A new book written by Mary Trump, a Ph.D. clinical psychologist who is also a niece of President Donald Trump, is entitled “Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man.” It discusses how Donald Trump’s “deep-seated insecurities have created in him a black hole of need that constantly requires the light of compliments that disappears as soon as he’s soaked it in” (https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/07/13/mary-trump-book-godfather-358841).

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Is Donald Trump mentally ill?

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In addition to evidence of Donald Trump’s narcissism, Dr. Trump also discusses “antisocial personality disorder” (chronic criminality, arrogance, disregard for others) and “dependent personality disorder” (inability to make decisions or take responsibility, discomfort with being alone). She even suggests that Trump suffers a “long undiagnosed learning disability” that hinders his processing of information” (https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/07/09/real-villain-mary-trumps-family-tell-all-isnt-donald-its-fred/).

Dr. Trump is arguably the mental health professional best positioned to make well-substantiated assertions regarding Donald Trump’s mental health, but she is not the first to suggest that Donald Trump suffers from serious mental illness:

¯ “Trump Is Not Well, Accepting the reality about the president’s disordered personality is important–even essential” (https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/09/donald-trump-not-well/597640/)

¯ “The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 27 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President,” Bandy X. Lee, M.D., M.Div., organizer of Yale’s “Duty to Warn” conference (https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250179456)

¯ “Trump Is Mentally Unfit, No Exam Needed: Three mental health professionals who contributed to ‘The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump’ cite recent actions that confirm their worries” (https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/11/opinion/letters/trump-mental.html).

One need not be a mental health professional to be concerned about Trump’s mental health. Does any sane person lie as often as Trump, or boast about sexual assault of women?

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Is Donald Trump corrupt?

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Abundant evidence points to “President Trump (having) participated in dubious tax schemes during the 1990s, including instances of outright fraud, that greatly increased the fortune he received from his parents” (https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/10/02/us/politics/donald-trump-tax-schemes-fred-trump.html).

In addition, Trump’s withholding of military assistance from Ukraine as a means to strong-arm them to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter represents perhaps the most corrupt foreign policy use of presidential authority ever (https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2020/01/28/trump-impeachment-documents-corruption-for-voters-history-column/4587556002/).

For further evidence of Trump’s corruption, look no further than his commutation of Roger Stone’s prison sentence. Sen. Mitt Romney reacted to this act by declaring it “Unprecedented, historic corruption: an American president commutes the sentence of a person convicted by a jury of lying to shield that very president” (https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/11/republicans-denounce-roger-stone-commutation-357259). 

Trump continues to maintain a very cozy relationship with Russia President Vladimir Putin after learning of Russian bounties on U.S. military personnel (“https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/12/opinion/trump-russia-bounties.html”>https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/12/opinion/trump-russia-bounties.html). Is this tolerance of foreign aggressive action against U.S. soldiers motivated by Trump’s longstanding desire to build Trump Tower Moscow? Perhaps it is true that “Trump only has one real skill: Corruption” (https://theweek.com/articles/925028/trump-only-real-skill-corruption)?

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Is Donald Trump incompetent?

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In addition to evidence of mental health problems and corruption, Donald Trump’s mismanagement of the COVID-19 crisis has alarmed public health experts worldwide, with most nations not allowing Americans to enter because of our recent explosion of COVID-19 (https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/us-international-travel-covid-19/index.html).

“Florida’s new record of 15,000 new cases in a single day would place it as the fourth-worst country in the world, outpaced only by Brazil, India and the rest of the United States. To put that into perspective, Florida has 23 times more new daily cases than the worst-hit country in Europe (Britain) even though Britain has three times Florida’s population. If you adjust per capita, then, Florida’s outbreak is currently about 70 times worse than that of the worst-hit country in Europe” (“https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/07/13/trumps-performance-covid-19-looks-especially-bad-compared-with-rest-world/”>https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/07/13/trumps-performance-covid-19-looks-especially-bad-compared-with-rest-world/). See also, “How many needless Covid-19 deaths were caused by delays in responding? Most of them” (https://www.statnews.com/2020/06/19/faster-response-prevented-most-us-covid-19-deaths/).

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Is Donald Trump racist?

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“Let’s not mince words. Trump is racist” (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/07/07/time-racial-euphanisms-is-over/).

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Where do we go from here?

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If we are to conclude that President Donald Trump is mentally ill, corrupt, incompetent, racist or some combination of all four, what can we do with that information? If Trump were in a responsible position with an Adirondack organization, he would likely be fired, scheduled for a mental health examination, or offered the option to resign.

Unfortunately, the next national election is still 16 weeks away. At the time of my May 27, 2020, Enterprise commentary, “America hits rock bottom with President Donald Trump,” U.S. COVID-19 deaths totaled 100,000. That number has now surged past 135,000 and is heading toward 140,000 to 160,000 by Aug. 1 (https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/covid-data/forecasting-us.html). The number of COVID-19 infections is exploding in many parts of the country, and many regions are having to shut down again. Conditions are continually worsening under President Trump (https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/us-cases-deaths.html).

Unfortunately, when President Trump was up for impeachment for his corrupt use of his authority for personal gain, NY-21 U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik was among his most vociferous defenders — making wild excuses for Trump’s inexcusable actions. Our nation needs responsible, forthright elected officials in the White House and the U.S. Congress, and Rep. Stefanik does not meet that standard. We are now paying a terrible price for the refusal of Elise Stefanik and Senate Republicans to hold Donald Trump responsible for his reprehensible actions.

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Vote out Republicans to reform the Republican Party

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The only way to reform the Republican Party into a positive force for constructive change in America is if people like Donald Trump and Elise Stefanik are voted out of office for their perversion of government — as millions of Americans are sickened, killed or impoverished by an out-of-control virus that so many other nations have successfully controlled. Trump and Stefanik have failed, and their failure should not be rewarded by reelection. Instead, vote for Joe Biden and Tedra Cobb to fight anti-government Republicanism and Trumpism, and to put us on the path to renewal of America!

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David Banks is a former resident of Lake Clear now residing in Rockville, Maryland.