![]() ![]() ![]() The scrum of Trump’s bootlickers features prominently in “Landslide” - concentric circles that include the plausibly OK (then chief of staff Mark Meadows, campaign spokesman Jason Miller) to the floridly not OK (MyPillow magnate Mike Lindell, Kraken lawyer Sidney Powell). Trump declared defeat unimaginable, which allowed his brain to seize on an imaginary victory. He encouraged the neofascist Proud Boys.īut somehow, according to Wolff’s sources, Trump remained convinced Joe Biden couldn’t beat him. The Republican Party put on a Spinal Tap-caliber convention starring Donald Trump Jr.’s girlfriend screaming.īrad Parscale, the president’s campaign manager, had what Wolff calls a “psychotic break.” He was carted away by police. He got COVID-19.Īn overhyped rally in Tulsa, Okla., was met with banks of empty seats. Trump refused to come up with a platform, admit the scope of the pandemic or wear a mask. If you want to relive it, the book covers the throes of the 2020 presidential election and the Trump campaign falling into splinters. It’s only their incompetence, in his view, that is keeping him from his rightful role as America’s forever president. A motif of the book is how much Trump despises all his lawyers. ![]() Worse yet, Trump insists the law should turn his scrawls into winning legal briefs and triumph over all. He’s not playing chess or even checkers he’s covering pages with Sharpie Xs and calling it tic-tac-toe. He’s just crazy, a madman in want of a straitjacket. Donald Trump, he argues, is not crazy like a fox. He’s great at picking up insider images, too, as when Bannon describes Giuliani, in his aphasic periods, as in the “mumble tank.” But his patience with carnies allows him astonishing access. Wolff is a hustler with a high tolerance for general venality, vulgar locker-room talk, and the company of armpit sources like dark-arts master Steve Bannon and lawyer Rudy Giuliani, now unlicensed in New York and Washington. The APA has also stated that “psychiatrists are medical doctors evaluating mental illness is no less thorough than diagnosing diabetes or heart disease.” That’s true - but what might a cardiologist say if a public figure kept having heart attacks? Would he need to be subjected to a “thorough” diagnostic regimen for a doctor to speculate that there might be an underlying heart condition? If the person who kept having heart attacks was a pilot who refused to seek medical attention, wouldn’t it be malpractice not to speak out? It is not an exaggeration to say that Donald has exhibited pathological behavior that is equally alarming - as evidenced most recently by his callous disregard for his own health and the well-being of those around him when he left Walter Reed hospital while still shedding coronavirus, or when he holds rallies and encourages thousands of people to attend without wearing masks or social distancing in order to prop up his ego.But it also implies an avalanche of another sort: one that started when Trump’s psychological convulsions triggered a rolling collapse of the linchpins of the U.S. It is one thing to declare definitively that a person has anti-social personality disorder (a specific diagnostic term) it is another to point to behaviors - such as deliberately putting other people in harm’s way for no discernible reason (for example, abandoning our Kurdish allies) beyond one’s own self-interest - and express the general conclusion that it is dangerous to have somebody in the Oval Office who is incapable of empathy. While psychiatric diagnosis is a technical process, it is entirely within bounds to draw conclusions based on observable behavior. This is absurd on its face and has potentially serious consequences for the safety of the American people. ![]()
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