Understanding Donald Trump Through an Undiagnosed Learning Disability

A woman I know, 98 years old, sharp as a tack, excited about the upcoming election, offered a theory about why Trump is the way he is. She used to work with kids with learning disabilities, and based on her experience, she believes Trump has multiple learning disabilities, most prominently dyslexia. Undiagnosed when he was a child, and combined with a father who had no tolerance for failure, these caused him to become a compulsive liar to hide his inadequacy. Thus the bizarre inability to acknowledge he lost the 2020 election.

I had never heard this take on Trump before, and so I searched the internet for similar opinions. A similar view came from Harriet Feinberg, a former teacher, who wrote a piece entitled "Why Trump Can't Learn: An Educated Guess by a Veteran Teacher." She describes dyslexia as "a neurobiological condition that makes it difficult to learn to read and can also affect sentence formation and vocabulary." Trump has long had trouble speaking in full sentences, and on the campaign trail is said to use a 4th grade level vocabulary. According to what she calls her "informed speculation," a "mild to moderate" dyslexia is "foundational to his inability to learn and grow while in office," and also serves "as a way to link disparate troubling elements in his makeup."

Feinberg further elaborates her educated guess, 

"Because trying to read was frustrating, as time went on he read as little as possible. Because he experienced humiliation and shame in the early grades when he saw other children acquiring information with ease from books, I believe he came to resent those children who were academically successful, who loved school, and drew the teacher's praise. His own natural curiosity about the world waned."

The humiliation and shame Trump likely experienced in elementary school goes a long way in explaining the narcissistic and vengeful qualities so much on display in his public behavior.

Like my 98 year old acquaintance, Feinberg links an undiagnosed and untreated learning disability to compulsive lying:

"How does Trump's difficulty in reading relate to his penchant for uttering falsehoods? I think he began faking when he was six or seven and couldn't keep up with the other children his age who had learned their letters and were starting to read sentences and little stories. He wanted to be "great" so he made things up. Faking got baked into his personality. He couldn't stop now, not for anything."

Imagine someone growing up in such a vice, trapped between an undiagnosed learning disability and his father's high expectations, with no one to turn to for solace or help.

Another view in a similar vein comes from Divergents Magazine, whose mission is to shift us away from the language of disability and towards neurodiversity. In an article entitled "Trump's Likely Struggle, Our Nation's Consequences," the unnamed author, who has "worked with adults with learning disabilities for 30 years," describes Trump's shame and dissembling when asked to read a legal document. The author's diagnosis: "'a hyperactive dyslexic'--a term coined by Paul Orfalea, the founder of Kinko’s, in his autobiography."

Describing this rare combination of hyperactivity and dyslexia, the author says that "either challenge by itself presents high hurdles in education. Taken together, they can be devastating to a child’s ability to attain literacy."

The author went to New York Military Academy a few years after Trump, in an era he describes as 

"the Dark Ages then when it came to learning disabilities. I can well remember how struggling students were humiliated by teachers in public and the exodus of some students to schools with greater behavioral rigor and lower academic demands. Only in 1977 did a federal law begin regulating education for individuals with learning disabilities.

Having grown up in the 60s and 70s, I remember how humiliation was sometimes used in schools, most memorably by a high school symphony band director who presumably modeled his approach on that of university band directors William Revelle and George Cavender. Though ultimately earning respect and even reverence from his musicians, Revelle acknowledged "I'm intolerable when it comes to perfection. Sometimes I'm even downright mean about it." Of Cavender's admirable pursuit of excellence by less than admirable means, it is said that he "accomplished a lot through intimidation and humiliation." For those who could weather the tactics, these directors offered an inspiring commitment to excellence, but imagine someone with an undiagnosed learning disability trying to survive in such a milieu. 

Trump was sent off to the Military Academy, a private boarding school, at age 13. The author's description:

In those earlier years, students with learning problems had few options for compensation. One common one was to become the class clown. Another was to become the class bully. Trump seems to have chosen the latter.

Being exiled from home and from one’s circle of friends is hard for any child. It seems possible that for Trump it caused a narcissistic wound that has driven much of his behavior as an adult: the need to surpass his father, his mistrust of most others, his terrible pride and anger, his drive to be the best in all ways.

That’s all speculation, of course.

A third source suggesting Trump has an undiagnosed learning disability is Trump's niece, Mary Trump, in her 2020 book “Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man.”

There will never be a professional diagnosis. To fill that void, a mix of informed speculation, educated guesses and insider family exposes are all we will ever have as each of us seeks to make sense of Trump's behavior. 

What is particularly striking is how our political reality has come to mimic the conditions Feinberg believes to have been at play in Trump's childhood. The Republican Party's refusals to acknowledge human-caused climate change and taxcut-caused deficits play out as a learning disability. The doubling down on falsehood, the reflexive export of blame--these strategies work with the electorate much as they may have worked with an unforgiving father. And when Feinberg speculates that Trump "came to resent those children who were academically successful," it's hard not to think of the Republican Party's cultivation of resentment and its dismissiveness towards academia. 

These traits--denial of reality, anti-intellectualism, bold fabrication, a need to stoke resentment of the "Other"--were already deeply embedded in the Republican Party long before Trump came along. The groundwork was laid for him to take existing traits further, and brand the Party in his image.

On this blog, I have viewed Trump through varied lenses, as a suicide candidate, a narcissist, a hypnotist. Now an insightful 98 year old has offered a fourth lens, perhaps even more powerful and foundational than the others. Reminiscent of the apparently fictional story of the Spanish king whose lisp became embedded in the national language, the Republican Party now speaks Trump's language, dutifully parroting his fictions. As the 2024 presidential election approaches, there is currently a 50/50 chance that the nation, too, will succumb. If he gains control of the nation as he did of the Party, for the duration of his reign we will find ourselves living within the harsh, polarizing realities of a most unfortunate childhood.

Denialism Lets Voters Off the Hook for the Federal Debt and Global Warming

In "America Is Living on Borrowed Money," the NY Times editorial board sounded a warning about the federal debt, which continues to increase at a spectacular pace. 

The editorial covers a lot of bases, but it misses a central point. Americans are being let off the hook. One political party acknowledges the need to increase revenue to pay the government's bills, the other party does not. Similarly, one political party acknowledges the reality and danger of global warming, the other does not. This denialism has kept the Republican Party electable by letting voters off the hook. A vote for the Republican Party in its current state is a vote for shirking collective responsibility for our future. The reward for the voter is being relieved of having to pay the government's bills and making any substantive changes in our lifestyles to save a livable planet. 

As long as one party maintains an electorally advantageous posture of denial, all substantive debate is shut down. That posture of denial has worked well for the Republican Party since the Reagan era, allowing the party to compete for power despite many unpopular policies. The result is the quiet rise of increasingly troubling numbers, be they the size of the federal debt or the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Both of these rising numbers pose a threat to the America we know and love, and contribute to the diminishment of the nation's stature in the world--first through a steady weakening in the government's fiscal condition, and second by cheating the nation of its charmed place in the world's climate. 

That's the way to undermine a nation. Shut down substantive debate through denial, then let the problems grow and grow. 

Thoughts On a Consistent Ethic of Life

I was introduced to the concept of "a consistent ethic of life" by an opinion piece entitled "You Can't Protect Some Life and Not Others." The writer, Tish Harrison Warren, is a priest in the Anglican Church, but quotes Catholic leaders heavily, calling for a "whole life" ethic that "entails a commitment to life 'from womb to tomb'." She sees this consistency as a means of breaking the rigid categories of political affiliation. "We need to rebundle disparate political issues, re-sort political alliances and shake up the categories," she says. "A whole life ethic is often antiwar, anti-abortion, anti-death penalty, anti-euthanasia and pro-gun control. It sees a thread connecting issues that the major party platforms often silo."

It can be refreshing when people adopt points of view that draw from different political camps. Warren points to a time, in 1973, when conservative evangelical leaders declared that "we, as a nation, must 'attack the materialism of our culture' and call for a just redistribution of the 'nation’s wealth and services.'" And yet attempts to achieve moral consistency come at a price. A whole life ethic appears to call on women to risk their lives to have unwanted children, and calls on society to put vast resources into sustaining indefinitely lives made unbearable by pain or dementia. The ethics of life get murky at the beginning and the end. Does the quality of life enter into these ethical considerations, or just quantity?

A consistent ethic of life becomes even more elusive when considering our relationship to nature. I spend my days seeking to heal nature, and yet all of us depend for our comfort, sustenance, and mobility on machines that are chemically altering the earth's atmosphere, to the detriment of nature. Each of us can do a great deal to reduce our own individual dependency, but as long as our shared ecomony and culture runs on fossil fuels, there is little hope of consistency. What we intend and what we unintentionally do will remain very much at odds. 

To break down rigid political polarization, I'd suggest we invest our consistency in a pursuit of truth, in building opinion on accumulating evidence, and not just the cherry-picked facts that will prop up an emotionally comfortable opinion. And, in building an opinion, be ready to be wrong. It's a readiness to be wrong that motivates the study needed to be right. 

Related post:

Skepticism and Self: Science's Role in Sustaining Democracy

The Movie Gaslight, and a Nation in a Narcissistic Grip

Written before the 2022 national election:

For many people, narcissism has a limited meaning: someone who is self-absorbed and caught up in their own image. But start reading about it, and you discover that narcissism expresses itself through a whole suite of symptoms. Some people with narcissistic qualities can have significant and sometimes beneficial roles in the community, but they can also exhibit traits that vary from annoying to deeply disturbing, many of which you may encounter in the workplace or at home, or most tragically in the political world. Narcissism has roots in childhood trauma, is nearly impossible to cure, and ultimately proves emotionally impoverishing for all involved. A familiarity with narcissism's many dimensions can shed considerable light on persistent problems in the public and private realms.

After hearing that Angela Lansbury had died, I watched a Fresh Air podcast about her, in which I learned that she first appeared as a movie actress in Gaslight, starring Ingrid Bergman and Charles Boyer. Gaslight was first a play, then a 1940 British movie, then the classic 1944 version out of Hollywood. We ended up watching the 1940 version because it's free on youtube. The movie is so grim at the beginning that we at first bailed. But I was curious, read about the plot online, and knowing what would happen actually made me more interested in watching the movie. It turned out to be a perfect, if over the top, example of how narcissism can wreak havoc on a marriage.

The male character, Paul in the 1940 version, is the ultimate narcissist. He dazzles a woman in a whirlwind romance, marries her, then steadily works to undermine her confidence. Gaslighting, a term that grew out of this movie, is a classic tactic of a narcissist. He hides things, then blames her for losing them. When the gas lights in the apartment periodically go dim, he tells her it's her imagination. He is harshly critical and controlling. He seeks to isolate her from her friends and family. As he victimizes her, he claims that he is the victim. All of these are classic symptoms of narcissism. Despite his mistreatment, she loves him still, committed to the marriage and not understanding why they can't get back to the happiness they had shared early on.

In some ways, I see our country as being similarly under siege. In politics, narcissistic traits like projecting one's own negative traits onto others can prove highly adaptive, whether it be for an individual or a whole political party. The more pathology a narcissistic politician has stewing within, the more ammunition he has to hurl at his opponent. There's the doubling down on lies (a form of gaslighting), the quickness to blame others rather than reflect on one's own actions, a lack of empathy, false claims to victimhood, and the iron control to maintain party unity. 

Even as the husband Paul isolates his hapless wife Bella from her friends and relatives, in order to expand his control over her, she remains loyal to him. Can we not see the same dynamic occurring in our country, as people remain loyal to a political party bent on dismissing truth and dismantling democracy in order to tighten its grip on power? A nation's cherished ideals are sacrificed to sustain one man and the big lie.

Movies condition us to believe in happy endings. I won't say whether the author of Gaslight, playwright Patrick Hamilton, gave us one. My main concern, as an election nears, is whether a gaslighted nation can escape a narcissistic grip. 

False Representation of Conservatism as "Tough"

For as long as I can remember, conservatism has been associated with strength. Why, exactly, is this? Is it because conservatives tend to vote for a bigger military, harsher sentencing for crimes, bigger walls along the border, more consumption of powerful fossil fuels and more exploitation of nature to strengthen the economy? Is it because conservatives stand united in opposition to liberal proposals, and hold steadfastly to a point of view? Conservatism can seem akin to bedrock, stubborn in its rigidity, impervious even to overwhelming evidence. It is the hardness of the shield that repels. By contrast, empathy and openness to truth require a porosity, a capacity to absorb that which is outside of oneself. These latter qualities may require more inner strength, yet are considered soft. 

This may be why a NY Times journalist described Liz Cheney as a "tough and hawkish conservative," as if "tough" and "conservative" are naturally linked. I'm alert to this reflexive linking, because the conservatism I've seen on display since the Reagan era has a decidedly weak and indulgent side to it. If conservatism is so tough, then why does it turn tail and run from tough issues like climate change? Can it really be called tough if it directs its toughness only outwards while shunning self-scrutiny, protecting its own from investigation while mercilessly attacking its political opponents? Can conservatism be called tough if it is constantly offering candy to voters, letting them off the hook by pretending that climate change is a hoax and that tax cuts pay for themselves? It's easy to cut taxes, far harder to cut the popular government programs that taxes support. 

Liz Cheney, remarkably, has found the courage to reject Reagan's decree forty years ago to "never speak ill of a fellow Republican." The high political price she has paid within her own party speaks to the degree to which Republicans define toughness as something to be directed outward, not at themselves.

But even Liz Cheney, for all the strength and character she has shown to finally impose standards of truth and decency on her own political party, maintains a persistent weakness in other realms. When it comes to climate change, Ms. Cheney runs from the overwhelming evidence while the nation's climate grows increasingly hostile. Her wikipedia page describes her as being known for her fiscal conservatism, but to what extent did she fight against the massive deficits of the Bush and Trump years? The pattern has been for conservatives to impose fiscal constraints only on Democratic presidents, not on their own. This is tactical partisanship, not strength. 

The article that made the unfounded association of toughness and conservatism had an interesting perspective on the role of women in the January 6 investigation. Oftentimes it is young women who have come forward to testify, while the "50-, 60- and 70-year-old men," in Cheney's words, "hide themselves behind executive privilege.” And it is female witnesses who have more often been singled out for attack by Trump and others who have attempted to recast strong women as deranged or warped by ambition. 

Toughness, then, is a trait that has falsely been attributed to conservatives who run from tough issues, ignore evidence and fail to exercise self-scrutiny. It will be all the more important to look at what constitutes strength as the climate continues to radicalize. Fossil fuel and the machines it powers played a big role in America's victory in WWII. But now we know that fossil fuels are as much enemy as friend. Using them makes present comfort and mobility possible while making the future impossible. The power they give us is also empowering an enemy that will grow more terrifying as more and more of the country becomes endangered by rising seas, increasing temperatures, drought, fires, and flooding. And authoritarianism, which we fought against in WWII, now finds fertile ground in our own country, where its brand of relentless attack and lack of self-scrutiny is mistaken for toughness. 

Liz Cheney, having decided to hold Republicans to account, is on a journey. Tough in at least one way that most Republicans are not, she is reminiscent of Bob Inglis, former representative of South Carolina, whose atypical toughness came in the form of acknowledging the overwhelming evidence and calling on Republicans to act against climate change. He was defeated in the 2010 primary, and Ms. Cheney may meet the same fate this fall, spurned by a political party that can't tolerate true strength. 

How we define and talk about strength matters. It influences what sorts of politicians we put in power, and what sort of country we will have in the future.

Related post: The Dark Side of the Reagan Legacy

Misuse of the Word "Skeptic", and a Useful Book by Atmospheric Scientist Katharine Hayhoe

One of my pet peeves in journalism is the misuse of the word "skeptic" when discussing climate change. A recent example comes from columnist Margaret Renkl's opinion piece entitled "How to Talk About 'Extreme Weather' With Your Angry Uncle." In the essay, she repeatedly refers to "climate skeptics." But a true skeptic directs skepticism inward as well as outward--something that scientists are trained to do. People tend to associate skepticism with tough-mindedness, as in someone who refuses to accept mainstream belief unthinkingly. But the skepticism directed at climate science is one-way and self-serving--another example of the rightwing being tough on others, soft on self. It takes a tough mind to deal with unsettling realities, in this case the reality that people, by and large good and well-intentioned, are nonetheless collectively responsible for the radicalization of weather and the steady loss of our nation's sweet spot in the world's climate. 

The "angry uncle" in the title of Renkl's opinion piece might be angry because he has been encouraged to always look for blame and falsity in others, while leaving his own views unexamined. Much of the political polarization that tears at the fabric of personal relationships and the nation is artificial, sustained by misinformation and a refusal to vet one's own beliefs to see if they stand up to the facts. 

I doubt that anyone is going to get very far, talking to an angry uncle. Righteous anger is, I'm sure, a delicious feeling that would be hard to let go of. Perhaps, though, one could start by agreeing that fossil fuels are extraordinary in their power and convenience, and it would be a wonderful world if we could continue burning them without negative consequence. Maybe explore other things we really wish were true. 

It should not be too much to ask, however, for the angry uncle, so quick to attack, to direct as much skepticism inward as outward, especially at views that 1) flatter the self, and 2) let us off the hook. 

In her opinion essay, Margaret Renkl goes on to discuss a new book by Katharine Hayhoe, “Saving Us: A Climate Scientist’s Case for Hope and Healing in a Divided World,” Hayhoe is an atmospheric scientist who is also an evangelical Christian, so is better positioned than most to view climate change from multiple perspectives. One of the blurbs about the book says this:

“An optimistic view on why collective action is still possible—and how it can be realized.” —The New York Times

Therein lies another false notion: that we are not now acting collectively. The frustration and tragedy of our era is that we are currently acting collectively to create problems, but are being denied the opportunity to collectively solve them. A distinction must be made between intentional and unintentional collective action. Though it is not our intention, we are in fact acting collectively to create problems in the world, one of which is climate change. Each one of us is highly equipped with machines that require the burning of carbon-based fuels. They are, day to day, truly marvelous machines, keeping us comfortable, taking us where we want to go. Yet every time we as individuals use them, we are also contributing to the radicalization of weather. Despite a lack of intention, the sum of each individual's actions has proven transformative. The machines we use have collectively increased the concentration of carbon dioxide in that deceptively thin layer of atmosphere above us by 50%, with dramatic consequences for our collective future.  

Renkl states that many conservatives are convinced that "doing right by the environment will involve pain, a complete repudiation of their current lives, or both." In fact, doing wrong by the environment is the source of the radical changes we see in weather across the nation--changes that threaten the very lifestyle we seek to sustain. 

One feature of Amazon that I really appreciate is the "look inside" feature that allows you to read a sample portion of a book. A brief reading of Hayhoe's "Saving Us" shows it to be very well written and an excellent book for our times. Interestingly, Hayhoe avoid's Renkl's "climate skeptics" terminology in favor of "dismissives"--a term Hayhoe uses to refer to the 7% of people whose glee in rejecting climate science and ridiculing climate advocates makes them "nearly impossible to have a positive conversation with." Though the NY Times opinion piece is entitled "How to Talk About 'Extreme Weather' With Your Angry Uncle," Hayhoe gave up trying to talk to her own angry uncle, and instead finds hope in the potential to engage positively with the other 93% of humanity. 

One big question is how to sustain people's self-esteem even as they become aware of how each one of us is contributing to the existential threat of climate change. Hayhoe appears to address this in chapters about fear and guilt, and gives advice on how to navigate the perilous waters of tribalism and identity to find common ground. Here's a useful quote from Renkl's essay:

First, undercut the politics. Becoming a climate activist doesn’t require changing political parties or renouncing long-held values. “It’s really a matter of showing people that they are already the perfect person to care because of who they are, and that climate action would be an even more genuine expression of their identity,” said Dr. Hayhoe. “It’s about holding up a mirror and reminding people that they want to be a good steward, that they want a better future. That’s when we see change.”

The book also grapples with the question of whether individual action or structural change is needed. Hayhoe's answer is "both." 

Thanks to Renkl for getting the word out about Hayhoe's very useful and readable book, but please, stop using misleading terms like "climate skeptic."

Climate Change--Now You See It, Now You Don't

Though our machines are pouring a steadily rising amount of greenhouse gases up into our very thin atmosphere--a 50% rise in overall concentration since the industrial revolution--the earth's response to that radical change can seem sporadic and quirky. There will be a day here and there that feels outside our concept of the normal: a rain that's unusually intense, or a winter day when the air feels strangely cooked and stale. But those days quickly give way to another stretch of quasi-normality, and so we continue with the lifestyle we view as normal, which invariably includes being served by machines that continue stuffing the atmosphere with still more greenhouse gases. We are aware of climate change as a problem, yet can still go for long stretches hoping or pretending it is not. 

The same plays out in a newspaper like the NY Times. Yesterday there was a dramatic contrast between the climate and business sections. In a business article, countries wishing to free themselves of Russian oil desperately look for other sources, with no hint that their economy's demand for oil is anything other than logical and normal. Car commercials embedded in the article lure you to buy bigger, more powerful vehicles that consume still more fuel.

Then, one click away, an article in the climate section of the paper describes areas of the world that are becoming uninhabitable due to overheating.

As the consequences of fossil fuel combustion become ever more profound and incontrovertible, the marketplace's glamorization of that fuel consumption becomes ever more incongruous and irresponsible. If the marketplace were a character, it would be a brilliant, bold but blind man-child, forever pushing the boundaries, doing whatever it can get away with, brilliant in its deliverance of material bounty, stubbornly oblivious to future consequence. Government is forced into the parental role because the marketplace by nature is blind to the future and will never grow up. 

This is a time when the business section of a newspaper, and to some extent even those of us who feel a deep sense of foreboding, can still huddle in pockets of normality and cling to what has always passed in our lifetimes for normal.