Over the past few months, psychiatrists from the nation’s leading universities—including Harvard, Yale, and George Washington University—have expressed growing alarm at the state of President Trump’s mental health. Expressing their profession’s commitment to public health, they are now expressing their professional conclusion that his continuation in office could represent a danger to the United States given what they see as his growing inability to make rational decisions.
One need only read his tweets.
If these professionals are correct in their analysis, we may begin to see new, more disturbing signs of actions on the President’s part that move so far beyond the boundaries of acceptable behavior that even his strongest supporters must admit there is a problem. To date, that has not occurred. In fact, one could argue that the weirder, more bizarre, his statements and actions have become, the more his followers worship and adore him.
Spirited Reasoners must wonder, though. How far could a public tantrum go before a Trump supporter would stop and take notice? What if he lashed out with fists during a televised debate? Would a member of the Secret Service step forward to stop him? And if no one did, would the debate opponent be within his/her rights to fight back? (And if so, how far could the opponent go in the injury department?)
Donald Trump has moved us all beyond boundaries we once thought were sacred. But there is one truth that both Trump supporters and opponents will accept: If he wins reelection in 2020 we cannot claim we weren’t warned.