To the Editor:
Re “Trump’s Volatile Talk Revives Doubts on Stability” and “Trump Denies Portraying Self as Jesus in Post” (front page, April 14):
Mental health professionals like me are not suggesting long-distance diagnoses of President Trump’s mental fitness. The examples are in our faces many times a day, and the picture is clear. He’s not doing a strategic impression of a grandiose, impulsive, malignant narcissist; his every word and every action reinforce that picture.
As manipulative as he thinks he is, it is also clear that he is not clever enough nor disciplined enough to be posing so as to keep his enemies off balance, as some of his allies have suggested.
Everyone can see this, and it behooves us all — not just medical professionals but the media and the public as well — to speak the truth about it. We should not be silent while the most important story of our generation unfolds before our eyes.
Cecilia Martin Ford East Hampton, N.Y. The writer is a licensed clinical psychologist.
To the Editor:
The calls for Congress to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove President Trump from power for disability are growing more frequent and louder. I personally don’t care whether the president continues to ace tests designed to identify cognitive impairment. I have seen and heard all I need to decide.
I don’t believe he is fit to determine what is good for me and other Americans, or to serve as a dignified representative of Americans on the world stage.
Alice Bray New York
To the Editor:
I have to admit, when I first saw the post of President Trump in red and white flowing robes laying his hand on the forehead of a sick man, I thought he was portraying himself as Jesus.
Totally inappropriate.
Once he explained that he was not portraying himself as Jesus but actually as a doctor healing the patient, it made sense. Everyone knows that when a doctor heals someone, there’s a glowing aura around the patient; that’s in the medical literature. And that when doctors heal a person with one hand they have a bright ball of medical-related energy in the other.
And that woman who appears to be praying? She must be using hand sanitizer. And the angels and eagles and soldiers and the Statue of Liberty in the background? Probably just hospital staff.
Clearly, the radical-left-lunatic-fake-news is against healing the sick. But the real question is whether this is part of the Republican health care plan to replace Obamacare.
James Nesci Tucson, Ariz.
To the Editor:
Many people who are not intimidated by President Trump have described him as narcissistic and will see his post of himself as Jesus as another example of his narcissism. However, this picture, which includes people in prayer and the president’s power to heal by laying on hands is more than the continuation of his narcissistic tendencies; it is an image of himself that has no basis in reality.
As his internal pressure to maintain his self-image as the most powerful person on earth continues, and if he does not find a realistic off-ramp to prove his win in the Iran war, he will likely experience even more psychotic notions of himself.
Robert E. Rutledge Longmont, Colo.
To the Editor:
President Trump tells us that the apparently A.I.-generated image that appears to depict him as Jesus has been misinterpreted. He was, in fact, intending for us to see him as a doctor healing a sick patient.
I was a physician in practice for 40 years, and I like to think that my colleagues and I across the country helped a lot of people.
We never dressed like that.
Lawrence Levy Rancho Mirage, Calif.
To the Editor:
The debate on the left seems to be exclusively about whether it’s a good political move to push for removal, whether by way of impeachment or the 25th Amendment. Common wisdom says wait for the midterms, but I disagree. Even if no one proceeds with either avenue, calling for his removal now and making that call forceful sends a signal, the absence of which says so much about the American psyche.
Our partners across the world need to know that a sizable majority of Americans understand what bad news President Trump is.
John Lamont Penn Valley, Calif.
To the Editor:
It’s welcome that religious leaders and even supporters of the president have expressed outrage at the insulting remarks to the pope and the downright blasphemous image of President Trump as a Jesus-like figure healing the infirm. But where were they when he threatened the crime against humanity of destroying a “whole civilization” in Iran and blasphemously invoking Allah?
Why do insults and blasphemy call forth outrage, but only when hurled at some and not others?
John H. Smith Irvine, Calif.
To the Editor:
The question “How low can you go?” has been answered.
Michael G. Silver New York
The post Trump, Jesus and the Pope appeared first on New York Times.
