I won’t lie to you…
It’s not a good morning,
(until Americas and journalists condemn this for what it is.)
1 The Big Lie Let us begin by calling the pile of news stories spreading the slander, libel and fake news that President Donald J. Trump is mentally disabled what it really is. It is part of a Big Lie strategy by Democrats, “the resistance”, and the mainstream news media to bring down the Trump Administration without having to win an election.
Because the term”Big Lie” itself was coined by Adolf Hitler, in his 1925 book Mein Kampf, and because the Nazis were themselves so fond of the tactic, many hesitate to use the phrase when that is exactly what is being done for fear that to do so will be attacked as comparing the Big Lie wielder to Hitler, Goebbels, or fascists. People are free to make whatever comparisons they like. Using a technique the Nazis mastered doesn’t make a group Nazis, but using a sinister, powerful propaganda weapon that honest and fair people recognize as vile and dangerous is unforgivable.
The claim that President Trump is suffering from dementia or some other form of mental disability is a big lie” by definition. Hitler called it a lie so “colossal” that no one would believe that someone “could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously.” The idea, of course, is to make it impossible for the victim of the attack to ignore the lie, and require the victim and others to deny it. The lie is given currency by the denials, and then the Big Lie propagandists can focus on the denials rather than the substance of the lie itself, of which there is none. Brilliant!
An essential element for a Big Lie to work is extreme bias and bigotry. The absence of these in sufficient measure is why other recent Big Lie attempts, such as the theory that the Bush administration bombed the Twin Towers and the Pentagon, and the Birther claims, failed. The past year has demonstrated that, thanks in part to the unAmerican efforts by Democratic leadership to undermine the legitimacy and acceptance of President Trump’s election, and a non-stop negative tone and attitude in the reporting of the news regarding his administration, a very large component of the electorate is steeped in irrational fear and hate of the President that is emotional rather than rational. That’s bigotry, and it is the fertile solid where big lies flourish.
2. Why Plan E now? Plan E is one of the rotating plans (reviewed in #5 here) embraced at various times in the past year by “the resistance” to justify overturning the 2016 election.I touched on this yesterday. Plan J, the effort to force Trump to resign in the midst of the Terror-like, Harvey Weinstein sparked witch hunt to drive from positions of power make any man who ever allegedly engaged in any sexual misconduct ranging from a gross proposition to an impulsive kiss to rape, never came close to working, even though Democrats sacrificed an iconic Congressman and a rising Senator in the effort. The death knell of Plan J was when it was revealed that Democratic supporters, including the shameless Media Matters, were paying women, through lawyers or otherwise, to make accusations and bring law suits. The decision to re-animate Plan E was the furor and media feeding frenzy surrounding Michael Wolff’s latest book of whispered gossip, pay-back, rumors and spin, “Fire and Fury.” Wolff is a muckraking entrepreneur whose past books and articles have been frequently criticized for including speculation and outright falsehoods. Never mind: the timing of a sensational best seller purporting to dish the real dirt about the chaotic early day of the Trump White House as it struggled to find its footing and the man at its center, Donald Trump was too good to pass up. Wolff is no Bob Woodward, but as they say, any port in a storm. The new narrative is that Trump is nuts, or senile, or something. He’s not right in the head. Lots of people who work with him say so (anonymously), and lots of people who would have said or done anything to stop him from being President have been saying so all along.
3. This Big Lie’s essential smaller lies.
- Prime among them is that anything new has occurred, or that there is evidence of the President’s mental/emotional unfitness that the public was not fully aware of long before they elected him. There isn’t. The re-emergence of the Plan E narrative is nothing more than a re-litigation of the campaign.
Trump critics (like me, as I variously described him during the campaign—and before–as unstable, narcissistic, infantile, stupid, deranged and worse, based on specific statements and incidents) always believed that he did not have the appropriate intellect, instincts, emotional make-up or character to lead the country, but the electorate did not agree, and that’s all that matters. Conservatives, Republicans and those just sick of the arrogance and divisiveness of the Obama administration adopted the long-accepted Democratic position, specially reinforced to get Bill Clinton (and, hopefully, his equally ethics-challenged wife) elected and keep him in office, that only results matter, not character. This coalition elected Trump despite his obvious flaws, and to some extent, because of them.
- The second attendant lie to Plan E—maybe it should be #1– is that the 25th Amendment’s Section 4 allows the Cabinet to remove any President who isn’t literally unable to function. Section 4 states,
“Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.”
Until the Democrats began pretending otherwise, no one, not legal scholars, not Constitutional experts, not people who can read English, ever interpreted “unable” to mean anything but completely disabled: a major stroke, a coma, debilitating illness. A disabled President can’t sign documents, can’t make decisions, can’t delegate, can’t hold meetings, can’t even tweet. If the definition of “unable” bleeds into “doesn’t make decisions or express himself in ways others think are wise or prudent,” then the 25th Amendment becomes an open-ended means to achieve a coup….which is the real purpose of distorting it now. Underestimating the seriousness of this effort, or its existential danger for the nation, would be mistake.
- Even if Trump were handicapped by a new mental or emotional problem, and there is no evidence that he is, Presidents battling such problems are practically the natural state of the office. Too many Presidents have suffered through various health issues, physical and mental, in the course of their terms in office to count. The 25th Amendment was not put in place to allow a coup any time a President was temporarily diminished or not in top form. Several Presidents, including Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt, suffered from clinical depression. They dealt with it. Others dealt with alcoholism, drug addiction, serious illness, narcissism, old age, and often many of these at once. FDR was dying during his entire last term, until he did in fact die.
Most of our leaders have been mentally and emotionally abnormal in one way or the other, because normal people don’t become President.
- Finally, contrary to what “the resistance” and the media are peddling, the evidence indicates that the President has been doing his job surprisingly well. Those who hate him and his policies can’t accept or admit that, but it is a matter of record. There is no legitimate, objective evidence to support Plan E. That is why this is, in reality, a Big Lie.
Exposing a Big Lie takes a Big Post. I’ll get into the fools, dunces, villains and liars next.
Ethics Alarms 
Seems Michael Wolff had a different target for his suggestion of intellectual infirmity/mental acuity in the not too distant past (02/2017).
”The Hollywood Reporter columnist and Newsweek writer told CNN’s Brian Stelter on Reliable Sources Sunday that the press goes into a ‘fit of apoplexy’ after every move from the White House — an overreaction he said damages the media’s credibility.
” ‘As we try to go after his credibility, our credibility becomes equally a problem,’ Wolff said. ‘I think individual journalists are, in many cases, having a nervous breakdown.’ ” (bolds mine)
I may have missed any recommendation that any of these journalists be “contained” for evaluation.
http://dailycaller.com/2018/01/06/psychiatrist-who-raised-concerns-about-trumps-mental-health-wants-to-contain-him-for-an-evaluation/
“…a very large componant of the electorate is steeps in irrational fear and hate of the President that is emotional rather than rational.”
Again, the real target is the people who voted for Trump, and the emotion is contempt rather than fear or hate. It’s a more intractable issue, because feeling contempt is actually feeding someone’s self-esteem.
“Exposing a Big Lie takes a Big Post.”
Trump retweet: “That’s right, Jack…and it takes a ‘Big Post’ to win the Presidency. Me, I have a post like…what do call those California…Redwoods! I got a post like a Redwood…Red
Hair…Red Wood…Wood!”
”the emotion is contempt rather than fear or hate. It’s a more intractable issue, because feeling contempt is actually feeding someone’s self-esteem.”
Yer onto something with that there contempt thingey!
“Contempt, according to Dr. John Gottman, is the single most corrosive behavior in a couple relationship.
”Contempt seeks to explain the failure of criticism to impact and influence by attributing it the partner’s fundamentally irreversible flaw. The partner is typically (for example) either too stupid or morally bankrupt, and that is why they are incapable of change.
”The contemptuous spouse attacks from a lofty perch of moral, emotional, or intellectual superiority. When contempt eclipses criticism, the virulent message you are giving your partner is that they are loathsome and disgusting. They are beyond redemption. (bolds mine)
https://couplestherapyinc.com/contempt/
You missed Reagan, who really was suffering from dementia toward the end of his presidency.
I’m not sure if you’re calling the idea that Trump has dementia similar to the birther and truther claims or just the idea that he could be removed from office for having dementia. If the former, the comparison is wrong; it’s obviously more reasonable to believe that a person could have dementia than than a person successfully framed terrorists for an attack or forged a birth certificate. Whether Trump’s behavior is new also seems irrelevant to me, as I thought he showed signs of dementia during the campaign; it just seems like more people are seeing this now, and that his condition has perhaps gotten worse.
I do think you are right that even if Trump did have dementia, the 25th Amendment would not apply. But would he have an ethical obligation to step down? Would his staff have an obligation to make this public knowledge, or would it be ethical to cover it up, like Reagan’s staff did?
”it just seems like more people are seeing this now,”
Self-fulfilling Prophesy.
”and that his condition has perhaps gotten worse.”
It’s not that difficult to perceive, acknowledge, or talk oneself into something that one desires to be true; Fake News (with which we’ve all been snagged a time or two) positively thrives on it.
”Soviet-style abuse of psychiatry is now practiced in the US”
“From the 1950s through the 1980s, thousands of Soviet dissenters were incarcerated in mental hospitals. This helped the Communist government to destroy its critics both physically and mentally without the potentially messy trials, while at the same time discrediting all political dissent as the product of ill minds.
”According to the acclaimed Sovietologist Robert van Voren, the political abuse of psychiatry in the USSR ‘originated from the concept that persons who opposed the Soviet regime were mentally ill because there was no other logical explanation why one would oppose THE BEST SOCIOPOLITICAL SYSTEM IN THE WORLD.’ ” (bolds/caps mine)
http://thepeoplescube.com/peoples-blog/soviet-style-abuse-of-psychiatry-is-now-practiced-in-the-us-t19299.html
Bill Nye, “Science Guy,” is open to jail tme for Climate Change Skeptics. Private Jet flyin’ Robert Kennedy wants Climate Change Skeptics tried as War Criminals.
What could possibly go wrong?
That Reagan was suffering early signs of Altzheimer’s (not dementia) is likely but still speculative. No medical examination have been made public. I’m sure Prof. Lee is sure, though.
He was diagnosed five years after he left office, which means that perhaps (perhaps!) he was in Stage 1 or 2 in his last term at most, stages in which there are internal changes in the brain but they are not yet visible, nor do they yet affect behavior…in other words, no impairment of cognition or function. You begin to see troubling behavior in a lot of cases (prompting an evaluation) in Stage 4 and later. People are too quick to chalk up normal changes that come with aging to dementia.
From only one article out of a few I found-
“ The New York Times medical writer Larry Altman even raised the question with Reagan during an interview in 1980 just before he entered the White House. Reagan said he would quit if he developed Alzheimer’s while in office.
Altman returned to the subject in 1997, after Reagan had completed his second term. Having talked to many of the president’s doctors in the White House, he concluded that there was no evidence that Reagan had suffered any of the symptoms of dementia while in office.“
“I thought he showed signs of dementia during the campaign”
Unfair and irresponsible statement. Even the partisan hacks then making statements about his mental fitness never mentioned dementia—the theme then was “crippling narcissism.” And what do YOU know about dementia in public apprearances?
Also: you misunderstand the Big Lie. The idea is that the lie is so audacious that everyone assumes that nobody would say it if it weren’t true. There is no objective evidence justifying the “Trump is mentally disabled” lie. Ergo, it is a Big Lie. It seem plausible, because what responsible political party would intentionally make such a claim without evidence?
But the Democratic Party in 2017 isn’t responsible.
ALSO: what part of “relitigating the election” can’t you comprehend? The fact that none of this is new flags the artifice: It isn’t a new development, this President hasn’t become unable to do his job, its just that those who opposed him still believe he was and is unable, and that’s TOO DAMN BAD because the election determined otherwise. Almost all of the resistance election overturning plans are like this, and it’s infuriating. This despicable sub-culture, determined to destroy the fabric of democracy because they can’t accept accountability for epic failure. still thinks the election can be overturned on the same data that the voters decided didn’t matter!
“It’s getting worse”—please. Just stop. Has Trump done anything as outrageous as his imitation of a disabled reporter since the election? Has he said anything as outrageous as attacking US prisoners of war? Has he made any claim as crazy as claiming that Ted Cruz’s father was involved in the Kennedy assassination? This is the guy we elected, he’s President, and until something arises that the voters didn’t ratify, including his weird conduct, stop claiming it’s justification to remove him!
Write “he won the election” a thousand times. Grow up. Be a citizen. TRUMP’S acting crazy? The conduct of his opposition is at least as crazy, and they ARE acting differently than they were before. Their language has gotten worse. Their reasoning has gotten worse. They are the ones who sound nuts.
CUT
IT
OUT
You are wasting your time, Jack. The “Reagan was senile” argument has been around more than 20 years. No medical record substantiating this has ever been made public, and none probably ever will be. Never mind, though, if the other side can convince themselves that Reagan was a senile old man who couldn’t be trusted with the TV remote or to use the toilet, then nothing that happened on his watch count, and the GOP loses it’s greatest statesman of the last 100 years, leaving us with only the Bushes (wimp, idiot) still around, and Nixon (criminal), Eisenhower (cipher), Hoover (incompetent) Coolidge (cipher) and Harding (criminally incompetent) in recent history to their Obama (icon), Bill Clinton (it’s the economy, stupid) and Carter (apostle of peace) still alive and LBJ (civil rights pioneer), JFK (martyr), Truman (hero) and FDR (3rd greatest of all) in recent history. That way their side stacks up as heroes and demigods against the GOP’s assemblage of the corrupt and the just north of competent. Chris is one of those, as far as he’s concerned the fact that Reagan was senile is a closed issue and his staff were covering for him, and he can talk from those assumptions.
Some of them still aren’t over the 2016 election, and many of them will never get there. Of those that are, a good number of them are still muttering that they were robbed, that the election was stolen, and that the people of this country are racist, hateful xenophobic pricks who elected a racist, hateful, xenophobic prick. If they can successfully smear Trump as incompetent or mentally ill, then his achievements and successes evaporate and nothing he does matters, because it all comes from a “mad king” figure. We may be able to brush off accusations of hate, racism, xenophobia, etc. fairly easily, the GOP has been brushing them off for years, but it’s not as easy to brush off an accusation of insanity or incompetence. Apparently everyone on the left is also a trained psychiatrist as well, and can recognize the signs of dementia just from seeing someone campaign. No interview is needed, no tests need to be taken, no medical diagnosis made, and no legal ruling completed, Trump is incompetent, anyone with half a brain know it, anyone with any vision can see it, and the man needs to be removed ASAP, today would be great.
The fact is, Jack, the other side isn’t listening. They aren’t interested in listening. They aren’t interested in discussing and they definitely aren’t interested in actually dealing in any way. They are just interested in talking at you, talking over you, and regaining complete power so they can ignore you asap, by all means, fair or foul, and the sooner the better.
The majority of Americans may be ignorant, but they are also fair and willing to learn, able to learn. The astounding din bombarding them with negativism, fake news, propaganda and democracy rotting divisiveness and hate can be combated and must be, both by those who are not ignorant constantly knocking down what they can, and and by constant, relentless scrutiny of the truth.
And Steve, saying “it’s no use” is neither helpful nor competent. What that signals is “give up to the Collective/Mob/Borg.” I don’t give up, but it doesn’t help me any to have people saying “you’re wasting your time.”
My understanding that Reagan had dementia is based on comments made by his son. That said, as I understand it his son is a pretty aggressive liberal and may not be entirely reliable on this matter; I apologize if my comments were incorrect.
And I already said I don’t believe that Trump could be removed from office for anything he’s done so far. I also said I think he shows signs of dementia, not that it’s a fact he has dementia. My question of whether he should resign if he had dementia hasn’t been answered.
Please list the ‘signs of dementia’ you’re seeing, Chris.
Forgetfulness, incoherent speech patterns, emotional control issues. But thinking back on it, these are issues he’s had for years. Unless he had dementia when he was 60, it’s more likely these traits have just always been part of his personality.
Uh-oh. I just changed my mind.
No one tell Steve.
Normal forgetfulness is forgetting what you came into the room for (and remembering later) misplacing your keys once in a while…dementia ‘forgetfulness’ is much more drastic. If Trump kept trying to appoint a judge to a position that’s already filled, and keeps asking for the papers to sign, that is the forgetfulness of dementia. Going to the store every day for months and buying the same four items every time….it’s not so much forgetting your keys as forgetting what a key is for, or deciding from today to go in and out by the kitchen window because that means the kitchen door stays locked, and a locked door is safer. Dementia is a total breakdown in logical reasoning and rote behavior patterns (washing, the order in which you put on your clothes).
He is a clumsy public speaker with no tact, but that also does not mean he’s impaired.
No, one thing the Doctor’s forgot is that one of the symptoms of Dementia is that Leftists hate your guts.
Leftists hate Donald Trump, so he probably has Dementia.
It’s a remarkable breakthrough in modern medicine, how as soon as Leftists hate you, you have all manner of problems.
I wonder if there is a psychological term for an irrational hatred of Donald Trump?
I mean, there is rational disgust towards him, like most of us display, but the hate pushed by the left, driven by irrationality…there has to be a psychological term…
Cristamsupraphobia?
Aurantiacodetraxeruntaphobia?
Incomitiisvicitaphobia?
My point is that you are wasting your time arguing with someone like Chris, a dyed in the wool liberal. You’re not going to change his mind. By all means keep making your pitch to those with a reasonably open mind. You might just get through to some of them. But butting heads with a dyed in the wool true believer liberal is misapplication of energy better used on those who might actually listen.
I believe Chris listens, and he has the capacity to change his mind.
Thanks, Jack. I’ve changed my mind about many issues since I began reading here. You’re probably one of the major reasons I don’t believe Trump can be impeached or removed from office (despite my wish that he could be impeached).
That covers the “able” of “ready, willing, and able”.
7. Ethics Dunces: Everyone who accepts, supports or furthers Plan E, the “Trump is disabled” lie.
“The second attendant lie to Plan E—maybe it should be #1– is that the 25th Amendment’s Section 4 allows the Cabinet to remove any President who isn’t literally unable to function. It was passed in the wake of the embarrassing chaos following Reagan’s assassination attempt, when it was unclear who was running the country. Section 4 states,”
It is my understanding that the 25th Amendment was ratified February 10, 1967, long before President Reagan’s term in the White House. Maybe you mean the successful assassination of Kennedy that left him briefly living but not likely to ever have brain function restored.
No. That section (4) was added after the Reagan mess, as I understand it, but I’ll check my source.
Maybe… but I would be surprised if it is legally possible to amend the Constitution… even to add one comma… without going through the entire Constitutional amendment process including the ratification by the States.
See my response to you that criss-crossed with yours. Yes, even a comma would have to go through the whole process, but the whole process can be quick when there is no controversy.
Checked: bad source, plus bad memory on my part. Fixed it. Thanks.
A Big Lie is also known as the trope “Refuge In Audacity”. I find that rather than simply denying it, it’s best to leave the burden of proof right where it is, and say, “Where’d You Get That Idea?” That’s a very important question people should learn to ask.
The idea that Trump is incapable of intelligent decision making due to some “incurable” mental defect is based on the faulty assumption that simply because he arrogant, does not adhere to the propriety of behavior we ascribe to the president, or his penchant for expressing exactly what he thinks without concern for political calculus he is unfit to serve.
How often do we hear politicians tell us exactly what we want to hear? Always. I submit that Trump is not concerned about his political legacy because his financial needs have been met and therefore does not need to please the masses for political gain.
Trump’s ability to say what he thinks in blunt speech because he has no masters pulling his strings to maintain their own positions of power is why the opposition is resorting to the mental fitness arguements.
Ironically, he is doing what most would consider rational; changing strategies and tactics when previous administration’s tactics and strategies have either failed miserably or not positioned the US well with our allies and enemies. Our allies have benefitted immensely at our expense because we provide for their defense. Our enemies benefit when we draw lines in sand and put down other markers that we quickly abandon when crossed. We have become the world’s whipping boy for every ill created. Why? Because past administrations were more concerned with placating the world.
Whether NATO countries feel our demands on them are irresponsible and undermine the alliance I don’t care because I don’t believe that they would ever leave NATO.
For those who think Trump is provoking N. Korea with his rocket man comments I must remind everyone that the regime tests every administration. Past presidents said little and did little and the little dictators persisted (with the help of China and Iran). This time the little dictator did not get the same reaction and it surprised him. He is the one doing the provoking. For all I care, he can starve his people forever and we can just let him do it. That is their problem not ours. He created the problem for us with his desire to go nuclear on the penninsula. Little Kim has been in power for some time and not a peep of concern about his mental health from anyone. Only when Trump is elected they are worried about getting nuked. This is irrational.
What I see from the anti-Trumpers is the equivalent of a childish tantrum when they don’t get their way. Perhaps they can hold their breath to get their own way.
Damn shame when the power structure loses its ability to manipulate office holders because the office holder is better off financially than they are.
Julian Assange said in August, 2016 that he had requested information leaks about Trump, but that Trump was a new phenomenon for an investigative reporter because what was received about him was exactly the same sort of stuff as Trump was saying every day in public.
The word “dementia” is being tossed about here with little regard to what it actually means. It is a word that has a specific technical meaning and is not something that can be diagnosed by simply watching someone on TV or reading their tweets. There is no specific, single identifying symptom of dementia. Statements someone doesn’t like, decisions someone thinks are bad, slips of the tongue, lapses of memory, spelling or grammatical errors, calling another national leader “Rocket Man” and comparing your button to his, cutting off aid to Pakistan, enforcing the law as written, not believing in global warming, referring to yourself as a stable genius, acting like an idiot at times, doing inexplicable things, being unethical, etc. are not specific symptoms of dementia. Taken all together they do not make the diagnosis of dementia. To make a diagnosis in this manner is no more valid than diagnosing Hillary as having seizures based on a few movements seen on video.
Dementia is a syndrome, a group of symptoms that occur together, not a specific disease. There are many diseases that may result in dementia such as Alzheimer’s disease, Lewy body disease, and vascular disease to name only a few. The DSM V actually eliminated the term “dementia” and replaced it with the term “major neurocognitive disorder” but the diagnostic criteria are essentially unchanged and they are (taken from the DSM V):
Evidence of significant cognitive decline from a previous level of performance in one or more cognitive domains (complex attention, executive function, learning and memory, language, perceptual-motor, or social cognition) based on:
Concern of the individual, a knowledgeable informant, or the clinician that there has been a significant decline in cognitive function; and
A substantial impairment in cognitive performance, preferably documented by standardized neuropsychological testing or, in its absence, another quantified clinical assessment.
The cognitive deficits interfere with independence in everyday activities (i.e., at a minimum, requiring assistance with complex instrumental activities of daily living such as paying bills or managing medications).
There are a couple of other technical requirements that are not pertinent to this discussion.
As you can see the first criteria requires a “significant cognitive decline” in one or more areas of functioning. I don’t believe anyone can give specific examples from available sources to conclusively show there has been a significant decline. I don’t think there is any available evidence that even strongly suggests there has been a significant decline.
Has Trump himself, a knowledgeable informant (not an anonymous source), or a clinician who has actually examined him expressed concern that he has experienced a significant cognitive decline? Both Theresa May and Mike Pompeo, though not clinicians, have at least interacted with him in circumstances that would be likely to reveal significant cognitive impairment, and they say no. Has there been standardized testing or other quantified clinical assessment? If there is, it certainly isn’t public knowledge. Does he require assistance with taking his medications and paying his bills? I don’t know but I rather doubt it.
For anyone other than a qualified professional who has actually examined him to diagnose that he is demented is simply name calling and should be given the weight it deserves. Absolutely none. Now if you want to call him demented, a moron, an idiot, or anything else in the slang rather than technical sense of those terms, have at it but don’t then try to pretend that you made a real diagnosis carrying any weight or satisfying the requirements of the 25th Amendment.
I did not pretend that.
That said, this was a very informative comment, and would be a good COTD.
I agree, Why are so many commenters writing such excellent comments all of a sudden? WHAT’S GOING ON!??????
No, you did not and I actually understood you to say the opposite in regard to the 25th. There are many who reason in that fashion though and that includes people on both sides. And thank you for your comment of 5:57.
Whoops. Got the threading messed up. Thank you Jack. Too cold in Florida to do much else.
So Tillerson’s silence on the claim that he called the Potus a moron confirms the claim and a denial of the claim of dementia is also confirming evidence.
Apparently one is screwed no matter how you respond.
One must clearly be demented to believe that or to sacrifice a professional reputation by ignoring the ethical commandments.
Demented, no. Dyed in the wool, yes. It’s all too easy to.judge someone you hate to be wrong no matter how he handles your questions. If he admits it, you’ve got him. If he qualifies it, he’s weaseling. If he ignores your question or pronounces it a waste of time, he’s got something to hide. If he denies it, he’s lying.
Which behavior demonstrates cognitive impairment?
Reelecting the same people cycle after cycle, expecting them to do what they promised to get to get your vote who then choose to disregard the promises made based on political calculus.
Or
The actions of an elected person that does what he said he would do if elected and then does it without worrying that he won’t be liked by the world but who believes that his acts will eventually improve his likeability when the outcomes are measured.
Mental illness was a primary refuge of Leninists and Stalinsits. The mentally ill who dared disagree were sent to the Gulag. This is where any of us who disagree will be going if we don’t stop the Alinskyite resistance. Trump will just be the first sent.
The “he’s crazy” theme is just a variation of the “he’s not normal” and “be afraid” scaremongering we saw after the election. Since Trump’s “abnormality” didn’t manifest itself in madman Presidential declarations and edicts, they had to move to this: He’s GOING to be crazy, just wait. But we can’t afford to wait, because who knows what he’ll do?