I’ve suspected for some time that Donald Trump has ADHD — and I’m not alone. No sooner than time, such rumors are beginning to rise to the level of Very Serious Public discussion. In Politico, “Donald Trump’s Shortest Attribute Isn’t His Fingers“:
… In the early ‘90s, Barbara Res, a project manager on Trump Tower who was a vice president in the Trump Organization, attempted to prepare him for a deposition for a court case pitting a Trump-led group against the Los Angeles school district in a battle for a coveted piece of property. “He said, ‘No, I don’t need to be prepared,’” Res said last week from her home in New Jersey. Finally, she persuaded him to give her, an associate and an attorney two hours in his office. “In the two hours, he kept taking phone calls,” Res said. Unprepared, he did “poorly” in the deposition, she said; his group lost the case, and the deal fell apart. “He was so distracted,” she said. “He really couldn’t stay focused.”
“I think he’s definitely got attention deficit disorder,” said Trump biographer Michael D’Antonio, who interviewed Trump five times for a total of eight hours and found himself frustrated trying to get him to concentrate on answers to questions about his parents, his childhood, just about anything. “That doesn’t mean he isn’t really smart—it just means he’s not at his best when he’s asked to dwell on a topic.”
The question of Trump’s attention span recently has leapt from a longtime employee complaint to a meaningful national issue. Res, O’Donnell and others like them have long collected stories of their exasperation over Trump’s impetuous nature as a boss. But this one personal attribute has become a subject of more widespread concern as voters consider how Trump’s habits and personality might translate to the presidency—a job that demands uncommon focus, with life in the West Wing often feeling like a control panel of perpetually blinking emergency lights.
“You have to be patient. You have to listen. You have to ask the right questions. All of those things require great discipline,” presidential historian Mark Updegrove said…Election Day is two months out. If Trump loses, many observers will cite his errant, frenetic campaign—a constantly changing whistle-stop operation whose inconsistency has come as no surprise to many who have known him and worked with him over the course of his business career. And if he wins, the Oval Office will have an occupant who—at least according to Schwartz—“has the attention span of a 9-year-old with ADHD.”…
(Would’ve been nice if the Republican Party had done a little more due diligence, given some heads-up a little sooner, yes?)
… Parsing the decades-long public record of Trump’s own thoughts on his mental habits is a challenge. As with many of his positions, if he has said something, chances are high that he has said the opposite, too.
“One of the keys to thinking big is total focus,” he wrote (through Schwartz) in The Art of the Deal. “I think of it almost as a controlled neurosis … ”
In 2008, in Never Give Up, he augmented his thoughts on this “controlled neurosis” by preaching the value of laser focus on just one thing. “In this age of multitasking, this is a valuable technique to acquire,” he said…
One of the most recurrent notes in the oeuvre of Trump is the Tao of speed. “Keep it short, fast, and direct,” he wrote in 2004 in How to Get Rich. “Sometimes people are surprised by how quickly I make big decisions, but I’ve learned to trust my instincts and not to overthink things,” he wrote the same year in Think Like a Billionaire. “The day I realized it can be smart to be shallow was, for me, a deep experience.”…
There’s a joke among those of us with ADD: We have two attention settings, 0 and 11. We have great difficulty focusing on any one object — but when we do, our hyper-acuity can be so intense as to frighten bystanders. (It can also be weirdly attractive to you neurotypicals: The best thing about Chris Pine’s Captain Kirk is that he demonstrates the ‘charisma’ that was always attributed to the character. He’s annoying and shallow and self-destructive and prone to grandstanding… but under action-series, life-or-death situations, these can be very useful traits. When there’s a need for thinking outside the box, well, we never understood what that box was in the first place!)
Because Trump came from a wealthy family with an established position for him to step into, he’s never had to learn the hard lessons about dealing with other human beings that most of us, but especially those of us who are non-neurotypical, assume any 70-year-old outside of institutional supervision must have acquired. But I’d argue he’s not the first recent ADHD president — George W. Bush is another, not altogether dissimilar, example. Since Dubya’s family business was politics instead of real estate, he had a better grasp of how to pass for a normally mature politician… but his short attention span, lack of interest in reading, absolute need for physical exercise, and fanatic dependence on routine & familiarity were not, as we all know now, the best qualities for the person occupying “the most powerful office in the world”.
The Republicans promoted G.W. Bush into a position for which he was wholly unsuited, partially out of fealty to his clan and partially because they assumed (correctly) that he’d let Dick Cheney and his other handlers run the country and loot the treasury. The fact that they could let an even worse example of every bad thing that’s ever been said about the Greedy Old Partisans bully and bullshit his way to top of their current presidential campaign is an indictment of their intelligence as much as it is of their patriotism.
Mike in NC
Drumpf definitely isn’t right in the head. 30 seconds of trying to listen to him speak should confirm that.
piratedan
well considering he only associates with the best people and that stellar endorsement of his health from his personal physician, I am really dubious about these reports… //////
on the other hand, I really don’t care what illness or conditions he may be suffering with, it doesn’t excuse the GOP for nominating this sack of shit as the nominee of their party, regardless of how representative he is of the id of the GOP.
Cacti
You’ll all be stunned to learn that Glenn Greenwald’s Intercept has stepped up to defend the honor of RT America’s interview with Trump.
Chyron HR
@Cacti:
Much like (he did with) Bush, GG gives Putin the “benefit of the doubt” out of “loyalty to [his] country”.
jl
I think Trump is just a vicious bigoted fool, maybe with ADHD, or maybe not. Non-fools with ADHD know how to help themselves overcome it. Fools don’t. The fool part is the important one.
Miss Bianca
@Cacti: No! Say it ain’t so!
Damn, what is this love affair that authoritarians and libertarians alike are having with Russia all of a sudden? It still makes me smh.
OzarkHillbilly
Cacti
@jl:
Trump strikes me more as rapid cycling bipolar than ADHD.
The Ancient Randonnuer
I can only imagine what Trump must be like after he gives one of those relatively sedate teleprompter speeches. That must be one shitshow and a half for the next 12-24 hours.
OzarkHillbilly
@Cacti: the 2 are not mutually exclusive.
jl
@piratedan: i don’t understand the fascination with RT. It is pretty weak sauce as a propaganda outfit.
It’s a pretty standard, admitted state owned media organization with an admitted viewpoint. Nothing particularly suspicious, or underhanded about it at all. Certainly not in the big leagues with the likes of Fox News. Heck, I watched an RT editorial symposium a few years ago, a long segment of which featured a Q&A with the Big Boss Hisself, Vlad. I don’t think Ailes at Fox ever did that.
Trump can lie his ass off, pull bizarre stunts, make outrageous accusation and claims, and no one seems to notice or care much, and big media organizations soft-peddle, hedge or make excuses, or bury the story. But Trump gets duped by the notorious and very dangerous Russian secret agent and evil super genius Larry F-ing King, who happens to have a show on RT, and i see multiple news items expressing ‘concern’ about it. Maybe there is something I just am not getting?
Cacti
@Miss Bianca:
The blog No BS Russia sums it up thusly:
Mnemosyne
@Cacti:
The two can be hard to tease apart, but as someone who has ADHD (professionally diagnosed and everything!), I tend to agree with Anne Laurie. All the stories he tells about when he was a kid in school are classic ADHD stories. And ADHD + parental overindulgence is a bad, bad combination.
Patricia Kayden
@Cacti: No, I wouldn’t be shocked at all. Greenwald is a douche. Interesting that he was irate about Democrats pointing out how dangerous a President McCain or President Romney would have been for this country. I guess since he lives in Brazil, he doesn’t care about the damage that a Republican President will do to vulnerable Americans. Trump is just more out there with his bigotry but there is no doubt that McCain or Romney would have done a lot of damage had either of them been elected.
Miss Bianca
@Cacti: Wow, I think you’re right – that summation nails it. Thanks!
Bobby Thomson
I agree Trump has ADHD, but the deposition anecdote is irrelevant. All CEOs chafe at being prepped, especially the ones who think they are too important to bother. That’s how Bill Gates got smoked.
jl
@Mnemosyne: I guess parental orverindulgence, facilitated by mass quantities of huge money, can produce a fool. So nothing in comments so far to change my view on my differential diagnosis of Trump personality puzzle.
Schlemazel
OMG! Here is a political cartoon you are not going to find in your daily paper:
DoorMatt after the town hall
By Dennis Rano who is self-syndicated. You will know why when you see this bad boy but oh my would I love to send a copy to DoorMatt Lauer
rumpole
After Sarah Palin, I am shocked (shocked!) that someone like Trump was nominated. He’s nothing more than Palin with family money.
Cacti
@rumpole:
And man parts.
That was probably the biggest reason Sarah never topped a GOP ticket. Or smallest as the case may be with Trump.
SiubhanDuinne
(From Jane Mayer’s New Yorker interview with Schwartz, July 2016)
And I can’t find it now, but a reporter interviewed Trump recently — was it for a WaPo profile? — and noted that several times during the conversation, Trump would see himself on TV and just halt in mid-sentence to comment on the televised images.
Bobby Thomson
@Miss Bianca: Greenwald isn’t a libertarian. Just a racist.
jl
@Miss Bianca:
‘ Damn, what is this love affair that authoritarians and libertarians alike are having with Russia all of a sudden? It still makes me smh. ‘
I don’t know about lefties. But the current version of Russia was birthed with the help of very conservative free market fanatic Western economic advice. So, maybe for some fanatical free marketers and libertarians, it has to be a success since what you see is the result of their ideas about how to create a vibrant and successful market economy out of the rubble produced by 70 plus years of communism.
As opposed to China, which when it decided to reform itself looked to policy geeks with a more liberal mixed-economy slant, at least in terms of practical policy. Two names that come to mind are Kenneth Arrow and Joseph Stiglitz (and one complaint I have with the latter is that he should make more disclaimers in his role as an adviser when he writes about China)
Peale
@OzarkHillbilly: Yeah. She’s the McCarthyite. Although he’s just appoint himself global truth teller and really doesn’t care which laws he breaks as long as he can get a photo op in the pumpkin patch.
jl
@Cacti: I’m not a fan of GG (Greenwald I presume) and I have no clue if he had a finger in that article. But it does report factual events indicating that Larry F-ing King (dastardly and diabolically clever and dangerous secret Russian agent, far more suspiciously, apparently long term Trump buddy) did a better interview of Trump that infotainment chit-chat maestro Matt Lauer did.
catclub
@Cacti: Yep.
I have noted previously that Sarah Palin in 2008 was FAR better prepared to be President than Trump is today.
She was elected Governor of a state. And did little lasting damage there.
Not being male and not born into the aristocracy changes everything. Funny, that. GW Bush also benefits from the rich white male
assumption of competence.
Mnemosyne
@jl:
The weird thing that that a lot of people on the left totally deny what you just said about RT being an admitted state news org and insist that it’s totally independent and unbiased. That’s why RT gets so much heat — because idiots on the left deny the reality of what RT says about themselves.
maya
“What’s this red button I’m pushing do again?”
jl
I forgot to include raging out-of-control narcissist in my differential dx of Trump’s problem mainly due to being an incurable degenerative progressive fool.
From the link in the top post:
“It would have to appeal to his ego,” D’Antonio continued. “If it doesn’t engage him in that way, he’s not very interested.”
Trump can focus endlessly and ferociously on one topic: himself.
Villago Delenda Est
Drumpf can’t keep a thought in his head for more than 10 seconds, yet the vermin of the Village are concerned about Hillary’s coughs, as they’re a sign of certain death within the next 15 minutes.
Wipe them out. All of them.
Brachiator
Why should anyone care?
Villago Delenda Est
@Bobby Thomson: White supremacist shitstain.@Mnemosyne: Can you say “Bob in Portland”? Sure you can! Because if there was ever a textbook example of a useful idiot, it’s BiP.
Miss Bianca
@jl: yeah, and let’s not forget the rest of that Insane Clown Posse, the Chicago Boys, including born-again lefty-capitalist-saint Jeffrey Sachs, and their role in Russia’s decline and fall, either. Those shitheels have a lot to answer for. And some of them seem so unchastened by the experience that they’re now all tongue-bathing a former KGB operative who, from all I can tell, personally supervises torturing and killing his political opponents.
I used to hate it when right-wingers asked “why do you hate America so much?!” Now I just want to toss that question back in their collective face like a snarling badger.
Mnemosyne
@SiubhanDuinne:
Also known as, “Squirrel!”
sigaba
@Mnemosyne: RT is great if you come from the Pacifica Radio side of the mediasphere. It tells a certain sort of lefty exactly what they know: America is an imperialist menace, the west is hypocritical and racist, and the system is rigged.
AND BY THE WAY, Al-Jazeera did this too. And so does Greenwald. They’d all be happy if America was a morally pure hole in the ground, and they really don’t care who gets hurt in the process, because we’re all “implicated” and we all “deserve” it.
Villago Delenda Est
@Miss Bianca: Because they all want to return to feudalism.
jl
@Mnemosyne: My folks watch RT and were kind of puzzled by it. I tried to explain to them that it is the US branch of the Russian government media organ. That’s why I ended up watching the broadcast of he editorial symposium with the Putin round-table. RT ran a blurb about it, and I told the folks “Hey, you are wondering what this RT things is, well they are broadcasting a Q&A with their boss Putin.”
It was totally straightforward, as in, he watch us discuss how we cover news and comment on affairs with our boss, the wonderful and gracious Mr. Putin.
Looks like they host a variety of talk shows that have been cast off from US media, like Larry King and some mild lefty who’s name escapes me right now. Edit: Tom Hartman(n)?
jl
@Villago Delenda Est: When is your line of Times Tumbrels coming out on the BJ internet store? Cole needs funds for that damn wreck of a house he bought.
hovercraft
He has obvious mental issues, I don’t have the expertise to say what they are, but I would bet money that he is both a narcissist and a sociopath. Not only is it all about him, he does not care about any one else, except where they help to make him ‘greater’.
scav
@srv: You may be, not unexpectedly confusing out of the box with out of one’s gourd.
SiubhanDuinne
@Mnemosyne:
There’s a much-too-obvious joke in there having to do with what’s on his head.
Turgidson
@Patricia Kayden:
Greenwald, circa 2009-10, wanted real progressives and real civil libertarians and whoever the fuck else it is who takes his word as gospel no matter how loopy he gets and trolls Greenwald’s critics online, etc., to withdraw all support to the Democratic Party, allow them to get crushed for a few election cycles, let the Republicans finish GWB’s work of running the country irredeemably into the ground, and then, THEN, AT LONG LAST, the country’s silent “real progressive” majority will rise up and reclaim its government for the people, and the Era of Unicorns and Ponies would finally begin. The neoliberal stooges in the Democratic Party would be driven out of leadership and the GOP would be so discredited that they’d be a rump party while the, I dunno, Bernie Sanders/Rand Paul Administration rebuilds America into civil libertarian utopia, dismantle the NSA, decommission all drones, yada yada yada.
To my knowledge, Greenwald has never backed off his master plan of pure awesome. His 2016 “sure Trump is a loony toon but OMG HILLARY IMPERIALIST NEOLIBERAL OMGOMG” nonsense fits into this mold pretty snugly, from where I sit.
Greenwald long ago forgot that his farts stink just like everyone else’s.
germy
?
No need to worry; they have medications to fix that.
chopper
you have adhd, and you have adhd, and you have adhd…
Cacti
@srv:
I understand the politics behind the legislation, but if we pass such bill, I would guess that similar legislation could be in the offing in say:
Iran, Vietnam, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Lebanon, Grenada, Panama, Haiti, Dominican Republic, Cuba, Venezuela, Ecuador, Chile, etc.
germy
@srv:
Problem solved! Trump for President!
mike in dc
I have mild ADD and can still focus for short-to-medium periods of time. For exams and such I can stay focused throughout, but during lectures my mind tends to wander. I check the internet relentlessly. Certainly if I had a gig requiring prolonged and continuous focus I’d get back on Adderall or something similar. The anti-depressants I take have some mildly positive effects on my focus. But my inability to pay attention while my wife was talking about her day was the primary reason for our divorce. So there’s definitely a price to be paid. It sounds like Trump may have a fairly severe form of ADD which has worsened over time. His reduced sleeping schedule does suggest some kind of hypomanic state as well.
redshirt
@chopper: What?
germy
@chopper:
everyone in the studio audience gets a free case of adhd?
chopper
@germy:
everybody gets a diagnosis, yes.
Enhanced Voting Techinques
@piratedan:
Yes, this. Trump makes GW Bush look like a sober elder statesman. WTF is Trump even doing anywere near the Presidency?
gene108
@catclub:
Whatever flaws Palin has as a politician, she has (or had) a certain charisma about her that appeals to a large number of voters.
Her endorsements could single handedly decide elections, in 2010, like getting Gov. Haley elected in SC.
Trump’s whole persona is built on him being the alpha-male. Losing to a girl will hurt his image.
He’ll will be in the media because the media’s been covering him for almost 40 years, but unless Ailes and Bannon are serious about creating an openly white supremacist wing of the Republican Party under Trump’s banner, Trump’s shelf life as a person with political power will be shorter than Palin’s.
Joyce H
@catclub:
And not only that – Yes, she was woefully ignorant, but Palin knew it and at least TRIED to learn stuff when she was on the ticket. Nicole Wallace talks about finding Palin in the morning asleep with her fat briefing books. Contrast with Trump, who isn’t even trying to learn what the job requires. He’s been running for president for over a year and I don’t think he now knows a single thing that he didn’t know when he started. He doesn’t CARE that he doesn’t know what presidents ought to know.
I can’t believe I’m defending Sarah Palin, but in her defense, she was thrown onto the ticket a couple months before the election and was entirely out of her depth, but at least made an effort. Trump firmly believes that what he knows now and how he behaves now is good enough.
Miss Bianca
@Joyce H: In other words, you *know* a candidate is a complete f-ing disaster when he makes Sarah Palin look good by contrast.
((and yeah…at least Sarah Palin knew she had to *try*)
Anne Laurie
@Brachiator:
Because he’d be another Dubya, only worse. And Dubya’s handlers did so much to damage our economy & the world’s, we can’t afford a sequel!
jl
@Joyce H: Hell, Alaska survived a half term of Palin, and she actually enacted a couple of good policies (commie oil tax hike one of them IIRC). It is true that Alaska is very big and very tough, and in retrospect,looks like Palin was aware enough to know she had to disguise herself as a center-right moderate to get elected, so she left off the (public) efforts at book banning and harassment of individuals she deemed enemies of the state.
And, we will never, thankfully, know what the rest of her term would have wrought.
bystander
For those who recall when Hillary was running for the Senate, you might also remember the moment when her opponent Rick Lazio decided to get muscular with her during a debate. The minute he left his podium and walked over to her, I thought, that’s it, you bonehead. You just handed Clinton the Senate seat.
Any chance this week was Trump’s Rick Loozio Moment?
Anne Laurie
@chopper: Only an estimated 5%-10% of us (it’s a “new” diagnosis, the stats are still weak). And it’s not necessarily disqualifying for high office, if the person knows what they’re dealing with..
For an analogy, FDR almost certainly knew he wouldn’t survive a fourth term, but he was still the best choice available. On the other hand, Warren G. Harding had no clue he’d be incapacitated during his term (leaving his wife & cronies to literally run the Oval Office), but he was a bad choice even if he’d been in the best of health.
The Other Chuck
@bystander:
There will never be one. Hate and spite is stronger than anything else in Trumpistan, and he could skull fuck a kitten live on stage and not lose any of his supporters. 40% or more of this country is fucking insane.
geg6
But think of the book and movie Heilman and Halperin will get out of this campaign!! Kaching!
I have never despised so many of my fellow Americans as I currently do. I didn’t think they could disgust me more than they did during the run up and start of the Iraq war. I didn’t truly understand the depths to which they were willing to sink. And I’ve always been proud of my cynicism. But now I know I was naive.
Brachiator
@Anne Laurie:
Dubya was a bad president because he supposedly had ADHD?
This is as useless, and almost as bad as the ridiculous attempts by Trump and his goons to perform negative long range medical diagnoses of Hillary.
I’m not sure I would even want to spend time reading actual doctors and actual, you know, other medical experts debate whether ADHD or other conditions were potentially disqualifying.
But the speculation here is not meaningful or useful.
The Dangerman
I don’t know if ADHD applies since I think Trump could/would be completely focused if the subject was something he’s interested in; I suspect he could talk for hours, without interruption, about his money, his brilliance, or the size of his schlong … else, he doesn’t give a shit.
I say NPD.
jl
@Anne Laurie: Do you mean Wilson.
Harding died suddenly in office, and was healthy enough during most of his term to pay full attention to what he thought was important (which history indicates was humping very pretty young girl he could seduce, playing poker, drinking good booze while playing poker, and complaining bout how he hated being president and didn’t understand what the hell was going on).
randy khan
@Bobby Thomson:
CEOs also tend to think that they’re too smart to get trapped in depositions, partly because they have no idea how well the lawyers prepare for them.
The Other Chuck
I suffer ADHD, and frankly it does disqualify me from a lot of leadership type activities, insofar that I never developed successful mechanisms to compensate for it. But I’m also not a hateful, spiteful, racist, sociopathic and incurious ignoramus. So maybe the ADHD isn’t the problem, Doctor Laurie.
Mnemosyne
@Brachiator:
Those of us who have ADHD recognize the behaviors in Trump. He’s one of us. Are we not supposed to mention it, or think it’s relevant?
@The Dangerman:
I’m of the opinion he’s got both, which is a nasty and toxic combination. AL is reluctant to make the NPD diagnosis since she doesn’t have firsthand experience with it.
Kathleen
@Patricia Kayden: He also blasted Paul Krugman for his column criticizing media’s coverage of Hillary’s campaign.
raven
It’s not a deficit and it’s not a disorder. It’s a way of being, we are hunters in a farmers world.
Gelfling 545
@srv: All kinds of drugs. Yes, you bet. However none of the drugs work for all cases or without undesirable side effects. Some of them do not work post adolescence and in many cases work only for short periods and then become ineffective. There are a few cases of adhd in my family ( including one young relative who, much to her chagrin, shares the surname of the unfortunate Republican nominee). Medication helps only somewhat and, whlie these folks are intelligent & talented, there are careers for which they are not suited. These include air traffic controller and president of nuclear superpowers.
p.a.
Any word from efg?
Gelfling 545
@The Other Chuck:
As I mentioned, some adhd in my family. None of them are, spiteful, hateful, etc either. Trumps inability to attend & focus may well be adhd. The rest is, I suspect, the result of being an entitled twerp raised by a racist.
Jeffro
@jl: Seconded. I think his “ADHD” is just the narcissism working on overdrive to cover up for his stupidity.
Mnemosyne
@raven:
Yes, because inattentive type ADHD is so very useful while hunting.
Brachiator
@Mnemosyne:
The idea that anyone here, even if a doctor, is capable of rendering a long range medical diagnosis of Trump, or anyone, is ludicrous. Equally ludicrous are the despicable attempts by Trump and his goons to attempt to judge Hillary Clinton’s medical fitness to hold any office.
I understand that you and others think that this idle speculation is relevant. But has there been some objective, medically recognized standard that supports the contention that ADHD is or should be disqualifying?
I think there are many other reasons why Trump is unfit.
jl
@Brachiator: Yes. I agree. Not every human flaw, even a very dangerous one, is an illness or disability.officially recognized by the medical authorities. Trump has more than enough of those.
There is evidence of some mental problems in number of presidents in US history, and that people will guess about for ever, but not much evidence that if they really did have them it caused much problem, unless they were jerks of fools. Trump is a jerk and a fool.
Mnemosyne
@Brachiator:
So we should all pretend there’s nothing wrong with Trump and the way he acts is completely normal?
Yeah, no.
raven
vhh
I actually have been diagnosed with ADHD on the inattentive type. Utterly routine tasks can be tough. Adderall helps with this. But on the other hand, as a scientist, ADHD helps me think creatively way the hell outside the box, and also do extended work sessions on important, interesting stuff in hyper focus mode—I have been known to write an entire (successful) proposal for substantial funds ($M) in a 14 hour sitting, and I absorb new info incl foreign languages like a sponge. Long distance diagnosis very unreliable, but I see little evidence of the hyper focused, critical thinking side in Trump, just the scatterbrained lack of impulse control. So if he has ADHD, it is the more dangerous hyperactive, impulsive sort that lands makes some unfortunates unemployable or criminal.
Mnemosyne
@raven:
And how many women does he list among his famous ADHDers?
raven
@Mnemosyne: Read the book.
SiubhanDuinne
@p.a.:
I exchanged emails with him about half an hour ago. I won’t try to provide details, as I have no idea how much or little he wants to share right now, but tests so far came back normal. He’ll fill us in later, I’m sure.
raven
ADD vs. ADHD, and Women vs. Men
Thom Hartmann Administrator’s pictureNov. 7, 2007 5:53 pm
By Thom Hartmann A…
Jeffro
OT but WOW does Jennifer Rubin sound like a BJ front-pager here or what?!?
Pointing out not just Colin Powell’s current deceit but his (and Richard Armitrage’s) past one, AND knocking Trump re: the Bondi-bribe to boot.
Here’s the cherry on the sundae: she actually vouches for Secretary Clinton’s complete LACK of criminality in, well, anything.
Hell, thou must have just frozen over a few minutes ago…
Trentrunner
@JoyReid gave a 2-minute master class in how to destroy a birther just now on Hardball. Trumper Jack Kingston was left in a whimpering puddle on the floor.
Also, Katy Tur stood her ground in the piece as well.
We need more women hosting these shows.
Mnemosyne
@raven:
Well, he’s got some outright bullshit in there:
Bzzt. Not scientific, just another “just-so” story to excuse the way society has been set up. And I notice that, while he at least acknowledges the cultural problem between how men/boys with ADHD are treated va how women/girls are treated, he doesn’t really seem to recognize that men/boys are allowed to go out and be “hunters” while women/girls are not.
So telling me that I’m a “hunter” does exactly jack shit for the reality I live in and offers absolutely no solutions. Thanks for nothing, literally.
Ruviana
@Mnemosyne I’m glad if it helps raven but it sets off my anthropology alarm bells–back in those pre-farming days not everyone was hunting and a lot of people were gathering, a task rather more like farming. Reminds me a bit of the old Man the Hunter model I was taught in the early 70s.
ETA
And I see some bad warmed-over evolutionary psychology too. Sad!
SiubhanDuinne
@Trentrunner:
Katy Tur was amazing. Jack Kingston is a smarmy, entitled imbecile. I laughed and laughed when he tried to interrupt Katy and she ripped him a new one. I mean, she was all prepared with facts and everything! Bet he won’t try that again, at least not with her.
I love Joy Reid, too.
Trentrunner
@SiubhanDuinne: Unfortunately, I caught the last few minutes of the Hardball lead-in show, “The White Hacks’ Bullshit Jamboree Hour” or whatever it’s called with Halperin and that other haircut, and was thinking how different MSNBC would be with their own strong women running shows. I know Joy had one during the week, now has one on the weekend, but she is a star, she takes no rhetorical prisoners, and she is not afraid of conflict.
MSNBC: Give Joy Reid her own goddamn prime time daily show!
SiubhanDuinne
@Jeffro:
I saw that column earlier today. I had to go back and check the byline three or four times, it seemed so out of character. But ours not to reason why; I’m just glad it’s happening.
(Bobo, OTOH, is as awful as always. He was at his absolute worst High Broderism on ATC this afternoon. His “proof” that Matt Lauer actually did a fine job moderating the CiC forum is that both Trump and Clinton were terrible. Oh, and all the announced debate moderators will be fine.)
Trentrunner
Jack Kingston is now trending on Twitter with some HYSTERICAL memes being generated.
Katy Tur & Joy Reid made mincemeat of him. More of this, please.
Ian
@Chyron HR:
I know you are snarking, but that is not my definition of patriotism or loyalty to one’s country.
Jeffro
@Trentrunner: I heard that Tur lit him up…have to go check this out! Thanks!
Ian
@srv:
Tell me how we are going to get SA to pay you ignorant fuckwad. The proposal that we make SA par for 9/11 is as flawed and impossible as the ‘Mexico will pay for the wall’.
Mnemosyne
@raven:
Okay, I am literally heading to an appointment with my ADHD Doctor right now, so let me put it another way:
In our society, “being a hunter” is a gendered role reserved for men. So basically, you’re telling women with ADHD that they’re not farmers, but they can’t be hunters so, uh, sucks to be them.
@Ruviana:
FWIW, gathering actually would be pretty appropriate for someone with ADHD — that hyperfocus would come in very handy when you need to send someone off to pick only the edible berries and not the poisonous ones that grow with them. But the “hunter vs farmer” thing is so gendered that it doesn’t allow for the possibility that women’s ADHD could be adaptive, too.
Chris
@Cacti:
It probably helps that Russia has no official ideology. China has communism at least in name, even if in reality not so much. Iran and Saudi Arabia and some other countries in the area have islamism. The West has liberalism. But Russia doesn’t have that kind of philosophical organizing principle anymore, just nationalism. Makes it a lot easier for them to be an ink blot test onto which everyone projects what they want.
Jeffro
@Jeffro: Ok I’m back and yes she did – GOOD FOR YOU KATY! Of all things for Trump supporters to try and walk back, that the whole birther issue was no big deal…
Chris
@geg6:
So much this.
chopper
@Brachiator:
it’s the Internet. everybody’s a psychologist. sucks for those people who spent 8 years in grad school to do the same thing.
chopper
@Mnemosyne:
is that what he said? yeah, no.
glory b
@geg6: I have never despised so many of my fellow Americans as I currently do. I didn’t think they could disgust me more than they did during the run up and start of the Iraq war. I didn’t truly understand the depths to which they were willing to sink. And I’ve always been proud of my cynicism. But now I know I was naive.
Late to the thread, but welcome to the way African Americans think.
Turgidson
@chopper:
FWIW My wife is a PsyD and pretty careful about tossing diagnoses around casually. She’s pretty convinced Trump is, at the very least, afflicted with full blown narcissistic personality disorder. Thinks adhd is possible. I throw the word sociopath around for Trump but she doesn’t take it that far.
Anne Laurie
@mike in dc: I have ADHD; the Spousal Unit has ‘inattentive’ ADD. We’ve been together for more than 30 years — which is, yes, extremely rare — our joke is that if we’re ever both focused enough to be angry at the same time, our relationship is doomed!
(Seriously, one reason we stuck together is that we (usually) don’t take the failure-to-attend problem personally. We — well, mostly I — get aggravated when it turns out that the nodding & agreement to our latest ‘discussion’ floats in one ear & out the other, but we’ve also learned to cope by not making plans until both parties consciously agree we’re having a conversation.)
Anne Laurie
@jl: You’re right, I meant Wilson! (who was also a very bad president, if not as rockbottom terrible as Harding.)
Anne Laurie
@Brachiator:
Oh, absolutely. But this is a framework — even if someone agrees with Trump’s racist, xenophobic misogyny, the argument is that a guy who medically can’t perform at the level required for one of the most demanding jobs in the world should not be elected to that job.
It’s why the Trumplodytes keep passing around rumors that HRC is about to drop over from a brain trauma, or consumption, or some other organic disorder — if she’s that sick, she’s not qualified. But she’s released her medical records, and she’s not that sick. Trump, on the other hand, won’t release his records… so what is he hiding? (besides ADHD)?
Anne Laurie
@Ruviana: I’d recommend Hallowell’s book(s) over Hartmann’s, but the ‘hunter/gatherer vs. farmer’ framing isn’t a terrible analogy for dealing with ADHD/ADD, in my experience.
When I went shopping at beading or quilt or craft shows with my female friends, it used to astonish them that I could immediately spot the one particular color of bead or fabric design we were looking for out of a lavish display of wares… but I couldn’t identify one aisle of the show from another, or keep track of time to remember how long we had before closing time.
Brachiator
@Mnemosyne:
Interesting question. I don’t think any speculations here can provide anything informed or reasonable which might provide an answer.
Brachiator
@Anne Laurie:
This is an interesting question. But at present, we do not require that any candidate undergo any neutral examination to determine whether he or she might be medically unfit. There are not any agreed upon criteria that would make up such a judgement. Speculation here might be fun, but useless.
Both Trump and Clinton have released statements by their doctors. Trump’s is comically glowing. Their actual detailed medical records are not available for public review.
Anne Laurie
@Mnemosyne:
More like, knowing my own brain-chemistry issues, I make an earnest effort not to project my latest “ooo, shiny” pop-psych obsession on every situation. I feel like there’s a growing solid science around ADD/ADHD diagnoses; NPD is very flavor-of-the-week, and I don’t want to fall into the trap of jumping to conclusions about other peoples’ problems just because I have a fascinating new ‘idea’ to throw around. If only because, when I do that, I have ascertained that other people find me boring and tendentious.
Plantsmantx
“Basket of deplorables”, y’all:).
chopper
@Turgidson:
my wife is a Ph.D. psych and is in the same boat, she occasionally brings it up re: trump. then again, she’s a professional who has dealt with a shit-ton of people with NPD and even then she really avoids saying much at all that sounds like diagnosing the guy.
I’m just sick of all the internet doctors.
redshirt
@chopper: You sound depressed. You should take a pill.
JGabriel
Donald Trump via Anne Laurie @ Top:
Yes, Donald, we can tell.
Sondra
I just had to follow one of the links some of you mentioned re. the ADHD/ADD part pf this discussion: the one at Thom Hartmann’s site. I found this to be very interesting:
http://www.thomhartmann.com/blog/2007/11/add-vs-adhd-and-women-vs-men
SNIP
The proof that in both cases what we have is the need for aliveness (rather than neurochemical imbalances, brain damage, frontal lobe dysfunction, cognitive impairment, failure of inhibition, or any of the other theories to explain ADHD) is that the symptoms of both ADD and ADHD are relieved by the same thing: stimulation.
SNIP
I work with children with ADHD and this is a very good way to describe them. Most of my experience has been with boys, who can become distracted very easily unless they are truly engaged with our activities. I use equine therapy primarily, but have had to learn how to pivot into and out of other forms of talk therapy to get them back on track.
They demand a lot of both physical and mental energy from me. The same demands they make on their parents, siblings, teachers and their doctors. Of course many of these kids are high functioning, motivated, gifted and most have had extensive therapy to achieve a fairly normal way of interacting with other children and adults within our little Special Needs group and the world in general.
I cannot imagine how much staff it would take, and what they would be required to do to keep a grown man with ADHD going, were he to become the President. Not to mention how complicated that would be if he was also narcissistic or had any of the other mental disorders mentioned in this thread.
You’d need an army to keep him focused and in check. Maybe one day one of GW’s staff will spill the beans on how they achieved that with him. Granted there was always Cheney et alia who had their own agendas and really only needed W to be there in name only: hence the many days on vacation at “the ranch” in Texas and all of that brush clearing and wood chopping etc.
Csbella
@Cacti:
Typically bipolar can not control behaviors when necessary, as in an interview, or on camera. More likely he has a characterological disorder as has been commonly mentioned like narcissistic or borderline.
polyorchnid octopunch
@Miss Bianca: Here’s the deal. Wealthy men in Russia get to bonk beautiful young women, and their wives dare not say boo. That’s it.
dianne
There is something wrong with the way Trump blinks his eyes. After saying f*** them all in the ad running now, he blinks and blinks again. His eyes are dead and dull but yet filled with malice. Very reptillian. There is a Walgreens ad also running with a beautiful little baby playing a blinking game with her mother and her eyes are alive and engaged and full of the light of intelligence and joy. All the difference in the world.
shomi
Some constant ADHD media background noise would be nice from now till Nov. More of this please.
Leslie
I have inattentive ADD as well. I like Hallowell’s Delivered from Distraction, but my favorite book on the topic is Scattered, by Dr. Gabor Maté, because he has a very persuasive theory of how and why it develops that takes into account both genetic and environmental factors. Dr. Maté has ADHD himself, as do his three children, and he includes a whole section of practical tips for parents of kids with ADD/ADHD as well.
As for Trump, it certainly sounds like he might have it, but he’s unfit for office regardless.