Calling Trump "insane" is insulting to actually insane people (like me).
Sorry neurotypical people-you can keep him.
I recently read an article that used the word “insane” multiple times in relation to Trump and I found it difficult to take seriously in 2025.
Sort of like how we don’t call people “gay” as in insult anymore, it’s weird to me when people use “crazy” or “insane” to critique someone.
As a certified insane person (I’ve been under the Mental Health Act, I’ve hallucinated, I’ve been delusional-the term is mine for the taking), I just don’t really wanna be placed in the same category as Trump tbh.
I’m not the first person to note how reductive/stigmatising/harmful/but mostly overwhelmingly inaccurate it is to go around labelling Trump (or anyone we simply do not agree with) as crazy/insane/insert other pejorative here (though if people wanna start calling him “hysterical” specifically the way women historically/still are then I’d actually be sweet with that.)
As Allen Frances* wrote in 2017, “Confusing Trump’s behavior with mental illness unfairly stigmatizes those who are truly mentally ill, underestimates his considerable cunning, and misdirects our efforts at future harm reduction. And the three most frequent armchair diagnoses made for Trump — narcissistic personality disorder, delusional disorder, and dementia — are all badly misinformed.”
People particularly like to throw around the term Narcissistic Personality Disorder, but as Frances points out, none of those characteristics, if they are present, are impairing Trump’s life to a clinically significant level-rather, he is thriving-he’s the President of the USA and he’s doing whatever he wants.
Not everything you dislike about someone is down to mental illness. Sometimes people are just shit.
There are plenty of words to describe Trump and there are plenty of valid criticisms, but you can fuck right off and stop with the lazy references to him being mentally unwell and think a little more critically about his behaviour.
I’m mentally unwell and I’ve never sought to deploy the military on a bunch of protesters.
To quote my friend, Francois, “We don’t claim him. The neurotypicals can keep him.”
*Allen Frances chaired the task force responsible for revising the fourth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders