Scan barcode
A review by amber_lea84
The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 27 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President by Bandy X. Lee
3.0
Well, I can pretty much sum up my thoughts with one word: Duh.
I didn't actually pick this book up and decide to read it now. I've had it checked out from the library for like eight or nine months thanks to the coronavirus. Obviously, this was written before Trump was impeached or before he decided to let hundreds of thousands of people die to save "the economy" (and by "the economy," I mean his reelection chances.)
Jesus Christ. Actually writing it makes it feel so real.
Needless to say, it's kind of a pointless read if you're familiar with Trump and the concept of narcissism. There were a few gems in there, and I totally agree with the need to rethink the goldwater rule, but psychology is still kind of an embarrassing field and some of these essays are painful to read. It's also really repetitive, and the essays reference each other which just makes it worse. This book definitely could have benefited from being an actual book and not a series of essays. But if they were trying to publish this as quickly as possible, it makes sense that they did it this way.
I was really hoping there would be some deep insights in here, but I guess the problem is that most of the authors don't know much more than I do, in the sense that they're not each historians and biographers and psychologists and whatever else, though a few essays do dive into history (and one guy was Trump's biographer) and I did come away with a handful of new information. But most of the essays are pretty surface level, stating the obvious about Trump being a power obsessed megalomaniac who can't feel empathy.
I wish there was more about the psychology of a Trump supporter, or the psychology of dictators in general because I thought those were the most interesting parts. Overall I'd say the book was 20% awesome, 30% pretty good, and 50% blah, blah, blah.
But I want to acknowledge I'm being extra harsh on this book because I'm reading it NOW. Back when it was written it was a much ballsier move to step up and say all this because people were still trying to pretend that maybe everything was okay. If you don't know much about psychology and you don't read the news much and you're late to the party and this book sounds interesting to you, by all means, read it. But if you're not a psych noob and you read the news constantly, it's probably not worth your time.
I didn't actually pick this book up and decide to read it now. I've had it checked out from the library for like eight or nine months thanks to the coronavirus. Obviously, this was written before Trump was impeached or before he decided to let hundreds of thousands of people die to save "the economy" (and by "the economy," I mean his reelection chances.)
Jesus Christ. Actually writing it makes it feel so real.
Needless to say, it's kind of a pointless read if you're familiar with Trump and the concept of narcissism. There were a few gems in there, and I totally agree with the need to rethink the goldwater rule, but psychology is still kind of an embarrassing field and some of these essays are painful to read. It's also really repetitive, and the essays reference each other which just makes it worse. This book definitely could have benefited from being an actual book and not a series of essays. But if they were trying to publish this as quickly as possible, it makes sense that they did it this way.
I was really hoping there would be some deep insights in here, but I guess the problem is that most of the authors don't know much more than I do, in the sense that they're not each historians and biographers and psychologists and whatever else, though a few essays do dive into history (and one guy was Trump's biographer) and I did come away with a handful of new information. But most of the essays are pretty surface level, stating the obvious about Trump being a power obsessed megalomaniac who can't feel empathy.
I wish there was more about the psychology of a Trump supporter, or the psychology of dictators in general because I thought those were the most interesting parts. Overall I'd say the book was 20% awesome, 30% pretty good, and 50% blah, blah, blah.
But I want to acknowledge I'm being extra harsh on this book because I'm reading it NOW. Back when it was written it was a much ballsier move to step up and say all this because people were still trying to pretend that maybe everything was okay. If you don't know much about psychology and you don't read the news much and you're late to the party and this book sounds interesting to you, by all means, read it. But if you're not a psych noob and you read the news constantly, it's probably not worth your time.