Shortly before “#Unfit” was released, George Conway tweeted he was “withdrawing” from the Lincoln Project and “taking a Twitter hiatus,” while Kellyanne Conway likewise announced she was leaving the White House by the end of August. Both cited “family” concerns as the reasons for their departures. Their 15-year-old daughter criticized Trump on TikTok and Twitter and tweeted she was “officially pushing for emancipation.”
The charge that Trump is “unfit” to sit in the Oval Office — let alone to have his finger on the proverbial nuclear button — is old hat. Hillary Clinton and Trump’s rival Republican candidates repeatedly made that argument during 2016’s presidential campaign.
“#Unfit: The Psychology of Donald Trump” trots out many of the same old talking heads MSNBC viewers are accustomed to regularly seeing, such as ex-Naval intelligence figure Malcolm Nance and ex-GOP “Never Trumpers” Richard Painter, Bill Kristol, and the endlessly entertaining Anthony Scaramucci.
But what makes Dan Partland’s 83-minute documentary exceptional is the inclusion of two groups of unusual suspects. The first consists of specialists on authoritarianism, authors, historians, and academics, such as Ruth Ben-Ghiat, Ph.D., who teaches Italian studies at NYU and wrote “Fascist Modernities: Italy 1922-1945” and the forthcoming “Strongmen: From Mussolini to the Present.”
The second group of fresh voices in “#Unfit” are mental health professionals who psychoanalyze Trump. Although the president’s niece, clinical psychologist Mary Trump, does so (with the benefit of personal interaction and insight) in her recent book “Too Much and Never Enough,” “#Unfit” profoundly adds to the growing understanding of Trump’s strange affluenza-addled mentality.
“#Unfit”’s “headshrinkers” transgress beyond the “Goldwater Rule,” which the American Psychiatric Association (APA) adopted after 1964’s presidential race, when GOP candidate Barry Goldwater’s sanity was questioned. In 1973, the APA formally adopted Section 7.3 in the “Principles of Medical Ethics with Annotations Especially Applicable to Psychiatry,” asserting that regarding public figures: “[I]t is unethical for a psychiatrist to offer a professional opinion unless he or she has conducted an examination and has been granted proper authorization for such a statement.”
“#Unfit” zooms in on the critique by these dissident psychoanalysts, who are so distressed by the behavior and dictatorial impulses of what Mary Trump calls “The World’s Most Dangerous Man” in her book’s subtitle that they are defying the APA’s guidelines, contending: “The Goldwater Rule is not absolute. We have a ‘Duty to Warn,’ about a leader who is dangerous to the health and security of our patients . . . [and are] sufficiently alarmed that they feel the need to speak up about the mental-health status of the President.”
The film’s onscreen commentators present a devastating critique of Trump’s mental state. They include psychotherapist John Gartner, who advocates removing Trump from office via the US Constitution’s 25th Amendment, which stipulates replacing “the President [if he] is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office ...”
Psychoanalyst Justin Frank, who wrote three “Inside the Mind of the President” books on Bush, Obama and Trump, emphatically insists the latter is completely unsuited to be commander-in-chief, saying Trump “cannot think, only react.” Social psychologist Sheldon Solomon waxes poetic on Trump and “the denial of death.” But if, as Trump has proclaimed “the American Dream is dead,” he is arguably its hitman — even if, as he has once crowed, he “wouldn’t lose any voters.”
“#Unfit” also touches on what makes Trump’s fanatical followers tick by tapping into a sense of grievance. The film’s mental health experts diagnose Trump as a “malignant narcissist” and penetratingly describe what that actually means, attributing it to the great anti-fascist German psychoanalyst, Erich Fromm.
Footage of the commentators is imaginatively interwoven with movie clips, archival footage, and Allen Mezquida’s droll animation. When clinical psychologist and narcissism specialist Ramani Durvasula discusses gaslighting — “setting out to confuse someone” and doubt one’s sanity — in the context of Trump’s “alternative facts,” scenes from the 1944 classic “Gaslight” starring Ingrid Bergman are screened. (Gartner calls Trump “the most documented liar in human history.”) Through newsreels we see the rise of Mussolini to illustrate what happens when traditional elites invite authoritarians into power.
Perhaps “#Unfit”’s most touching moment is provided by one of Trump’s most biting, incisive critics, attorney George Conway, whose wife Kellyanne Conway served as counselor to the president, whom George derides as “demented.” The Lincoln Project co-founder breaks down as he recounts long ago racist taunts he witnessed against his Filipina mother, which later convinced George that his wife’s boss was indeed a bigot.
What’s missing in “#Unfit” is a class analysis explaining that this heir of ill-gotten gains is the exemplar of the amoral capitalist sensibility of “me first.” Trump embodies all of the worst vices of late stage capitalism in our era of flagrant economic inequality — the greed, selfishness, vulgarity, and arrogance of members of his class.
Kristol warns that relegating Trump to idiocy and buffoonery “diminishes some of the real dangers he poses.” While “Don the Con” may be an egomaniacal sociopath and malignant narcissist, there is a method to his madness, and detractors shouldn’t underestimate Trump’s shrewd logic in pursuing his narrow self-interest.
Tampering with letter carriers may suggest Trump is going postal, but as with so much of his mania, there is cunning afoot to steal an election by suppressing mail-in voting, and thereby remain in the White House — and thus, he thinks, avoid prosecution for some of his countless crimes. As the old saying goes, Trump may be insane — but he’s crazy like a fox.
Whether Trump is playing with a full deck or just jokers, as Malcolm Nance puts it in the compelling “#Unfit,” this is “a dangerous time in the world” — as “the world’s most dangerous man” has the nuclear codes. It remains to be seen who will triumph in the Darwinian (and perhaps Freudian?) struggle for “the survival of the fittest.”
The virtual cinema release of the must-see #Unfit: The Psychology of Donald Trump” starts August 28 and is available September 1 on all digital/streaming and cable TVOD platforms.
Ed Rampell is a film historian and critic based in Los Angeles. Rampell is the author of “Progressive Hollywood, A People’s Film History of the United States” and he co-authored “The Hawaii Movie and Television Book,” now in its third edition.
From The Progressive Populist, October 1, 2020
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