This is so interesting ... Trump's unofficial diagnosis.

Nuts.

John D. Gartner, a practicing psychotherapist who taught psychiatric residents at Johns Hopkins University Medical School, minces as few words as the president in his professional assessment of Trump.

"Donald Trump is dangerously mentally ill and temperamentally incapable of being president," says Gartner, author of "In Search of Bill Clinton: A Psychological Biography." Trump, Gartner says, has "malignant narcissism," which is different from narcissistic personality disorder and which is incurable.

Gartner acknowledges that he has not personally examined Trump, but says it's obvious from Trump's behavior that he meets the diagnostic criteria for the disorder, which include anti-social behavior, sadism, aggressiveness, paranoia and grandiosity. Trump's personality disorder (which includes hypomania) is also displayed through a lack of impulse control and empathy, and "a feeling that people ... don't recognize their greatness. - USNews

This may explain his behavior at his last presser.

But 'they' said the same things about Obama.  I guess it takes a narcissist to lead a nation of narcissists, huh?

So anyway.  There are those who will disagree on this of course, but something is off with Trump.  So far I'm not convinced the administration is running like a fine tuned machine.  There remain many job openings he needs to fill, as David Brooks cited last evening on PBS News Hour:

The press conference was its own thing. It’s like some exploding nebula of madness. I thought it was just mildly deranged, just the epitome of nonlinear thinking. Let’s put it that way. 

But what strikes me is, we have got to remember, what is the guy actually doing? And here we have an administration where he’s making a lot of press conferences, but, on the substantive picks, he doesn’t have a national security adviser. There are 691 confirmable positions in the White House.

The Trump administration has not even come up with names and nominees for 631 out of those 691. So there is nobody there, nobody in the shop, no policy-making being made. - PBS

I watched the presser, and shortly after Trump said media would say he was ranting and raving - and he denied he was - he began to rant and rave.  I found it pretty unsettling and was reminded of Howard Beale in Network.

Today a NYT Opinion piece warns it's too early to diagnose the President - which I agree with, but it seems to me he's falling right in with the 'dictator' profile - therefore a wait and see what happens is our only alternative - but I really think he's at least potentially dangerous.  My apologies to those who disagree.

I concur with the NYT summation:

There is one last reason we should avoid psychiatrically labeling our leaders: It lets them off the moral hook. Not all misbehavior reflects psychopathology; the fact is that ordinary human meanness and incompetence are far more common than mental illness. We should not be in the business of medicalizing bad actors.

So the nation doesn’t need a shrink to help it to decide whether President Trump is fit to serve, mentally or otherwise. Presidents should be judged on the merits of their actions, statements and, I suppose, their tweets. No experts are needed for that — just common sense. - Richard A. Friedman

I'll try to let the Trump stuff go - but I can't help find it fascinating.  Again, it's because of where I come from, an abusive, crazy family and I once worked for a VP who had many of the same symptoms, or characteristics of malignant narcissism.  Most fellow employees in his division would agree with me, I'm sure.

Have a nice day.

Song for this post here.