pivot” to being more presidential, we would have been able to say: “This will not happen!”  When, in 2018, people believed that our institutions would hold and not fall into autocracy, we could have said: “Only if we stop him now!”  When, in 2019, the speaker of the House believed that only a narrow, “ironclad” case for impeachment would work, we would have advised: “The opposite is true!”

When, with the breakout of the Covid pandemic, the exponential spread was misunderstood, we could have warned: “We must intervene now to save the lives of millions!”  Finally, when the 2020 election was treated like any other, we would have said: “Violence will escalate!”

Indeed, we did all these things, but it had no influence, for early in the Trump presidency the American Psychiatric Association silenced all mental health experts from the media, pretending that we had no role in public affairs and that practitioners who did not obediently confine themselves to their private offices were “unethical”.  However, as we can now see, the knowledge of decades of scientific research and the clinical experience of hundreds of patients are not without worth.  Psychological expert knowledge would indeed have been helpful—and could have saved millions of lives, if not democracy itself.

Now, it is absolutely imperative that Donald Trump soon be indicted in Washington, DC, for the January 6, 2021, violent insurrection and coup attempt, which he played a direct role in instigating.  It is also necessary that he be indicted at the state level in Georgia, for his very significant vote tampering that contributed to the leadup to January 6.  I predicted in my book, Profile of a Nation: Trump’s Mind, America’s Soul, months before the 2020 election, that Trump “will likely refuse to concede the results, call the election a fraud, and refuse to leave office.” That is what happened.

Now, I must loudly warn again that Donald Trump must be imprisoned, along with his co-conspirators, and be removed from public exposure in order for our democracy to survive.  Also, “Trump Contagion” must be recognized, contained, expertly managed, and reversed.  Then, we must devise a psychological “prophylactic” and “vaccine” to protect us from what has now spread so widely in our country, to jeopardize our democracy and to weaken our polity.

Furthermore, we must remember that we are dealing with a public mental health problem, and that today’s situation did not start with Donald Trump.  Rather, Trump was able to grasp, manipulate, and exploit the situation of the nation’s weakened collective health and to thrust us into the “death spiral” I have been writing about.  And the corrupt forces that have to gain from the chaos and division he generates are using his mental impairments as a weapon.  His compulsive use of social media, as well as cable and streaming television, to capture attention and to twist reality into the menacing and paranoid caricature that inhabits his head becomes a vehicle for spreading his symptoms.

My warning now is not to think for a moment that Donald Trump and his cohorts are finally contained.  His carefully-delivered teleprompter speech is an example of how masterfully he can sense intuitively how to twist and turn to shirk himself out of this situation, for this is his survival skill (I have likened him to Harry Houdini before).  It is clear he also has a considerable team of writers and publicity specialists feverishly working for him.  Psychological knowledge must be mobilized for the good of society, not just its exploitation. Trump Contagion is fully ensconced with Fox, Tucker, and the rising Newsmax, as he and his followers have used “Trump Derangement Syndrome” to deflect and deny the Contagion with which he has infected our society, our political system, and our media.

In early 2018, before we were silenced, mental health experts’ warnings about Donald Trump’s dangerous mental impairments were the number one topic of national conversation. Decades of scientific scholarship and the experience of hundreds of patients are not to be discounted.  Millions of lives may not have been lost, and democracy not be so compromised, had the public had access to our expertise; we can begin now to acknowledge and mobilize the best available knowledge we have in this area, so that the future will be better.