Hot mic senators: Trump is "crazy" and "I don't say that lightly"

Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2017/07/27/caine-mutiny.html

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I mean, Collins is one of the moderate R’s who have blocked or condemned the Prez before. I’ll be much more impressed when one of the die-hards gets caught on a hot mic.

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I mean, they’re not wrong. It’d be surprising if they didn’t think that.

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I’m sure Trump will respond to this report in a calm and reasonable way that puts both their minds at ease about the state of his mental stability.

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Paul Ryan and crew already got caught with a hot mic, no one cared:

He was also present for this conversation: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/house-majority-leader-to-colleagues-in-2016-i-think-putin-pays-trump/2017/05/17/515f6f8a-3aff-11e7-8854-21f359183e8c_story.html

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I have NEVER been more proud of Reed before.

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Finally something that a Democrat and a Republican in the Senate can actually agree on!

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Where do I send the prize?

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I’m not convinced that was really Ryan saying it, or the camera man. I’ve seen this discussed before and I’ll look for the link.

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“Hot Mic Senators” Looking forward to the encore.

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Surely “crazy” is in no way a description of a defined mental illness? It’s not a diagnosis but a description of how someone appears to someone else.

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Maybe this is why they don’t want the press hanging around in the hallways now.

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is that another way of saying he might not be crazy?

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Well sure, but it can also be an initial, alarmed and colloquial description of someone’s apparent mental disorder. People in the U.S. often use that word when they seriously doubt someone’s mental stability, a context in which they’re also signaling that while they don’t know just what the specific disorder could be, there does appear to be one.

So yes, not “a description of a defined mental illness,” but often a suspicion that a definable one exists.

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I tend to agree, since psychologists don’t actually say that word and it’s colloquial usage covers a wide gamut most of which has nothing to do with actual mental illness. On the other hand, the speaker adding on I don’t say that lightly makes me think insanity might have been the implication.

On the one hand I’m gladdened to hear criticism of Trump showing what we all knew, that many Republicans only support him publicly, not privately. On the other hand, I don’t want his actions being excused by his state of mind. As far as I’m concerned, he’s sane and fully responsible for his actions until proven otherwise, just like any other matchstick man.

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The context is that both believed that they were having a private, off-the-record discussion and voicing their candid fears about the president, who wields enormous power and could cause immeasurable harm if he were to abuse it.

IF?

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When you’ve been run over by a bus, the exact model of the bus is less relevant than the impact, no? I don’t fault non-specialists, who describe extreme behavior, when they resort to extreme language. What else to they have?

Crazy is certainly not a DSM term, but then again, we’re not coding charts for his insurance company, are we?

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I agree.

In this usage, “crazy” seems to be a convenient shorthand for “erratic, vindictive, and petty.”

That having been said, and declaring ahead of time that I am not a mental health care professional of any stripe, it is my opinion that ⊥rump is mentally ill; it’s not just character flaws.

IMO he’s somewhere near the intersection of sociopath, narcissist, and paranoid. His speech veers often into the realm of word salad. He’s demonstrably delusional, in that he regularly asserts that verifiable facts are false (and vice versa).

I don’t wish to stigmatize mental illness. I’ve been in treatment several times myself for depression.

But I don’t want ⊥rump’s particular flavor of “crazy” anywhere near the nuclear codes, thank you very much!

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That was my point; that the politicians were not exceeding their remit as some have suggested.

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Yeah, but what Ryan said is different than senators calling Trump crazy and clarifying that they’re not using the word “lightly”, i.e. they’re not using it figuratively. Ryan’s hot mic is just a complaint with an expletive, while the two senators’ hot mic is a doubting of the President’s mental health and fitness to serve. Such doubting has far more serious political ramifications than Ryan saying a “bad” word.

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