02-15-2017, 04:08 PM
For all sorts of reasons, the search for a psychiatric diagnosis is not a good way to unseat the Orange Mandarin.
1) Medical diagnoses are designed to benefit the ill person, which is why it is an ethical problem for practitioners to diagnose non-patients for political purposes.
2) Diagnosis of mental illness is vulnerable to all sorts of abuse when applied to politics. Remember that it was a common Soviet practice to institutionalize political dissidents based on the premise that dissidence was a symptom of psychiatric disease.
3) Trump may or may not have crossed the line between Narcissistic Personality to Narcissistic Personality Disorder, but it doesn't really matter. His behavior is destructive to others and to the country, regardless of whether it is destructive to himself.
4) The concept of Narcissistic Personality is useful politically because it gives us a framework to understand otherwise baffling behavior, and therefore a framework for resisting that behavior and unseating the man. The term "Narcissistic Personality" is not so much a battle cry as a basis for a strategy. It is also a useful concept for reminding us that Trump is the one who is behaving badly, and that resistance is NOT bad behavior.
5) Trump will ultimately be unseated based on the bad behavior that his Narcissistic Personality has led him into. The name-calling alone will not do it.
6) In the long run, Trump's behavior will probably be seen to be so self-destructive that a full diagnosis of Narcissistic Personality Disorder will be justified. Nevertheless the behavior itself is the best place for political focus.
1) Medical diagnoses are designed to benefit the ill person, which is why it is an ethical problem for practitioners to diagnose non-patients for political purposes.
2) Diagnosis of mental illness is vulnerable to all sorts of abuse when applied to politics. Remember that it was a common Soviet practice to institutionalize political dissidents based on the premise that dissidence was a symptom of psychiatric disease.
3) Trump may or may not have crossed the line between Narcissistic Personality to Narcissistic Personality Disorder, but it doesn't really matter. His behavior is destructive to others and to the country, regardless of whether it is destructive to himself.
4) The concept of Narcissistic Personality is useful politically because it gives us a framework to understand otherwise baffling behavior, and therefore a framework for resisting that behavior and unseating the man. The term "Narcissistic Personality" is not so much a battle cry as a basis for a strategy. It is also a useful concept for reminding us that Trump is the one who is behaving badly, and that resistance is NOT bad behavior.
5) Trump will ultimately be unseated based on the bad behavior that his Narcissistic Personality has led him into. The name-calling alone will not do it.
6) In the long run, Trump's behavior will probably be seen to be so self-destructive that a full diagnosis of Narcissistic Personality Disorder will be justified. Nevertheless the behavior itself is the best place for political focus.