Donald Trump Is Dangerously Insane

A cadre of psychiatrists has declared that Donald Trump has a “dangerous mental illness” and is unfit to lead.

This illustrates the problem with “psychiatry” generally. By admitting the authority of such a specialty, we are giving a group of individuals absolute and arbitrary power to deny anyone else their right to think for themselves. Which is to say, given that human beings exist to exercise free will, their essential humanity.

In this current case, they claim the right to do so even if many or most of the rest of us have decided the person has uncommon decision-making abilities.

And here’s their crucial evidence:

“Worse than just being a liar or a narcissist, in addition he is paranoid, delusional and grandiose thinking and he proved that to the country the first day he was President. If Donald Trump really believes he had the largest crowd size in history, that’s delusional.”

Problem: Trump almost certainly did have the largest inaugural crowd in history. As Sean Spicer clarified later—and as seemed clear to me when he first said it—he was referring to the audience, not the crowd, and that included people watching on TV, YouTube, Facebook, or Twitter. Given the advance of technology, what he said was almost certainly true.

Psychiatry is by its nature both dictatorial and totalitarian. Given these characteristics, it is also perfectly designed to attract to its ranks bullies, psychopaths, sadists, and people with little actual sensitivity to or concern for others.

Objectively, psychiatrists have no track record of being able to determine who is “mentally ill,” let alone “dangerously mentally ill.” In one famous test, a group of “sane” experimenters faked the textbook symptoms of schizophrenia to get admitted to a psychiatric hospital, then dropped the ruse immediately upon commitment and began to act their normal selves. Once given the label, everything they did was simply interpreted as another sign of “mental illness.”

It is all too subjective.

That on top of the vital question of whether there is actually any such thing as “mental illness,” and whether any other human being is competent to judge the matter.

Saint Christina the Astonishing

Consider the many Catholic saints who reported seeing visions. By definition, according to current psychiatry, they would be “delusional,” they would be “hallucinating,” they would be psychotic. Ever heard of Saint Christina the Astonishing? And those saints who did not see visions would still, by their rejection of the things of the material and social world, be proven to be at the very least “depressive.”

Being completely materialist, psychiatry cannot allow the possibility that the spiritual world is real. Aside from other considerations, any public support for psychiatry is therefore a violation of freedom of religion.

Almost as notably as sainthood, anyone who is capable of great leadership is almost necessarily going to be eccentric. To lead one does not follow the herd; and not following the herd is, by psychiatric definition, “abnormal.” Accordingly, anyone who does not show signs of what psychiatrists would call “mental illness” is probably disqualified from command.

Here are a few historical examples:

George Patton—America’s best general in World War II.

Patton claimed he had seen combat many times before in previous lives, including as a Roman legionnaire and as part of the 14th-century army of John the Blind of Bohemia. Before the 1943 invasion of Sicily, British General Harold Alexander told Patton, “You know, George, you would have made a great marshal for Napoleon if you had lived in the 19th century.” Patton replied, “But I did.” The general believed that after he died he would return to once again lead armies into battle.

Abraham Lincoln

Letters left by the president’s friends referred to him as “the most depressed person they've ever seen.” On at least one occasion, he was so overcome with “melancholy” that he collapsed. A “nervous breakdown.” He was regularly so depressed that he refused to carry a pocketknife because "he couldn't trust himself with it." 

Stonewall Jackson

Stonewall Jackson—considered the second-best general for the South in the US Civil War.

He was convinced that one arm was longer than the other, and that he had to hold one up regularly for the sake of his circulation. He commonly went into battle with one arm waving in the air.

Sherman

William Tecumseh Sherman—considered the second-best general for the North in the US Civil War.

He was removed from command early in the war on grounds of insanity. He chain-smoked while nervously pacing his headquarters, he was frequently crippled with despair and he often babbled nonstop about a vast unbeatable legion of crack Rebel troops that was poised to invade the relatively quiet border region. Even hometown newspapers from his state of Ohio reported that the general had lost his mind. U.S. Grant intervened and insisted on putting him back in command.

He also had, throughout his life, episodes of severe depression, along with occasional suicidal thoughts.

Winston Churchill

Referred to his depression as “the black dog.” When in his manic phases he was personable; but his moods could change quickly. During periods of high mania he would stay up all night writing, and got by on almost no sleep.

Martin Luther King

Attempted suicide twice as a teenager.

Mahatma Gandhi

Attempted suicide as a teenager.

Gebhard Blücher

Hero of Waterloo, whose Prussians showed up to save the day for the Duke of Wellington.

Blücher claimed that he had been impregnated by a French grenadier and was carrying the fetus of an unborn elephant in his stomach. He was convinced that enemy agents were somehow heating the floors of his palace as part of a plan to scorch his feet. Blücher would often try to kill houseflies with his sabre.

Oliver Hazard Perry

American Commander at Battle of Lake Erie

Irrationally terrified of cows.

Does Napoleon count? He thought he was Napoleon.