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babylonsister

(171,070 posts)
Sat Jan 28, 2017, 07:20 PM Jan 2017

View from the left: Journalists must start covering the elephant in the room-Trump's mental health

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2017/1/28/1626188/-View-from-the-left-Journalists-must-start-covering-the-elephant-in-the-room-Trump-s-mental-health


View from the left: Journalists must start covering the elephant in the room—Trump's mental health
By Kerry Eleveld
Saturday Jan 28, 2017 · 2:00 PM EST



This week was tragic—both for America and the White House. These two tweets from Wednesday and Thursday pretty much sum up Donald Trump's first week in office:

”First they came for the Latinos, Muslims, women, gays, poor people, intellectuals and scientists and then it was Wednesday,” wrote Jonathan Katz.

The next day, Gary Whitta observed, “US/Mexico relations collapse. Entire state department resigns. Press Sec tweets out passwords. It’s 9:34am on the west coast.”


It was messy, chaotic, and full of plenty of misguided bluster. But no matter what came across the interwebs, I couldn't help but note the entire week was being driven by something no news organization really wants to broach: Trump's mental health. It’s the shadowy force that has now hijacked our national agenda.

snip//

Several weeks after the November election, three psychiatry professors urged President Obama to order a neuropsychiatric evaluation of Trump's mental fitness before he assumed the responsibilities of the presidency. It was about as much as they could ethically do—mental health professionals are restricted from diagnosing anyone who's not actually under their care. But you don't have to be a trained therapist to know that Trump could probably binge on mushrooms daily and have a more benign grasp on reality than he does now.

Meanwhile, reporters over at NPR are wrestling themselves to the ground over whether to call a lie a "lie." At the least the New York Times isn't still doing those mental gymnastics.

Look, we need journalists to get over their ethical hangups and deference for the office and start finding the words that meet the moment. NPR listeners weren’t simply upset over semantics. They’re desperate for substantive reporting that goes beyond a basic recitation of the daily bustle. Now is no time for journalists to take a cautious view of their role in our democracy—they weren’t armed with First Amendment protections by the founding fathers so they could hide behind their dictionaries in times of peril.

In years to come, today’s journalists will be judged by one thing and one thing only: How ably they wielded the power of the pen to preserve the foundations of our democracy for generations to come.

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guillaumeb

(42,641 posts)
2. Far too many journalists seem to feel that "objectivity" means that a journalist cannot
Sat Jan 28, 2017, 07:26 PM
Jan 2017

point out an obvious lie.

Witness how most corporate journalists handled the birther lie that Trump promoted for years.

Witness how corporate journalists report on GOP supply side economic idiocy.

mopinko

(70,113 posts)
3. do you suppose dems could petition to invoke article 25 and demand an mri?
Sat Jan 28, 2017, 07:32 PM
Jan 2017

i dont mean would they. whole different discussion.

legally, could they? introduce a bill, get john mccain or lindsey graham aboard, and just question his fitness, and insist that he be examined.

Amaryllis

(9,524 posts)
9. See reply #8. Of course, that would give us Pence, but right now that is looking preferable, hard .
Sat Jan 28, 2017, 08:12 PM
Jan 2017

as that is to say.

manicraven

(901 posts)
4. Journalists should be harping on it like the right did about Hillary's e-mails.
Sat Jan 28, 2017, 07:42 PM
Jan 2017

It should be the new norm going forward, not out of vengeance, but because he truly is behaving as if he has a serious mental disorder.

Blue_Roses

(12,894 posts)
7. I think they're shell-shocked!
Sat Jan 28, 2017, 07:52 PM
Jan 2017

Hopefully, they will snap out of it soon and get with it.
I think it's just so bizzarre to most everyone and with so much thrown at us in such a short time, we're all on overload!

I have NEVER seen anything like this and it's very unsettling. But, the press has got to get it together and get on this ...now

Amaryllis

(9,524 posts)
8. WaPo article 3 days ago brought up mental health; actually implied removing him might be in order..
Sat Jan 28, 2017, 08:10 PM
Jan 2017

Maybe Trump Isn't "Lying"
WaPo, January 25

The supposition among pundits, elected officials and political insiders is that Trump, like his argument over the inaugural crowd size, “lies” to make himself feel better. His staff salutes, repeats his lies and then gets bashed. What if, however, he thoroughly, “honestly” believes his crazy, unsubstantiated claims? When he denies saying something, what if he honestly does not, cannot recall statements that now come back to haunt him?

He seemed awfully sincere about his reprehensible birther conspiracy theories until it became inconvenient to say so. Before reverting to sycophantic form after his primary defeat, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), incensed about Trump’s assertion that Cruz’s father participated in the JFK assassination, called Trump a “pathological liar.” He said, “He doesn’t know the difference between truth and lies. He lies practically every word that comes out of his mouth. And he had a pattern that I think is straight out of a psychology textbook. His response is to accuse everybody else of lying.”

Putting aside the psychiatric lingo, Cruz’s essential point — Trump cannot tell what is real and what is not — surely looks right on point less than a week into the presidency. In the campaign, he became convinced, for example, that Arab Americans in New Jersey celebrated after 9/11. Now he becomes convinced of other, equally ludicrous assertions. Kellyanne Conway, Sean Spicer and others know what he is saying is nonsense (“Alternative facts“? Puh-leez.) They do not have the nerve to tell him that what he believes cannot be true. and therefore cannot be uttered by the president of the United States without raising questions about his mental/emotional stability. They are lying if they repeat his claim, but maybe he is sincere.

(SNip)

We are not calling — yet — for invocation of Section 4 of the 25th Amendment. (“Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.”)

MOre:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2017/01/25/maybe-trump-isnt-lying/?utm_term=.749858f0c35d

ThoughtCriminal

(14,047 posts)
10. I worry about the mental health of people who think he's normal
Sun Jan 29, 2017, 12:37 AM
Jan 2017

or know he is not normal and think it's a good thing.

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