David Brooks: "He {Trump} cannot be contained because he is psychologically off the chain."

[riversedge]

The Opinion Pages | Op-Ed Columnist


Trump’s Enablers Will Finally Have to Take a Stand

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/05/opinion/trumps-enablers-will-finally-have-to-take-a-stand.html?ribbon-ad-idx=2&src=trending&module=Ribbon&version=context&region=Header&action=click&contentCollection=Trending&pgtype=article


David Brooks AUG. 5, 2016
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................Over the past few days, Trump has destroyed this middle ground. He’s exposed the wet noodle Republicans as suckers, or worse. Trump has shown that he is not a normal candidate. He is a political rampage charging ever more wildly out of control. And no, he cannot be changed.

He cannot be contained because he is psychologically off the chain. With each passing week he displays the classic symptoms of medium-grade mania in more disturbing forms: inflated self-esteem, sleeplessness, impulsivity, aggression and a compulsion to offer advice on subjects he knows nothing about.

His speech patterns are like something straight out of a psychiatric textbook. Manics display something called “flight of ideas.” It’s a formal thought disorder in which ideas tumble forth through a disordered chain of associations. One word sparks another, which sparks another, and they’re off to the races. As one trained psychiatrist said to me, compare Donald Trump’s speaking patterns to a Robin Williams monologue, but with insults instead of jokes.

Trump insults Paul Ryan, undermines NATO and raises the specter of nuclear war. Advisers can’t control Trump’s brain because Trump can’t control it himself.

He also cannot be contained because he lacks the inner equipment that makes decent behavior possible. So many of our daily social interactions depend on a basic capacity for empathy. But Trump displays an absence of this quality...........................

[randr]

1. Here all along I thought he was getting speech lessons

from Palin.

[randome]

2. That's a pretty comprehensive evaluation.

Comparing him to a Robin Williams monologue is a great metaphor!
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Treat your body like a machine. Your mind like a castle.[/center][/font][hr]

[NewJeffCT]

5. Williams was funny, though

great comparison, though

[underpants]

7. Yes it is

wow Brooks actually wrote something worth a damn.

[Loki]

3. There is no one and nothing

including our Constitution, that would stop Donald Trump. Can you imagine the constitutional crisis he could cause and with the unquestioning support of his mindless minions who will follow him over the abyss into that darkness? The Republican Party has become a imminent threat to this country.

[TheBlackAdder]

4. It's amazing how many in the GOP asylum think they are the sane ones.

[longship]

6. I watched Shields and Brooks on PBS during the conventions.

Only the first two days of the RNC (all I could stomach) but all four days of the DNC.

I found it kind of astounding that the two commentators mostly were in agreement.

Brooks is still a Republican, but he is a moderate one. He aptly showed his revulsion to what was occurring during the RNC debacle.

He was mostly positive about the DNC convention.

The GOP is screwn this year.

[Jerry442]

8. "...and a compulsion to offer advice on subjects he knows nothing about."

Uh-huh.

[enough]

9. "Off the chain." What a weird metaphor for lacking psychological stability/sanity.

So being stable is being ON the chain? Says a lot about Brooks himself.

[Hekate]

17. Speaks to one's own inner impulse control. Find another metaphor if it makes you happier.

Ego -- Id -- Superego.

Mania -- fullblown manic episodes, and where is the control? Nowhere.

[enough]

18. I don't find the idea of the Chain very useful, because it suggests

being trapped, being controlled from elsewhere, and being on a leash. Having lived intimately with the terrible reality of mania, I think there are better ways to look at it. Speaking, if I may, as quite an old person with a long history in my family.

[EricMaundry]

10. K&R

Pretty important stuff.

[NBachers]

11. As bilious as David Brooks makes me, there is very occasionally a time when I can agree with him.

I'm always surprised when he writes something sensible, but I'll give him slight credit when he does.

I'm not yet ready to say the same thing about George Will.

[tanyev]

12. It's been bugging me for weeks now to see media panels discussing Trump

as if he is a normal candidate--going into details of strategy, what he should/should say, analysis of polls, etc. It's been clear for some time now that this is a man with very little impulse control who seeks to dominate by whatever means is necessary.

[klook]

13. "They're still talkin' about me!"

-- Drumpf's infantile emotion...if he bothers to read this.

I'm sure the 'baggers are castigating Brooks as a RINO (or probably already were). He's been very useful, putting a varnish of rationality and civility on the ugly racism and classist cruelty that is the true Republican Party.

This election season many of them are doing away with the pretense and celebrating their darkest selves.

[JHB]

15. But Brooks IS ONE of the enablers

The Republican Party has spent Brooks' entire adult lifetime wooing the people who have now voted Trump into his present status as the Republican presidential candidate.

It didn't happen suddenly, it was cultivated.

If it bothered Mr. Brooks, perhaps he might have made an issue of it earlier. Like 20, 30 years ago?

Lead them, Dave. Take a stand, and have them join you in you stand.

Preferably on a remote, low-lying island.
It will be perfectly safe because climate change is a hoax and won't affect sea levels, right?

[jtuck004]

16. Call animal control. n/t