Unhinged and Unleashed

What Happens when a Mental Health Problem Goes Unchecked

Donald Trump underestimated when he said he could “shoot someone on Fifth Avenue” and not face any consequences.  He would have more accurately said he could “kill a million people” and still not face consequences.

As Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s probe into his hush money payment to Stormy Daniels progressed, Trump called on his supporters to “PROTEST, TAKE OUR NATION BACK!”  He claimed that “RADICAL LEFT LUNATICS” and “THE GESTAPO” were coming to get him, led by a “Degenerate psychopath,” posting an image of himself holding a bat next to a head shot of Bragg, who has received death threats.

As if answering his “call”, three House committees are now posturing to interfere with a state investigation in unprecedented ways.  Meanwhile, Trump held the first rally of his 2024 campaign in Waco, Texas, a pilgrimage site for extremists, to indulge his fantasies of victimhood and mass sacrifice—where dozens lost their lives while trying to protect a cult leader from federal law enforcement thirty years ago.

In order to understand how the unthinkable became normal, it is useful to consider the importance of early intervention in a public health outbreak.  Until direct remedies are available, education is the most effective weapon against any contagious disease.  If not implemented early and correctly, however, the disease can spread exponentially, an epidemic turn into a pandemic, and mutations occur so that the initial outbreak now has multiple variations.

When the American Psychiatric Association created a false gag order for Donald Trump at the very beginning, it effectively deprived the public of vitally-needed mental health education and intervention.  As a result, “Trumpism” spread exponentially, becoming a “pandemic” and infiltrating almost every institution.  1.15 million Covid deaths, a democracy in shambles, and a culture of bullying, violence, and abuse may all be traced back to this origin.

The American Psychiatric Association’s (APA’s) ethos under the Trump presidency was not one of ethics but of acquiescence to a new dominance-subordination hierarchy.  The organization used its special knowledge like an insider trader pulling out stocks before collapse, rather than as a professional association that had a role in a public mental health crisis, as its own ethics guideline requires.  The APA needs to publicly own its error in creating a false “ethic” (which actually violates medical ethics), which in truth forces every mental health expert in the country to subordinate to power rather than to one’s professional conscience and contribution to society.