New York Times on Donald Trump’s mental health:
- March 4, 2017: he is frustrated by his rocky debut and increasingly paranoid about what he sees as the Vast Deep-State Conspiracy.
- March 18, 2017: Consumed by his paranoia about the deep state, Donald Trump has disappeared into the fog of his own conspiracy theories.
- June 17, 2017: His paranoia about the Deep State…
- August 20, 2018: (headline: “The G.O.P.’s Climate of Paranoia“) the assertion of Trump and company that all of the tweeter in chief’s woes are the product of a vast deep-state conspiracy
Definition of paranoia:
a mental condition characterized by delusions of persecution, unwarranted jealousy, or exaggerated self-importance, typically elaborated into an organized system. It may be an aspect of chronic personality disorder, of drug abuse, or of a serious condition such as schizophrenia in which the person loses touch with reality.
What is the reality? Today the same paper that called Donald Trump “paranoid” for thinking that some of the people ostensibly working for him were actually working against him published “I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration,” subtitled “I work for the president but like-minded colleagues and I have vowed to thwart parts of his agenda and his worst inclinations.” The article is from “a[n anonymous] senior official in the Trump administration.”
Is it now fair to say that Donald Trump’s shortcomings do not meet the clinical definition of paranoia? Or is it instead an example of “Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t after you.”? (Catch-22)
The two things are not mutually exclusive. He could have been paranoid back then and these things still not a reality. Let’s not forget he said he was afraid the elections were going to be rigged (isn’t that paranoia? and it never happened) and deep state before getting elected (when clearly his executive actions could not yet have been thwarted by his not-yet-existing administration). And just because you’re paranoid in advance it does not mean what you were afraid of is not going to materialise later on. If I’m paranoid about being arrested and then go out and commit crimes, I’ll be arrested – I was still paranoid back then.
Besides that, I’d say “exaggerated self-importance” fits the definition like a glove to the “I alone can solve it” President – and if that is not losing touch with reality I don’t know what it is.
More than a catch-22 it is a case of a self-fulfilling prophecy. We don’t know who this person or his colleagues are, whether a legacy administration staff member, or a Trump appointee – likely the later, as he is described as a senior official in the administration. But if Woodward’s book is true, people like Mattis and Cohn are actively thwarting the president’s actions. These are Trump appointees, so he effectively brought the “Deep State” with him.
PS: if this anonymous insider is right, he is nothing but a coward. If this situation is as grave as he puts, coming out like this only worsens things: the ones that believe Trump is an idiot will view this as reinforcing proof; the ones that like Trump and believe his conspiracy theories will see this as proof that the NYT is a compromised anti-Trump manufacturer of fake evidence and that this shows the conspiracies are true. There is nothing honourable in thwarting nefarious presidential actions in hiding, while promoting dissent among the people. And while impeachment, resignation or public speaking are constitutionally acceptable, actively foiling presidential orders is treasonous behaviour. There is a case to be made for civil disobedience, but it’s a thin line here.
Economist Laurence Kotlikoff on Alimony, a Forbes article, and his software package:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/kotlikoff/2018/07/24/talking-alimony/#2b35d9552cf9
“Over 4,000 people divorce each day in our country. Some do so after many years of marriage and in the context of very unequal spousal incomes. Such divorces often require alimony to achieve a fair settlement. The question is how much alimony should be provided and for how long? Economics and advanced software can help answer these questions.”
https://analyzemydivorcesettlement.com
“Is My Proposed Settlement Fair?
1.6 million people divorce each year
Each has to reach a divorce settlement
Our advanced, neutral software shows what each spouse gets to spend on an ongoing basis
Use our tool to avoid a costly legal fight, find a win-win settlement, and get a fair deal”
Neenat: That’s pretty far off-topic, but fun anyway to see how parochial a person’s perspective can be. This guy lives in Massachusetts so he thinks that what Massachusetts courts hand out is “fair”, e.g., that alimony duration should be a function of the length of the marriage. But there are jurisdictions where a person can be married only briefly and collect money for the rest of his or her life. And there are jurisdictions, such as Indiana and Germany, where alimony doesn’t exist (see http://www.realworlddivorce.com/ for the range).
We never interviewed a woman who thought that it was “fair” to pay alimony to a lower-income former husband. From their point of view, they did not want to pay a man to enjoy having sex with younger women.
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divorce_law_in_Sweden : “The fundamental idea is that divorce effectively severs all forms of economic relations between spouses. Each spouse is therefore individually responsible for his or her own financial support after divorce. Maintenance is seldom granted except in certain circumstances. It must be shown that the spouse is financially needy and that the marriage has resulted in the need for maintenance.” In other words, the “fair” number for alimony in Sweden is typically $0, regardless of the duration of the marriage.
The picture that this guy paints of a mutually-agreed divorce being typical is not even true of his own local area. http://www.realworlddivorce.com/MiddlesexMay2011 shows that only 17 percent of divorces in Middlesex County, Massachusetts were “joint petitions”. The remaining 83 percent were one spouse suing the other (consistent with research in other states, it was the likely winners of the lawsuit who were primarily the ones to file: “Among the 144 cases in which children were involved, women were 3.14 times more likely to sue their husbands than vice versa.” (Census data show that 97 percent of residents in MA who collect child support are women, presumably due to the fact that they won their custody lawsuits)).
The egghead professor says “Each has to reach a divorce settlement”. In all 50 U.S. states, however, this is not true. An American divorce is a lawsuit. As with any other lawsuit, if the parties do not settle there will be a trial and a judgment from a court. The more money that is at stake the more likely it is that a judge will decide (this is partly due to the fact that a former couple’s assets may be consumed by legal fees prior to the trial and the lawyers at that point get into a settlement mood).
So the article really shows (1) how deeply devoted to family court profits Americans are (we would much rather get money out of a former sex partner than work! See Angelina Jolie, for example, currently trying to profit from her 6 children), (2) how deeply devoted to litigation in the era of no-fault Americans are (unlike the Europeans who are transitioning to administrative procedures), and (3) how Americans are unwilling to speak honestly about the nature of American divorce (we like to pretend that it is generally a mutual decision and that there is a voluntary settlement).
Wtf? I thought comments were moderated.
Anonymous: Comments go live immediately by default, but a moderator may delete afterwards (WordPress catches most of the spam and those don’t go live). Neenat’s comment was off-topic, but I think it was interesting. Maybe one of the moderators will delete both Neenat’s comment and my response!
[And, of course, it is not totally off-topic in the context of Donald Trump, a guy who is sufficiently wealthy to be worth suing in family court. I think that there are at least four people who’ve tried to get cash out of Trump either via family court litigation or by asserting the existence of a past sexual relationship and demanding payment.]
Leaving aside the specific legal rules that should govern the distribution of the marital estate and any future support obligations, my view is that in the vast majority of cases software should govern the financial side of the divorce. The distribution can be and should be mechanical and known in advance. The reason it is not of course is that the divorce industry is lucrative for lawyers, judges, court personnel, and “experts” so the law is mushy and uncertain around the edges & people always think that the few odd cases apply to them because they are special and their marriage was special. Though my guess is that a good lawyer with no financial interest in the dispute should be able to predict with a high degree of certainty the likely disposition of most divorce cases — and therefore software should likely be able to do it better.
Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean we’re not out to get you…