Beware of Donald Trump's Attempts to Link Mental Illness with Violence!

[MineralMan]

He wants to create new "Mental Health Treatment Centers." In doing that, he's copying the Russians, who have long found it convenient to call those they don't like "mentally ill" and lock them up in such centers. No doubt Trump would like to selectively lock up a lot of people he considers to be "mentally ill."

Make no mistake: Trump is doing this to deal with those he finds inconvenient to his nefarious plans. It's an old, old story. Let's not retell it.

[hlthe2b]

1. Yup... a convenient way to deal with "political opponents"...

[Demsrule86]

2. I agree...and these spree shooters are not mentally ill ...they are sociopaths and that is different

[Historic NY]

3. Lets link his mental illness to his impeachment.....

and find him a rubber room.

[Wounded Bear]

4. There is that danger, but we do need to address mental health in this country...

The ties to gun violence are tenuous, at best, but there is a huge mental health crisis because of "benign neglect" for lack of a better term.

In my home state, there has been a big push to work on this, as the state mental hospital system was wholly inadequate. It does take money, though.

Mental health has many symptoms in our society, chief among which is probably the homeless crisis and the various addictive behaviors.

While I'm typically one to call the shooters "nuts" that's not a clinical dagnosis at all.

[MineralMan]

7. Yes, we do need to do that.

However, that is not what Trump has in mind at all. He thinks he has a way to lock up inconvenient people. Fortunately, like most of his ideas, that one won't happen, but it's still a dangerous idea.

I remember when the state hospitals shut down in California under Governor Ronald Reagan. They were horrible, but should have been re-conceived, rather than just shut down. Reagan wanted to save money, not help people. Mental health care was supposed to shift to county jurisdictions, but no funding was provided for that, so no care at all was really available in most places.

Still, that is not what Trump has in mind. He has something truly frightening in mind.

[Wounded Bear]

8. I understand about Trump...

I was living in Califonia back then, too. It ended up being a nationwide trend, unfortunately.

Repubs always put "cutting costs" ahead of the public good.

I figure all the bullshit at the border is just practice for his future concentration camps. They really are going fascist on us.

[Hekate]

19. Take nothing from him; even if it sounds good, it is poisonous. Everything Trump touches, dies. nt

[Wounded Bear]

20. Yeah, Trump always has an ulterior motive...

usually involving screwing someone else for his profit.

[ck4829]

22. Absolutely! We can address it through universal healthcare

[Liberal In Texas]

5. Can "Re-education Centers" be far behind after this? n/t

[Anon-C]

6. K&R!

[Claritie Pixie]

9. Yep. He and his minions will make up their own definitions.

Definitions that target those who don't agree with him.

[DemocracyMouse]

10. Winston Smith is locked up in one at the end of Orwell's 1984

[Proud Liberal Dem]

11. I agree

We need to tread carefully

[yardwork]

12. Agreed! This is ominous.

The vast majority of people diagnosed with a mental illness are not violent. Demonizing the millions of us who have been treated for depression, anxiety, and many other mental health issues is the wrong approach.

No other nation has the same level of mass murder that we have in the U.S. Is Trump suggesting that our population has a huge mental health problem that no other nation has? The suggestion is absurd.

[ck4829]

25. +1

[azureblue]

13. And Don is a prime example

He is nuts. Crazy. Power mad. Self deluded. Thinks he is King of Israel. And he uses words to provoke his cultists to violence. So what is the difference between being violent personally, and getting someone else to do your violence for you?

[smirkymonkey]

26. +1000

This!

[Chakaconcarne]

14. Yeah, I'm pretty sure the APA is not going to allow that to happen....

We need mental health treatment centers and we need them to be well funded... not that I expect Trump to follow through..

This talk from him is all BS anyway.... I wouldn't get to worked up, personally.

[ck4829]

24. Hopefully not

[texasfiddler]

15. This post mentioned on Thom Hartmann

[MineralMan]

17. Cool Beans!

[EveHammond13]

16. "hysterical" women who want to have abortions...

[ck4829]

23. Slaves who ran away had "drapetomania"

[Hekate]

18. Well spotted

[ck4829]

21. K&R

[Newest Reality]

27. No,

Mental illness seems to be another convenient excuse, like violent video games, to sidetrack looking more deeply into the problem.

There may very well be a much deeper, systemic, cultural issue at hand here and I find it curious that something that needs dire attention is treated so superficially, which then leads to false assumptions and limits or prevents us from mitigating the violence and solving the problem.

You could say that the problem is now deeply ingrained and it is based on some significant changes in values and ideas about gender, etc. We have scores of young men, (who also tend to have lots of testosterone) who are having a massive cultural crises about their identity and the meaning in the lives. I think any culture would be wise to consider that factor very carefully and not just focus on the content of specific events that leads to tragic results.

When one looks into this, it is a bit more complex than I will go into in depth, but we have the self-identified incels and those young men who gravitate towards and are vulnerable to tribal identity by way of alt-right, and other groups that prey on this predicament we are now in. I suggest more investigation into this phenomena in order to understand the nuts and bolts of it.

If we are going to ignore the underlying factors that contribute to what is often a "going out in a blaze of glory", (not always) rather than sitting and stewing in a miasma of purposelessness and lack of meaning in life, then we won't be able to do much that is going to substantially transform and resolve the cause of it and it may worsen.

I would think an intelligent and more sophisticated culture would be right on that, so what are we in that respect? All this technology and complexity and we can only focus on contents rather than the process?

[Tanuki]

28. No doubt he has rich donors who are already drawing up a large scale

private, for-profit "Mental Health Corporation of American" industry plan. They will hand out ketamine like candy.

[Fyrefox]

29. The underlying irony

While Trump and many conservative Republicans want to link and ascribe gun violence to "mental illness," that doesn't mean that they intend to actually vote to fund expanded mental health treatments any more than they want to fund health care in general. They'd much prefer to continue to send their "thoughts and prayers" to victims of gun violence, since that costs them nothing...