Lopirsei
A Yale psychiatrist who has repeately raised questions about President Trump's mental health argued
that Tuesday's debate against Joe Biden shoule never have boon allowed to go forward.
Dr. Bandy X. Lee, a forensic psychiatrist at Yale School of Medicine
land the president of the World Mental Health Coalition, said in an
interview with Salon that Trump lacked the basic “mental health” to
participate in a presidential debate.
‘Trump derailed the debate throughout the entire 90 minutes,
repeatedly refusing to comply with the rules his campaign had agreed
to and incessantly heckling his opponent. The event was universally
panned as a sh*tshow’ and “a hot mess inside a dumpster fire inside
train wreck,
Lee, the author of the textbook “Violence” and editor of "The
Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 37 Psychiatrists and Mental
Health Experts Assess a President,” has sald that Trump should be
removed from the White House and the 2020 ballot because of his,
“dangerousness and unfitness.” She told Salon that the media's
shock at Trump's disastrous performance was the result of a years
long problem that has gone ignored far too long,“The predicament that we are facing, of being unable to be certain
even of a democratic election, is because we have done everything
Possible to avoid naming the problem,” she said. "We saw from
Robert Mueller's team and the Democratic House's handling of
impeachment that not taking psychological factors into consideration
predetermined their poor outcome. This is because psychological
issues need to be dealt with psychologically — and we are now
‘gambling with our elections,
Lee said she plans to publish a “Profile of the Nation” on her
\websiteto provide a “ull psychological profile of Donald Trump in the
context of his followers and the nation.”
“My ‘Profile of the Nation’ hopes to provide ‘the missing link’ that
‘explains why the president does what he does, why he has so
tragically mismanaged the coronavirus pandemic, why he stokes
racial tensions and national conflict, and ultimately how he is bringing
about a near-destruction of democracy,” she said. “Knowledge is,
power, and we need to spread this knowledge.”
Lee spoke to Salon about the debate and the responsibilty of mental
health professionals to speak out about the president's mental health
ahead of the election,
‘Trump spent most of the debate heckling and interrupting, mixed
with some blatant lying. How would you assess his debate
performance?
‘The huge error was in allowing the debate to happen in the first
Place. "How was his debate performance?" is the wrong question to
start. A debate presupposes mental health. We cannot pretend to
have one when management of psychological impairment is what is.
warranted. The majority of the country may be horrified at what he is
doing, but we continue to help the disorder in every way possible by
treating his behavior as normal. It applies frst to the politicians, then
to the media and then to pundits who do not come out and honestly
‘say: "This is beyond anything | have seen and beyond what I can
understand — can we consult with experts?" And experts, for a
psychological matter, would be mental health experts. Perhaps even
specialists of personality disorders or sociopathy would be necessary,
given the severity
Instead, where mental health is concerned, everyone seems to
believe one knows all there is to know and that expertise is
unnecessary. We have seen what a disastrous difference it makes
when we leave pandemic management to random persons’ whims, as
‘opposed to pandemic experts — it makes the difference of hundreds
of thousands of ives, Problems of the human mind are arguably far
more complex than problems arising from a virus. We are not
helpless, yet we continue to make the problem worse through
the seeming notion that an exper's lifetime accumulation of scientific
knowledge and clinical experience do not count. This attitude leavesUs in ignorance, and we cannot properly respond to the needs of the
situation.
Is there anything Joe Biden could have done differently to
counter Trump's incessant attempts at bullying?
‘Again, we cannot expect non-professionals to handle a person who
requires professional-level care. He did as well as anyone could
possibly expect. However, because of a lack of knowledge about
what exactly is happening outside the realm of rationality, and not
having a systematic plan that accords with proven principles of
management — which is again an area of specialized knowledge and
practice — he could not do what was necessary. As far as Donald
Trump's followers are concemed, this was a winner for Trump, not
Joe Biden.
What did you make of Chris Wallace's attempts to rein in Trump?
Is there anything future moderators can do?
Itretuns, for me, back to the need for an honest national debate. Ask
yourself: How many times have you heard a mental health,
professional speak about the problems of the president's mental
health in the past week, month or yoar? Yet this is a matter that
warrants discussion every day with experts, until itis brought under
control, We are currently under enormous danger because of the
platform that is provided the president, which he uses daily to fuel
‘conspiracy theories, to bewitch his followers’ minds, to exhaust those
who would oppose him, and now to subvert democracy itself. It is
unreasonable and inapplicable to ask anchors to do the job that has
now become a public health problem of such magnitude that all the
ifferent disciplines and sectors must step up and
collaborate, Without a clear vision of what is happening, this is nearly
impossible,
‘Treating a psychological issue as a purely political one is the first
Problem. This was the basic message when more than 800 mental
health professionals signed a petition during impeachment, asking
that the speaker of the House consult with us. We predicted that as
long as the psychological factors were ignored, any procedure would
fail, This was also the underlying message of aver 300 pages of
letters, petitions and conference transcripts which my organization
has recently published in “Documents” — people can see how we
predicted, almost with uncanny timing, what would happen if we failed
to contain the psychological dangers of the president. It has now
‘spread into social, cultural, civic and geopolitical dangers, just as we
said.
Of course, leading this trend was the American Psychiatric
Association's distortion of ethics. The reinterpretation of
the “Goldwater rule,” as happened at the onset of this presidency, has
been exceedingly harmful, in my view, for silence in the face of grave
dangers facilitates conditions for atrocities. Last month, we created abiow-by-blow account of how we exactly foretold the president's
mismanagement of the coronavirus pandemic, based on his
psychological makeup. We could not effectively convey this in
advance, because the public was led to believe that the “Goldwater
rule,” which is a guild rule applying only to 6% of practicing mental
health professionals, was universal, or worse yet, some kind of
law. But in truth, to change a guideline whose purpose is to protect
public health to protect a public figure at the expense of public health
violates all core tenets of medical ethics.
| predicted early on that this distortion to suit this administration would
‘cause more harm than what the American Psychiatric Association's
‘counterpart, the American Psychological Association, did with its
‘ethics guidelines to facilitate and design programs for torture. This is
because any stiling of speech, let alone education, regarding such
dangers to society was bound to cause far more devastating harm
than 1,000 torture victims, as bad as that is. More than 200,000
deaths later, | think this will be hard to argue. There is a reason why
thousands of mental health professionals have joined us at the World
Mental Health Coalition to step up where the American Psychiatric
‘Association has failed in leadership. We call on the APA to retract its
“gag order" and to apologize for misleading the American people and
the media
will on the debate allowed his lies
ns without any fact-checking or response.
Aro you worried that events like this could “normalize” the
alternative reality Trump is trying to create?
Absolutely. What we see is a “bulldozing effect” of mental
pathology. The dive for psychic survival ingeniously senses what it
needs to get ahead, through ilagitimate means. This primitive and
destructive force is a form of disorder that has no place in politics.
A lot of people seemed to turn off the debate. It was almost
traumatic. How does watching a debate, or threo, like the one on
‘Tuesday, affect the general electorate's psychology heading into
the election?
‘This has been one of the hardest things to observe as a mental
health professional, Stress and anxiety levels, including
retraumatization, have been well documented far before the