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ADHD Blog On UnderstandingTrump’s Behavior : Context
(A.B.O.U.T. Behavior #1)
For the next year I intend to write a weekly blog addressing recent utterances or actions of Mr. Trump that highlight his severe, under-treated, hyperactive, adult ADHD.
The storm continues to rage regarding Mr. Trump’s defense of his claim that Hurricane Dorian threatened Alabama. Pundits are thundering about how this controversy reveals the president is insane or on the verge of a grand mental collapse.
However, we’ve seen him display similar behaviors countless times before — making outrageous claims (that his nuclear button was bigger than Kim Jung Un’s), contradicting himself in the space of a few hours (how long it took him to call back missiles launched at Iran, or whether this happened at all), creating “facts” that are patently untrue (regarding the size of his inauguration crowd), and being unable to stop talking about trivial items long after others lose interest (bringing up Rosie O’Donnell during presidential debates). If you understand how ADHD shapes this president’s mental life, “SharpieGate” is familiar behavior.
This fiasco started when Mr. Trump assimilated one piece of information about early projections for Dorian’s trajectory, but did not embed this fact in any meaningful context. People with ADHD have trouble…
