Dr. John Gartner has been making clinical assessments of Donald Trump since 2017. He spent nearly three decades as an assistant professor at Johns Hopkins University Medical School. On Sunday’s Daily Beast Podcast, he delivered what may be his most alarming warning so far.
Gartner described Trump as the sickest individual he has encountered in four decades of clinical practice and argued that the country is being prepared for something far more dangerous than anything already seen.
One important point remains unchanged. Gartner has never personally examined Trump, a limitation he openly acknowledges. His conclusions are based on Trump’s public behavior, speech patterns and conduct over many years.
Even with that caveat, Gartner’s concerns have only grown stronger.
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“What I believe is that he is setting us up,” Gartner told host Joanna Coles. “He is grooming us for nuclear war. He wants to be the person who pushes the button first, because that would put him in history as the most powerfully destructive military leader in human history. And that is what he gets off on because of his sadism.”
To explain his view, Gartner points to three overlapping conditions that he believes are working together.
He argues Trump has shown signs of frontotemporal dementia since 2019. Unlike Alzheimer’s disease, which is often associated with memory loss, frontotemporal dementia affects behavior, judgment and self control. According to Gartner, the condition does not begin with forgetting names. It begins with losing inhibition.
“What is most disturbing for the world is that people with frontotemporal dementia lose all judgment, all inhibition, all ability to inhibit their behavior, and they become disinhibited and aggressive,” Gartner said.
In his view, that loss of restraint is making two other conditions more visible: malignant narcissism and sadism.
Malignant narcissism is a term used to describe a severe personality disorder that combines narcissistic personality disorder, antisocial personality disorder, paranoia and sadism. Gartner noted that the concept was developed in part through studies of Hitler by psychoanalyst Erich Fromm.
He believes Trump has displayed those traits throughout much of his adult life and that dementia is now removing the limits that once kept some of those impulses in check.
“He actually gets incredible gratification from destroying things and hurting people and feeling powerful through that,” Gartner said. “And that is what he gets off on because of his sadism.”
That belief shapes Gartner’s concerns about what may happen if Trump’s political position weakens further.
“As he’s starting to have more and more problems at home, his poll numbers are in the toilet. The economy is in the toilet. He might lose both houses of Congress. If he does, what’s the one power he has that no one can assail? Even if we have both houses of Congress, he will still be the commander in chief, and he’s going to want to exercise that power in a way that makes him feel powerful.”
Featured image via YouTube screengrab
