I think armchair psychological diagnoses are a disservice to society.
I respectfully disagree. Anyone who might vote for him at this point doesn’t care. Indeed, they will be encouraged by his opponents trying to psychoanalyze him.
Calling him anti-social and narcissistic I have no issue with, and have done it myself as those terms without medical terminology have entered the popular lexicon as character traits independent of medical practice. The danger is when everyone decides they’re a mental health doctor and starts diagnosing people. That’s not how mental healthcare works.
At the end of the day, using armchair medical diagnoses in this way is clearly intended as a slur against the person, and as such it stigmatizes mental illness. Trump deserves every insult possible, but those which are slurs should still be avoided. For example, I love Samantha Bee’s satire and comedy. But when she called Paul Ryan a pussy, I believe she made a mistake, not because Paul Ryan isn’t a moral coward, but because using pussy as a slur is more damaging to others than to him.
ETA: I still enjoy both Bee’s and Bolling’s work. But I think it’s important to respectfully critique everyone because none of us are perfect and we all make missteps.
I would agree with you in most cases, but not in this one. Even a non-MD can diagnose a broken leg as broken when the bone is sticking out. I’m not qualified to diagnose how to treat such a leg, nor all of the detailed bits about exactly what kind of break it is, but the main issue is patent. Trump literally puts his name in giant gold letters on his possessions. I think it strains credulity to say that only an MD or PhD has the knowledge to call that narcissism. Same goes for his anti-social personality.
pfft… your antisocial personality is nowhere near as antisocial as mine. Mine is the biggest, best, most awesome antisocial personality in the history of the universe. Everyone agrees. Doctors have never seen anything like it. Loser!
Not being a mental health professional or expert, i can’t speak to how well Mr. Trump’s behaviors match up to any particular diagnostic checklist. What i can speak to is that there are definitely people who do meet these criteria who nonetheless work towards mollifying the ways these behaviors don’t mesh with neurotypical society and that we can still call out the specific behaviors rather than tarring all with Mr. Trump’s odiousity*.
Frankly, I don’t think it is productive to be all tippy toe around sociopathy. I’d say that while it is wrong to tar people with mental illness with the same brush it is also wrong to ignore the negative impact sociopaths have on society by declaring their issues to be things we can’t talk frankly about because of sensitivity to people with mental illness. Sociopathy is something I think we shouldn’t get PC over, rather it’s something I think we should address head on. It is not like other forms of mental illness and we do society no favors by sweeping it under the rug. It isn’t enough to call out Trump’s behaviors in isolation, rather we need to see the larger picture, that they all form a nexus that is is consistent with sociopathy and clinical narcissism. Why? Because that means this behavior is not an aberration, it is who Donald Trump is at his very core. That is the key to why he is so dangerous.
I feel like this post is a bit unfair to some of the personality disorders that you didn’t mention, like Borderline Personality Disorder, which yes, does often carry with it some nasty behaviours, but at the same time isn’t anywhere near as objectionable as Antisocial Personality Disorder or Narcissistic Personality Disorder, and at the same time is much nastier for the person with it.
As for the comic itself, acute = short term, not severe, so checking all the boxes for a diagnosis of Antisocial Personality Disorder means that you’ve excluded acute diseases that could mimic it, leaving only the pervasive, persistent state that is a personality disorder.
It’s also important to note that people with ASPD generally have experienced significant abuse as children, often from neurotypical people. According to this study, “childhood emotional abuse and neglect are broadly represented among personality disorders, and associated with indices of clinical severity among patients with borderline personality disorder. Childhood sexual and physical abuse are highlighted as predictors of both paranoid and antisocial personality disorders.” Narcissism also has links to childhood emotional neglect. While people with personality disorders are not necessarily dangerous to society, given their different neurology it could be assumed that they learn differently from others and respond to abuse in different ways. However, their actions are not divorced from what society and those around them are teaching them. They act differently in different contexts, and these contexts are largely the responsibility of the rest of us. Given his family background, it’s probably safe to assume that Trump was actively taught to consider himself better than minorities, women and poor people (maybe not in words, but in the way that his family did business, for example). Grandiosity may have been in his neurology too, but it was reinforced externally. (Incidentally, many people wouldn’t consider this to be emotional neglect. I think it’s a different kind of neglect – Trump has to trumpet his supposed wealth and external achievements because he has learned that without them, he is worthless).
Another thing to point out is that people with ASPD are an extreme minority among the population. Trump is a horrible person and may well have a personality disorder, but that doesn’t explain why he’s so popular, or why people with personality disorders that harm other people are so successful. Many people with ASPD may be extremely focused, but in Trump’s case it looks like a veneer. He isn’t that successful at running a business, making money or even forming a cohesive argument, yet he’s been presented as the archetypal successful businessman for decades. For all the talk about psychopathic cunning, Trump is fairly transparently crooked and abusive. I have to come to the conclusion that many people like the image he presents.
I’d say that people are fascinated by sociopaths, or at least by the freedom that they have from moral strictures and responsibility. Lots of books and movies star characters who exhibit sociopathic behavior. There is a fantasy in being like that, being able to do whatever you want without regret or restriction.
It does seem that way. A lot of the same people who use the term “billionaire politician” as an insult most years really rally behind Trump. Someone described the phenomenon to me this way: “They like him, because he’s exactly the kind of billionaire THEY would be.” Don’t know if it’s true, but seems plausible.
