Ryan, McConnell, Grassley-- Enablers For Sure... But Criminally So?

Charles Pierce shook Esquire readers over the weekend by growling about Paul Ryan, who many of them have probably never heard of. His post, You're Not NeverTrump Unless You're NeverRyan and NeverMcConnell, makes the point that the GOP’s “brain disease has seized full control” and refuse to do anything about a “president” who is “a half-senile old fool whose own people don’t think is up to the job of selling apples from a steam-grate, let alone running the Executive branch of an established democracy.” The GOP, he wrote, in a dereliction of duty, “would rather destroy the lives of the poor and unfortunate than undertake their constitutional duty of reining in a White House gone completely mad.” Sounds about right. It’s certainly how Yale psychiatrist Brandy Lee sees it. “It is Trump in the office of the presidency that poses a danger,” she wrote. “Why? Past violence is the best predictor of future violence, and he has shown: verbal aggressiveness, boasting about sexual assaults, inciting violence in others, an attraction to violence and powerful weapons and the continual taunting of a hostile nation with nuclear power. Specific traits that are highly associated with violence include: impulsivity, recklessness, paranoia, a loose grip on reality with a poor understanding of consequences, rage reactions, a lack of empathy, belligerence towards others and a constant need to demonstrate power. There is another pattern by which he is dangerous. His cognitive function, or his ability to process knowledge and thoughts, has begun to be widely questioned. Many have noted a distinct decline in his outward ability to form complete sentences, to stay with a thought, to use complex words and not to make loose associations. This is dangerous because of the critical importance of decision-making capacity in the office that he holds. Cognitive decline can result from any number of causes – psychiatric, neurological, medical, or medication-induced – and therefore needs to be investigated. Likewise, we do not know whether psychiatric symptoms are due to a mental disorder, medication, or a physical condition, which only a thorough examination can reveal.”

Shouldn’t Ryan and McConnell see this? They surely do… and they’re playing with fire, ignoring the danger Trump poses to the United States. Pierce:

Now, it appears, the Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee are so dedicated to protecting a dangerously incompetent president that they’re willing to do almost anything. Grassley is just an old crank having fun in his legislative dotage, but the conversion of Lindsey Graham into a Southern-fried Lewandowski has been a dark wonder to behold. I’m not an adherent to conspiracies about kompromat but, Jesus H. Christ on a covert wiretap, this transformation cannot be explained by conventional political science.

Mr. Grassley’s decision to recommend criminal charges appeared likely to be based on reports of Mr. Steele’s meetings with the F.B.I., which were provided to the committee by the Justice Department in recent weeks.

Or on something some staffer’s grandmother emailed after having a hot dream about Sean Hannity dipped in butter. Who the hell knows at this point?

It was not clear why, if a crime is apparent in the F.B.I. reports that were reviewed by the Judiciary Committee, the Justice Department had not moved to charge Mr. Steele already. The circumstances under which Mr. Steele is alleged to have lied were unclear, as much of the referral was classified.

They aren’t going to pull back. They aren’t going to stop. They aren’t going to do their jobs. Their patriotism extends only as far as a donor’s wallet and their devotion to the Constitution can be measured with an eyedropper. Nobody truly can be said to be NeverTrump anymore who is not also NeverMcConnell, NeverRyan, and, frankly, NeverGOP, at least in its current manifestation. The prion disease has triumphed completely. The patient is brain-dead, but still deadly in its contagion.

This should work out splendidly. From Politico:

With rumors swirling that Jeff Sessions could depart the administration and two members of the House Freedom Caucus calling on the former Alabama senator to resign, Pruitt is quietly positioning himself as a possible candidate for the job. “Pruitt is very interested,” a person close to him said. “He has expressed that on a number of occasions.” It’s unclear whether Pruitt would be on the shortlist for the position, but people close to the president said Trump has grown to like him. Pruitt has emerged as the face of Trump’s deregulatory agenda, taking steps to overturn former President Barack Obama’s climate change regulations. He was also a leading advocate for pulling out of the Paris agreement on climate change.

You can do worse in this administration than position yourself as the ‘president*’s favorite vandal. Or so says Politico, anyway, and Pruitt has more than qualified on that score. Most recently, the administration* announced that it’s all hands on deck for offshore drilling, including in and around the Gulf of Mexico, as well as in the Arctic waters around Alaska. (Even Governor Bat Boy in Florida thinks this is a terrible idea, and environmental protection groups are predictably agog.) Pruitt’s work at the EPA is probably done and I have no doubt that this administration* will find someone worse than him if and when he ascends to the top spot in the Department of Justice. There’s never been a better time in history to fail upwards in high office.

Back to Dr. Brandy Lee:

Trump became more paranoid, espousing once again conspiracy theories that he had let go of for a while. He seemed further to lose his grip on reality by denying his own voice on the Access Hollywood tapes. Also, the sheer frequency of his tweets seemed to reflect an agitated state of mind, and his retweeting some violent anti-Muslim videos showed his tendency to resort to violence when under pressure.

Trump views violence as a solution when he is stressed and desires to re-establish his power. Paranoia and overwhelming feelings of weakness and inadequacy make violence very attractive, and powerful weapons very tempting to use – all the more so for their power. His contest with the North Korean leader about the size of their nuclear buttons is an example of that and points to the possibility of great danger by virtue of the power of his position.

It does not take a mental health professional to see that a person of Trump’s impairments, in the office of the presidency, is a danger to us all. What mental health experts can offer is affirmation that these signs are real, that they may be worse than the untrained person suspects, and that there are more productive ways of handling them than deflection or denial.

Screening for risk of harm is a routine part of mental health practice, and there are steps that we follow when someone poses a risk of danger: containment, removal from access to weapons and an urgent evaluation. When danger is involved, it is an emergency, where an established patient-provider relationship is not necessary, nor is consent; our ethical code mandates that we treat the person as our patient.