If Trump was told and forgot about what was reported by The Atlantic this could be solid evidence he has dementia, By Hal M. Brown, MSW, Retired psychotherapist.
Trump had a deer in the headlights look when asked about the security breach and then launched into an attack on The Atlantic.
Short term memory loss is one of the primary symptoms of early dementia. I’ve been agnostic on what other mental health professionals point to as indications of his having dementia. I see this as possibly being just as plausibly Trump feleing unleashed and more majic than usual when he goes off on a rant.
Read:
Also read this earlier essay:
Since Atlantic requires a subscrption to read here’s a sumary of the Dan McAdams article.
Excerpt:
Trump, McAdams argues, can’t form a meaningful life story because he is the “episodic man” who sees life as a series of battles to be won. There is no connection between the moments, no reflection and no potential for growth when one is compulsively in the present.
Donald Trump is a “truly authentic fake,” writes McAdams, professor of human development and social policy at the School of Education and Social Policy. “Trump is always acting, always on stage — but that is who he really is, and that is all he really is. He is not introspective, retrospective or prospective. He does not go deep into his mind; he does not travel back to the past; he does not project far into the future. He is always on the surface, always right now.
“In his own mind, he is more like a persona than a person, more like a primal force or superhero, rather than a fully realized human being,” McAdams adds.
The June 2016 Article in The Atlantic wasn’t the most alarming early article about how dangerous Trump’s psychopathology was. That would be Dr. John Gartner’s Donald Trump's malignant narcissism is toxic in USA Today published on Mar. 4, 2017. The Atlantic does feature it as their cover story and it doesn’t have a particularly unflattering photo of the preening nacrssist who is so concerned about how he is depicted. See what I wrote about Trump’s obsession with how he looks yesterday.
Here are two other 2017 Atlantic articles, one of them has Trump on it and the other a sinking White House.
The Atlantic has not been kind to Donald Ttump. It is clearly on his shit list.
The the psychologist’s article in the June, 2016 edition wasn’t effusive in praising him. It thought it was rather mild. But it is by a clincial psychologist who did not say he was the most mentally healthy person in the world. I’d be surprised if he didn’t have a copy of the magazine given to him because he was on the cover.
It’s possble this was an early contributor to Trump’s animosity toward the magazine.
(I published a portion of the following yesterday.)
Here’s a summary of the article:
In the 2016 presidential election, Republican nominee Donald Trump has thrown this year’s contest for President of the United States into a tailspin. A conventional presidential candidate, he’s not.
In June 2016, the Atlantic Monthly ran a front page cover story covering the psychology and mind of Donald Trump. For political scientists, fundamental features of human personality—such as extroversion and narcissism—help shape the distinctive leadership styles of our elected officials and the decisions they make. Dan P. McAdams writes about Trump’s dispositions, cognitive styles, motivations and self-conceptions that comprise his unique psychological makeup.
The Department of Political Science at Cal Poly Pomona has assigned the Atlantic Monthly article for summer reading. Freshman and transfer students have been given a copy of June’s Atlantic Monthly to read up on Trump and other current political events. When school resumes in September, professors will discuss McAdams’s article with students in various courses and at department events.
Trump may have just revealed the most compelling evidence that he has early dementia. This happened when he was asked about the number one story of the past two days.
You have to actually watch this video to understand my suggestion that Trump’s reaction to being asked about the security breach could be strongest indication Trump now has dementia.
Excerpt:
Asked about Monday's story by The Atlantic that top cabinet officials and aides used Signal and texted war plans to a reporter, Trump said, "I don't know anything about it. I'm not a big fan of The Atlantic. To me it's a magazine that's going out of business. I think it's not much of a magazine. But I know nothing about it. You're saying that they had what?"
Trump added in his comments that it was the first he was hearing about the alleged sharing of the information.
There aren’t too many plausible explanations why Trump didn’t have a coherent answer. Either none of the officials in on the Signal chat didn’t know that the news had come out that the editor of The Atlantic revealed that he was in on the classified message chain. How could that be possible since it was the main story in the news for two hours? They should know that Trump could have learned about it from watching TV. How could they risk Trump finding out about it not from them but on TV?
Watch that video of Trump. He appears confused. He seems to know nothing about the incident. He launches into an attack against The Atlantic.
If Trump was told about this or learned about it on TV, or was told about it by an official, and forgot about it, one objectively has to call this short term memory loss. This is a major symptom of dementia.
Even if Trump had no knowledge of the security disaster he was clearly put off balance by the question. Going with this explanation would mean that he jumped to the conclusion that this was fake news because it was reported in The Atlantic.
If Trump was not the volatile angry person he is and for whatever reason he wasn’t aware of this he would have known that The Atlantic is a credible news source. He would have had the reporter who asked the question carefully explain to him what was reported in the story.
This would have put Trump in the worse than embarrassing position of having to throw some or all of his national security officials under the bus. He would have to say that they were negligent in not keeping him in the loop and that he would investigate why this top secret information was shared with the editor of The Atlantic.
Everyone so far is talking about other aspects of this story. I suggest we all look at this possibly being this is the strongest evidence to date that he may have dementia.
Sabrina, if you weren't on the midnight visit from the Trump Gesatapo list before this, by punishing these details you may very well be now. I'd be there along with our friend Greeley.
Great effort, Hal, and much appreciated. I read the McAdams link as far as the ATLANTIC would allow and recalled the confusion I experienced as a psychiatry resident when presented with all of the "just so" hypotheses regarding personality development and structure, like the McAdams piece. However, McAdams makes a glaring omission and misstatement regarding Trump's childhood and early development, it was not a bowl of cherries as he suggests. I am not digging out all of my many references here, but, trust me, Little Donnie was traumatized by the sudden abandonment of his dying mother following the "complicated" birth of Robert, just 2 yrs. after Trump's arrival as the 4th of 5 children.
No mention of the true diagnosis of "Borderline Personality Disorder" and the many associated traits in Trump's case: narcissism, sociopathy, hysterical, paranoid, sadistic, and mood disturbed elements complicating the picture. Also, ADHD and Bipolar type 2 are provisional diagnoses. Rejection sensitivity and the obsession with "loyalty" follow from the BPD diagnosis. The BPD diagnostic criteria are easily found on the net.
DJT's developing dementia is seen not only in the obvious short-term memory lapses like the current signing of the document he does not recall, although his signature is on it. More subtle features are his compensations for memory loss: confabulations, perseverations, and other neurological signs: garbled speech, gaslighting to cover-up forgetfulness, his constant repetitions of the "5 item" memory test he was given that was a fraud, "person, woman, man, camera, TV". This test must not have any elements easily associated with any other of the 5 elements, so, for instance: "person, car, TV, desk, whale". I continue to be surprised that none of my colleagues have weighed-in here. What could be more important than the mental status of our sitting president?