How would we know if the President is legitimately mentally unstable?
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How would we know if the President is legitimately mentally unstable? And if he is, what do we do?
Shortly after his swift and bizarre dismissal earlier this week, sources reported that Comey told close associates that he believed President Donald Trump was “crazy” (apparently this accusation took place months past, while Trump repeated insisted Obama had wiretapped Trump Tower despite constant proof from various sources this wasn’t the case). While Comey may have just been using the word in a more colloquial sense, the question remains: would we know if the President were crazy? If they were, what could the rest of the government do about it?
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It’s not necessarily a partisan musing. Never mind Trump’s unconventional and erratic behavior. From a purely factual standpoint at 70 Trump is our oldest president ever sworn into office. It isn’t outrageous to point out that people around 70 may be losing some of their mental fitness – not everyone around 70, but some people. And if Trump is, would we know?
Not necessarily. The only person to examine standing presidents are their private physicians, who have a vested interest in proclaiming the President happy and healthy. We’ve had presidents in the past who have swept physical and mental problems under the rug: Wilson suffered a stroke for over a year, FDR kept the extent of his polio hidden for years, and it is wildly believed that Reagan began to suffer from dementia late into his career. What about Trump? His clean bill of health was basically a big ol’ thumbs up without any more detail.
There are no mental tests required for a sitting president, and even if there where there’s no requirement for them to release the results of said tests to the public. But knowing if our president is potentially harboring a volatile mind is an important piece of the equation, especially when (or if) reelection season rolls around. It’s not to say it would necessarily disqualify him from the running, but it’d certainly be a significant part of what people were voting for, and it might be worth knowing before heading into the booths next time around.
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