What Does Trump Truly Believe

What Does Trump Believe?

                        Robert A. Levine, M.D.

The question that needed to be answered which the impeachment proceedings did not do, was whether Trump truly believed that he won the election, notwithstanding all the evidence to the contrary. If he actually believed this fantasy he should not have been impeached on the basis of his being mentally incompetent. A person shown to be crazy cannot stand trial of any sort, given his or her lack of understanding.

On the other hand, if Trump realized that he lost the election and was claiming otherwise to arouse his base, generate support and financial resources, then he was indeed a candidate for impeachment, having used the bully pulpit of the presidency to spread this outrageous lie that inspired treasonous actions. And Trump himself was guilty of treason along with the people who stormed the capital on his behalf.

In either case, Trump is unfit to run for office again. Either he is crazy or guilty of treason in claiming that he won the presidential election. Both of these states should keep him from any position of responsibility in the government or otherwise. Unfortunately, as mentioned, the impeachment hearing did not provide an answer as to Trump’s state of mind in claiming that he won the election.

The Democrats and Republicans assumed that Trump was mentally competent and aware that he lost the election. But how do we know this for certain. Before Trump’s impeachment, he should have had a thorough examination by a panel of psychiatrists to determine whether he truly believed he won the election or that he is claiming that he won for his own political ends.

The determination of his mental state is of utmost importance and his impeachment trial should have been delayed until a psychiatric evaluation was complete. Given its importance, a panel of top psychiatrists should be involved in the mental evaluation of Trump rather than a single psychiatrist.

Of course it is possible that Trump could deceive even a multitude of psychiatrists for certain reasons, either acting consciously or unconsciously. However, would Trump want his supporters to consider him insane or a traitor?

It is somewhat surprising that the House impeachment managers did not address this dilemma and ask for a psychiatric evaluation prior to starting the impeachment proceedings. It is quite possible that Trump would have refused psychiatric consultation, insisting that he was fully mentally competent. If that is the case, then it would appear that he knows that he lost the election and was trying to overturn the results by fomenting an insurrection. In other words, he would have to be considered a traitor.

There may be reasons in Trump’s mind on both sides of the equation to either claim that he was the winner or express the realization that he lost.  The nation deserves to know Trump’s state of mind on the issue of whether he won or lost the presidential election. Prior to any further criminal or civil proceedings regarding Trump’s incitement of the capitol insurrection, Trump should have a psychiatric evaluation to assess whether or not he is mentally competent.

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It Defies Explanation

It Defies Explanation

            Robert A. Levine 8-4-23

We live in a nation whose prime institutions are denigrated by large majorities of the population. Gallop surveys have shown a steady drop in Americans’ confidence in virtually all important public institutions, including the military. Small businesses are the most trusted bodies, with 65 percent of the population having faith in them. However, even this is lower than it was 3 years ago at 70 percent. Only 60 percent of Americans have confidence in military and only 43 percent in the police. And just 34 percent trust our medical system whom people rely on constantly. Organized religion and the church have a 32 percent approval, the Supreme Court 27 percent, banks, the public schools and the presidency 26 percent, newspapers 18 percent, the criminal justice system 17 percent, big business 14 percent, and Congress 8 percent. Given these numbers, with such low levels of institutional trust, it is amazing that America is a functioning state, though there are some who might dispute that description.

However, what is more amazing is the number of people who accept Donald Trump’s lies and believe that the 2020 election was stolen from him. According to a recent Monmouth poll, 30 percent of respondents believe that Trump won the election and Biden used fraudulent methods to steal it from him. Only 59 percent of Americans believe that Biden won the election without any chicanery, 93 percent of Democrats and 58 percent of independents. 21 percent of Republicans agree that Biden actually won fairly, while 68 percent he won because of voter fraud. These numbers are nearly unchanged from a Monmouth poll shortly after the election itself. The unwillingness of so many Americans to acknowledge that Biden won the election fairly is in spite of the dozens of court cases that Trump brought to challenge the election that were all dismissed for lack of evidence.

In Monmouth’s poll, about half of Republicans call the events of January 6, 2021 that breached the Capitol a legitimate protest. How can so many Republicans still support Trump so avidly when his behavior is so malign and he engineered an obvious attempt to overturn the election and thwart the will of the American people? He tried to mount a coup and directed an insurrection against the government. Can people just ignore these actions? Are his supporters insurrectionists or criminals themselves? What is even more surprising is that many Republicans believe that Trump committed serious federal crimes and they still support him in his 2024 run for president.

All the indictments against Trump for trying to overturn the election by fraudulent means have not appeared to sway Trump’s acolytes to abandon him. There are currently 72 charges pending. In fact, he has been able to raise more money on the basis of these indictments. Perhaps many of his supporters are just naïve and do not understand the seriousness of Trump’s actions and what they meant in terms of our democracy and our constitution. But it defies belief that Americans do not trust the nation’s institutions and so many still have confidence in Trump as a leader.

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Party Over Country

Party Over Country                                                                                                                                                                                                     Robert A. Levine

Why does it seem impossible for politicians to understand that doing what is best for the country is more important than doing what is best for one’s political party? Truly patriotic Americans must know that sometimes one has to sacrifice one’s personal ambitions and aiding one’s political party if the necessary actions will injure America and its democratic system. While members of both political parties don’t seem to accept the notion of country over party in all instances, the Republican Party is overwhelmingly self-interested and unwilling to do what is best for the nation, using various excuses and placing the blame on the Democrats. Their use of misinformation and false information is fired off in a constant barrage to assuage their leader Donald Trump and to confuse and/or capture the American public.

Republican leaders are not ignorant and know that Democrat Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election by a wide margin. Yet virtually all Republicans insist that the election was stolen by Joe Biden and the Democrats, and that Donald Trump should really be president. At all the Trump rallies he emphasizes that the election was stolen and that Biden’s position is rightfully his. He uses these lies to fund raise and scam money from uninformed supporters who believe what Trump tells them. His rallying cry of “Stop the Steal” is repeated endlessly by his base and seen in bumper stickers, flags, advertisements and so forth. The fact that Republican leaders support Trump’s false claims provide them with some credibility although they are blatant falsehoods.

Trump’s personality of malignant narcissism may make him detached from reality to the point where he may believe his own lies about the election. But the remaining leadership of the Republican Party know these are lies and that Biden is the rightful president. Yet the vast majority of Republicans are willing to back Trump and his lies. They are afraid of incurring his wrath and being primaried by his supporters. Aside from Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, Republicans and their leaders are totally lacking in courage.

They must also know what their stances are doing to American democracy. A large percentage of American citizens have no faith in our electoral system and democracy itself, believing that elections can be stolen. There is also no faith in our political institutions doing the right thing for the nation, including Congress, the Courts and the presidency. This is all because Republicans are reinforcing what they feel is best for their party instead of what is best for the country. How can Americans turn this around? How can we restore faith in our government institutions and in democracy itself when it seems that the Republicans just do not care and keep propagating Trump’s lies?

A third party of moderate Republicans willing to stand by the truth together with centrist Democrats may be able to restore faith in democracy to the electorate. However, given the tribalism and the strong attachment of the far right and far left to their concepts of the truth, forming a centrist third party with any chance of winning is remote. Perhaps when the youth of America flood the voting booths, an opportunity for change will arise.                                                      www.robertlevinebooks.com                                                                                                                                                                         Buy The Uninformed Voteron on Amazon or Barnes and Noble

Where is the GOP Going?

Where is the GOP Going?

                        Robert A. Levine 5-18-21

Since Trump took over the Republican Party in 2015, the question that needs to be asked is where is this political party headed?  What is their raison d’etre or reason for being? In the 2020 election, the Party ran without a platform or specific policy objectives. The only factor that bound members together so it could be called a party was its support of Donald Trump. That would be fine if Trump espoused a specific ideology, but he doesn’t. He is defined by populism and nationalism, but his allegiance appears to be primarily to people of wealth and perhaps how to help them get more. Though he is thought of as a populist and is adored by a large segment of the population, during his term in office he did little to improve the lives of ordinary Americans. He seemed to be mainly concerned by how to make his own life better along with those of his family and friends.

Having lost his bid for re-election, he still claims that he won and that the election was stolen from him, mostly because he does not want to be labeled as a “loser”. To obtain Trump’s support in future elections, the overwhelming majority of Republicans have backed his claim that the election was stolen though they all know this is a boldfaced lie. But few Republicans want to cross him in any way. Though he is out of office and does not have the bully pulpit any longer, he is still the leader of the GOP and all of its members must pay fealty to him or suffer the consequences. Aside from loyalty to Trump, the Republicans still have no specific policy proposals on which to run a campaign. They do oppose virtually every idea that the Democrats have brought up and tried to make into law, but opposition alone is not enough to define a political party. They need specific proposals that they are trying to make law, but thus far have not come up with anything concrete. Recently, it appears that some Republicans in the Senate may be willing to compromise with the Democrats over infrastructure plans. But this still does not a party make. They are also willing to have their members support conspiracy theories like QAnon and people like Marjorie Taylor Greene

The Republicans who oppose Trump for the most part call themselves conservatives, but they also have not come forth with a specific platform they can stand on. They are anti-Trump and anti-Democratic Party, but what are they for. What new laws would they like to see enacted? So Republicans of all stripes, pro-Trump and anti-Trump appear to be lacking goals and ideas that they can trumpet to their base and independents to help them get elected or re-elected. Are there any Republicans who know where their Party is going aside from how it relates to Trump? And outside the Party, do the Democrats or Independents know what Republicanism stands for at this point in time?

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The Deep Chasm in American Politics

The Deep Chasm in American Politics

                        Robert A. Levine

The current political divide in America is greater than at any time since the Civil War. In the presidential election of November 2020, Joe Biden received over 81 million votes with Trump accumulating over 74 million. Since the election however, Trump has insisted that he won by a landslide and that Biden stole the election from him. There were over sixty court rulings that declared Trump’s claims invalid, including two unanimously by the Supreme Court where he had appointed three of the nine members.

Trump also went to various state legislatures where the state’s citizens had favored Biden, trying to get the legislatures to overturn the results. No success anywhere. Trump begged and threatened Georgia’s attorney general to find eleven thousand plus votes for him so that he would win Georgia. But the Attorney General Brad Raffensperger insisted that the vote count was correct and could not be changed.

Bill Barr, the Federal Attorney General before he resigned, told Trump as well that the results of the election were right and could not be overturned. When Barr resigned, the acting Attorney General at the Department of Justice also refused to honor Trump’s requests to disqualify enough of Biden’s votes to make Trump the winner. And Vice President Pence declared to Trump that he could not change the vote totals when they were confirmed at the Capitol.

Yet with all the officials who told Trump that he lost the election, both Republicans and Democrats, he would not accept the outcome, insisting that the election was stolen. This led Trump to call his supporters to Washington and to have them march on the Capitol to prevent the voting totals from being confirmed. Tens of thousands of his base including militant white supremacists followed Trump’s instructions. They trashed the Capitol building in an insurrection, searching for members of Congress and Senators who they could kill because they would not make Trump president and looking to hang Mike Pence.

Perhaps it is not surprising that Trump’s most intense acolytes would come to Washington and follow his orders to break into the Capitol and hunt down his opponents. What is surprising is that Trump received 74 million votes in the election and even after he lost, most of his supporters believed that the election was stolen from him. The vast majority of these are not rational citizens, but members of a tribal cult, willing to accept anything that Trump says or does.

Not only are Trump supporters divided from the Democrats, but they are angry at establishment Republicans who they feel did not fight vigorously enough for Trump to remain president. And they want to primary the House members who voted with the Democrats to impeach Trump. These Trump acolytes are uninformed about the true results of the election and are willing to follow Trump wherever he leads, even if it means the end of democracy and the beginning of fascism in America. How do you change the minds of cultists who are uninformed and accept and obey their leader wherever he takes them? Unfortunately, democracy and freedom means nothing to them. They do not understand what Trump is offering.

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Trump Insurrection

Trump Insurrection

            Robert A. Levine

January 6^th in Washington was shocking but not surprising. For months, President Trump had been stoking his supporters with claims that the presidential election in November was rigged and victory stolen from him. He provided no evidence to back up his claim, but repeating it over and over again in his speeches and tweets provided his assertion with credibility, particularly with his avid adherents. There was no question that millions of his supporters believed his declaration was real and that the election and the presidency had been stolen. In addition, there was affirmation from right-wing commentators and websites. Trump abandoned the tasks of his presidency for months while he tried to overturn the results of the election. The Covid pandemic was completely ignored by Trump while Americans died by the hundreds of thousands.

To the majority of Americans and the mainstream media it was clear that Biden had won the election handily- by over 7 million popular votes and the Electoral College 306 to 232. Yet a delusional and deranged President Trump continued to insist that he won the election by a landslide. In the two months after election Trump and his legal team lost over sixty lawsuits in various Courts contesting different facets of the election, including unanimously twice in the Supreme Court where he had appointed three of the justices. The Courts found nothing to suggest that anything illegal had occurred regarding the voting and that Biden had indeed won the election. Trump also tried to get Republican state Secretaries of State to “to find votes for him” so that he would win these states. No dice. And he blasted Georgia’s Republican Secretary of State Raffensperger and Governor Kemp as stupid and corrupt because they would not help him.

Trump also went to several GOP controlled state legislatures to try and convince them to change the vote totals in their states, but was rebuffed in each case. He claimed as well that the voting machines had been illegally set to help Biden, but this path led nowhere. Thus he reached a point where his efforts appeared futile. His last chance was Congress. But VP Pence said there was nothing he could do when he directed the voting for Biden’s confirmation, as his role was purely ceremonial. A majority of GOP House members and as many as twelve Senators said that they would object to swing state voting totals, agreeing with Trump that he had won. It appeared that Trump and these Republican officials were living in an alternative reality, as it was clear to the press and to state officials, both Republican and Democratic, that Biden had won the election by a landslide.

But it was too late to change the minds of Trump’s radical base who had already been convinced that the election was stolen by Biden. The nadir of Trump’s presidency and the outcome of his alliance with white supremacy groups and conspiracy theorists occurred on January 6^th 2021 when legions of Trump supporters at his urging stormed and took over the nation’s capital. Speaking to the tens of thousands of his cult who had gathered in Washington, some armed, others not, Trump, Don Jr and Rudy Guilliani exhorted the gathering to march to the Capitol and be strong. On social media during the previous week, plans were being hatched by right-wing nationalists and white supremacists to take over the Capitol, so it was no secret what was coming. But law enforcement, particularly the Capitol police were totally unprepared, with a mob of white nationalist insurrectionists invading the Capitol and gaining control of the building, looting and destroying property and various personal materials of members of Congress.

Intelligence agencies and law enforcement should not have been taken by surprise by the hordes of white supremacists, given their announcements on social media. There had been talk of assassinating various officials including Vice-President Pence and of keeping Trump in the presidency. Many of these groups wanted to start a civil war in the country and felt that their actions might light the fuse. Interestingly, the insurrectionists initially were treated with kid gloves by the police, unlike the Black Lives Matter protesters months before. Though Trump and various Republican officials tried to distance themselves from the violent behavior afterwards, it was too little and too late.

White supremacists and militia groups who believe themselves entitled to run the nation are a continuing danger to democracy in the United States, with their positions supported by a percentage of law-enforcement and the military. Whether anything will change after their assault on the Capitol remains to be seen. Trump will continue to be a menace to American democracy even after he leaves the presidency, unless he is charged with insurrection and other counts and goes to prison.

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