The uncle isn’t crazy, just delirious
Contributed by Will Howard
Many of the things that Trump says off-script do indeed sound incoherent — the ideas just don’t hang together, though he sounds more normal in a well-rehearsed two minutes of debate, as in reading a prepared answer. Here’s a transcript from early September that far exceeds the political norm for mere rambling:
If you get the unsolicited ballots, send it in and then go, make sure it counted, and if it doesn’t tabulate, you vote. Just vote. And then if they tabulate it very late, which they shouldn’t be doing, they’ll see you voted and so it won’t count. So send it in early and then go and vote, and if it’s not tabulated, you vote, and the vote is going to count. You can’t let them take your vote away. These people are playing dirty politics — dirty politics. So if you have an absentee ballot, or as I call it a solicited ballot, you send it in, but I would check it in any event. I would go and follow it and go vote — and everyone here wants to vote — the old-fashioned way. — President Donald Trump, 2020
There is a non sequitur in almost every one of Trump’s sentences. That’s why we see such characterizations as “Donald Trump’s drunken, unhinged crazy uncle archetype.”
Let me engage in a little Psych 101 lingo to show why all of those descriptors are misleading; delirious and irresponsible are the words one wants. Delirium is a temporary condition where one’s attention cannot maintain focus, rather as in one’s dreams where the narrative repeatedly leaps between subjects — like TV channel-switching, visiting different stories in progress. That he sounds delirious does not make him either drunk or crazy.
That makes it difficult to accurately retrieve facts from memory, leading to confabulations (unknowing, unintended misstatements). Perhaps such inattention contributes to this President’s growing weekly numbers of false statements.
Note that stress will suffice to erode the usual mental “quality control” for our utterances, making one temporarily sound delirious. It does not take persistent mental illness to flail around like Trump does. Sympathy is probably warranted — but not tolerance that extends to keeping him in his job. Anyone with Trump’s track record and current stress level should not to be able to start a war single-handedly.
Airlines are now likely to ground a stressed pilot as a sensible precaution, recalling when co-pilot Andreas Lubitz locked his captain out of the cockpit and crashed his Airbus into the French Alps near Nice in 2015. The 27-year-old had been complaining about depression and deteriorating “vision.” He consulted at least five doctors, Der Spiegel reported, including psychiatric specialists and a neurologist. Two weeks before the crash, he was briefly hospitalized for a possible psychotic episode. That suggests a lot of stress, maybe even visual hallucinations.
Responsible corporate boards would send a badly stressed CEO home on medical leave. The current senate majority’s oversight has been irresponsible: “My guy, right or wrong” seems to be their motto — which is why I earlier called them lemmings, heading toward a cliff. Their oath of office to defend the constitution was meant to supersede any tribalism tendencies. If the GOP wants to save its brand, it needs to fund primary challengers and retire the reliable enablers of the Trump Train Wreck.
WILL HOWARD (a pen name) is, under his own name, the author of many nonfiction books; they have been translated into 16 languages. He was, however, able to supply an author picture.
In 1955 the real author looked nothing like he does 65 years later, making this image worthless for identifying “Will Howard”.
The more recognizable person is President Harry S Truman.
Credit: The LIFE magazine photographer Eliot Elisofon took the picture; “Will Howard” was his fetch-and-carry assistant.
The author gives you permission to copy and re-publish this essay: 2020 CC BY.
