Dr. Phil Comes Out of the Closet

Yes, he's a supporter of Donald Trump

This month is Pride Month and Dr. Phil has come out of the closet…as a supporter of Donald Trump.

I'll admit that Dr. Phil and his brand of doing therapy on TV has been controversial for years. I watched the show for the first few years partly as a form of guilty pleasure and partly because he actually had some common sense advice to give out. At one point I was attending a weekly support group for people who were separated or divorced and they had an optional book discussion group where we read and discussed Dr. Phil's first book, Life Strategies. I thought it had some useful tips, even if parts of that book reminded me of another book I had previously read, Stephen Covey's The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.

But then, as the years went on, he became more sanctimonious and it seemed like he picked his guests based on train wreck potential that could boost ratings. He became like Jerry Springer with psychological overtones. (Say what you will about the late Jerry Springer but at least he never claimed to be a therapist. He acknowledged that his show was trashy.)

He claimed that he was trying to help Britney Spears when her family invited him to visit her in a hospital while she was having mental health issues but then he made public statements about that visit, which outraged her family.

Then there was the time when he had a 13-year-old troubled teen who made this retort at the audience: “Catch me outside, how bow dah?”

That video went viral and she managed to parlay her appearance on The Dr. Phil Show into a successful career as a rapper under the name Bhad Bhabie. She had recently given birth to her first child, a daughter.

Since that viral video it seemed like Dr. Phil kept on picking people who seemed more progressively dysfunctional than even Bhad Bhabie and the emphasis was more on displaying these people like a freak show under the guise of therapy. I think that Dr. Phil chose those guests in the hopes that more viral videos would result but nothing ever resonated with people the way that “Catch me outside, how bow dah?” did. I felt he was just trying too hard to make viral videos. (To be honest, there's no rhyme or reason why something goes viral. There is no formula to follow to ensure a viral video. It's just something that happens.) That was the main reason why I stopped watching that show.

But the one thing about Dr. Phil is that in the past he kept his political opinions to himself and he never openly advocated for any politician. Until recently in the wake of Donald Trump being a convicted felon.

Apparently Dr. Phil now has an online show on his own network, Merit Street Media, which is a partnership with the Christian right media outlet Trinity Broadcasting Network. Dr. Phil apparently conducts interviews like he's a news presenter and he got Donald Trump as a guest. In the past he would stand up to guests on his old talk show and he never hesitated to give his opinions or to confront that guest. But when it came to Trump, he was downright deferential to the point where he received intense criticism online. He agreed with Trump that his felony conviction was unfair and was orchestrated by Democrats. Dr. Phil tried to get Trump to tone down his threats of getting retribution on his perceived enemies if he gets reelected. Dr. Phil later told CNN that he doesn't think that Trump will actually seek retribution. He also called on Joe Biden to stop the prosecution in New York, even though Trump was brought up on state charges and Joe Biden had no control over that. The state of New York is doing the prosecution, not the federal government or the Democrats.

He's practically a Trump apologist now. It's like he's ignoring Trump's frequent penchant for lying to defend Trump as a basic decent guy who's being unfairly prosecuted. You'd think that Dr. Phil, who holds a doctorate in clinical psychology, would have spoken with Mary Trump, who is not only Donald Trump's niece but she is also a trained psychologist. She used her psychological training to explain why her uncle is the way he is in her tell-all book Too Much and Never Enough. She could have schooled Dr. Phil on what kind of person her uncle really is and why he's a legitimate threat to democracy in America.

I couldn't stomach seeing Donald Trump openly lying to Dr. Phil like the con artist that he is so I found this video that had some interesting excerpts that show how devotional Dr. Phil is towards Trump.

Here's another critique of that interview that's incredibly interesting to watch, including the fact that the interview was held at Trump's Mar-a-Largo club in the same room where Trump held classified documents that he swiped from the White House and is the source of some of the many criminal charges that he had been given in recent months.

Now that he has shown how deferential towards Donald Trump, I can easily guess how he feels about Trump's BFF Vladimir Putin. There is such overlap between those to admire Donald Trump and those who admire Vladimir Putin that I wouldn't be surprised if he is a secret Putin supporter. To be fair, Dr. Phil hasn't spoken out about Vladimir Putin as of this writing but I can easily imagine Dr. Phil wishing that he could get Putin as a guest so he can ask the same kind of softball questions that he asked Donald Trump. Dr. Phil would probably buy Putin’s nonsense claim that Russia had no other alternative other than to invade Ukraine because that country is ruled by Nazis.

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