Tag: Trump insurretion

Trump’s Defense Shoves His Biggest Supporters Under The Bus

During the impeachment trial, former President Donald Trump’s attorneys argued that “no thinking person” would take his words literally.

Former President Donald Trump convinced his supporters of the big lie that the 2020 election was stolen. He warned that if they didn’t “fight like hell,” they were “not going to have a country anymore.” He told them to march to the Capitol.

And now that many of those supporters have been charged in connection with the Capitol insurrection while he watches his impeachment trial unfold from Mar-a-Lago, Trump is abandoning them. 

During Trump’s second impeachment trial before the Senate, his legal team argued Friday that the ex-president didn’t really encourage his supporters to go to the Capitol to stop lawmakers from certifying the election.  Continue reading.

Mental health experts: Given Trump’s psychopathology, last week’s coup attempt was wholly predictable

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Of course, the media environment was set up for the likes of Trump. America is filled with racism, sexism, and hatred, and with mass media outlets like Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News that have no responsibility to the truth. The Fairness Doctrine, which used to protect us, was repealed decades ago by the Federal Communications Commission under Ronald Reagan, and in place of fairness jumped right-wing extremism. Social media platforms, including Twitter, Facebook, and Parler, also played a major role.

Yet Trump posed a special challenge. Into the brew of hatred and racism came a mentally disordered individual with a knack for self-promotion. Trump was not merely conniving, and that’s the point. He suffers from severe impairments, including characteristics of sociopathy, pathological narcissism, and sadism. A mentally disordered leader in a country filled with inequalities and a mass media environment promoting extremism led to a terrifying situation.

Mental health professionals started to warn Americans about Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign, but they were shut down by none other than a professional organization of their own, the American Psychiatric Association. The APA was unique among mental health associations to adopt the so-called Goldwater Rule, which resulted from Barry Goldwater’s 1964 presidential campaign, when some psychiatrists questioned Goldwater’s mental health fitness for office. After that, the APA decreed that it was unethical for mental health professionals to diagnose public figures without a personal examination and without consent. Continue reading.