Dr. Lance Dodes: Trump is a sociopath -- but sane enough to stand trial

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chauncey devega
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The #January6thHearings have shown that Donald Trump is a criminal mastermind and a fascist who attempted to end democracy. They are also a psychological profile of Donald Trump, an apparent sociopath. My new @Salon with psychiatrist Lance Dodes:

salon.com
Dr. Lance Dodes: Trump is a sociopath — but sane enough to stand trial
Former Harvard professor says Trump has the morality of a serial killer — but that doesn't render him insane
10:07 AM · Jun 27, 2022

https://www.salon.com/2022/06/27/dr-lance-dodes-is-a-sociopath--but-hes-sane-enough-to-stand-trial/

*snip*

The House Jan. 6 hearings are also intended to serve as a de facto criminal indictment of Donald Trump and several of his co-conspirators, which may finally compel Attorney General Merrick Garland to seek prosecution. These hearings also appear to confirm that Trump is a mentally unwell person, perhaps a sociopath or psychopath, who continues to be a great danger to the American people and the world.

To discuss those issues and others, I recently spoke with Dr. Lance Dodes, one of America's foremost mental health professionals. He is a retired assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and a training and supervising analyst emeritus at the Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute. He was a contributor to the bestselling volume "The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 37 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President." Dodes belongs to a small and courageous group of mental health professionals who consistently sounded the alarm about Trump, both before and during his presidency, arguing that he should never have been allowed to hold high public office and should have been removed at the earliest opportunity.

In this conversation, Dodes argues that the Jan. 6 hearings offer further validation of his warnings about Trump, and discusses why so many Americans, especially among the political class and mainstream media, remain in denial about the dangers the Trump movement represents. The "revelation" that former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and other members of the Cabinet discussed removing Trump by way of the 25th Amendment comes as no surprise, he says.

Dodes still views Trump as a mentally pathological person with grandiose desires for power and little or no regard for human life. He argues, however, that Trump is legally sane and culpable for his actions on and around Jan. 6, 2021 and beyond — but if Trump is eventually indicted, Dodes warns, he will encourage his followers to engage in massive acts of violence and destruction.