American psychiatrist Bandy Lee recently stated President Trump needs a "capacity exam," because we may need to "remove the danger as quickly as possible[.] ... [T]he law allows us to curtail liberties in this way because patients later return to thank us." 

That's certainly an arresting proposition!  Let's end our constitutional republic.  We don't need citizens electing a president; instead, Democrats and "nonpartisan" doctors can work it out for us.

It's not as if Lee were a lone crank.  She is actually backed up by an entire team of Ph.D. psychiatrists.  Democrat congresspeople are thrilled to work with her, or, as she described it, "I was astonished by the level of eagerness to speak with us." 

Various people – such as Professor Alan Dershowitz and Twitter personalities Thomas Wictor and James Jesus Angleton – independently responded to this new assault on Trump by pointing out that using psychiatry to attack political opponents is a Soviet tactic.

This prompts the question: is Mr. Dershowitz using hyperbole to win a political argument?  Or is  Lee using a tactic Brezhnev would recognize?

There is also the Trump-Russia investigation to evaluate.  It's run by a former director of our secret police (Mueller) and was prompted when another director of our secret police (Comey) spied and illegally leaked information.  Would Comrade Andropov approve?

To answer the question, let's turn to the autobiography of heroic Soviet dissident Vladimir Bukovsky.  He spent over a decade in prisons, labor camps, and psychiatric wards.  Later, he documented his struggle against communism in the superb book To Build a Castle.  Let's see if there are parallels between how the Soviet system punished Bukovsky and how the American establishment is trying to take down Trump.

Bukovksy says political investigations started on the "most unlikely pretexts," making use of the "the most colorful of the denunciations they have received of the chosen victim."  Given that Trump's persecution loosely began with the alleged "pee dossier," it would seem there is a similarity here.

The key point with the Trump investigation is that he is not accused of a specific crime.  No one knows exactly what Trump did wrong – just that he must be investigated.  Bukovsky explained:

In a political investigation, however, the case is instituted against the man, because in the opinion of the KGB and the [p]arty bosses his time has come.  They have accumulated an assortment of denunciations revealing his utterances, intentions, contacts, and influence on others, or showing him as being in somebody's way[ – ]or, on the contrary, refusing to cooperate, or knowing too much and talking about it[ – ]or, on the contrary, not wanting to know at all.  In short, he's ripe for it.  More often than not, a whole circle of people is considered ripe for being put away – they need to be brought into line.

The Trump-Russia counsel is now working to bring people into line.  "A whole team of investigators is assigned, and day by day, hour by hour, they minutely examine citizen N's whole life – it cannot be that this citizen has never done anything of 'that sort[';] we don't have such spotless people in our country."

Have the "sinning" Republicans who voted for Trump "regretted" their actions yet?  Will Trump "repent"?

"Of course, before the investigation is completed citizen N, under the weight of all the incriminating evidence, is supposed to repent, to acknowledge his mistakes, or at the very least to regret what he has done.  Otherwise the investigators themselves will catch it: a political investigation is in the first instance the re-education of a sinner, and the investigator is both an educator and a political instructor."

The problem Democrats are facing today is that despite the best efforts of America's secret police force, no crime can be found.  Thus the need for Bandy Lee. 

This happened to Bukovsky, too.  Surprisingly, even the KGB couldn't find a pretext to lock Bukovsky away, so the KGB passed him off to doctors who diagnosed him as a psychopath and a schizophrenic.  "My case wasn't acquiring any shape[;] my artists weren't able to compose a clear picture, not even with the help of their snoopers.  Hence the asylum."

Yet Trump persists in "forbidden" behavior.  He is in "conflict with society":

They [psychiatrists] asked me all the same questions: [w]hy was I in conflict with society and with its accepted norms?  Why did my beliefs seem of overwhelming importance to me – more important than my liberty, my studies, or my mother's peace of mind?  For instance, I persisted in going to Mayakovsky Square.  Yet I knew it was forbidden; I had been warned.  Why did I continue going there?

Weak Republicans submit to the establishment.  Trump refuses to surrender.  Every time he complains, the establishment becomes angry.  "There was also no one to complain to, for every complaint got lodged in your case history as yet one more proof of your insanity."  When Trump fired Comey, the establishment went absolutely ballistic.  Establishment Republicans considered it proof of his insanity.

As long as Trump stays true to himself and his campaign promises, the establishment will never exonerate him:

Never in our history has a court acquitted anyone arraigned on political charges.  The most that can happen is that they hand out a suspended sentence – if, that is, the repentance is particularly handsome.  After all, the first concern of our Soviet judges must be to educate the masses.

To return to the questions posed earlier, yes, it seems as though Andropov and Brezhnev would be quite comfortable understanding and enacting the schemes taking place in America today.  Hell, they may even look on in admiration.

Perhaps a better question is this: would George Washington recognize what we have become?

Daniel Ashman can be found on Twitter at https://twitter.com/dashman76.