# Is President Trump suddenly Getting Worse? **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [January 12, 2018, 4:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-president-trump-suddenly-getting-worse/806444 "2018-01-12T04:54:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![alphaboi867](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alphaboi867/32/3898_2.png) [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2018, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-president-trump-suddenly-getting-worse/806444/81 "2018-01-13T01:18:34Z")
> [@Riemann](#): > > The only face-saving “out” would presumably be health concerns. Which would still be admitting weakness (at least in Trump’s eyes) so he’ll only do that if he’s _absolutely convinced_ a worse alternative is **imminent** (ie removal from office following impeachment or the 25th Amendment being invoked). ---
**Author:** ![D\_Anconia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/67e7ee/32.png) [@D\_Anconia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D_Anconia)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2018, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-president-trump-suddenly-getting-worse/806444/82 "2018-01-13T01:27:06Z")
> [@running\_coach](#): > > [No.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/index.php) > There are no sub-forums. No kidding, Sherlock. But the rules, and the culture are largely the same. If one makes a declarative statement of fact, it’s up to that person to prove it via reliable cites. Even you would agree that “I saw it on the internet” is not a legitimate cite, yes? ---
**Author:** ![Jackknifed\_Juggernaut](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9de053/32.png) [@Jackknifed\_Juggernaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackknifed_Juggernaut)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2018, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-president-trump-suddenly-getting-worse/806444/83 "2018-01-13T01:28:28Z")
If someone tried to write a fictional book or make a movie predicting this presidency 2 years ago, they would have been laughed out of rooms for being too unrealistic. Comedy section at least. ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2018, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-president-trump-suddenly-getting-worse/806444/84 "2018-01-13T01:32:31Z")
> [@D\_Anconia](#): > > No kidding, Sherlock. But the rules, and the culture are largely the same. If one makes a declarative statement of fact, it’s up to that person to prove it via reliable cites. > > Even you would agree that “I saw it on the internet” is not a legitimate cite, yes? You claimed it was a sub-forum. I never said a thing about “I saw it on the internet”. That was **Grrr!** ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2018, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-president-trump-suddenly-getting-worse/806444/85 "2018-01-13T01:48:22Z")
> [@AnalogSignal](#): > > YAnd finally bashed “shithole countries.” Would you prefer “4th World nations”? Because some nations \*are \*pretty much shitholes, sad to say. But the President shouldn’t be using that term in public. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2018, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-president-trump-suddenly-getting-worse/806444/86 "2018-01-13T02:00:02Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > I think this is an important thing for armchair psychologists to keep in mind. However, you seem to want to have it both ways. What is psychological stability and how is it measured? \*\*And, in a debate, the burden of proof is never on the person who is not making an assertion of fact. \*\* Finally, saying someone is “batshit crazy” is a meaningless assertion in the process of reasoned debate. Seems to me we’re bettor off sticking to “frequently contradicts himself”, “makes many factually incorrect assertions” and/or “is easily provoked into making personal attacks against people with whom he has a disagreement”. Things like that. Well, that’s a fair point. Except for the part I bolded. I think that’s usually true, but not in cases where the evidence is overwhelming. If I say that there is no meaningful difference between the intelligence of black people and white people, the burden is not on me to prove that because it’s already been demonstrated countless times and there is no credible evidence showing otherwise. That’s the mentality I’m coming from with that statement. Obviously ‘‘batshit insane’’ has no specific meaning, it’s what I thought when my schizophrenic uncle used to ramble to me about people putting dead bodies in his cigarettes. It conveys a feeling you get when engaging with a crazy person more than anything else. I agree specificity of behaviors is our friend in general. I always run my thoughts/postings about mental illness by \*\*Sr. Weasel \*\* to make sure I’m in the ballpark of correct, as I trust his professional judgment immensely, especially with regard to professional ethics. (Yeah, I’m biased, so sue me.) It’s easy for him to turn to me, in the privacy of our home, and say, "That guy has the worst case of NPD I’ve ever seen,‘’ but it would be unethical to call that a formal diagnosis, and it would be largely unproductive in mixed company. I don’t think the ‘‘he’s mentally ill’’ line of argument is particularly helpful for a number of reasons, the most obvious being, ''So what?" While we can make an educated guess about his mental health status, there’s absolutely no way to determine, absent an intensive evaluation that will never happen, whether said mental illness makes him unfit for office. It’s not like a mental health diagnosis automatically determines someone’s fitness for work. I feel that some liberals engage in a number of unrealistic fantasies in an effort to get the guy booted from office, and this is the fantasy where some expert psychologist evaluates him and determines him unfit for office. This isn’t going to happen. I think people engaging in this fantasy, more often than not, don’t understand mental health or the nature of its treatment all that well. As someone who takes all of this psychology shit very seriously, I find it personally very frustrating. So this line of argument, I think, only serves to alienate people who support him in a way that also alienates them from the field of psychology in general, which is not good. Thousands of people are impacted by mental illness in this country, and all of this sloppy public dialog will affect their lives and their ablity to receive treatment… all for nothing, because the conversation will not affect Trump’s position of power one iota. If you want to talk about the good of society, you have to consider those people, too. ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2018, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-president-trump-suddenly-getting-worse/806444/87 "2018-01-13T02:01:22Z")
> [@Ravenman](#): > > I disagree. There’s of course no factual answer to questions like, is Trump making America great again. But as to whether Trump is unstable? It’s just a fact that he is. > > As to whether he is becoming more unstable, that’s the sort of question that can either be answered with “Trump is the SUXXXOR” or possibly with some more objective metric. A metric that might be useful and factual could be, for example, polls over time on Amercians’ confidence in the President’s mental faculties. You think polls are an objective metric for measuring someone’s mental health? :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2018, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-president-trump-suddenly-getting-worse/806444/88 "2018-01-13T02:09:02Z")
> [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](#): > > Maybe I ought not to have typed “worse” in the title. I am not trying to be very political here. I mean frantic or maybe frenzied. Moving and doing apparently for the sake of the activity itself. Is he doing more stuff of late? I am reading the book just now, and perhaps I am paying more attention. Keep in mind as you read it that the author has publicly stated that large portions of it are bullshit. ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2018, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-president-trump-suddenly-getting-worse/806444/89 "2018-01-13T02:16:50Z")
> [@Clothahump](#): > > Keep in mind as you read it that the author has publicly stated that large portions of it are bullshit. No, he didn’t. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2018, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-president-trump-suddenly-getting-worse/806444/90 "2018-01-13T03:01:33Z")
> [@running\_coach](#): > > No, he didn’t. Indeed…how about a cite for that, Clothahump? ---
**Author:** ![bobot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bobot/32/21622_2.png) [@bobot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bobot)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2018, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-president-trump-suddenly-getting-worse/806444/91 "2018-01-13T03:01:50Z")
The author was on Meet The Press, and unless he made that claim during a commercial break, I missed it. I sure can’t wait to see the cite for that claim, I bet it’s a doozy. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Ace](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/6bbea6/32.png) [@Johnny\_Ace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Ace)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2018, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-president-trump-suddenly-getting-worse/806444/92 "2018-01-13T03:36:51Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > And, in a debate, the burden of proof is never on the person who is not making an assertion of fact. Bullshit. That’s am excuse I see all the time from the right side of the aisle. You don’t get to just say “No” with any credibility whatsoever without backing it up. And, btw, until you’ve been a member of a formal, top-league debate team, don’t even think about trying to tell someone who knows by experience (like yours truly) what the rules of debate are. I said this before the last time Shodan tried to get away with it and you backed him up on it. It’s flat-out false. As I also said before, you’d get laughed out of a formal debate for trying to pull that. ---
**Author:** ![simster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/simster/32/1047_2.png) [@simster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/simster)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2018, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-president-trump-suddenly-getting-worse/806444/93 "2018-01-13T04:05:14Z")
> [@Jackknifed\_Juggernaut](#): > > If someone tried to write a fictional book or make a movie predicting this presidency 2 years ago, they would have been laughed out of rooms for being too unrealistic. Comedy section at least. They did predict this, but President Camacho atleast new when to bate, and when not to. ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2018, 5:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-president-trump-suddenly-getting-worse/806444/94 "2018-01-13T05:13:02Z")
> [@kenobi\_65](#): > > Indeed…how about a cite for that, Clothahump? > **[Michael Wolff, ‘Fire and Fury’ author, admits: Not all in Trump book true](https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/jan/5/michael-wolff-fire-and-fury-author-admits-not-all-/)** > > Well, well, well, turns out even Michael Wolff, author of the “fire and Fury” book that has sparked such national discussion about the Donald Trump White House, admits that not everything he wrote is true. ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2018, 5:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-president-trump-suddenly-getting-worse/806444/95 "2018-01-13T05:17:31Z")
> [@Clothahump](#): > > [https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/jan/5/michael-wolff-fire-and-fury-author-admits-not-all-/](https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/jan/5/michael-wolff-fire-and-fury-author-admits-not-all-/) We all know you read this part. > [@](#): > > “Many of the accounts of what has happened in the Trump White House are in conflict with one another; many, in Trumpian fashion, are boldly untrue. These conflicts, and that looseness with the truth, if not with reality itself, are an elemental thread of the book.” I’ll bet you didn’t read this part. > [@](#): > > “Sometimes,” he wrote, “I have let the players offer their versions, in turn allowing the reader to judge them. In other instances I have,\*\* through a consistency in the accounts and through sources I have come to trust,\*\* settled on a version of events I believe to be true.” He did not say the book was bullshit. If you can find that quote, post it. Why do you have no problem with Trump lying every time he speaks but an account of that lying is untruthful? ---
**Author:** ![Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ccd318/32.png) [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_in_Qatar)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2018, 7:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-president-trump-suddenly-getting-worse/806444/96 "2018-01-13T07:48:08Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > Then why did you post it here? There is no possibility of a factual answer to any question about Trump on the SDMB. > > Regards, > Shodan Thank you. I knew it was somehow my fault. I know you are busy. Thank you for taking the time out of your schedule to point out what a disappointment I am to you. ---
**Author:** ![VinylTurnip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b2d939/32.png) [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2018, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-president-trump-suddenly-getting-worse/806444/97 "2018-01-13T14:40:31Z")
> [@kenobi\_65](#): > > Indeed…how about a cite for that, Clothahump? No need. **Clothahump** has publicly stated that large portions of his post were bullshit. ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2018, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-president-trump-suddenly-getting-worse/806444/98 "2018-01-13T15:05:02Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > You think polls are an objective metric for measuring someone’s mental health? :dubious: I’m not sure if you didn’t actually read my post, or if you’re trying to counter it with a straw man. ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2018, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-president-trump-suddenly-getting-worse/806444/99 "2018-01-13T15:07:16Z")
> [@Clothahump](#): > > Keep in mind as you read it that the author has publicly stated that large portions of it are bullshit. You know the adage about four people on different street corners watching the same accident, and having four different explanations of what happened? After the cop interviews them and writes up what he assesses happened, is what the cop wrote “bullshit?” ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2018, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-president-trump-suddenly-getting-worse/806444/100 "2018-01-13T15:09:21Z")
> [@Ravenman](#): > > You know the adage about four people on different street corners watching the same accident, and having four different explanations of what happened? After the cop interviews them and writes up what he assesses happened, is what the cop wrote “bullshit?” **Clothahump** is a former cop. I brought up that point in another thread and got no response. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-president-trump-suddenly-getting-worse/806444.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-president-trump-suddenly-getting-worse/806444.md?page=6)