https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-time-cure/201702/the-elephant-in-the-room

Elephant in the room indeed! How many of us were already thinking taboo thoughts months before the first journalist dared to utter it aloud? I distinctly remember marvelling at the stupidity of the many respectable journalists who were unable to imagine Donald Trump becoming President because "he would have to give up his Twitter account"!! When the unthinkable came to pass, it was difficult to tell whether journalists and media opinionmakers were really still fooling themselves with their repeated assurances that now-PEOTUS Trump would surely learn to be "presidential." Or were they beginning to fathom reality, and their chattering about the "transition" was simply the hapless attempts of a shaken punditocracy to find some alternative to standing around in stupefied silence? There was, of course, a good explanation for this media insistence on examining their own fantasy that this Emperor had new clothes: the journalistic ethical imperative never to "diagnose" the subjects of one's reporting. And truly, it did seem for once that political journalists and media commentators were uncharacteristically showing more self-restraint than self-delusion. To call the ranting boor of Trump Tower a madman would obviously be irresponsible in the extreme! How dare a journalist presume to recognize accurately a mental disorder! But the more tendentious talking heads on the left and right had no qualms over continuing their favorite sport of namecalling and, in a veritable immaculate convergence, the epithet "narcissist" continued trending upward across the full breadth of the political spectrum.

The obvious absurdity of the situation, it seems to me, was not so much due to media dishonesty or cynicism but rather to the profound discomfort that our society and our culture continue to experience around issues of behavioral health and psychiatric medicine. Despite the professionalization of the fields of psychology and psychiatry, despite the scientific foundations of modern psychotropic medications and talk therapy, despite the careful and precise classifications codified in the famous Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, and despite the near universal inclusion of behavioral health in insurance plans and related legislation, particularly the Affordable Care Act, we do not, deep down, give to psychiatrists the same respect that we give to, well, "doctors." And to convince ourselves that this is so, we need only think back a bit to contrast our squeamishness over Trump's tics with the Great American National Deathwatch that the US media kept for a few tragic(ally ridiculous) days this past September over frail, light-headed, and stumbling Hillary Clinton.

Of course, by that time, the country had already had a hearty laugh over Trump's big-league spectacular bill of health from his marginally literate quack physician. After all, we all knew what medical competence looks like, we all could spot fakery when we saw it. It was this same faith in medical science that held us in rapt attention as an endless parade of doctors were trundled out in front of news cameras to help reporters examine the minutiae of Clinton's medical history and prognosticate her chances of surviving even the campaign, much less a presidential term. To their credit, a few of the doctors did offer mild objections that it would be reckless for them to diagnose someone they had not personally examined, before then immediately going ahead to diagnose this woman they had never met. Finally, after recognizing that Clinton was spitefully refusing to die, the entire journalistic profession took to explaining, on behalf of the entire medical profession, the awful consequences — up to and including mass contagion — that could follow from the Woman-Who-Would-Lead-the-Free-World not meekly and obediently following her doctor's orders.

Sometime in the coming year, although there is no legal requirement to do so, it is nonetheless likely that the White House will release the results of the President's annual physical exam. If it follows the pattern of Barack Obama's medical reports, the information in it will include data about his neurological health, but not one iota of information about his psychological fitness or stability. I am genuinely curious to see whether anyone in Washington or in the news media will call for such a psychiatric assessment to be conducted. Just imagine the outbreak of huffing and puffing such a call will generate! We as a country will have to face, with merciless honesty, our deep-seated skepticism toward behavioral health as a bonafide medical science. But what is the alternative? Burying our heads in the sand may seem like the "responsibly objective" thing to do. But in avoiding a difficult issue, we may one day fail to see that we really have put a lunatic in charge of what is feeling, more and more every day, like one great big asylum of democracy.

Recklessly Flippant P.S. One sure sign that our transformation to cuckoo's nest is underway will likely be this: Mexico will suddenly and unexpectedly agree to pay for The Wall. It will be the only way they can guarantee a psychiatric-ward-level of security. At all transit points along the border, the gates will lock and unlock from the outside in. The danger will no longer come in the form of "bad hombres," but rather "gringo elopement."