THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM

Earlier this month, I posted something on the Republican disconnect from reality.  I’m grateful that the press has done a much better job of separating truth from fiction since the inauguration.  Their willingness to call out Donald Trump, Kellyanne Conway, and Sean Spicer on their lies has been a pleasant surprise.  Credit where credit is due.  But there are still a couple of elephants in the room. 

So far, Congressional Republicans have been largely exempt from the truth-squadding that the White House has received.  Paul Ryan continues to enjoy a reputation of a serious, principled fiscal conservative, when the truth is that he’s a dishonest opportunist, willing to indulge any behavior on the part of the Executive Branch as long as they’ll support his lifelong dream of cutting taxes for billionaires and cutting benefits for everyone else.  Mitch McConnell is often portrayed as a procedural genius, cleverly using Senate rules to stymie Democrats and advance the Republican agenda.  The fact that that Republican agenda is racist, sexist, and anti-democratic doesn’t seem to matter to the press. 

But there’s an even more serious issue that has thus far been ignored or underplayed by the mainstream press.  Every politician tries to put the best possible face on things, stretching the truth here and there in the process.  That’s not what’s going on in the Trump Administration.  Simply separating fact from fiction, while an essential first step, is not enough.

Plainly put, this President is more than just dishonest.  He’s mentally ill.  His children – primarily Ivanka and her husband Jared Kushner – seem to have figured out ways to manage him.  Steve Bannon can manipulate him at times.  But the rest of his newly hired political appointees are confused and helpless.  That’s why people like Conway and Spicer wind up looking like babbling fools.  It’s not just that they’re trying to justify obvious lies.  They’re trying to pretend that a madman is sane.

Calling the President a liar was a huge breakthrough for the mainstream press.  Given their instinctive deference to institutions of power, it can’t have been easy.  It will be just as hard, if not harder, for them to come right out and question the President’s sanity.  But it has to be done.

The first step may have been taken by Andrew Sullivan in New York Magazine (link below).  I’ll wrap up this post by quoting extensively from that article, which helps me understand why Trump’s lies feel so different from, and more disturbing than, the lies that George W. Bush told, or those of Richard Nixon before him. 

“I keep asking myself this simple question: If you came across someone in your everyday life who repeatedly said fantastically and demonstrably untrue things, what would you think of him? If you showed up at a neighbor’s, say, and your host showed you his newly painted living room, which was a deep blue, and then insisted repeatedly — manically — that it was a lovely shade of scarlet, what would your reaction be? If he then dragged out a member of his family and insisted she repeat this obvious untruth in front of you, how would you respond? If the next time you dropped by, he was still raving about his gorgeous new red walls, what would you think? Here’s what I’d think: This man is off his rocker. He’s deranged; he’s bizarrely living in an alternative universe; he’s delusional. If he kept this up, at some point you’d excuse yourself and edge slowly out of the room and the house and never return. You’d warn your other neighbors. You’d keep your distance. If you saw him, you’d be polite but keep your distance.”

“I think this is a fundamental reason why so many of us have been so unsettled, anxious, and near panic these past few months. It is not so much this president’s agenda. That always changes from administration to administration. It is that when the lynchpin of an entire country is literally delusional, clinically deceptive, and responds to any attempt to correct the record with rage and vengeance, everyone is always on edge.”

“Somehow, he is never in control of himself and yet he is always in control of you.”

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/02/andrew-sullivan-the-madness-of-king-donald.html