Psychiatrists with Press Passes
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by Karl Rove,
A dubious new book starts a long national dialogue on whether Trump is crazy.
Long before the presidential election, the populist candidate’s mental state was under attack. The New York Times ran a series over several days suggesting he was unfit for office. It included a letter from an anonymous psychiatrist diagnosing the candidate’s “megalomania” and saying he “presents in speech and action striking and alarming evidence of a mind not entirely sound.” Another piece said the political outsider was “laboring under the delusion he is persecuted” and possessed “an enormous passion for haranguing every time he sees a crowd gathered.” One psychologist refused to call the candidate “ordinarily crazy,” but added “I would like to examine him,” while another said he was “beset with what I believe to be delusions.”
But, dear reader, hold your amusement or your rage. These articles appeared in 1896. The victim of the Times’s insanity assault was not Donald Trump but William Jennings Bryan, the Democratic presidential nominee. It is a reminder that the media frenzy this week about Mr. Trump’s mental acuity isn’t the first time the question has been raised about a White House occupant or a presidential candidate. It won’t be the last.
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