I’m a Democrat and a retired psychiatrist and I discredited Hal Sobel’s irrational, false statements a year ago in my letter to Port Washington Times (June 5, 2019). I said then that “the only person who is ‘irrational’ in his statements is Hal Sobel in his letter of May 3, 2019 to the Port Washington Times, not President Trump “
Sobel again now calls President Trump “crazy, “based largely upon his narcissism” (May 15, 2020).
A year ago Sobel called Trump “narcissistic” and I said in my letter of June 5 that “anyone who wants to run for president has to be somewhat narcissistic, i.e. Clinton, Obama, Reagan, etc.”
The other types of people who are narcissistic are people who write letters to the editor every week, seeking attention and praise from the public, like Hal Sobel.
Sobel now raises the question: “Is Trump unfit to hold the presidency?” Sobel said “there is much evidence to prove that this is true.”
He cites two statements that Trump made as proof: “I created the greatest economy the world has ever seen” and “if I weren’t president we’d be at war with North Korea ” Sober questions whether this is “delusion.”
There is truth in both of Trump’s statements, not a delusion.
The unemployment rate was the lowest it’s ever been until the virus ruined our lives, temporarily. The GDP was the highest it’s been in many years. This is a fact, not a delusion.
Trump flew to North Korea to defuse the tension caused by missiles, which could reach Seattle, being fired every week. I don’t know if any other president would have flown to North Korea to meet with its president to stop the missiles from being fired. So Trump is not “unfit to hold the presidency” based on his factual statements.
Sobel said “Trump’s constant need for attention is pathological.” No, it isn’t! Neither was it pathological for our previous presidents. And even though Mr. Sobel’s need for attention far exceeds President Trump’s, it is not pathological.
There are so many things that Mr Sobel erroneously blames Trump for, such as increased homicides, suicides, and tension in the world, I can’t go into them all.
But the last ridiculous, false statement Sobel makes is when he cites Dr. Bandy Lee, a psychiatrist who held a conference that led to publication of a book titled “The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump.”
Dr. Lee invited thousands of psychiatrists to attend this conference, including me, but only 20 showed up. She has been discredited by many other psychiatrists, including Dr. Allen Frances, a Democrat who hates Trump and is chairman of the psychiatry department at Duke.
He called her book “silly” and accused her of forming a diagnosis of Trump without meeting him.
Mr. Sobel is correct about only one statement he made, when he said, “Her (Dr. Lee) professional organization, the American Psychiatric Association, passed the Goldwater Rule, which states it is unethical to give professional opinions about public figures without meeting them.
The APA made this rule stronger in 2017, when it ruled psychiatrists could not make any statements about public figures at all publicly.
Dr. Lee wanted to send a letter to Congress calling Trump “dangerous,” and invited thousands of psychiatrists to sign it. This time no other psychiatrist would sign this letter, because they knew Dr. Lee was wrong and unethical.
The title of Sobel’s letter, “President Trump has blood on his hands,” is not backed up in the letter and is ridiculous. I’m surprised the Port Washington Times would print such an untrue, ludicrous title for a letter.
Marshall Hubsher
Port Washington
Whoever wrote this seems equally insecure as the disaster of a President we have.
“He cites two statements that Trump made as proof: “I created the greatest economy the world has ever seen” and “if I weren’t president we’d be at war with North Korea ” Sober questions whether this is “delusion.”
There is truth in both of Trump’s statements, not a delusion.
The unemployment rate was the lowest it’s ever been until the virus ruined our lives, temporarily. The GDP was the highest it’s been in many years. This is a fact, not a delusion.”
Both statements are delusional. Job growth SLOWED after the election, and the lower unemployment rate was merely the continuance of a trend begun by Mr. Trumps’ predecessor. It was nothing Trump did.
As far as GDP is concerned, Mr. Trump enjoyed one outsized second quarter in 2018. Aside from that, GDP is fairly meaningless as it relates to people’s lives.
In any case, Trumps deliberate delays in dealing with the COVID-19 outbreak in this country have left the economy in tatters, and slaughtered tens of thousands of American lives. More than Vietnam, Korea, the Two Iraq Wars, and Afghanistan combined.
In any case, there is no way to describe Trump’s economy as “the greatest in world history.” No economist will agree with him.
As far as keeping us out of a war with North Korea, this is truly seated in self delusion.
Mr. Trump isn’t deranged. He’s merely morally and intellectually bankrupt, and he knows his followers of flying monkeys will back up whatever inanities come out of his mouth.
This week, it’s “Obamagate.”
Help yourself.
I believe that, technically, a state of war does continue between the U.S. and North Korea. Also, Dr. Lee is trying to warn people about Donald Trump and the danger he poses to the country and maybe even the world. Read Rucker and Leonnig’s book, A Very Stable Genius. Donald Trump lives in a fantasy world re-enforced by Fox News and his enablers who are using the president and his office to pursue their own agenda. Donald Trump really believes that he is smarter than anyone, about anything, that he is a super genius. Yet he displays his complete ignorance about almost everything: history, geography, other cultures, and most recently, basic biology. Anyone who disagrees with him is an enemy, and those who refuse to compromise themselves in their official capacity within the government and conform to his way of thinking are removed, because he’s the president, he has the power, and he can do what he wants. The man is dangerous, maybe seriously ill, and he needs to be marginalized to minimize the damage he has been doing to this country since day one in office. I wish the press would just stop covering him altogether.
Trump is a malignant narcissist. He is an exemplar of The Dark Triad. As president he is dangerous. He is also manifestly ignorant and science. I did a web search for psychiatrist Marshall Hubsher and what I found was disturbing assuming there is only one psychiatrist with this name. There was a psychiatrist with this name who was convicted of raping a patient who is also from Long Island and who is described in many articles. I hope this is a coincidence though it would be good to clarify this. https://duckduckgo.com/?q=+Marshall+Hubsher+&t=hk&ia=web
“The unemployment rate was the lowest it’s ever been until the virus ruined our lives, temporarily. The GDP was the highest it’s been in many years. This is a fact, not a delusion.” The delusion was, and remains, that Trump had anything to do with an economic trend that began years before he took office, and was ending before the Pandemic took hold. Trump was so busy spending deficit money that he didn’t even notice the alerts he got in January, saying that the pandemic was coming. He simply paid no attention, to busy with his ‘wall’ and trying to fill his pockets at the expense of the American Taxpayer. Trump’s primary delusion is self-imposed, because he genuinely thinks that he’s a ‘good president’ and is ‘making America Great Again’ when all evidence is to the contrary.