Mad Politics, by Gina Loudon

It seems like there's no end to political books published by media personalities and journalists, as well as current and former political office holders and appointees, on either side of the political spectrum.  Gina Loudon's Mad Politics: Keeping Your Sanity in a World Gone Crazy is one among many, with lots of familiar talking points in defense of President Trump and conservative politics.

Loudon's book stands apart on a couple of points.  First of all, she was an early organizer in the Tea Party movement, when her husband was a state senator in Missouri.  That movement set the stage for Trump's ascendency to the presidency, and Loudon has certainly been a vocal and active Trump supporter.  She writes as somewhat of an insider, shedding some light on the movement.

One of the major themes of Mad Politics is a psychological look at politics.  Loudon looks at the abuses of the psychological profession, representatives of which have diagnosed Trump with mental illness.  They violate their own rules, issuing diagnoses without personally examining him, collectively published a book to that effect, and are happy to talk about it to anyone in the press.  The press, with a confirmation bias that Trump is a loose cannon and too mentally unstable and/or intellectually deficient to be president, repeats their smears.

This is the condition of madness that Loudon criticizes, the hatred of Trump that causes not only professional political commentators and partisan politicians but also medical professionals to rage against the president.  Sometimes the simplest explanation is the best one available: the only reason some people irrationally rage against President Trump is that they are completely unhinged lunatics.  Loudon doesn't put it in such harsh terms, but her perspective and insights are worth a read.