Is Trump making America mentally ill?

In one of Walker Percy’s brilliant novels, “The Second Coming,” protagonist Will Barrett keeps falling down for no apparent reason. He also suffers trances during which he contemplates existential questions.

Barrett comes to mind in the era of Donald Trump.

I’m not falling down on the golf course yet, as Barrett did, but I confess to a feeling of lightheadedness coupled with slight nausea. It makes perfect sense that Barrett finds salvation in a young woman recently released from an insane asylum.

When many of those around you seem to be suffering from some sort of group mania — believing what isn’t true and defending what isn’t defensible — then the officially “insane” offer some strange solace. At least there’s a rational explanation for their disorder.

Today, about a third of the nation’s population seems to be suffering from a reality discernment malfunction. Have they been ingesting mushrooms plucked from bull dung? Drinking water spiked with credulity-enhancing chemicals?

Thus, when President Trump speaks in his fourth-grade, monosyllabic, syntax-challenged verbiage, they hear lyrical lucidity. When he brags that he has accomplished more than any other president, save for Franklin Delano Roosevelt, his starry-eyed minions nod their approval. Exactly no major legislation has been passed by Congress since Trump took office.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/is-trump-making-america-mentally-ill/2017/06/13/28204b08-507b-11e7-be25-3a519335381c_story.html?utm_term=.353cd2c2f739

Oh yes, Make America stupid, mentally ill, physically ill, and afraid of each other again. And every mass shooting is always followed by talk of mental illness to drown out gun control, so maybe we should declare Trump supporting as a mental illness and stop them from purchasing any more guns.