Trump Is Coming Unglued (and Somebody Needs to DO SOMETHING)

At what point do we raise the alarms about the mental stability of the man currently sitting in the Oval Office?

At what point will officials in the position to do something stop thinking about politics and start demanding checks on the occupant of the highest seat of power in the nation?

My fear is that will come only after we’ve reached or even breached some critical red line of national import.

What we know about Donald Trump, after nearly 32 agonizing, embarrassing, cringe-worthy months of reality TV-slash-sitcom “leadership,” is that he can always go lower. He can always get worse than our most fevered imaginations of ineptitude.

And yes, while his supporters think he is always 3 steps ahead of everyone else, and the very definition of brilliant, that is mainly a by-product of the fact that they are not.

It is amazing that this man can so freely and publicly push against the boundaries of sanity, with few to none within the Republican party willing to sound the alarms.

I mean, to be fair, we expect Democrats to screech about his incompetence, his speech, his demeanor, and anything else that can be crammed into a meme or on a bumper sticker during an election season. That’s pretty much the nature of this voracious beast called politics. Before conservatives or Trump supporters begin clutching their pearls over it, they’d be better off grasping that part of the business, first. Republicans do the same thing when it’s a Democrat trying to ruin us from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

It’s just that he makes it so easy for them.

So am I simply picking on Trump for the sake of my well-documented distaste for the man?

Not at all.

A recent story from Business Insider would suggest that behind the scenes, aides and those close to President Trump are frustrated, confounded, and at their limit with a man they see coming apart at the seams.

Maybe we should listen.

“No one knows what to expect from him anymore,” one former White House official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal conversations about the president, told Insider.

They added: “His mood changes from one minute to the next based on some headline or tweet, and the next thing you know his entire schedule gets tossed out the window because he’s losing his s—.”

This isn’t new. We’ve heard similar reports throughout Trump’s presidency.

Most recently, he has fallen head-first into a pit of nuttiness, as he’s pushed false information about Hurricane Dorian’s path.

No. Hurricane Dorian was not on path to strike Alabama. Earlier models showed a glancing possibility, among many other potential paths, but once more information was in, and after observation, it became clear that Alabama was not in danger.

The president not only clung to that, but falsified a weather map with a black sharpie, in order to show that his first claim – not that of every reputable weather bureau – was correct.

He couldn’t let it go, and his behavior spawned 1,000 hilarious internet memes.

Behind the scenes, however, more serious people were face palming and mainlining Pepto Bismol.

“People are used to the president saying things that aren’t true, but this Alabama stuff is another story,” the former official said. “This was the president sending out patently false information about a national-emergency situation as it was unfolding.”

On Friday, the obsessor-in-chief obsessed:

Trump also complained that “this nonsense has never happened to another President. Four days of corrupt reporting, still without an apology.”

I’m going to go out on a limb and say that’s because no other president was so twisted and erratic.

Later Friday, the president posted a misleading video that included a CNN clip from Wednesday, August 28, in which a reporter said the hurricane was threatening several US states, including Alabama.

The video then played the reporter saying “Alabama” on loop, cut to a clip of Trump nodding, and then to a doctored clip of CNN’s logo superimposed onto a moving truck which careened off the road and caught fire.

Because he can’t help himself. He’s ridiculous that way.

He spent his Friday tweeting and ranting, rather than addressing the damages caused by the storm or focusing on other matters of a serious nature.

He went 15 tweets and 5 maps deep on that single topic.

“He’s deteriorating in plain sight,” one Republican strategist who’s in frequent contact with the White House told Insider on Friday.

Asked why the president was obsessed with Alabama instead of the states that would actually be affected by the storm, the strategist said, “you should ask a psychiatrist about that; I’m not sure I’m qualified to comment.”

It’s a great idea, and over the past several years, there have been mental health professionals willing to offer medical opinions, based on simply the public behavior of Donald Trump. Most of them paint a vivid portrayal of a maniac sitting on simmer.

Unfortunately, a more thorough, face-to-face and professional analysis is required. Donald Trump needs a complete evaluation from an unbiased authority in the workings and disorders of the human mind.

This isn’t picking on Trump for the sake of picking on Trump. This isn’t unfair or cruel. I’m sure I’ll get the usual protests from those who think I’m an abortion-loving, Hillary/Obama-supporting vegan feminazi, who doesn’t shave under her arms and has a “coexist” bumper sticker on my environmentally friendly hybrid car, but nothing could be further from reality.

I’m a Christian. I’m a staunch conservative. I’m an American, and I have concerns.

If our president cannot conduct himself as rational, serious, or as a professional, we should all be paying attention. We should all care.

His inability to tell the truth, or to let things go is a red flag, and it isn’t just the honor of the Trump name at stake.

It’s the well-being of our republic.