Donald Trump’s behavior is so far outside the norm that many people (including mental health professionals) have suggested that he is mentally ill. The most common suggestions I’ve seen are that he suffers from narcissistic personality disorder (NPD), antisocial personality disorder (ASPD, also known as sociopathy), or a combination of the two (known as malignant narcissism). There is also widespread concern about cognitive decline.
I looked up the diagnostic criteria for NPD and ASPD, and it’s shocking how many of the boxes Trump ticks. Here are the criteria for NPD according to the American Psychiatric Association’s diagnostic manual, the DSM-5-TR:
Narcissistic Personality Disorder (301.81 [F60.81])
Diagnostic Criteria
A pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), need for admiration, and lack of empathy, beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by five (or more) of the following:
- Has a grandiose sense of self-importance (e.g., exaggerates achievements and talents, expects to be recognized as superior without commensurate achievements).
- Is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love.
- Believes that he or she is “special” and unique and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or high-status people (or institutions).
- Requires excessive admiration.
- Has a sense of entitlement (i.e., unreasonable expectations of especially favorable treatment or automatic compliance with his or her expectations).
- Is interpersonally exploitative (i.e., takes advantage of others to achieve his or her own ends).
- Lacks empathy: is unwilling to recognize or identify with the feelings and needs of others.
- Is often envious of others or believes that others are envious of him or her.
- Shows arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes.
I would argue that Trump meets all 9 of those criteria. Only 5 are required for an NPD diagnosis.
Here are the criteria for ASPD:
Antisocial Personality Disorder (301.7 [F60.2])
Diagnostic Criteria
A. A pervasive pattern of disregard for and violation of the rights of others, occurring since age 15 years, as indicated by three (or more) of the following:
- Failure to conform to social norms with respect to lawful behaviors, as indicated by repeatedly performing acts that are grounds for arrest.
- Deceitfulness, as indicated by repeated lying, use of aliases, or conning others for personal profit or pleasure.
- Impulsivity or failure to plan ahead.
- Irritability and aggressiveness, as indicated by repeated physical fights or assaults.
- Reckless disregard for safety of self or others.
- Consistent irresponsibility, as indicated by repeated failure to sustain consistent work behavior or honor financial obligations.
- Lack of remorse, as indicated by being indifferent to or rationalizing having hurt, mistreated, or stolen from another.
B. The individual is at least age 18 years.
C. There is evidence of Conduct Disorder with onset before age 15 years.
D. The occurrence of antisocial behavior is not exclusively during the course of Schizophrenia or a manic episode.
I’d say that Trump meets all of the numbered criteria except #4. Only 3 are needed for an ASPD diagnosis. He’s certainly irritable and aggressive, but I haven’t heard reports of any physical altercations. He meets criteria B and D, but I don’t know enough about his early life to comment on criterion C, which is Conduct Disorder.
Anyway, the point is not whether Trump would qualify for a formal diagnosis. Diagnosis or no, any person who meets that many criteria for both NPD and ASPD is manifestly unfit for office.
What is virology.?
Above, I lampooned Trump’s juvenile legal complaint against the New York Times. Now a federal judge has dismissed the complaint, slamming the filing and basically telling the lawyers to come back when they have a grown-up complaint.
Judge rejects Trump’s New York Times lawsuit for being ‘decidedly improper and impermissible’
Allan Miller,
The facts are clear that Robinson was anti Charlie Kirk and MAGA there is no effort required by republicans to support these facts. Of course a few republicans will be foolish enough to bite the bait here.
The democrats are lost chasing windmills now and not offering new ideas. The rhetoric against an assassinated conservative kid on the left is not a good look. I think this may be devastating to the party for years to come. The video tapes of these rhetorical mistakes will not go away.
The dems badly need new leadership to avoid a serious party melt down. Who do you think can lead the dems back to a voter friendly set of policies?
colewd:
You’ve lost the plot again. Let’s review:
We are talking about Kimmel’s suspension. You claim that Kimmel “did not have his facts right”. When I asked what Kimmel got wrong, you said that he claimed that Robinson was MAGA. That’s incorrect, as Allan and I have both explained to you.
Kimmel said
Did MAGA people try to characterize Robinson as anything other than one of them? Yes. Did MAGA people try to score political points from it? Yes. The Nancy Mace comments I cited are a vivid illustration of that (“Democrats own this 100%”). Both parts of Kimmel’s sentence are true, and therefore his sentence as a whole is true.
You got it wrong, Bill. Kimmel told the truth. Question: do you believe Kimmel deserved to be suspended for telling the truth? Under pressure from the Trump administration?
colewd:
It’s possible to condemn the assassination and condemn the things Charlie Kirk said during his life. Isn’t that obvious? Why is that “not a good look”? Do you think that Kirk’s death magically transformed him into a saint?
And for what I think is the eighth time — I’ve lost count — do you approve of the stoning of gays, as Kirk did, and do you think it is part of “God’s perfect law”?
Rather proving my point in an attempt to be clever.
colewd,
Did you not defend Trump against charges of lying by saying ‘he did not know’? We do not know Robinson’s politics, or even if he really has any particular affiliation. Nick Fuentes is anti-Kirk; is he ‘leftist’?
I am surprised, as a self-described ‘independent’ [cough], that you think people can only be ‘right’ or ‘left’: a strict dichotomy.
colewd,
You think trying to portray every ‘leftist’ as collectively responsible for Kirk’s murder is a good look? Trump, Mace, Musk… “the left is the party of murder’. Classic propaganda, and you swallow it whole. The party of gun control is the party of murder… 🙄
colewd:
It is very much a First Amendment issue. The First Amendment prohibits government interference with free speech, and that’s not limited to direct interference. If the government suppresses free speech indirectly by coercing private entities into censorship, as it did with the TV stations and with ABC, it is in violation of the First Amendment.
The executive branch does have jurisdiction over the networks. The FCC is part of the executive branch, though it was always intended to be an independent agency. That’s why it isn’t under the purview of a Cabinet Department and is headed by multiple commissioners. It isn’t permitted to suppress freedom of speech at the whims of the president, which is what Brendan Carr, the head of the FCC, is trying to do.
So yes, Trump’s FCC has jurisdiction over the networks, and influence as well. Malevolent influence. That’s what extortion is: malevolent influence. Here’s Brendan Carr engaging in extortion in an interview with Benny Johnson hours before Kimmel’s suspension:
Carr:
As already explained, Kimmel did not say that. It’s a convenient MAGA talking point, and it’s one that you parroted, Bill, but it’s false. Kimmel did not lie.
Carr:
Nice TV station you have there. It would be a shame if somebody yanked your license. Just sayin’.
It’s flat-out extortion. A blatant abuse of government power, and a violation of the First Amendment and the Communications Act.
Hey, ABC — why don’t you think about suspending Kimmel? Then we won’t have to apply our ‘remedies’ to you.
Another threat. This guy might as well be a mobster. He threatened stations above, and here he’s threatening ABC and telling them exactly what he wants them to do: suspend Kimmel. Every time you think they’ve hit bottom, this administration manages to get even sleazier.
Lol. Where “news distortion” is defined as saying anything negative about Trump, especially if it’s true. Imagine entrusting the judgment of what counts as “news distortion” to the most dishonest president in the history of the US, who has lied his entire life, lied his way into power, and is lying in office in order to maintain that power.
Again, holding the possibility of license revocation over the heads of broadcasters in order to coerce them into pressuring ABC to “straighten this out”.
Johnson:
Carr:
The FCC “could be called” to make a judgment? Carr has already made his (false) judgment that Kimmel lied. He has already made threats and pressured private companies to do Trump’s bidding and censor Kimmel. And the threats have succeeded. ABC executives caved, and Kimmel is now suspended.
Allan Miller,
There is strong evidence of Robinsons politics is left. This comes from interviews with his parents. There is also evidence from his texts to his transitioning boyfriend.
If republican leaders are doing this I agree it is not a good look. For the most part I see the strategy as trying to unify around a fallen leader who was assassinated for his ideas.
Can you describe the Democratic Parties strategy on how best to handle this horrible event? Its not clear to me they have one.
But of course the question here isn’t whether this is a violation of the first amendment; there’s wide agreement that it is. Instead, and as is increasingly often, the key question is “what are ya gonna do about it?”
Certainly Trump won’t change his approach. And SCOTUS has a policy of treating every case as an emergency and siding with Trump. Nobody expects the Republicans in Congress to break their silence and cooperation. The major media are all caving in: ABC, CBS, PBS, NBC, Paramount, in fact every one of the nine major broadcast outlets have practiced appeasement to protect their licences. Nearly all universities have appeased for financial reasons – only the wealthiest can protest, and it’s costing them hundreds of millions. Bezos has changed the Washington Post editorial policy to please Trump, as has the Los Angeles Times. And the Republicans are gerrymandering and otherwise doing all they can to rig elections permanently in their favor so the people can’t stop Trump at the ballot box either.
But we can still write to TSZ and complain about how unconstitutional this is. Because we’re a free country, see?
colewd:
If Republican leaders are doing this? You have eyes. You have ears. They are doing it. What part of Mace’s “Democrats own this 100%” leaves any doubt? Or Musk’s “the left is the party of murder”?
And is it merely “not a good look”? Can’t you condemn it for reasons other than “it makes us look bad”? You claim to be concerned about political violence. You chastised me for the kind of rhetoric that is “the fuel of political violence” and “apparently the cause of his [Kirk’s] murder.” If my rhetoric is the fuel of political violence, what about blaming the entire left for the murder of Charlie Kirk?
(Also, still waiting for an example of my supposedly violence-fueling rhetoric. You haven’t supplied a single one. So quick with the accusations, and so slow with the evidence.)
The irony is that Kirk advocated for free speech. You’d think that if Republicans were unifying around Kirk, they’d embrace free speech protection, but no — with a few notable exceptions, they’re going along with Trump’s anti-free speech crusade.
Flint:
The Supreme Court’s performance has been appalling, with the presidential immunity decision standing out as the most egregious example, but they have pushed back against Trump in some cases. They’re not quite to the rubber stamp stage yet, and there’s reason to hope they would rule against him if anything as egregious as the Kimmel case came before them. There are a couple of very recent cases in which the current Court has ruled against indirect suppression of free speech via governmental coercion, and if ever there was an example of that, it’s the Kimmel suspension. I hope he sues.
I responded with a long and detailed response, and got a database error, and my reply was lost. This is the second time this has happened. I’ll wait until things are more stable and try again.
Anyway, the gist of it was that the government has its fingers in every slice of every pie, which means there are dozens of indirect ways to pressure Disney that aren’t free speech related, but are definitely bottom line related – Disney is a big company with a lot of interests in a lot of industries. For example, consider perfectly reasonable-sounding “safety inspections” of Disney World amusement rides. Not hard to imagine “safety” restrictions that would make rides too expensive (or unenjoyable) to bother with. No speech issues involved. Just sayin’.
Flint:
Yeah, it’s really annoying. For that very reason, I’ve gotten into the habit of copying my comment onto the clipboard before clicking ‘Post Comment’. Hopefully the issue will be resolved soon. I’ve pinged a WordPress maintenance service and am waiting for a response.
Attorney Marc Elias of Democracy Docket on the Kimmel suspension:
He is not a Pollyanna, and he’s an extremely sharp attorney. His opinion carries weight.
Full video here.
He mentions the spinelessness of Disney and the unlikelihood that they will file suit against the government, but what about Kimmel himself? I would assume that he has standing to sue, and I hope he does. I’m interested in whether there are any legal obstacles for Kimmel that wouldn’t exist for Disney.
My understanding is that Disney isn’t “spineless”, but rather that they are concerned about annoying their shareholders, and about their profit margin, and about the many ways the government could do them financial injury in legal ways (or ways not likely to be taken to court). If Disney were like the NYT, only in the communication business and the government didn’t have extensive multifaceted leverage over them, likely they would have contested it and won that case without losing through a thousand cuts.
Flint:
In my mind, any media company that is willing to cede control over their content to the federal government for fear of retribution from the government or backlash from shareholders, is spineless. Particularly if their legal case is a slam dunk, as Elias believes.
It occurred to me today that apart from the free speech angle, there is something else that is hypocritical about the pro-censorship right’s posture on the Kimmel issue. They claim to be aghast at what Kimmel said and are glad that he was fired, but I haven’t heard a peep from them about Brian Kilmeade’s suggestion for dealing with homeless people:
Yes, Brian Kilmeade really said this: “Involuntary lethal injection, or something. Just kill them.”
Kimmel said something that was true, he didn’t claim that Kirk’s shooter was MAGA, he didn’t advocate violence, and yet people on the right were calling for his scalp. Meanwhile Kilmeade actually suggested killing people, and the right just yawned.
I looked, and I couldn’t find evidence that even one prominent Republican condemned Kilmeade’s comments. I asked a couple of AIs, and they too couldn’t find any examples of Republican condemnation.
ETA: I just found a Republican who actually condemned Kilmeade’s remarks, and guess who it was? Adam Kinzinger. The one Republican who had the decency to speak up was an anti-Trump Republican.
He addressed Kilmeade on X:
colewd,
“Strong evidence”. Ha! Governor Cox says his parents say… this is what is known in legal circles as ‘hearsay’. You think these hearsay opinions turn Kimmel into a liar? What does ‘left’ look like to a MAGA? It could be as trivial as thinking Trump a dickhead, an opinion many Republicans share.
Well, they tend to be anti-gun… but I don’t really care about the Dems, not being American.
Another thought that occurs to me: the belief that someone who turns a gun on someone, risking their own demise shortly or after years on death row… the belief that that person is rational. That there is an explanation that makes sense to us for their action. And if you’re a MAGA, of course a move to the Left would make someone kill Kirk. No other possible explanation, right? Cos lefties… it’s just what they’re like.
After all… one of these days… it will be a Democrat. Law of averages. At last, after trying to pin every other case on Dems, they’ll finally be right. And boy will they have a fucking field day. If a trans partner, a semester at university and the report of MAGA Governor Cox are considered slam-dunk motivations for murder, think what actual Democratic Party membership would do!
Trump on Biden:
I had to wipe away a tear; the Christian charity just oozes out of him. Now, what were we saying about the Left and Charlie Kirk?
Allan:
It reminds me of Trump’s (and Kirk’s) reaction when a lunatic with a hammer fractured the skull of Nancy Pelosi’s husband Paul, nearly killing him. The guy broke into their home, hoping to kidnap Nancy and split her kneecaps.
According to a baseless rumor on the right, the attacker was a male prostitute who was found in his underwear, and the glass was broken from the inside out, suggesting that Pelosi had willingly let the guy in.
Just four days after the attack, Trump was promoting the rumor, saying in an interview:
So was Charlie Kirk:
Bill, is that the kind of thing “a great kid” and “a very good guy with solid character” would say? Do you approve of your orange hero’s comments, too?
Two years after the attack, Trump was still trying to milk it politically:
Trump and Kirk. Great guys. Solid, salt-of-the-earth types. The kind of men our country needs.
Who in this group of commentators hold a psychology or psychiatry?
Keiths? Some courses online?
J-Mac:
Give it a rest, J-Mac. I’ve already addressed that three times, and this is the fourth. It isn’t necessary to “hold a psychology or psychiatry” (lol) in order to judge that Trump is a self-serving, entitled, grandiose, compulsive liar who requires excessive admiration. If you disagree, then make your case, but drop the credentialism.
Donald J. “I stopped
sixseventen wars” Trump attempts to pronounce Azerbaijan and confuses Armenia with Albania:Abberbaijan and Albania
See? That’s how impressive the Dear Leader is. He brokered a peace deal without even knowing the names of the warring countries. A master negotiator.
This is the guy colewd described as being “good or probably better than any politician in history” at negotiating. Lol. I’m no expert, but I’m pretty sure that knowing something about the other parties, including their names, is a prerequisite.
Bonus: Watch Keir Starmer’s face as he listens to Trump’s idiocy.
Turning Charlie Kirk’s memorial into a MAGA rally. It’s what he would have wanted.
Someone else was big on rallies, I recall.
Allan Miller,
Are you claiming the governor of Utah is lying when all this will come out in the trial? Sure it is hearsay until we see the deposition but there is no reason for the Governor to lie as a correction would not help his reputation.
Good thing for Keiths you do not put him to the test on his claims 🙂
colewd:
I see that Allan’s point sailed over your head. He isn’t accusing Cox of lying. He’s asking about what counts as leftist in Cox’s view:
Cox isn’t actually MAGA, but Allan’s point stands. What does ‘leftist’ mean to Cox, or to Robinson’s mom? From the Salt Lake Tribune:
Is everyone who is “pro-gay and trans-rights oriented” automatically a leftist, in her view? Does she have other reasons to consider her son a leftist? We don’t know, so why rush to judgment?
And if he is a leftist, so what? Do you think that validates Nancy Mace’s idiotic claim that “the Democrats own this 100%”? Do Republicans “own” every atrocity committed by a right-leaning person?
You cited Robinson’s text messages to his partner as evidence of his leftist politics. What did he say in those messages that led you to that conclusion? I’ve read them, and I can’t see anything. When his partner asked him why he shot Kirk, he simply said
Does that qualify as leftist? If Robinson were on the right, would he be A-OK with Kirk’s hatred, including his trans-bashing? Is it impossible for someone on the right to perceive Kirk as hateful, and to disapprove?
I think it would be nice if you would put my claims to the test instead of constantly running away.
Kimmel is back on the air tomorrow! I wish I’d been in the room when Trump heard the news.
In the OP, I noted that Trump appears to satisfy every criterion for narcissistic personality disorder and almost every one for antisocial personality disorder:
Criterion #4 was
I have since learned more about Trump’s early life, and I’m sure no one will be surprised at what I discovered. Among other things, as a kid, Trump got caught throwing rocks at a toddler in a playpen. At military school, he fought with a fellow student and tried to push him out of a second story window. He was widely known as a bully. Great kid.
Cue J-Mac to tell me that unless I “hold a psychology or psychiatry” (lol), I’m not allowed to say that defenestration is bad or that throwing rocks at toddlers is not normal. Those are matters that only a mental health professional can adjudicate.
Here’s hoping they backtracked because people were cancelling their subscriptions in droves. Great news anyway.
That’s my understanding of what happened. It is what Robert Reich is suggesting.
What I heard was that ABC decided to air Kimmel, but they own only about 8 outlets nationwide. The overwhelming majority of outlets are owned by either Sinclair or Nexstar. I know Sinclair isn’t going to air Kimmel, and last I heard Nexstar hasn’t decided yet.
colewd,
I am saying his report is not ‘strong evidence’. A distraught mother in the days after her son’s death reportedly asserts that her son had beeome ‘leftist’. I have no idea what she really means by that. Does she mean he stopped going to church? Turned gay? Became worried about climate change? Doubted the Flood? Started arguing the Marxist dialectic? What? As I say, ‘left’ to a MAGA is not necessarily all that left.
But no, that report alone is enough to damn Kimmel as a liar, because he should have been as convinced of it as you are.
And beyond that, being leftist is alone a sufficient cause for murder, because good MAGA kids are incapable… ? I know I’m putting words in your mouth, but this is the implication of the absolute desperation (Kimmel was right) shown by MAGAs this past couple of weeks. Leftist Derangement Syndrome.
You think all claims Trump lies are hearsay? I note you haven’t addressed a single one.
Allan Miller,
It’s worse than hearsay. Its unsupported speculation as lying requires proof of intent which is a difficult challenge.
But you’re happy to say Kimmel lied, because he must have intended to deceive on a point of incontrovertible fact. Got it.
And you’re going with “Trump is deluded, not a liar”. Again, got it.
Allan:
Consistency isn’t Bill’s strong suit. And as a reminder to him, I’ll again point out that Kimmel’s statement wasn’t false and it wasn’t even uncertain. He did not claim that Robinson is MAGA. He said
That statement is correct and not speculative. For a statement to qualify as a lie, it must be false. Kimmel’s statement is true. That’s inconvenient for you and your MAGA friends, but them’s the breaks.
That argument cracks me up, both for its implications and for its implausibility.
The implication is that not only is Trump deluded, he’s massively deluded, to the point of mental incompetence. (He truly is mentally incompetent, but that’s in addition to the dishonesty, not instead of it.) He’s made thousands of false statements, dozens of which we’ve covered in this thread. If he’s trying to be honest but is that confused, then he’s completely unfit to be president. Bill’s choice is between “unfit due to dishonesty” and “unfit due to abject mental incompetence”, and he has chosen the latter. I don’t think your Dear Leader would be happy about that, Bill.
The implausibility is that if Bill is correct and Trump is actually trying to be honest, then it’s just a massive coincidence that virtually all of his falsehoods are favorable to him. Just by coincidence. What are the odds? It’s laughable.
Trump’s pathological lying isn’t surprising at all. It makes perfect sense. He meets all of the other criteria for sociopathy (ASPD), so it would actually be surprising if he didn’t meet this one:
He’s a malignant narcissist, and dishonesty is part of the package.
keiths,
Our Channel 4 managed to get 5 hours out of just 100 lies, in honour of his ludicrous State Visit (in which he remained corralled within the confines of Windsor Castle due to his broad unpopularity). It was just clips of him speaking, followed by the facts on screen. I dipped in and out, as that cadence and childish vocabulary (bad people… horrible people… like nobody’s ever seen) are hard to take in large doses.
keiths,
Yes, I keep seeing this from MAGA after MAGA. “He lied!”. Sorry, are we looking at the same sentence? They show the truth of his statement repeatedly.
When I first heard, I immediately thought it was someone on the Left. It’s an obvious conclusion to leap to. “You dozy bastard! This will backfire massively” were my initial thoughts. But a friend pointed out that there are factions on the Right who really don’t like each other, and the ‘leftist’ evidence so far is poor. Even Grok started saying ‘leftist’ in its news roundup, clear Elon-tinkering, which it rowed back on when challenged.
It’s interesting that no-one on the Left has tried the “false flag” gambit. That’s a go-to for the Right. Protestors are paid actors, J6 was orchestrated by Antifa or the CIA (like, the Right are so easily led? 🤔).
Trump, at Kirk’s memorial:
A complaint about gun control at a memorial for a victim of gun violence? The desire to crush opposition in memorial to a champion of free speech? These people are unreal.
For anyone who didn’t see it, Trump said:
The crowd laughed, as if that weren’t the sickest and most unpresidential thing he could have said. At a memorial service, no less. Bill, do you approve of your “choir boy’s” rhetoric?
Allan,
When I heard about Channel 4’s coverage, it occurred to me that since it takes longer to disprove Trump’s lies than it does for him to excrete them, even a 24/7 channel devoted to nothing but debunking them would inevitably fall behind. They’d have to skip over some if they wanted to keep up.
The latest lie: “Cuba doesn’t have Tylenol… they have no autism”.
a) Partially technically correct, because they call it paracetamol, as do we in the UK. So this is like saying they don’t have pineapples.
b) They have similar rates of autism to the rest of the world.
And it wouldn’t be Trump without the Trumpisms. “autism is one of the most alarming public health developments in history. There’s never been anything like this…”. He clearly departs from the script to add that little flourish. I wonder if Trump ever encountered a fact that was not unprecedented?
Turns to RFK after stating there are groups with no autism: “is that a correct statement?”. RFK croaks: “the Amish…”. Trump: “I heard none”.
“Aceja… let’s see how we say that…”. A cheap shot, but hilarious. Imagine Biden stumbling.
“Taking Tylenol is … uh … not good. I’ll say it. It’s not good”.
Just gibbering, delinquent stupidity. Letting grandad run off at the mouth.
Ourworldindata doesn’t have any stats on autism, and says only 34 percent of countries report on autism.
I got my MA in special Ed in 1974. We were taught that autism existed on a spectrum, but in general, the term referred to people who were nonverbal and/or had severe behavior problems that required constant supervision.
On a personal note, my youngest grandson was feared to be autistic because he didn’t vocalize or make eye contact. He has an autistic aunt and uncle.
After surgery for strabismus, he underwent major personality change.
His brother is hyperactive, but not attention deficit. He can focus for hours on a school task, but cannot stop pacing around. He was kicked out of a fancy special needs school because they insisted on his being medicated, and the drugs just made him hostile and uncontrollable.
He takes remote classes now and is doing fine. His pacing has gradually diminished. It will never go away. I was a programmer for thirty years and had to pace.
I’m rambling, but I have a point. My family is a heavy consumer of medical technology, but not compliant with every trendy intervention.
petrushka,
Cuba’s rate is of the order of the UK’s (690 per 100k vs 710).
We don’t have Tylenol either (ie we too call it paracetamol). Available over the counter, though with restrictions on how many can be bought at a time due to suicide concerns.
Allan:
He’s a hyperbolic guy like nobody has ever seen before. My favorite example was when he threw in a bonus logical inconsistency:
While I was looking up some statistics for the other thread, I ran across this list (from YouGov) of the most popular politicians in the US. The first number is “Fame”, which I guess means name recognition, and the second is “Popularity”:
Trump would be enraged by that list. After all, he’s so jealous and insecure that he did this:
Trump moves Obama, Bush portraits to hidden stairwell
As always, you have no point. It’s a feature of Americans in general (as opposed to the entire rest of the world) to be heavy consumers of medical technology – so you’re not special, you’re just being an American. Americans are notorious for drugging themselves, part of it due to culture (must use more drugs than the neighbour), part of it due to the way the medical industry is built up (there are perks for physicians when they prescribe drugs).
However, Covid vaccines are not a “trendy intervention”, but a concrete response to a concrete problem. The global pandemic was real, not a fashion. You may comply or not, but it’s a fallacy to see anything trendy about it.
If there was any point to your rambling, it’s the revelation that you think that statistical health-and-cure trends are like online viral trends in social media, and that seasonal illnesses are like seasons of fashion.
By contrast, I shun all medicines and supplements, but cheerfully available myself of proffered vaccines. There’s no ‘my body’s a temple’ about this; I am fortunate to be in rude health so don’t need the pharmacopoeia that people my age (nearing 68) often have. As to pain relief, I’m never sure it even works, so don’t bother. If prescribed antibiotics, though, I take them.
But vaccines are a different matter. If they’re free, I’ll have ’em. They are a different class of intervention from molecular formulations. My daughter – a respiratory doctor at the time Covid hit – was dealing with a succession of very sick, often elderly patients. She broke down on the phone at the thought of me or my wife under that mask. So when a vaccine became available, it was the least I could do for her to take it. And for those like her, whose struggles are minimsed, or even reversed, as intentional murderers.This lies at the heart of my anti-anti-vax philosophy. Don’t want it, don’t take it. But persuading others to follow suit is another matter. This circles back to my contempt for RFK and his ilk, whose nonsense has now affected (infected?) the President.