The authors describe a man who could not pass a basic fitness test because of his pattern of psychogical deficits and dysfunctions, who scored extremely high on a dangerousness risk assessment, and whose impairments have only grown more severe with time, to the point of posing existential dangers of humankind. Bandy X. Lee, regarding The More Dangerous Case of Donald Trump
Now there’s a followup to the followup. First, the 2017 The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 27 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President by Bandy X. Lee, MD, M.Div. Then, the 2024 version, The More Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 40 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Warn Anew. Now,
As you can see, the concerns have been escalating. These experts believe it’s not only fair to analyze this particular public figure, it’s their obligation, Goldwater Rule (the outdated warning against diagnosing without examining) be damned. As contributor Robert Jay Lifton has stated in the past, the ethically mandated “duty to warn” supercedes the Goldwater Rule: “We have a duty to warn on an individual basis if we are treating someone who may be dangerous to herself or to others—a duty to warn people who are in danger from that person. We feel it’s our duty to warn the country about the danger of this president.”
From the newest blurb: “World-renowned authors lead the volume in asserting their obligation to speak under the Declaration of Geneva, which decries doctors’ silence in the face of destructive regimes. They describe a man who showed increasing cognitive deficits, scored extremely high on a dangerousness risk assessment, and could not pass a basic fitness test because of his pattern of psychological deficits and dysfunctions. His worsening impairments, while holding the most powerful position on the planet, pose many existential dangers for humankind.”
Selected Quotes from the Various Versions of The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump
Trump’s exhibiting the most severe characteristics of Antisocial Personality Disorder-his being a psychopath-is why he threatens, hurts, debases, and attempts to control others for his own benefit, and why he will never change, but, instead, will become worse the more power he can seize.
…(W)e find that Trump very likely has a Neurocognitive Disorder that is already beginning to have its way with his cognitive functioning and is destined to deteriorate, perhaps significantly, over the next few years.
...Trump feels, deep down, like a ‘loser’, ‘failure’, ‘weak’, ‘dumb’, ‘fat’, ‘ugly’, ‘fake’, and ‘crooked’. These self-denigrating pictures of himself, Trump projects onto others whom he transforms into his enemies.
Sociopathic traits may be amplified as the leader discovers that he can violate the norms of civil society and even commit crimes with impunity. And the leader who rules through fear, lies, and betrayal may become increasingly isolated and paranoid, as the loyalty of even his closest confidants must forever be suspect.
He insists that his spokesmen defend his false reality as normal. He then expects the rest of society to accept it—despite the lack of any evidence. This leads to what Lifton calls “malignant normality”—in other words, the gradual acceptance by a public inundated with toxic untruths of those untruths until they pass for normal.
