Given that he's insane, how can they be sure the meds would be working?

Not like the Big Media journalists care or see any issue here...

...triggering historic, disastrous inflation. Nixon was constrained re the Great Society spending and extended the war for electoral purposes the side effect of which was that by the time Voelker acted, the latter did some lasting harm to the economy.

The politically influential Xians in the US are actually heretics that s*** on their god's teachings. No other major religion can make a comparable boast, certainly not beat it.
Then again, it's also a religion that (again contra teachings) supports greed via the prosperity gospel.