Writers from across the political spectrum discuss questions about the president’s mental capacity.
The political news cycle is fast, and keeping up can be overwhelming. Trying to find differing perspectives worth your time is even harder. That’s why we have scoured the internet for political writing from the right and left that you might not have seen.
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Mollie Hemingway in The Federalist:
Ms. Hemingway notes that while some critics of President Trump have suggested using the 25th Amendment to overturn election results they were not expecting or not happy with, the debate has been reignited with the publication of Michael Wolff’s book, “Fire and Fury.” Any conversation about the president’s mental fitness, she argues, is merely an attempt by the opposition to undo the democratic will of the American people. Read more »
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Jonathan S. Tobin in National Review:
Mr. Tobin has no shortage of harsh words for Mr. Trump and his personality. A lack of “presidential temperament,” according to Mr. Tobin, does not preclude Mr. Trump from “making decisions and often getting them right.” The 25th Amendment, he adds, “was intended to provide for a replacement when a president couldn’t serve, not to dump a man whose behavior offends the sensibilities of the educated class.” Read more »
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David Frum in The Atlantic:
Whatever Mr. Trump’s flaws and cognitive deficiencies may be, Mr. Frum contends, his “genius” is undeniable in one particular way: He “understands how to mobilize hatred and resentment to his own advantage and profit.” Mr. Frum suggests that instead of focusing on the president’s mental health, we turn our attention to the people and institutions that keep such a president in power — despite knowing better. Read more »
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Joan Walsh in The Nation:
Ms. Walsh picks up where Mr. Frum left off. She writes that her main takeaway from Mr. Wolff’s book and New York Times reporting on Mr. Trump’s interventions in the Russia inquiry is that Republicans “are circling the wagons around Trump.” She does not propose a 25th Amendment solution to the problem, however. The only way to address an unfit president whose party will not hold accountable is for Democrats to win in the midterm elections. Read more »
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Eric Levitz in New York Magazine:
According to Mr. Levitz, there is no reason to believe that a psychiatrist who sees a patient once a week is more qualified to diagnose narcissistic personality disorder than a doctor who has “access to hundreds of hours of a patient’s interviews and improvisatory remarks, along with a small library’s worth of biographical information and testimonials from his closest confidants.” And while he considers the left’s preoccupation with the “25th Amendment solution” as less than rational, given the country’s hyperpartisan political climate, the right’s refusal to acknowledge the president’s mental deficiencies is even more “crazy.” Read more »
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Paul Waldman in American Prospect:
Much of what is in Mr. Wolff’s book has already been reported, in one way or another, by White House journalists with access to the president and his aides. Mr. Waldman predicts that we will only hear more of the same kinds of anecdote as the pressures of the presidency exacerbate Mr. Trump’s “copious character flaws.” Read more »
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Bandy X. Lee in The Guardian:
Ms. Lee is the Yale forensic psychiatrist who contributed to the book “The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump,” and is a leading voice among mental health professionals publicly questioning the president’s mental fitness. She reportedly briefed a group of lawmakers — over a dozen Democrats and at least one Republican — on the president’s health in December. She explains here why she believes that “it is Trump in the office of the presidency that poses a danger.” Read more »
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Jacob Sullum in Reason:
Mr. Sullum, writing for the libertarian Reason, is skeptical about Ms. Lee’s public warnings about the president’s mental health. There’s a difference, he notes, between a diagnosis like that of narcissistic personality disorder, “which is little more than a list of unappealing characteristics that often go together,” and a more serious disorder which may “ justify coercive intervention.” According to Mr. Sullum, Mr. Trump’s “antics” have the “the salutary effect of undermining respect for the presidency, which may lead to long-overdue limits on its powers.” Read more »
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