The neoconservative old guard appears to be hitching itself to Hillary in the wake of a number of Donald Trump gaffes, and is justifying its betrayal of the Republican Party by making accusations about Trump’s mental health.

“There is something very wrong with Donald Trump,” writes neoconservative ghoul and chief proponent of American nation-building abroad, Robert Kagan.

The only thing that’s “very wrong” with Donald Trump is his refusal to be cowed and browbeaten by political correctness.

“Republican leaders have begun to realize that they may have hitched their fate and the fate of their party to a man with a disordered personality,” Kagan writes. “We can leave it to the professionals to determine exactly what to call it,” he continues.

To make accusations and insinuations about political opponents’ mental state is a tried and tested left-wing smear, and it’s hardly surprising that faced with a non-interventionist, nationalist Trump presidency, the self-proclaimed “liberal interventionist” Kagan is showing his true lefty colors.

In the 1960s, in the midst of conservative stalwart Barry Goldwater’s efforts to win the White House, the misleadingly named Fact magazine published an issue called “The Unconscious of a Conservative: A Special Issue on the Mind of Barry Goldwater.”

[lz_jwplayer video= “fY4D73yF” ads=”true”]

The issue featured a number of left-wing psychologists making unfounded claims about Goldwater’s mental state. Goldwater sued the publisher of the magazine and won, and in response the American Psychiatric Association issued the “Goldwater rule,” forbidding members from commenting on the mental states of patients they have not examined personally.

Ronald Reagan faced much of the same. Before he was elected, liberals and even moderate Establishment Republicans took pains to portray Reagan as an unhinged crazy person who would usher in World War III (sound familiar?), and Reagan would spend his entire presidency facing accusations about his mental competency.

A 1987 Chicago Sun Times report detailed some of of the casual and common conversation of the time surrounding Reagan’s mental state. “‘I think he’s out of his mind,’ one of them said. ‘I really do.'”

“‘His idea of serious reading is the swimsuit edition of Sports Illustrated,'” said another, to which someone responded, “‘Yeah. He likes to count the pieces in the two-piece bathing suits. That’s as high as he can go.'”

Who do you think would win the Presidency?

By completing the poll, you agree to receive emails from LifeZette, occasional offers from our partners and that you've read and agree to our privacy policy and legal statement.

Indeed, Donald Trump is just the latest GOP candidate to face absurd accusations of mental instability — only now, angry neoconservatives and moderate Republicans are joining in. “Everybody was talking about his mental health yesterday,” noted Joe Scarborough on Tuesday. “I’ve never seen him act like this before. It’s unhinged. It’s not the Donald Trump that I’ve known for over a decade.”

But if there is any doubt that accusations of a deficient mind in others are the last resort of those who are deficient in arguments themselves, one need only look at Eugene Robinson’s op-ed in The Washington Post, which asks: “Is Donald Trump just plain crazy?”

[lz_related_box id=”161403″]

According to Robinson, the three indicators of Trump’s insanity are the fact that “he lies the way other people breathe,” his thin skin, and that “there’s ample evidence that Trump is the worst kind of bully.” Two of these three accusations can just as easily — and more demonstrably — be made about Hillary Clinton.

Indeed, Robinson even seeks to support his accusations of bullying by asking, “What kind of man has so little empathy for a grieving mother’s loss? Is that normal? Is it healthy?” One wonders when Robinson will ask the same about Hillary Clinton, and her icy indifference to the mothers of those she left to die in Benghazi — not to mention her husband’s sexual assault victims.

Despite the claims of Kagan and company, the only thing that’s “very wrong” with Donald Trump is his refusal to be cowed and browbeaten by political correctness and his stubborn unwillingness to go along with the globalist project.