President Donald Trump's "firehose of lunacy" indicates that he is experiencing cognitive decline, a retired US Naval War college professor explained — and America will be in peril until this fact is called out.
" Trump is a deeply disordered person, and it just bears repeating," Tom Nichols, a staff writer for The Atlantic, told MS NOW's Nicolle Wallace. "You know, Nicolle, you pointed out he carries around pictures of his golden ballroom. He also carries around the codes to 1,500 strategic nuclear weapons. He's the commander in chief of the United States Armed Forces. He's the president. And like every president, he is the most powerful man in the world. And frankly, the things he's doing and the things he wants to do are completely bonkers."
Nichols added that, while 25 percent of the American public "shrieks with anger" if you point out Trump's mental decline, it is too obvious for the rest of the public to ignore.
"These are the same people that if you tried to put Barack Obama's name on an elementary school, they'd have an aneurysm," Nichols said. "And I think part of the reason that they shout down their critics about this is because they know — they know that this is lunacy. They know that he's surrounded by gutless sycophants who know how completely off the rails he is, but have nowhere to go and aren't going to stop him. Because, you know, think about it: if you're somebody like Pete Hegseth, once you're no longer Secretary of Defense, what are you? You're a washed-up TV host."
The challenge is that, because Trump supporters insist on downplaying his lunacy and many supposed moderates are nervous about making such an extreme statement of a sitting president, the danger of the current situation is lost on the public.
"This is somebody who has demolished a chunk of the White House because he felt like it, and no one stopped him," Nichols pointed out. "And I think we can focus all day long on the various defects of Donald Trump's personality. They're evident. They've been evident for a good part of his life, and they're getting much worse now. But the fact of the matter is, no one's stopping him — not the Republicans. The Democrats, I think, are doing some of what they can do, but I think they've been underreacting to this. And the American public, which again has been kind of just ground down by this firehose of lunacy that comes out of the White House every day..."
Nichols trailed off, then said that he is worried that when Trump tries to actually meddle in the midterm elections, "the reaction to it is going to come too late. I think all of these things that we kind of laugh at are evidence — and I'm glad you started this way — of much, much darker personality traits and plans than he may be cooking up in his mind, somewhere behind all of this golden glitz and crassness that too many people have just gotten too used to."
Wallace replied to Nichols by quoting various past members of Trump's inner circle, including advisers who worked closely with him and for a long time, who have come forward to warn about his character. His former chief of staff John Kelly described Trump as "the most damaged human being he's ever met," Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky) described him as "a despicable human being" and his former Defense Secretary James Mattis flat-out said that Trump wishes to be a "dictator," a statement that Kelly has also made about the president.
Speaking with this journalist for Salon in 2020, mental health experts warned that he would likely attempt a coup after losing that year's election because of his already-ill and declining mental state.
“Trump has tried, time and time again, to tighten the American mind—like other authoritarian leaders creates an atmosphere of threat and fear, targets people who are already struggling, attacks civic institutions, and promises that he is the only one who can restore order,” Dr. Michele Gelfand, a psychology professor at the University of Maryland and author of the book “Rule Makers, Rule Breakers: How Tight and Loose Cultures Wire Our World,” wrote to Salon at the time. “It’s a very similar pattern that we see among other leaders with authoritarian tendencies.”
Counselor and therapist Elizabeth Mika, who contributed to the book “The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump,” similarly predicted that ""He is not going to accept defeat — he is psychologically incapable of that. So he will continue spinning the election results as a fraud and conspiracy to oust him, fomenting rage and hate among his followers, and social unrest which will serve as his revenge by proxy.”
Finally psychiatrist Dr. Bandy X. Lee, formerly of Yale University, told this journalist at the time that "past behavior best predicts future behavior, and we can expect that we are entering a very dangerous period. The 76 days between now and the inauguration will likely be the most norm-shattering, law-defying, and potentially violence-inciting that we have experienced so far in this presidency. Donald Trump is about to engage in a fight for his life, having given himself no possibility of losing, and even his and our preservation cannot be assured, given the powers he has in his possession.”
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