This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

THIS IS THE SECOND IN A TWO-PART BLOG SERIES DOCUMENTING DONALD TRUMP’S VULGARITY

If you want more information about Donald Trump’s rage (not sure you or I do), just consider an essay from Thomas Edsall, who writes a weekly column from Washington, D.C. on politics, demographics, and inequality.

It contends that Trump’s actions illustrate that he is mentally ill.

Edsall’s newest effort appeared under this headline:  “The Roots of Trump’s Rage.”

Here is how the essay started.

“Brian Klaas, a political scientist at University College London, captured the remarkable nature of the 2024 presidential election in an October 1 essay, ‘The Case for Amplifying Trump’s Insanity.’

“Klaas argued that the presidential contest now pits a 77-year-old racist, misogynist bigot who has been found liable for rape, who incited a deadly, violent insurrection aimed at overturning a democratic election, who has committed mass fraud for personal enrichment, who is facing 91 separate counts of felony criminal charges against him, and who has overtly discussed his authoritarian strategies for governing if he returns to power, against an 80-year-old with mainstream Democrat Party views who sometimes misspeaks or trips.

“’One of those two candidates,’ Klaas noted, ‘faces relentless newspaper columns and TV pundit ‘takes’ arguing that he should drop out of the race.’ (Spoiler alert:  It’s somehow not the racist authoritarian sexual abuse fraudster facing 91 felony charges.)

“Klaas asked:  What is going on?  How is it possible that the leading candidate to become president of the United States can float the prospect of executing a general and the media response is … crickets?

“How is it possible that it’s not front-page news when a man who soon may return to power calls for law enforcement to kill people for minor crimes?  And why do so few people question Trump’s mental acuity rather than Biden’s, when Trump proposes delusional, unhinged plans for forest management and warns his supporters that Biden is going to lead us into World War II (which would require a time machine), or wrongly claims that he defeated Barack Obama in 2016?”

The media, Klaas argues, has adopted a policy in covering Donald Trump of, ‘Don’t amplify him! You’re just spreading his message.’

And, Klaas opposes this form of journalism, as do I, based on my long-ago past as a journalist.  As I have written in previous blogs, today’s form of over-the-top politics requires a special form of journalism, not the old habit of covering one side, then the other – or the horse-race form of political coverage.

It requires delicacy, discretion, and the ability to call out autocracy in what is supposed to be a democracy – to call out Trump.

Regarding this delusional candidate for president, I remember the best-selling book, “The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump” in which a number of psychiatrists and mental health experts assessed a president, Trump, and found him to be mentally ill.

Edsall writes:

“The warnings that Trump is dangerous and unstable began well before his 2016 election and have become increasingly urgent.

“These warnings came during the 2016 primary and general election campaigns, continued throughout Trump’s four years in the White House, and remain relentless as he gets older and more delusional about the outcome of the 2020 election.”

Edsall went on to report that he asked some of those who first warned about the dangers Trump poses what their views are now.  Here is a summary of the responses:

• Leonard L. Glass, associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School:

“Trump acts like he’s impervious, ‘a very stable genius,’ but we know he is rageful, grandiose, vengeful, impulsive, devoid of empathy, boastful, inciting of violence and thin-skinned.  At times it seems as if he cannot control himself or his hateful speech.  We need to wonder if these are the precursors of a major deterioration in his character defenses.

“If Trump — in adopting language that he cannot help knowing replicates that of Hitler (especially the references to opponents as ‘vermin’ and ‘poisoning the blood of our country’), we have to wonder if he has crossed into ‘new terrain.’

“That terrain, driven by grandiosity and dread of exposure (e.g., at the trials) could signal the emergence of an even less constrained, more overtly vicious and remorseless Trump who, should he regain the presidency, would, indeed act like the authoritarians he praises.  Absent conscientious aides who could contain him (as they barely did last time), this could lead to the literal shedding of American blood on American soil by a man who believes he is ‘the only one’ and the one, some believe, is a purifying agent of God and in whom they see no evil nor do they doubt.

Edsall continues:

“Nothing captures Trump’s megalomania and narcissism more vividly than his openly declared agenda, should he win back the White House next year.

“On November. 6, Isaac Arnsdorf, Josh Dawsey, and Devlin Barrett reported in The Washington Post that Trump ‘wants the Justice Department to investigate onetime officials and allies who have become critical of his time in office, including his former chief of staff John F. Kelly and former attorney general William P. Barr, as well as his ex-attorney Ty Cobb, and former Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman General Mark A. Milley.”

“In an earlier story, Haberman, Savage and Swan reported that Trump allies are preparing to reissue an executive order known as Schedule F, which Trump promulgated at the end of his presidency but which never went into effect.

“Schedule F, the reporters wrote, would have empowered his administration to strip job protections from many career federal employees — who are supposed to be hired based on merit and cannot be arbitrarily fired.  While the order said agencies should not hire or fire Schedule F employees based on political affiliation, it effectively would have made these employees more like political appointees who can be fired at will.”

•  Joshua D. Miller, professor of psychology at the University of Georgia:

“Did Trump’s ‘vermin’ comment represent a tipping point, an escalation in his willingness to attack opponents.  My bet is we’re seeing the same basic traits, but their manifestation has been ratcheted up by the stress of his legal problems and also by some sense of invulnerability in that he has yet to face any dire consequences for his previous behavior.”

• Donald R. Lynam, professor of psychology at Purdue: 

“The escalation is quite consistent with grandiose narcissism.  Trump is reacting more and more angrily to what he perceives as his unfair treatment and failure to be admired, appreciated, and adored in the way that he believes is his due.

“Grandiose narcissists feel they are special and that normal rules don’t apply to them. They require attention and admiration.  This behavior is also consistent with psychopathy, which is pretty much grandiose narcissism, plus poor impulse control.”

• Aaron L. Pincus, professor of psychology at Penn State:

“Trump is an aging malignant narcissist.  As he ages, he appears to be losing impulse control and is slipping cognitively.  So, we are seeing a more unfiltered version of his pathology.  Quite dangerous.

“Trump seems increasingly paranoid, which can also be a reflection of his aging brain and mental decline.  The result?  Greater hostility and less ability to reflect on the implications and consequences of his behavior.”

• Edwin B. Fisher, professor of psychology at the University of North Carolina:

“Trump’s insistence on the validity of his own distorted claims has created a vicious circle, pressuring him to limit his close relations to those willing to confirm his beliefs.  His isolation is much of his own making.

“The enormous pressures he puts on others for confirmation and unquestioning loyalty and his harsh, often vicious responses to perceived disloyalty lead to a strong, accelerating dynamic of more and more pressure for loyalty, harsher and harsher judgment of the disloyal and greater and greater shrinking of pool of supporters.

“Trump is showing signs of cognitive deterioration, such as the confusion of Sioux Falls and Sioux City, several times referring to having beaten and/or now running against Obama or the odd garbling of words on a number of occasions for it seems like about a year now.  Add to these the tremendous pressure and threat he is under, and you have, if you will, a trifecta of danger — lifelong habit, threat, and possible cognitive decline. They each exacerbate the other two.”

• Craig Malkin, lecturer in psychology at Harvard Medical School:

“If the evidence emerging proves true — that Trump knew he lost and continued to push the big lie anyway — his character problems go well beyond simple narcissism and reach troubling levels of psychopathy.  And psychopaths are far more concerned with their own power than preserving truth, democracy or even lives.”

Edsall concludes his essay this way:

“The man who, as president, incited a violent attack on the U.S. Capitol in order to overturn an election is again openly fomenting political violence while explicitly endorsing authoritarian strategies should he return to power.  That is the story of the 2024 election.  Everything else is just window dressing.”

To be sure.  And Edsall’s conclusion should strike fear into all of us if Trump ascends – or in his case, the best word is “descends” – to the presidency again.

If he does, our country will never be the same.