General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsGreat editorial..One of the best
It has been clear for a long time that President Trump is a person with a disorganized mind and a disordered personality. What the past few months and especially the past few weeks have brought into focus is how the presidents pathologies have cascaded downward and outward through his administration. They have become institutionalized. The reason the administration so often does not act coherently is because it cannot. The world faces something new and baffling and frightening in Mr. Trumps second term: a psychotic state.
In the second term, by contrast, institutional psychosis has been on display since Day 1.
It is the Iran war that has most vividly demonstrated the scope of the problem. In this conflict, the most potent antagonist has been the administrations own incoherence.
The Trump administration chose to wage a war without deciding on its aims, mapping out a strategy, planning for contingencies or even being able to explain itself. The goal was regime change until it wasnt. The demand was unconditional surrender until it wasnt. Deadlines were issued and then erased. Threats of total destruction were made and then pulled back. Irans nuclear program was a casus belli in February despite that fact that we were told by Mr. Trump that it had been obliterated last June. The president called for an international coalition to open the Strait of Hormuz, then said the United States could go it alone, and then said the waterway would somehow open itself. He claimed that the United States had already won the war, that the war would end soon, and that the war would end when I feel it
in my bones. As a headline in The Times put it, the presidents position on Iran can change by the sentence.
Even as the bombs fell, the administration, concerned about gasoline prices, waived sanctions on some Iranian oil, giving Irans war effort against the U.S. a boost, as The Washington Post reported. Area experts were shocked when the administration proved unprepared for Irans partial closing of the Strait of Hormuz, a tactic experts had anticipated for decades. The administration might have been readier had it not chopped back the State Departments Middle East desk, gotten rid of its oil and gas experts and eliminated its dedicated Iran office. The administration handicapped its own National Security Council by firing staff members, some at the behest of a conspiracy-minded internet personality, and undercutting its independence not a good idea before launching a war. Trumps social media posts seemed self-contradictory and borderline demented.
The so-called Department of Government Efficiency caused chaos in federal agencies by sacking, and then sometimes rehiring, employees without any evident rationale and without making a serious dent in government spending. Mr. Trump flipped from no more wars to waging war (in Iran) and using and threatening military force (Venezuela, Greenland, Cuba), seemingly every other month. The policy toward Ukraine was simultaneously supportive and not supportive. Tariffs went up and down and on and off, reflecting the presidents whims. In February, he bragged that gas prices were low, then in March that they were high.
Institutional psychosis is ultimately self-defeating and unsustainable. Reality checks will return because reality always reasserts itself. But severe damage will have been done, damage that may take a generation or more to repair.
As the Trump era winds down, the country may relearn something that never should have been forgotten. Institutions need to be reformed, not destroyed; governing well requires skill and careful attention to detail rather than leaders acting on impulse and ignorance; and character and mental stability matter perhaps most of all.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/10/opinion/trump-iran-psychotic-state-institutions.html
This is a condensed version but you get the point...The man is a dangerous psycho, without a clue as to anything but his own tormenting inner demons and his delusions of grandeur..
MustLoveBeagles
(16,627 posts)agingdem
(8,889 posts)Unhinged from reality and swathed in a cocoon of yes-men, psychotic sadist Trump spews world dominance garbage and loathsome self-hating Stephen Miller crafts Trumps most vile delusional obsessions into policy..
yellow dahlia
(6,055 posts)Kid Berwyn
(24,540 posts)NYT seems ahead of its Thiel skis.
SergeStorms
(20,623 posts)of the tRump shit-show remaining, unless the reTrumplican party regains their brains and spines, and who knows if we'll ever have another free and fair election following that?
And to think I used to believe it was beyond contempt to wish for someone's demise.![]()
NNadir
(38,147 posts)I would put this along side nutty Marjorie Taylor Greene.
The beast formed in New York. They just noticed now?
Give. Me. A. Fucking. Break.
Intractable
(2,223 posts)NNadir
(38,147 posts)...surprised they haven't turned to the "opinions" of Maureen Dowd" who offered us the "opinion" that how Al Gore's suit fit was a far greater threat to America than putting the likes of a corrupt political hack like John Roberts in the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court's chair.
If this is their new "opinion" track they can prepare for being bought by Theil, Musk, or Bezos.
niyad
(132,757 posts)Just a reminder, nyt. Had you done your FUCKING JOBS in 2015, and every fucking day since that escalator descent, we would not be here. Actually, if you had done your damned jobs starting in 2000, with that travesty of an election, your lying coverage of the bush/cheney wars, etc., we would not be here.
CoopersDad
(3,350 posts)DallasNE
(8,012 posts)There is one sentence with which I disagree.
It reads: "It is the Iran war that has most vividly demonstrated the scope of the problem."
That event happened much earlier. I saw it with the DOGE fiasco. All of the symptoms were readily apparent back then. Some people were simply in denial. But it is good to see them finally waking up.
oldsoldierfadingfast
(290 posts)as more statements of facts than as a statements of opinion.
Thank you for posting it!
canetoad
(20,773 posts)Excellent article.
BurnDoubt
(1,770 posts)everything down-line is now ineffective and dying
except the Lethal Parts
thats all they need.
All this should have been stopped at the first signs of intimidation. That was a test. And we failed it.
The first threats and insinuations were the tell.
The Heritage Foundation and its Monster Creation, Citizens United have effected the most craven attacks on our Democracy, and their Avatar in the White House is tasked with keeping us unbalanced and unstable until the Mission is Accomplished, up-to-and-including starting WWIII.
It was clear in the closing weeks of the campaign that the fix was in. They had compromised all three branches, bought the media, infiltrated Law Enforcement and the Military, and blown the dog-whistle to the paramilitaries.
He told us: We dont need your votes.
They Murdered Trust in the US
.
But, ironically we can trust THEM
to do Evil.