2016 August 2^nd

Yesterday I suggested that Donald Trump might be verging on a psychiatric category, pathological liar. I pointed out some recent obvious Trump lies, for example claiming that the NFL had sent him a letter agreeing that the scheduling of the up-coming debates was bad. The NFL denied sending the letter. This was trivial in itself but it did fit into a pattern.

Eugene Robinson, the co-editor of the Washington Post and a columnist of considerable renown has a column today titled, “Is Donald Trump plain crazy?” His answer was “very likely.” He cited many more of Trump’s lies than I did and he came to a more forthright conclusion than I did. One interesting Trump claim was that he had raised 36 million dollars in just one month. Trump said such a huge amount raised in one month was unheard of; it was only unheard of to Donald Trump because Mitt Romney, in the equivalent period four years ago, raised 112 million dollars.

Concerns about Trump’s mental health come from many people who have seen changes in his behavior in the last few months. He seems more than ever unable to ignore the tiniest slight. He continues to pound away at Mr. Khan whose son was killed in Iraq, because Khan claimed that Trump had sacrificed nothing for his country. Trump countered by insisting that he had “worked very, very hard creating jobs.” The equivalency of creating jobs to having a son killed in battle is not obvious.

In an event in Colorado Springs, a right wing bastion, he and some of his people were stuck in an elevator and had to be extracted by the fire department. Later that evening Trump went after the fire chief because the chief wouldn’t permit more people to assemble in his venue than the law allowed.

He continues to pick at these scabs while we have an economic quarter with less than 2 percent growth; and the FBI report on Clinton’s servers is an open door to an attack on her. Trump would rather try to settle trivial grudges than make solid points against Clinton. This is either insanity or stupidity…or maybe some of each.

The thinking by some people who know Trump well is that he much prefers the adulation of his supporters to what awaits him if he becomes President. The result is that he doesn’t really want to be President. Of course he also hates to lose. How can he lose and not lose? The establishment can rig the election so that he will lose; he will be robbed of the Presidency. He will not really have lost it.

When this happens, some pundits claim, Trump will leave politics temporarily, get financial backing from his Russian friends and together with his good buddy Roger Aisles, open the Trump Network and create the Trump political party.

Is it farfetched? Of course it is; but it is no more farfetched than a thin-skinned billionaire winning the Republican Party’s nomination for President on his first try for public office.