New Reports Suggest Trump Might Not Be a Liar at All, But Truly Delusional.

[Cattledog]

The prevailing interpretation of Donald Trump, shared by all his enemies and many of his allies, is that he is a con man. It is a theory that explains both his career in business and politics, and has carried through his many reversals of position and acts of fraud against customers and contractors. It remains quite plausible. But new reporting has opened up a second possibility: The president has lost all touch with reality.

The Washington Post and New York Times have accounts from insiders suggesting Trump habitually insists upon the impossible in private. He does not merely tell lies in order to gull the public, or to manipulate allies. He tells lies in private that he has no reason to tell. He still questions the authenticity of Barack Obama’s birth, despite the birth certificate. He insists voter fraud may have denied him a popular vote triumph. He tells people Robert Mueller will wrap up his investigation, with a total vindication of the president, by the end of the year.

He questions whether the Access Hollywood tape, on which he was recorded boasting of sexual assault, is even him. (Both the Post and the Times describe Trump repeatedly denying the validity of the tape in private, “stunning his advisers,” as the Times puts it.)


It is of course entirely possible that Trump is lying to everybody, including his own staff. But the lies in these articles do not always fit into any pattern of rational self-aggrandizement. Trump tells senators or his aides the Access Hollywood tape is not him, but they don’t believe him. He has no reason to bring up the birther fabrication in private.

more at:

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/11/new-reports-trump-not-a-liar-is-truly-delusional.html?utm_campaign=nym&utm_source=fb&utm_medium=s1

[secondwind]

1. He is batshit crazy.

[chwaliszewski]

29. I completely disagree with your assessment.

He is bug-fuck crazy.

[get the red out]

2. Scary but plausible

This situation is mind boggling.

[Scarsdale]

4. Only a repub. could

get away with this total con job. A dem. would have been sliced and diced by the gop long ago. They enable this clown, to fill their wants and needs while he is in office. They OWN this entire disaster, lock stock and barrel. Worst president in the history of the country, and he is 100% GOP. It is obvios that he is "not quite right", a man/child playing the part of "leader" It fills me with dread. Look at how mch damage he has done in just a short time. Everything this country stood for is being dismantled.

[Louis1895]

41. I disagree

He is only 40% GOP. The remaining 60% in Putin.

[lagomorph777]

45. 100% RePutin

The Greedy Old Perverts are a wholly-owned subsidiary of the TrumPutin Organization.

[DBoon]

55. Putin owns the Republican Party

They love his authoritarian white nationalism

His support allows them to rule

He has bought them literally. They have bought his ideology.

[Hortensis]

3. Oh, he's a huge liar, and he believes his own lies,

but almost certainly not all. A very smart observer said just last night that he's "immune to facts that contradict" what he wants to believe, just like those who voted for him. But he also admitted it was often very difficult to tell when Trump was believing and when he was putting on an act with some goal in mind, a con man trying to deceive others.

It's good that this is being discussed again. It came up during the campaign, but most were too distracted by whatever new, sparking balls were presented to really pay attention.

Btw, like his trumpsters he may seem crazy, but it's very unlikely that he actually is. Insanity is a real, unmistakable thing when you're face to face with it, and there are lesser types of mental disorder.

Read about cluster B personality disorders, extremely likely involved, although experts speculate about a few other things that might also be in play.

[Scarsdale]

5. Please don't jump all over me, but

in some of his photos, I get a distinct Down Syndrome vibe. Could he have a mild form? He certainly is not normal.

[Hortensis]

6. I'm not one of those experts, Scarsdale, but that syndrome has a

lot of specific features that I suspect would be speculated about.

I have noticed, on watching clips of him when he was a lot younger, that he does speak in shorter, less cohesive sentences now than then. Is that because he's found this works better for the populist rabble rousing that brought him this far or has his functioning deteriorated? Or both?

[pnwmom]

9. No, he had no signs of that when he was younger. His abnormality is something different.

He has a textbook case of narcissistic personality disorder, along with being a sociopath.

[Hortensis]

12. I agree he's had this all his life, adult at least, only

speculating about whether his functioning has deteriorated a bit.

Regarding his behavior when supposedly "honoring" Navajo coders, a writer for The Atlantic observed that he often uses captive audiences to be offensive. It's extremely likely that it was an exercise in political manipulation, distracting attention away from something else, but it's also quite probable that he was enjoying being offensive because he could. An exercise of power over everyone, very much including the men who could only respond to what he was dishing with quiet dignity.

[Nonhlanhla]

19. No,

but adults with Down syndrome usually develop Alzheimers starting in their forties and fifties. That's the similarity that you're picking up on, I suspect. I've said from day 1 that Trump has Alzheimers. My father had dementia (of a different kind, but same symptoms), and I can see much of the same lostness on Trump's face that I saw in my father's. Of course, he always was a narcissist, so there's that too, underneath the early-dementia symptoms that I suspect are there.

[smirkymonkey]

42. It's funny, but I have always thought he had a kind of "fetal alcohol syndrome" look about him,

especially around the eyes. But now that you mention it, I can see the Down's Syndrome thing too. Either that, or he has just had some really bad plastic surgery.

[tomp]

11. if he believes things that are demonstrably false he is delusional, i.e., psychotic.

However, does he truly believe them. That is hard to prove.

One bit of evidence in favor of psychosis is: does it lead to behavior that negatively affects his life? How does it negatively affect his life to believe obama is Kenyan? He is rich and president*.

Now, if his beliefs somehow lead to a impoverishment or a jail sentence, then we can talk.

Most likely his underlying belief is that if you tell a lie often enough people will believe it. that is demonstrably true.

Dx: personality d/o, unspecified; r/o narcissistic and antisocial personality d/o.

[Hortensis]

14. Do you think if Trump's inheritance was a fast-food franchise

he'd have managed it competently and earned a living from it?

I don't. I think he'd have run it into the ground. And quickly. Remember, he became wealthy in an era of enormous wealth build-up. Because he had wealth to begin with, as much as he lost through dysfunction, what he didn't lose kept building.

Also, his dad not only launched him in big business but rescued him many times before he was no longer there for him some time in the 1980s. After that the number of business disasters leaped, to the point that Trump stopped trying to build businesses and buildings and started just licensing his name to the creations of others.

If he wasn't extremely wealthy, would he have been able to buy his way out of his many, many legal troubles?

Would anyone have sucked up, or would he have become increasingly isolated as people learned to avoid trouble?

I believe he's proven profoundly dysfunctional.

[tomp]

26. I repeat: he's rich, president, not in jail.

Not sure how you arrived at your response to mine. Trump is not dys-functional but negatively functional, in that for the most part his "functioning" leads to problems for others rather than for himself (antisocial). Sure, he's had more than his share of legal, financial, and relationship problems. All could be attributed to personality disorder. Delusional? Highly questionable. His inherited wealth enabling hom to bail himself out of problems? Well, of course it helps to have money, but I don't see the relevance to diagnosis.

P.S.: I think dementia should be considered presently.

[Hortensis]

27. I think we're mainly just using different terminology.

I'm not a mental health professional and can use the wrong words.

I was answering this:

One bit of evidence in favor of psychosis is: does it lead to behavior that negatively affects his life? How does it negatively affect his life to believe obama is Kenyan? He is rich and president*.

Now, if his beliefs somehow lead to a impoverishment or a jail sentence, then we can talk.

I believe that without his unique advantages, he would have scammed himself into good positions then lost them, would have had difficulty holding jobs, might well have ended up in jail a number of times, married women to use and be supported by and then be dumped by them, congratulating himself for scamming himself onto public support, etc. Certainly frequently broke.

That's, of course, assuming the patterns of behavior that have been documented many times over as playing out in different versions in a far poorer and more limited life.

[pnwmom]

7. He is such an extreme narcissist that he is psychotic. To him, the only reality that exists

is the reality that he creates in his own mind.

There is no such thing as an objective reality separate from what he wishes it to be.

If he were a character in a book, everyone would say he is a caricature -- that a real person wouldn't behave this way.

I have had a few narcissists in my past -- mini-narcissists, compared to this man. And yet they were so hard to deal with. I can imagine how mind-boggling it must be anyone trying to corral him in the White House.

[Dorian Gray]

10. This times 10000000000

[Hortensis]

16. Basically agree except the word psychotic/psychosis.

NIH/National Institute of Mental Health: The word psychosis is used to describe conditions that affect the mind, where there has been some loss of contact with reality. When someone becomes ill in this way it is called a psychotic episode. During a period of psychosis, a person’s thoughts and perceptions are disturbed and the individual may have difficulty understanding what is real and what is not. Symptoms of psychosis include delusions (false beliefs) and hallucinations (seeing or hearing things that others do not see or hear). Other symptoms include incoherent or nonsense speech, and behavior that is inappropriate for the situation. A person in a psychotic episode may also experience depression, anxiety, sleep problems, social withdrawal, lack of motivation, and difficulty functioning overall.

"Loss of contact with reality" does not mean adopting opinions that are contradicted by facts out of personal preference. It means insane.

There are reasons personality disorders and disorders involving insanity (my term, not the profession's) are diagnoses as different disorders. Personality disorders can affect cognition, and even in severe forms involve psychotic episodes. But, push come to shove, those people aren't crazy and can be brought to see reality for what it is, even if they often refuse to. Psychotic people cannot.

We've seen far too much of Trump to believe he's insane, and also far too much to believe he's not nevertheless disordered in some other way.

[pnwmom]

20. I do think he's out of touch with reality so in that sense, psychotic.

But he isn't having an episode. It's a permanent condition for him.

He does have trouble understanding what is real and what is not. He does have delusions. He often has incoherent speech and inappropriate behavior.

He isn't "adopting opinions" out of "personal preference." He is literally the center of his own universe. He is incapable of understanding the objective reality of the outside world -- that is, anything outside of his own mind.

Maybe when he was younger he could be "brought to see reality for what it is." In my opinion, he's beyond saving now.

[Hortensis]

22. Psychotic means CANNOT recognize reality, very different

from choosing not to. That's the reason, as the NYT reported, staffers coach people to ask questions in meetings that direct Trump's thinking back to the facts.

There's nothing to be gained by wanting to consider him psychotic, which virtually every interactive public appearance disproves, just as there's nothing for him to gain by wanting to believe the Russia investigation is about to declare him innocent and close down.

He's extremely unfit for office as he is.

[Boomer]

25. Bingo

Too many people think that narcissism is just about being self-centered and selfish, but in its extreme form -- which Trump undoubtedly has -- it's much closer to mental illness. The narcissist is so invested in their vision of themselves that they instinctively bend all events to support their own reality of exceptionalism. What some people interpret as Trump's sincerity is actually his delusional thinking. He sounds so sure of himself because he's describing his own ego-bubble view of himself and the world.

People also don't know how to navigate the way narcissists live solely in the present moment. The past is irrelevant, as is the future; all that matters is the Now of ego gratification. Trump will say whatever it takes to stroke his own ego at any given moment, and whether it's consistent with anything else he has said is irrelevant. That s sounds like lying to the rest of us, but to the narcissist truth is really not relevant. All that matters is ego defense.

Dementia is obviously exacerbating Trump's erratic personality, but it's a layer over his base disordered personality.

[RKP5637]

36. Yep, agree!!! "Dementia is obviously exacerbating Trump's erratic personality, but

it's a layer over his base disordered personality." Which IMO is a base of narcissistic and sociopathic behavior. ... which with advancing dementia he can no longer control ...

[Whiskeytide]

47. Thats it. Hes always been an ...

... asshole. As his dementia worsens, he’s less and less able to pretend not to be an asshole.

(My southern redneck diagnosis, of course. I have less than zero mental health training).

[pnwmom]

49. Thank you for the explanation

The narcissist closest to me wasn't nearly as bad as DT, in retrospect. But I finally realized that when he said insulting things with a big smile on his face, he wasn't trying to be mean or provoke me. He just couldn't conceive that my feelings about his words would be different than his. He had very little empathy.

DT is him times a million, plus the sociopathy. He likes to hurt people. The narcissists I've known didn't.

[OregonBlue]

50. I keep wondering if he has had a series of small strokes. My father did and no one but me realized

it. I was with him every day and he was working really hard physically and I noticed his mouth was drooping a little on one side and then he started asking me if I remember Joanie, his wife of 30 years, who of course I had known very well and remembered very well and little things started to pop up. He'd ask the strangest little questions that let me know that he really was not functioning up there on some level. No one else was aware of anything being wrong.

He was all but normal except that parts of his mental functioning had been affected and those things he didn't remember, he just covered by making things up to cover for them. My dad was fiercely independent and I'm sure it scared him to death when he realized that there were blanks in his memory. Rather than admit it and have me take him to the doctor, he just coped by creating an elaborate alternative reality, and it worked for everyone except me.

The droop on his face only lasted a couple of months and his memory seemed to recover but it took a couple of years and he never recovered completely. That's when he was in the 70's. By his 80's he had full blown dementia.

[ladjf]

57. Outstanding post. Thank you. nt

[PearliePoo2]

8. On top of all this he said re: N.Korea's ICBM test today, "We will take care of it."

Telling aides the Russia investigation will be over by January. (will he find a way to fire Mueller?)

And Lindsay Graham saying, "If we have to go to war to stop this, we will.".

JFC, this is a nightmare.

[RKP5637]

37. Yep, I have a horrible feeling this is not going to end well ... a living nightmare. n/t

[mdbl]

13. New reports?

All the statements I have heard have been saying this since before the election.

[Skittles]

15. it is entirely likely he was a con man but now is becoming delusional

[Buns_of_Fire]

17. The comments seem to range from brutal to REALLY brutal.

Like:

It was inevitable that Dotard Don would eventually be exposed as a bizarre freakish fraud who lives in a weird bubble of massive self-delusion and lies, as he was a bizarre freakish fraud who lived in a weird bubble of massive self-delusion and lies way before he ever ran for office. Everyone with half a brain knew this waddling babbling pant-load would be a laughably inept, bumbling sub-cretinous president, as it's immediately clear to all half-brainers that he's an annoying joke of a human being with no redeeming qualities as well as quite possibly being insane and/or demented. Of course he's stootzing around the WH in confusion and retreating within his phony bubble of magical delusion, he has no business being anywhere near a real job with actual responsibilities where he has to interact with real adults.

By the way, why isn't Mr. Sanctity-of-Marriage wearing a wedding ring on his pudgy little finger? Does Hope complain that it snags her lacy underthings?

[OnDoutside]

18. Has anyone asked Billy Bush lately ?

[spinbaby]

21. Dementia

I’ve been around enough dementia patients to know that, when they can’t remember, they make stuff up. And they believe what they make up.

[Kaleva]

23. I've been saying this for awhile

If he was aware he was telling lies all the time to most everybody and was doing it as part of a plan, he'd be the greatest actor and one of the smartest people of all time.

As far as Trump is concerned, he really does believe that what he is saying is the truth and thus, in his own mind, isn't lying.

What's really scary is that there are millions of people who have conned themselves into believing his lies. I think there is a term for that.

[no_hypocrisy]

24. Before he died, my elderly father was like that.

He really believed stuff that was proved to be false. He even caused a fire in his house because he didn't believe that physics applied to him. But then again, he was a retired doctor and writing his own prescriptions without medical supervision.

[njhoneybadger]

28. Bullshit. The deplorables are "Truly Delusional"

tRump knows exactly what he is doing. It has always been tRumps nature to be a selfish grifter

[RKP5637]

38. Yep, he does know a good portion of the US is off its rocker and uses that to his advantage. n/t

[TomVilmer]

30. This might be what's qualifying modern leaders...

... as the former British leader Tony Blair, who brought his country into the Iraq war. The official Iraq Inquiry concluded, that Blair was not directly lying to the public in his troublesome arguments, but convinced himself with unjustified certainty.

[Ilsa]

31. He is no longer just trolling, but living in

an alternate reality of his own choosing.

Ivanka needs to get him to Walter Reed for a full physical and neurological exam before he gets his own family killed along with the rest of us.

[SummerSnow]

32. He's a liar, period. He is not delusional.He is a malignant narcissist.

[Orrex]

33. I agree. And even if he's only one or the other, he should be out of office.

If he's a chronic, perpetual liar, then he should be out because he poses a real and constant danger to the nation, its citizens, and the world at large.

If he's simply delusional, then he should be out because he poses a real and constant danger to the nation, its citizens, and the world at large.

[SummerSnow]

35. k&R

[RKP5637]

39. K&R! n/t

[Fred Sanders]

53. Third option is he is a knave. Lies, knows it, and has a malevolent purpose.

[Orrex]

54. Also true (nt)

[wishstar]

43. He is deliberately gaslighting and projecting, knowing that some people will believe his lies

His dishonesty has worked for him so far, so he thinks he can continue to avoid accountability and shore up his base with lies and denials and attacks on others that are classic projection. The excuse that he shouldn't be called a liar if he believes his own lies, didn't hold up months ago when media debated whether or not it was appropriate to call out his lies as lies. Once again we have media and WH staffers providing cover for his lies with excuse that he believes what he says because he is 'delusional'.

Authoritarian dictators use his same tactics to deny truth and shape their own reality for power and control.

[Boomer]

62. Same difference.

Malignant narcissists ARE delusional. They are so invested in defending their ego that they are incapable of accepting a reality in which they are not dominant, central and supreme. Like a black hole bending light, truth bends to fit their ego gravitational field.

[spanone]

34. he may be delusional but he's a liar

[Irish_Dem]

40. Trump has a complex clinical presentation.

Several personality disorders.
Possible dementia.
Exhibiting delusional thought process, possibly psychotic, which could be related
to decompensation of his personality disorders, dementia, or is stand alone dx.

You would have to go back and do a careful history to sort it out.

The bottom line is we probably don't want this person to be in charge of anything,
much less leader of the free world.

[Wednesdays]

44. This will be the excuse that will let him walk scot-free

You just know he will never see the inside of a jail cell.

[Paladin]

46. Why the hell should we limit the obvious diagnosis?

He's a world-class liar and con man, and he's demonstrably insane. Dear God, what historians are going to make of the dark days we're living through, right now.

[bdamomma]

48. How much more evidence do

they (Congress) need that he is risk to himself and others.

Do we really need this sick sick man/child to take us all out????

[sandensea]

51. Or both.

Many liars start out cognizant of what they're doing; but before too long come to believe their own lies.

[L. Coyote]

52. Or, he doesn't know he is President and just reads the lines for his part in a T-V show.

[Wounded Bear]

56. That distinction is almost immaterial...

It's like the difference between getting your throat cut and your head chopped off.

The result is pretty similar.

Either way, he's the most dangerous person ever to sit in that office.

[muriel_volestrangler]

58. Nothing stops him being both

That he's a massive liar is pretty indisputable. The only question is whether he's always lying when he says false things, of if he can be delusional at times too.

His career could not have happened how it did from pure delusion. Lying was part of his business strategy.

[Yonnie3]

59. All of the above, one of the above. Does it matter?

There is this man, a pResident in the White House. He says evil things. He says provocative things. He seems bound and determined to harm many in this country and outside of it. What does it matter why? He needs to be gone.

We were told early on that he had "alternative facts." Whether or not his version of reality is purposefully false, or just false, he is able to project it and have one third of this country approve. Is this third mentally ill, delusional, or what?

[Gothmog]

60. Trump has been showing signs of senility for some time

[Scurrilous]

61. K&R

[Grammy23]

63. We can kick this notion around that he is A. Insane/has personality disorder

B. Demented
C. Is an Asshole, chronic liar and con man
D. Combination of all those things

The thing is we know something is wrong. Very wrong. And for some time there have been open discussions on tv and the press about what it is that is off about him. There was a lot of discussion a few months ago with psychologists and psychiatrists weighing in with their expert opinions. Then those discussions kind of dried up when Congress did nothing about it.

Now the topic is upon us again. Just tonight a psychiatrist on Last Word suggested that tRump is close to psychosis. He comes dangerously close but manages to stay ok enough to be allowed in public. He says tRump is a very sick man and a danger to all of us.

But the bottom line is that unless Congress gets up off their asses and does something to rid us of this awful man, nothing will happen. Maybe they are waiting for him to run naked into the Rose Garden to bay at the moon or disrobe at the next news conference. I don’t know how much more they need to see to admit he is our worst nightmare. Does he need to bomb North Korea with nukes? I guess as long as he is useful to Congress they will let him continue to destroy our standing in the world and undermine our way of life.

It is hard to accept that we are trapped but that is how I feel. The very process that is supposed to be our remedy in a situation like this has been hobbled and made ineffective by their inaction. If they won’t protect us and our country, who can we count on?