Is Trump really crazy?

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For those of you who watched the hearing this morning I pose a question which I and others have asked before: is Trump crazy or is he crazy like a fox.

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This morning if you watched the J6 hearing you saw a video of Williams Barr saying Trump was not a rational person.

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He said that if Trump truly believed the things he was saying then he was “detached from reality."

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Not being able to tell what is real from what isn’t is a hallmark of several severe mental disorders or conditions.

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Today Rep. Jamie Raskin said Trump either knew he was lying or was mentally incapacitated. (Read article)

There has been a lot of debate about whether Trump is crazy or crazy like a fox. I think there is fairly uniform agreement that early in childhood her developed into a malignant narcissist. It would fit that if he had so much, really just about all, of his identity tied up in his grandiose self-identity that when he lost the election he suffer something he’d never experienced. This is called a narcissistic injury. This is how Wikipedia describes it:

A narcissistic injury is also known as "narcissistic wound" or "wounded ego" are emotional traumas that overwhelm an individual's defense mechanisms and devastate their pride and self worth. In some cases the shame or disgrace is so significant that the individual can never again truly feel good about who they are and this is sometimes referred to as a "narcissistic scar".

This was published in The Week in 2017: Is Trump crazy or crazy like a fox? 

You're not taking crazy pills. The president and a distressingly large number of people around him regularly say things that sound quite literally insane.

I don't mean neurotic. The president and his advisers don't appear to suffer from anxiety disorder or depression. I'm not even talking about the severe narcissism that every commentator and armchair psychotherapist discerns in Trump's self-absorbed, needy, vindictive tweets and other public pronouncements. I'm talking about something far more serious: clinical psychosis — an incapacity to distinguish between fact and fiction, reality and illusion.

In The New York Times in their regular Conversation column on Dec. 15, 2017 Gail Collins and Bret Stephens discussed the question: Is Trump Crazy Like a Fox or Plain Old Crazy?

They begin:

Gail Collins: Bret, I’ve had a lot of these conversations over the years, but I cannot remember ever starting one by asking whether you think the president is off his rocker. In the real, mentally ill sense.

Bret Stephens: Um, was he ever on his rocker, Gail?

Look, I’ve gone back and forth on this question. If you look up old interviews he conducted 20 or 30 years ago (check out this video of his testimony to a congressional committee in 1991), what you find is a much more coherent thinker and verbally acute speaker than the man he is today. I’m not expert enough to say at what point mental decline slides into senility or dementia, but there’s clearly been a decline.

I posted this in June of 2018:

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Here’s my diary from Dec. 15, 2020:

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I wrote this almost exactly a year ago:

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The question of whether Trump is crazy or crazy like a fox is not new. What is new is that since his election loss there is evidence that he actually now meets the criteria for having a psychiatric disorder or at least a condition where delusions are a prominent feature.

 Is Trump crazy, i.e. Marjorie Taylor Greene QAnon or Lin Wood (who believes the earth is flat — see story) crazy or is he crazy like a fox who is a master manipulator?  Or, is he something in between?

Ivanka betrays father

 

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His Truth Social post suggests how much Trump felt betrayed by his lap dance Lolita

I posted this on Daily Kos (here) where over 2,600 people read it and there were more than 100 comments.

Only an enraged malignant narcissist would refer to his daughter by her first and last names in the public way Donald Trump did. Some parents do this in private when they are mad at their children. For example: “Margaret Jones, stop talking on your cellphone and do your homework!” They don’t do this to an entire country. 

He posted this Friday morning on his Truth Social:

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It's interesting to me how his anger must have been building over the night during which time he made only one post to Truth Social saying “A one sided, totally partisan, POLITICAL WITCH HUNT!” In addition to other posts (see HUFFPost article) trying to spin the story his way, most notable to me is that he chose to focus it on Friday morning by attacking his daughter, the one who I think he has to feel the most betrayed by. His tone in his post is that she was remiss, or worse, in her dutiful daughter responsibility by not being involved in “looking at, or studying the election results.” In fact, he says she had “long since checked out.” “Checked out” is a fairly strong condemnation. 

It was far worse than that. His princess, his lap dance Lolita, called him a liar to the entire nation and he couldn't stand it.

It’s like Delores, aka Lolita, decided to report Humbert Humbert to Protective Services.

“Lolita” ended with Humbert Humbert being arrested for shooting and killing Clare Quilty who was his rival for Lolita’s affection, and dying in prison. Hmmm… it’s probably too much to hope for that Trump could suffer the same fate for trying to kill democracy.

J6 Cmte hearings

 

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Blame for J6 is simple according to Fox News: it was all Pelosi's fault. Will it work?

My friend, who tries to monitor what Fox News is saying, was over to watch the hearing with me last night and convinced me to switch from MSNBC and tune into Fox News for a few minutes after the hearing ended. This is what I learned on The Ingraham Angle where the host was interviewing two GOP members of Congress during the couple of minutes we watched.

One of the guests, Rep. Bryon Donalds (R-FL) said he watched the entire hearing. As he and the other member of Congress smiled and nodded in agreement, the total blame was laid on Nancy Pelosi.

It was revealed in the first portion of the hearing that the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers were conspiring to attack the Capital, Steve Bannon was predicting it, and Trump himself was encouraging it by telling his followers to fight like hell to take back their country, we now know that there were indications that something really bad, or in Trump’s words, something wild, was going to happen in Washington on January 6th.

What then does Fox News and the Trump bootlickers think Nancy Pelosi should have done?

Of course they hate her with a passion but they think she has a crystal ball and can predict dangerous events before they happen.

With this pre-knowledge she should have made sure that the Capital Police were prepared in advanced to protect the building from being overrun by a mob of insurrectionists. 

Nobody brought up that the Capital Police could not have done this alone. This would have taken the kind of protection that thousands of members of law enforcement and 26,000 National Guard troops, plus the physical barriers, used at President Biden’s inauguration provided to assure there was no violence.

The fact that we now know is that the success of the attack on the Capital was predicated on a lot of luck. A few hundred members of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers didn’t go to the Trump rally. They headed straight to the Capital. Their plan was to breach the building and stop certification of the election. They had no way of knowing for sure that Trump would have been able to send a few thousand frothing at the mouth minions to help them storm the Capital.

Of course, according to Fox News, Nancy Pelosi with her crystal ball should have been able to see this in advance.

I think we have had a sample of the narrative Fox News and the GOP will be pursuing as the hearings progress. They will point to all the examples of how far-right pro-Trump supporters had worked to organize the attack on pro-Trump on far-right social media websites and they will say that those entrusted to protect the Capital and members of Congress working there should have prevented it. This will be tricky for them.  In order to make the blame stick to Democrats they will have to figure out a way to absolve Donald Trump. He incited his minions at the rally to go to the Capital. He did nothing to stop the attack while he gleefully watched it in the Oval Office dinning room. He called the mob peaceful with unbelievable love unlike anything he’d ever seen. 

The answer for them is a simple two-parter. 

1. Blame it all on The Proud Boys and The Oath Keepers. What the Hell, they are disposable and have no significant constituency.
2. Say Nancy Pelosi should have known in advance and made sure the Capital was protected. 

They might just manage to pull it off with those who refuse to open their minds to the truth.

The rabbit in the hat that may emerge in the coming weeks is hard evidence of contacts in advance of January 6th between leaders of The Proud Bays and The Oath Keepers with either Donald Trump and/or his close associates showing that Trump knew in advance that they would be the point of the insurrection spear on January 6th and all Trump had to do was make sure they would have an army to back them up marching from his rally. This could come from the J6 Committee of the Department of Justice. This would be compelling evidence of a conspiracy.

Addendum:

Some, like Ted Cruz, will say it is all theater:

Salon article: Ted Cruz calls Jan. 6 hearings "theater"

Ramping up to the start of the Jan. 6 hearings, Ted Cruz made several comments that seem to downplay it all

"And this is theater. It's designed to be theater, right down to they brought in a Hollywood producer. This is – it's not unlike watching the Democratic National Convention, which is a slick, propaganda machine. You know, I don't want the DNC convention because I don't believe in the ideas they're pushing," Cruz continued. "That's what this hearing is going to be and it is sadly going to have the warm and enthusiastic embrace of the corrupt corporate media. You know, The New York Times just observed that this hearing 'is a chance for Democrats to change the midterm narrative.' Well, for once, The New York Times accidentally reported the truth, cuz they admitted this is all about politics. This is a campaign ad."

This is already what Fox News is saying.

The problem for this is that

•  it isn’t theater, it is all true and backed by powerful evidence.
•  if it is theater, it is damn convincing theater.

Call it theater if you must right-wingers running scared, but it was Tony Award winning theater. I give credit to who put this all together and for featuring both the never seen before video and deciding to have U.S. Capitol Police officer Caroline Edwards be the police officer chosen among the police who were there to be the one to testify. She came across as the daughter any sensible person would like to call their own. 

The only thing I would have done differently is to have the chair of the committee chair, Bernie Thompson, make his opening shorter  even though it was very good since Liz Cheney repeated much of what he said and I think did it more effectively and she is, after all a Republican and the daughter of Dick Cheney.  She has star power.

This would have left more time for videos.

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Mommy and Maddi's in Keizer

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Don't forget that to appreciate the photos of scenery it is best to click to enlarge them.

This was rare and surprising dining find which we came across after driving an hour and a half trying to find an interesting place to eat.... We drove south through Canby, Aurora, Hubbard, and Woodburn, approaching the state capital of Salem on HWY 99 (see map below) but as we approached Salem we turned right towards Keizer (on Wikipedia) hoping to find an interesting restaurant there. 

This took us through a huge section of flatlands with hills many miles away on each side. It was almost all beautiful farmland but not the hilly wine country you encounter when going in other directions. Most of the farms (there are numerous photos on the bottom of this page) were devoted to other crops and there were a few dairy farms.

On a street with nothing but stores and commercial buildings we spotted the restaurant. It is between a pot store and a chiropractor's office.

It opened 13 years ago in this lovely house which was built in 1914 and somehow remained standing as the street succumbed new construction and commercialization. 

This is from their Facebook page:

You can see that additions were added to the original house. We ate in a room that was added.

It is owned by a mother-daughter team as the name suggests. Here's their extensive menu.

Below, there's a large parking lot and a drive-trough window in the back.

The food was amazing. We talked to the man sitting next to us, a Vietnam vet who used an electric wheel chair to get there from his home a mile away. Below is him crossing the busy street on his way home.

He said since it opened he came there to eat at least twice a week. This surely qualifies him as a regular.

Here are some photos I took of the interior:

I had what was described on the menu as "the best chicken sandwich ever" and the soup of the day, broccoli cheddar. It  truly was the best chicken sandwich I'd ever had.

As you can see I could  only eat a little of the bread.

My friend had a giant bacon mushroom Swiss omelet with perfect hash browns (below) and also couldn't finish it.

There are over 50 photos on their Yelp page:

Here are photos of the countryside:

The only downside to the day happened when we were stopped by this for about a half hour.

We finally got going and had to follow the pilot car for several miles. 

This screwed up the navigation so we reset it to go home on the freeway. Then we hit bumper to bumper traffic and decided to get off but I could set the navigation not to go back on the expressway so we followed signs to Lake Oswego which we knew how to get home from. It took us at least two hours to get home.

All in all it was a very worthwhile outing.