Donald Trump is proving that a man can be rich, successful and wildly popular and still be ignorant. When such a man becomes a leading candidate for President of the United States, he can become very dangerous.
In Iowa last week, speaking before an enthusiastic crowd of supporters, Trump attacked his chief rival in the Republican Party primary, Dr. Ben Carson. Trump repeatedly said Carson was pathological, often noting that hewasn’t saying it himself, but that Carson had described himself in a book as having had a “pathological temper” when he was very young.
Carson had a “pathological disease,” Trump said, “and there’s no cure for that.” Trump even urged listeners to “read the definition in the dictionary of pathological disease,” if they didn’t believe him.
I did.
Merriam-Webster defines “pathological” as “1: Of or relating to pathology” and “2: Altered or caused by disease; also indicative of disease,” and “3: Being such to a degree that is extreme, excessive, or markedly abnormal.”
Trump could have said that Carson is “abnormal,” a pretty strong accusation and chances are Carson would not have argued.
I say that because after Trump’s speech in Iowa, Carson was asked to comment during a news conference and while saying Trump’s staff should explain to him the meaning of “pathological” said it means “abnormal.”
“This isn’t me saying this,” Trump said over and over in Iowa, explaining the stuff he was talking about came from Carson’s own book. That may be true. But Trump also admitted, more than once, that he had never read Carson’s book. He was trying to save people the cost of the book, he joked, by telling them what was in it.
Carson, who became a world famous neurosurgeon, had a troubled, violent childhood. He has been using his personal story to demonstrate, as many presidential candidates have before him, how he overcame adversity to achieve incredible academic and professional success and arrived at a spiritual awakening.
Merriam-Webster’s definition of “ignorant” is “destitute of knowledge or education. It also defines the word as meaning: “lacking knowledge or comprehension of the thing specified” and “resulting from or showing lack of knowledge or intelligence.” Other words used in the definition are “unaware, uninformed.”
If Carson had said he had overcome a physical ailment, such as polio, to become a successful doctor, I doubt Trump would have considered such a public attack on his opponent.
But suffering from a mental ailment is not the same in the minds of many people, which is why so many people, millions of them, refuse to admit any such problem. There is a stigma attached and Trump used his stump speech to suggest that once someone is mentally ill they will always be mentally ill. They cannot be cured.
Right in the middle of his tirade about Carson’s pathological illness, Trump decided to reference child molesters. “If you’re a child molester,” he said, “you’re a sick puppy.” He went on to explain there is no cure. There are only two things that will stop child molesters, he said, explaining that one was death and the other was something he wasn’t going to mention (apparently out of respect to the sensibilities of his audience).
There is no cure for such people, Trump said.
Asked whether he thought Trump was comparing him to a child molester at that later news conference, Carson said he didn’t think so. I think most reasonable people would disagree.
“Arrogance,” according to Merriam-Webster, is an “attitude of superiority, manifested in an overbearing manner or in presumptuous claims or assumptions.”
Just how stupid are the people of Iowa, Trump wondered, to believe Carson’s story about allegedly attacking a man with a knife and having the blade break when it struck the victim’s belt buckle many years ago.
Iowa is an early primary state, which is why Trump was speaking and lashing out at his closest rival to date. And he’s hoping people there will believe that Carson is not only “pathological” but dangerous and possibly unstable.
The Greek root word “path,” as in pathology, can mean either “feeling” or “disease.” Pathologists are doctors who study the cause and development of disease. That in itself might imply, to a cautious man, that a pathological disease may not be incurable. Yet, to many, the words “pathological liar” and “pathological gambler” would seem to indicate people who cannot be helped. But it would probably be more accurate to say such individuals cannot help themselves.
Words matter. They should be used with precision and sometimes with caution, especially by those in positions of power and influence. As a businessmen and presidential candidate, Trump ought to be especially sensitive that the impact of what he says can have ramifications far beyond those of ordinary Americans. But he doesn’t care.
He said as much to his audience in Iowa. He implied that if something he said about Carson offended a lot of people and he had to go back home that would be just fine with him. He could go back to his business, wouldn’t have to give any more interviews or deal with the “scum” covering his election campaign.
Scum, according to Merriam-Webster, is “a dishonest, unkind or unpleasant person,” although it could also be a layer of something unpleasant or unwanted that forms on top of a liquid.
There are many who believe Trump’s popularity is in large part due to his willingness to say what he believes. He is not politically correct. He calls them as he see them.
Honesty and bluntness are admirable, but that’s really not what Trump is about. He’s not claiming that Carson as an adult has demonstrated a “pathological temper.” He obviously failed to turn up any research that Carson has threatened nurses in operating rooms, picked up a knife to threaten a fellow doctor or physically threatened any of his patients. This is a 64-year-old man who has a history.
Some reporters have gone through that history, back into Carson’s childhood, to find information that contradicts his recollections of his youth and raise questions about his credibility. One such report contends no one can remember many of the angry outbursts Carson recounts in his book.
Carson maintains the stories are true and that reporters have fabricated information or failed to interview the right people. Trump turned Carson’s defense against him, saying that a man who exhibited such violent tendencies in his youth is not the sort of person he “would want” in the White House. He finds it strange that a candidate for office would actually be touting such behavior to voters.
Yet, we know of athletes, entertainers and politicians who have recalled stories about drug addiction, alcoholism, and physical disability and are held up as role models for people that such problems can be overcome.
Again, Trump seizes on the stigma of mental illness, the pathology of the disease, to appeal to the worst bias of the American people. He’s not saying it, Trump would tell you, Carson said it all in his book.
And what he’s got is incurable. You can look it up.
And that is simply false. You can’t look it up. A pathological illness is not incurable.
Perhaps Trump’s public attack was a campaign tactic, an attempt to provoke Carson into a display of temper, uncontrolled rage, that would undermine his toughest primary foe to date. If so, it didn’t work. Carson refused to take the bait. He was cool, controlled and temperate in his response at the news conference.
In the end, Trump may not win the primary nomination of the Republican Party. He may go home, as he says, and back to his business and have no regrets.
There will be people, however, who will forever remember what he said and believe it. They will look at an individual who has suffered from a mental ailment, pathological or not, and think, “They can’t be cured.” They can’t be trusted. And so people suffering from mental ailments will not get help or admit their problem because, well, no one would look at them the same way ever again.
Merriam-Webster defines “stigma” as “a set of negative and often unfair beliefs that a society or group of people have about something,” “a mark of shame or discredit.”
Trump does not care, I am sure. But a man who would be president should.
pkadner@tribpub.com
