General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsView 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-healthView from the left: Journalists must start covering the elephant in the roomTrump's mental health
By Kerry Eleveld
Saturday Jan 28, 2017 · 2:00 PM EST
This week was tragicboth for America and the White House. These two tweets from Wednesday and Thursday pretty much sum up Donald Trump's first week in office:
The next day, Gary Whitta observed, US/Mexico relations collapse. Entire state department resigns. Press Sec tweets out passwords. Its 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. Its 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 domental 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 werent simply upset over semantics. Theyre 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 democracythey werent armed with First Amendment protections by the founding fathers so they could hide behind their dictionaries in times of peril.
In years to come, todays 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.
Achilleaze
(15,543 posts)Is a role model for their children
guillaumeb
(42,641 posts)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
(70,112 posts)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)as that is to say.
manicraven
(901 posts)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.
spanone
(135,841 posts)bdamomma
(63,868 posts)he needs to be removed ASAP!!!!!!!!!
Blue_Roses
(12,894 posts)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)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 Trumps assertion that Cruzs father participated in the JFK assassination, called Trump a pathological liar. He said, He doesnt 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, Cruzs 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)or know he is not normal and think it's a good thing.