{"id":21660,"date":"2026-03-19T15:14:18","date_gmt":"2026-03-19T14:14:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/i3-cnrs.fr\/?post_type=tribe_events&p=21660"},"modified":"2026-08-06T10:14:15","modified_gmt":"2026-08-06T09:14:15","slug":"trump-is-crazy-the-adverse-effects-of-a-pseudo-diagnosis","status":"publish","type":"actualite","link":"https:\/\/i3-cnrs.fr\/en\/actualite\/trump-is-crazy-the-adverse-effects-of-a-pseudo-diagnosis\/","title":{"rendered":"Article by Olivier Fournout in The Conversation, February 10, 2026."},"content":{"rendered":"

We should move away from this excessive focus on psychology and instead concentrate on the social structures that made it possible for such an individual to rise to power. This is the perspective that Olivier Fournout explores in his article in The Conversation, published on February 10, 2026. Qualifier Donald Trump de \u00ab fou \u00bb, comme c\u2019est r\u00e9guli\u00e8rement le cas ces derniers temps, tend \u00e0 d\u00e9tourner l\u2019attention de la coh\u00e9rence de la politique conduite par l\u2019int\u00e9ress\u00e9 depuis son retour \u00e0 la Maison-Blanche et du fait qu\u2019il constitue moins une anomalie individuelle qu\u2019un produit typique d\u2019un syst\u00e8me \u00e9conomique, m\u00e9diatique et culturel qui valorise la domination, la spectacularisation et la marchandisation du monde. Il convient de se d\u00e9tourner de cette psychologisation \u00e0 outrance pour mieux se concentrer sur les structures sociales qui ont rendu possible l\u2019accession au pouvoir d\u2019un tel individu. We need to move away from this excessive psychologization and focus instead on the social structures that enabled such an individual to rise to power.<\/strong><\/h3>\n

In just a few days in January 2026, it became the most talked-about topic in the media: Trump is crazy. On January 19, a Democratic member of the US Congress sounded the alarm on X, claiming that the president was \u201cmentally extremely ill.\u201d Fox News, a media outlet that has long been close to Donald Trump, reported the comments the next day in a factual tone. On January 22, the day after Trump’s speech in Davos, during which he asked for \u201ca piece of ice\u201d (namely Greenland) \u201cin exchange for world peace,\u201d L’Humanit\u00e9<\/em> ran a headline with a magnificent play on words: Trump \u201cFou alli\u00e9\u201d (Crazy Ally).<\/p>\n

On January 23, news outlets relayed what was already widely reported in the press: \u201cStatement by Democratic representatives in the US Congress: Donald Trump’s mental health is impaired; it’s worse than Joe Biden’s, it’s a case of dementia.\u201d On January 24, the cover of The Economist<\/em> magazine showed a shirtless Donald Trump straddling a polar bear\u2014a message of crazy ramblings mimicking Putin and his bare-chested photos, with the animal of the Far North emphasizing the White House tenant’s claims on Greenland.<\/p>\n

Even Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico, an ally of the New York billionaire, reportedly deemed him \u201ccompletely disturbed\u201d after meeting him on January 19 at Mar-a-Lago. The Trump case is now regularly examined through the lens of insanity by elected officials, journalists, and even psychiatrists.<\/p>\n

However, there is reason to be skeptical about the accusations of insanity levelled against Trump. Not only have they done little to neutralize him so far, but they have actually contributed to his success and prevented people from thinking about the real problem. The arguments against them deserve to be reviewed.<\/p>\n

How legitimate is medicalizing discourse?<\/h2>\n

It may seem questionable, even when one is a psychiatrist, and even more<\/em> so when one is not, to declare someone mentally ill without having examined them according to specific protocols.<\/p>\n

When, on March 5, 2025, French senator Claude Malhuret, who is a doctor, called Trump a \u201cNero\u201d and a \u201cbuffoon\u201d from the podium of the Luxembourg Palace\u2014a speech that went viral in the United States\u2014the rhetoric was beautifully crafted, but it was not medical.<\/p>\n

The senator does not refer to the Academy. At this stage, in the absence of an examination carried out by professionals whose results have been made public, describing Trump as crazy is more of a political than a medical statement.<\/p>\n

Ineffective rhetoric<\/h2>\n

Statements about Trump’s insanity have been made repeatedly over a long period of time without showing any effectiveness in combating it. From the first year of his first term, rumors have been circulating about a possible impeachment on mental grounds, based on expert opinions that have not, however, been based on interviews with the person concerned. No impeachment proceedings will be initiated on these grounds.<\/p>\n

In October 2024, a new collective statement by professionals on Trump’s cognitive decline was released, diagnosing him with a \u201csevere and incurable personality disorder.\u201d This did not prevent him from being elected fairly easily the following month against Kamala Harris. As for the 2020 defeat, it came in the midst of the Covid wave and was less the result of claims that the outgoing president was insane than of his disastrous handling of the pandemic: underestimating the scale of contagion and mortality, and ostentatiously refusing to wear a mask.<\/p>\n

One day, no doubt, Trump will leave office, but the effects of mental illness diagnoses on his political career\u2014and in particular on his 2024 victory, which occurred when voters were fully aware of his personal profile\u2014have been negligible to date.<\/p>\n

Attacks that play into Trump’s hands<\/h2>\n

Worse still, these attacks are not only ineffective, they actually serve Trump. The core of his technique\u2014which he explained back in the 1980s in The Art of the Deal\u2014consists of stirring up controversy to get people talking about him and his projects. Responding to him on his own turf, calling him a psychopath (or aberrant, monstrous, stupid, or delusional\u2014the latest buzzword), is falling into his trap: he then poses as a victim and reaps the votes. What is surprising is that, for ten years, no lessons have been learned from these repeated failures in the fight against Trump.<\/p>\n

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\u00ab I rage and rave like a madman, and the crazier I get, the higher the ratings climb.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Trump pitched himself for his reality TV show, The Apprentice (source: Think Big and Kick Ass: In Business and Life, D. Trump and B. Zanker, 2007). Madness? No. A tried-and-tested strategy that attracts attention to his advantage.<\/p>\n

But commentators and echo chambers also benefit. And that’s where the problem lies: Trump’s \u201ccrazy antics\u201d are actually diversions that the media, the opposition, politicians, and often experts rush to jump on for the buzz.<\/p>\n

Trump reflects society<\/h2>\n

Beyond television, Trump’s methods are typical of life advice that circulates widely in society, emanating from many other sources besides him. Examples include Harvey Mackay’s classic \u00a0Swim With the Sharks Without Being Eaten Alive<\/em><\/a> (1988), and Robert Greene’s The Concise 33 Strategies of War<\/em><\/a> (2006).<\/p>\n

We also think of the war metaphors that creep into more balanced management books; \u201cwar room meetings\u201d describe successful team meetings in\u00a0X-Teams<\/em><\/a> (2007) ; giving more power to managers is recommended so that they do not find themselves \u201cfacing ten enemies with only one bullet in their gun\u00bb, dans Smart simplicity<\/em><\/a> (2014).<\/p>\n

From this perspective, Trump is \u201cbanal, too banal.\u201d He is typical of a \u201chypermodern hero worship,\u201d carried along by a \u201cTrumpization of the world\u201d that is beyond his control. The consequence of this sociological observation is that the problem runs much deeper than idiosyncratic madness, however disturbing it may be.<\/p>\n

Declaring Trump crazy obscures the extent to which Trump’s modus operandi is, to a significant degree, shared across society. Trump favors power struggles. He has always been unequivocal on this point, which has brought him success in business, television, leadership, and now politics. But this is not achieved in opposition<\/em> to American society, as if by accident, but rather as a reflection<\/em> of a broad spectrum of that society.<\/p>\n

Negotiating with a gun to your head is the subject of numerous books on personal development, management, and workplace communication. It is the plot device that ensures the popularity of Hollywood films (not only Westerns, but also the \u201coffers you can’t refuse\u201d in The Godfather)<\/em>. There is nothing crazy or absurd about this. It’s just a dominant ethos that has its own rationale and has never been soft.<\/em><\/p>\n

So it comes as no surprise that only a powerful force can make Trump back down. Again, he has been explicit about this for a long time. When he was close to bankruptcy in the 1990s, he bowed down to the bankers: “When you owe people money, you go to their office […] I wanted to do anything but go to dinners with bankers, but I went to dinner with bankers” (in Think Big<\/em>, 2007). Strictly instrumental rationality, certainly, but rationality nonetheless. The feature article \u00ab\u00a0Ice and heat\u00a0\u00bb<\/a> recently published by The Economist<\/em> on the Greenland affair notes that the European threat to trigger the anti-coercion instrument has, for the moment, played a role in Trump’s retreat.<\/p>\n

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Reveal the structure to better combat it<\/h2>\n

To counter Trump’s America, we should first examine the rationality of his guidelines. His actions, whether in diplomacy or domestic policy, economic policy or natural resource management, stem from a clear, consistent, thoughtful, and proactive strategy. This is where the battle to defeat Trump must be fought, rather than through futile gestures that make us feel good about ourselves but are repeated ad nauseam without having any real impact on the bombastic showman.<\/p>\n

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Olivier Fournout has published, among other works: \u201cThe Trumpization of the World: Why the World Loves Trump, Even Those Who Hate Him.\u201d Several features of Trump’s speech in Davos on January 21, 2026, stand out as being anything but mentally disturbed. On the one hand, he brings momentum to the European far right, which is already in power or on the verge of it. On the other hand, a Europe that is rearming and remains broadly \u201callied\u201d with the United States leads to a more favorable strategic situation from the American point of view: this is the objective result of the current historical sequence.<\/span><\/div>\n
Finally, the demand for \u201ctitle to the land\u201d in Greenland succeeded in establishing, even if it did not succeed, the insurmountable horizon of Trump’s world: \u201cLand, like Ulysses’ slaves, remains property,\u201d as Aldo Leopold, a pioneer of nature conservation in the United States, wrote in A Sand County Almanac,<\/em> published in 1948 (French translation published in 2022 by Gallmeister). Trump is in his element, perfectly mastering the vocabulary to undermine the ecological transition or bifurcation. As Estelle Ferrarese expresses it in her critique of ethical consumption, \u201cin no case is the goal to take certain things (such as land) off the market.\u201d<\/em><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n
Read the rest of the article in The Conversation<\/a><\/div>\n

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