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Donald Trump
OpinionComment

The problem with Donald Trump is not that he is crazy, but that he is crass

Niall Ferguson disagrees with the liberal view that the US president is mentally unstable or incompetent. He is just uncivil, and such behaviour is the norm in this age of declining civility

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In his incorrigible crassness, Donald Trump drowns out the signal of meaningful policy achievement with inconsequential noise. Photo: AFP
Niall Ferguson

In Alan Bennett’s play The Madness of George III, a political crisis strikes Great Britain when the monarch loses his marbles. You may recall Nigel Hawthorne’s riveting performance in the role of King George in the film version, at first indefatigable, if irascible, in performing his royal duties, then suddenly struck down by wild, raving lunacy.

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These days, it is in America that the question is asked with increasing frequency: is the head of state off his head? In a new book, The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump, 27 psychiatrists and other mental health experts – including Judith Lewis Herman of Harvard Medical School and Bandy Lee of the Yale School of Medicine – warn that “anyone as mentally unstable as Mr Trump simply should not be entrusted with the life-and-death powers of the presidency”.

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The madness of King Donald is not news in Washington. But, until last week, the story in Britain was Trump’s badness, not his madness. Then, on Tuesday and Wednesday, the president retweeted three posts from the deputy leader of the fascist splinter group Britain First, each featuring a video purporting to depict Islamic violence.
When Theresa May expressed her disapproval, Trump shot back: “Don’t focus on me, focus on the destructive Radical Islamic Terrorism that is taking place within the United Kingdom.”

Not having read The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump, the British political class reacted in the old-fashioned way. In the Commons, opposition MPs lined up to denounce Trump as a “fascist”, “stupid” and “racist, incompetent or unthinking”.

Queen in a tough spot amid calls to cancel Trump’s state visit to UK over anti-Muslim tweets

Do keep up. The president is mad, not bad. Just the other day, he was telling people that the infamous Access Hollywood tape is fake. Two weekends ago, he was fantasising that he had turned down Time magazine’s proposal to make him – for the second year running – Person of the Year.

Trump casts doubt on the Access Hollywood video

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