The former chairman of the Psychiatry Department at Duke University claimed on CNN that President Trump is as bad as the worst dictators of the 20th century, and that his presidency might lead to even more deaths than they did.
While debating the merits of having psychiatrists come out with possible mental health diagnoses on Trump, Dr. Allen Frances said it was an insult to the mentally ill to compare them to him.
Frances, who is against psychiatrists violating the “Goldwater Rule,” told CNN doing so will stigmatize people with mental illnesses.
“Well, I think ‘medicalizing’ politics has three very dire consequences. The first is that it stigmatizes the mentally ill. I’ve known thousands of patients, almost all of them are well-behaved, well-mannered good people. Trump is none of these. Lumping that is a terrible insult to the mentally ill and they have enough problems and stigma as it is.”
“Second, calling Trump crazy hides the fact that we’re crazy for having elected him and even crazier for allowing his crazy policies to persist,” Frances went on. “Trump is as destructive a person in this century as Hitler, Stalin, Mao in the last century. He may be responsible for many more million deaths than they were.”
Between the three dictators Frances used as examples, Chairman Mao Zedong killed the most people, up to 45 million, through his policies during his “Great Leap Forward.”
Under Joseph Stalin, who led the Soviet Union from the 1920s until his death in 1953, around 20 million people died in labor camps, forced collectivization that resulted in famines, and executions in his many purges.
The Holocaust perpetrated by Adolf Hitler and his Nazi regime killed around 11 million people.
Stelter later posted on Twitter he did not interrupt Frances because he did not hear the comment because of “tech difficulties.”
“Trump Derangement Syndrome is real,” Campaign Communications Director Tim Murtaugh told the Washington Examiner.
Frances went on to explain what he meant by his comments on his Twitter account, saying it’s because of Trump’s actions towards the climate.