Two Persons vs. Two-Faced: New York Times’ Gail Collins says President Trump may be two persons; whereas, Douglas said Lincoln was two-faced.

Two-Faced Lincoln

In the Lincoln-Douglas debates, when Douglas accused Lincoln of being “two-faced,” Lincoln famously replied, “If I had two faces, would I be wearing this one?”

Lincoln’s humor was based on an acknowledgement of his homely face, and the presumption that any person would want to put his best foot, or in this case, his more handsome face, forward.

Two-Person Trump

“That’s our best hope: That the guy with the nuclear football is not necessarily the same person as the one sending out loopy messages on his smartphone. People who’ve dealt with the private Trump often say they found him less crazy than the public version” —Gail Collins, “Trump Tweets Tough.” New York Times (Op-Ed, August 12, 2017) https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/11/opinion/trump-tweets-tough.html?_r=0

Hypocrisy vs. Multiple Personality

Whereas Douglas accused Lincoln of being one hypocritical person, Collins and people who have known Trump privately say that he is “not necessarily the same person” at different times, which implies multiple personality.

Are Collins, and the people who have known Trump privately, right? Are they misinterpreting hypocrisy or does he actually have multiple personality?

Diagnosis

The way you could find out would be to ask Trump questions bearing on the two cardinal signs of multiple personality: memory gaps and separate senses of personhood.

Memory Gaps

When he is behaving one way, you could ask Trump whether he directly remembers having behaved the distinctly different other way (and does not just know about that other behavior from circumstantial evidence or what other people have said). If he acknowledges that he has a memory gap for the other behavior, and has no reason to lie about that, it would imply that he does not remember that other behavior, because it occurred during the time that another personality had been in control.

Separate Senses of Personhood

If he does have direct, first-hand memory of the other behavior, you would ask him if he was the person who had behaved that other way. If he says he was not the person who behaved that other way, and he could describe how he differs from the other person who behaves that other way, then assuming there is no reason for him to lie about this, you would know he has multiple personality.

The problem is, nobody is likely to ask him such questions, and even if they did, he is unlikely to answer truthfully, unless he trusted the person who was asking these questions, and was motivated to understand himself.