When internet laymen suggest that Trump is manifestly mentally ill—the abusive narcissism, the total absence of empathy, the 400-word sentences tracing random paths through the vaporwave fractal landscape of his paranoid obsessions—there are yet fair grounds for concern. You’re not a doctor. You haven’t examined him. His theatrics are dangerous, but so are yours. This stigmatizes the mentally ill. Well, ladies and gentlemen, it’s quiet time: give a warm welcome to David Brooks!
He cannot be contained because he is psychologically off the chain. With each passing week he displays the classic symptoms of medium-grade mania in more disturbing forms: inflated self-esteem, sleeplessness, impulsivity, aggression and a compulsion to offer advice on subjects he knows nothing about.
His speech patterns are like something straight out of a psychiatric textbook. Manics display something called “flight of ideas.” It’s a formal thought disorder in which ideas tumble forth through a disordered chain of associations. One word sparks another, which sparks another, and they’re off to the races. As one trained psychiatrist said to me, compare Donald Trump’s speaking patterns to a Robin Williams monologue, but with insults instead of jokes.