Psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton Dies at 99; Explored Human Darkness, from Nazi Doctors to Hiroshima

The celebrated psychiatrist and author Robert Jay Lifton has died at the age of 99. His studies on the effects of nuclear war, terrorism and genocide, including the books Death in Life: Survivors of Hiroshima and The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide, shaped psychological understandings of the effects of mass violence. He appeared on Democracy Now! several times, including in 2017 to discuss Trump during his first term. With Trump, of course, malignant normality becomes the rule," says Lifton, because he's president, and what a president does tends to normalize potentially bad, evil or destructive behavior."