Re: "The End of Intelligence"

4.29.18

To the editor:

Michael Haydn (The end of intelligence, 4.29.18) powerfully argues about the risks posed to our country when objective reality and truth are devalued, ignored or manipulated.  But it is not, as he suggests, that facts exist in opposition to emotion.  President Trump appeals to base emotions of fear, paranoia and mistrust and he provokes moral indignation in those who oppose him and his effort to render reality irrelevant. 

There is a basic reality that psychoanalysts and psychiatrists all know: decision-making requires an intact capacity to parse out reality from fantasy.  While one cannot definitively say why President Trump has this problem without a comprehensive psychiatric examination, the very presence of this symptom – regardless of diagnosis – should worry all of us. Turning a blind eye, denying this reality, is its own complicity. 

Like a malignancy that has metastasized, President Trump has mobilized Republicans in Congress, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Fox News and, of course, his base to engage in a folie-a-deux (sharing and perpetuating of false beliefs).  This, too, should worry all of us.

It is only through a passionate embrace of the truth that the tide can be turned.  The excitement and energy amongst Democrats going into the midterm elections is a hopeful sign.  The fact that many recent special elections have been won by Democrats also suggests that the cancer may not be fatal.

Respectfully submitted,

Larry S. Sandberg MD