HIS SUPPORTERS DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT "OPAQUE" MEANS:

Recent days have raised an arresting possibility: Trump himself appears to be suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome.

This isn't really surprising. A practitioner of germ warfare would need to wear an airtight suit to avoid being infected by the virus intended for his or her enemies. Unless Trump has been very careful in the lab, it's not hard to imagine that his various experiments in conspiracy theory, self-mythologizing, insult, grandiosity and fact denial might be seeping into his own consciousness. At a minimum, there are plainly a lot of people living in his head, and it's hard to believe he is collecting rent from all of them.

When it comes to discussions of Trump's mental health, there are always two questions. One relates to measurement. He's been saying wild stuff for a long time. Is any particular new statement really more daffy than things he has said before? The other question relates to motive. He says things all the time that sound bonkers, or at least would sound that way from any other politician. But, at least some of the time, he is doing so because such behavior is the essence of his brand as an anti-establishment political disrupter. Trump's efforts to sound like he may really be losing his mind may be evidence of his rationality.

But this binary framing--yes, he is nuts; no, it's just an act--could be a false choice. In the pathology of TDS, living in the agitated psychic state required to make his performance convincing may over time lead to the performance no longer being a performance at all. Trump has gaslit himself.

At a minimum, his words lately follow a logic that is opaque even to many supporters.

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