Sharing Jennifer Rubin's Wisdom

 From The Washington Post

Friday, February 9, 2024

by Jennifer Rubin

What caught my eye There are many reasons to vote against four-times-indicted Donald Trump, but this week we saw replete evidence of the former president’s mental unfitness and its consequences. Trump’s broken psyche: GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haleyand President Biden have both started talking in earnest about Trump’s apparent mental decline. They point to episodes of slurred speech, his incoherent riffs and his habit of mixing up politicians. Though, in fact, those are the least of Trump’s problems. Serious analysis of Trump’s underlying mental state remains largely out of bounds, despite the Republican front-runner’s compulsive lyingand grandiosity, his classic use of DARVO (deny, attack and reverse victim and offender) and his impulsivity. No other public figure engages in such aggressive, antisocial and shocking conduct (e.g., threatening Truth Social barrages; adjudicated sexual assault against E. Jean Carroll; crude insults directed at women; vows to seek revenge against enemies). Some close aides have candidly described his aberrant conduct and inability to process information. Nevertheless, the reaction to Trump’s abnormal conduct amounts to a collective shoulder shrug. Trump’s threats of violence make an unmistakable pattern: He egged on the Jan. 6 violent attack on the Capitol, baited the crowd seeking to hang his vice president and was found liable for what is colloquially considered rape. Surely that is a subject that deserves more attention. Voters must be able to evaluate a presidential candidate’s mental and emotional fitness. After all, Trump keeps bringing up the topic, distorting his performance on a cognitive test — as though that proves his mental soundness. (Prevaricating about a mental fitness test is quite meta.) The media has no excuse to avoid covering this topic. With so much evidence of Trump’s mental and emotional unfitness, more exacting coverage is long overdue. He can’t put America first — and he goads other Republicans to violate their oaths. The ramifications of Trump’s influence were in full view this week. Sens. Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.), Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and James Lankford (R-Okla.) pulled off what seemed to be impossible: They crafted the toughest border security bill in decades, one so strong that the conservative Wall Street editorial board, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Borden Patrol Union all backed it. Several GOP senators initially praised the bill. After all, Republicans had insisted on this as a condition for aide to Ukraine. Republicans got a border provision trigger. The bill would have empowered Biden to do what Trump could not: namely, stem the flow of unauthorized border crossings and, when needed, shut down the border. And yet, after all that and after years of castigating Biden for an “open border,” Republicans reversed themselves and felt compelled to sink it simply because Trump wanted to deny Biden a “win.” Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) correctly said this was nothing short of “appalling.” Likewise, Murphy wondered how Republicans could “vote against a landmark bipartisan bill that we negotiated with one of the most conservative Republican Senators on the border issue,” referring to Lankford. The answer: They could do so because so many in the GOP follow Trump’s self-centered orders. (Even more jaw-dropping: Republicans now want to move ahead only on aid for Ukraine without any border measure, something they had demanded for months be considered along with aid.) We will not have a robust border security bill because, as Biden said, “Donald Trump thinks it’s bad for him politically.” That sort of twisted thinking is par for the course for Trump, who cannot fathom doing anything for America if it does not suit his needs. He wants the border to remain a mess. He wants the stock market to crash. Trump cannot grasp the meaning of his oath or any other constraint. His elevation of self above all else constitutes the essence of his unfitness. Worse, he cows other Republicans into violating their oaths. They, too, feel compelled to betray America at Trump’s bidding. (We know the answer to Biden’s query: “Republicans have to decide: Who do they serve — Donald Trump or the American people? Are they here to solve problems or just weaponize those problems for political purposes?”) Again, we see that when you empower someone as depraved as Trump, the country will always come last.