A Medical Theory for Donald Trump’s Bizarre Behavior … Many mental health professionals believe the president is ill. But what if the cause is an untreated STD? … Al Franken recently raised a provocative question about Donald Trump: Is he mentally ill? On HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher last week, the Minnesota senator claimed that some of his Republican colleagues have “great concern about the president’s temperament,” adding that “there’s a range in what they’ll say, and some will say that he’s not right mentally. And some are harsher.” Two days later, he told CNN’s Jake Tapper, “We all have this suspicion that—you know, that he’s not—he lies a lot…And, you know, that is not the norm for a president of the United States, or, actually, for a human being.” – The New Republic
He may have contracted it, according to the magazine, in the 1980s when syphilis was on the rise. If he didn’t get it treated, it would be far advanced by now.
Advanced syphilis, neurosyphilis, and manifest itself in numerous ways, according to the article.
“Commonly recognized symptoms include irritability, loss of ability to concentrate, delusional thinking, and grandiosity. Memory, insight, and judgment can become impaired. Insomnia may occur. Visual problems may develop, including the inability of pupils to react to the light. This, along other ocular pathology, can result in photophobia, dimming of vision, and squinting. All of these things have been observed in Trump. Dementia, headaches, gait disturbances. and patchy hair loss can also be seen in later stages of syphilis.”
More:
Last year, Jeb Bush said of his Republican primary opponent, “I’m not a psychiatrist or a psychologist, but the guy needs therapy.” Senator Bernie Sanders recently called Trump “delusional in many respects, a pathological liar.”
And Congressman Ted Lieu, a California Democrat, is introducing legislation that would require the White House to have a psychiatrist on staff. “I’m looking at it from the perspective of, if there are questions about the mental health of the president of the United States, what may be the best way to get the president treatment?” he told the Huffington Post.
Does Trump suffer from this condition? the magazine asks. “In Trump’s case, there are many diagnostic possibilities, and we have very little background information because the slim medical summary he released was vague, unverifiable, and possibly outdated.”
Trump was promiscuous, according to the article, in the 198os when syphilis was spreading. “I’ve been so lucky in terms of that whole world,” he reportedly told Howard Stern in 1997. “It is a dangerous world out there—it’s scary, like Vietnam. Sort of like the Vietnam era. It is my personal Vietnam. I feel like a great and very brave solider.”
It is incredibly important to rule out the disease, according to the article, because it is treatable even at a late date. And yet… we very much doubt Trump has syphilis. Since it is a treatable disease, if he did get it he could easily get rid of it. But surely he didn’t get it to begin with. Relatively speaking, very few people have gotten syphilis over the years, even when it was on the rise.
The magazine, previously owned by a Facebook co-founder is now owned by Win Mr. McCormack, an active Democratic fund-raiser. “He is the author of a book that details the sexual indiscretions of Republican politicians who espouse family values. Mr. Fish, who also produces documentary films, comes from a long line of Republican lawmakers. In 1988, he sought the Democratic nomination for the same Westchester County congressional seat his forbears had held, but was defeated.”
This article, which has been picked up and shared in numerous places in the last day or two, is another example of how low people can stoop to smear someone they don’t like.
The birther story was widely shared, but only by a fairly small segment of the alternative media and then widened on Facebook, via email etc. But this assertion has been made by The New Republic among other publications, and The New Republic is a kind of left-wing thought magazine and prestigious in certain circles. The article was written by a doctor with 30 years experience in infectious diseases.
From our point of view the article substantiates as lot of what Trump was talking about in his recent press conference. This article is delivered with both hate and venom from what we can tell.
Of course anything is possible but this is a very low probability event. The New Republic is a very anti-Trump publication. It is interested in embarrassing Trump, which is why it would suggest that Trump has a venereal disease. If they really wanted to get Trump checked, the owner among others would make a discreet call to the White House not blast it all over the news.
We have differences with Trump, big ones, centering around over-policing and the militarization of the US. But we would state these issues directly, as we have, without bringing up some ludicrous side issue like syphilis.
Conclusion: It’s an article that truly drips venom and malice and ought not to have been represented in the pages of a magazine that has been taken seriously for decades. That it did appear is more a comment about the magazine and its owner than it is on Donald Trump.