DONALD TRUMP CHANNELS JOSEPH MCCARTHY

Joseph McCarthy, February 9, 1950:

"I have here in my hand a list of 205 that were made known to the Secretary of State as being members of the Communist Party and who nevertheless are still working and shaping policy in the State Department." 

Joseph McCarthy and Roy Cohn, 1950

Credit: Getty Images

Donald Trump, March 2, 2019:

"We have people in Congress right now that hate our country. And you know that. And we can name every one of them if they want."

 Trump at CPAC 2019

Credit: Rolling Stone

It can't happen here? It's happening right in front of our eyes.

We can only hope that the American people and their representatives of both parties will eventually see through Trump's flag-hugging sociopathy, as they did with McCarthy.

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A TALE OF TWO BULLIES

I'm sure it's just a coincidence that the two bullies who have bothered me the most were both named Donald T.

The first Donald T. was the biggest bully at my elementary school. (I'm not providing his full name in the hope that he's changed). Taller and beefier than most of the kids, he  seemed to enjoy creating fear and causing pain. In class, when the teacher's back was turned, he pulled girls' hair and punched other boys. At recess, he and his mini-gang liked to single someone out, chase him or her down, taunt, push and punch them, and then scatter before a teacher could intervene.

 A bully in action

Credit: http://bullyingproject.com/bullies-and-victims/

I remember reading comments by a naturalist who pointed out that when predatory animals are on the hunt they are not fearful or angry--they don't show any signs of negative emotions. Instead, they are alert, goal-oriented and aroused in a positive way; you might say they're at the top of their game.

Donald T. and his buddies were like that. Singling out the day's victim, the chase, circling their prey, and the pushing and pummeling were clearly fun for them. Especially if someone really panicked or started to cry, the gang's reaction was not shame or remorse, but gleeful laughter.***

My training and career were in psychology. I'm well aware of the characterological propensities, vulnerabilities and unfortunate developmental events that may turn a child into a bully. However, the existence of such contributing factors doesn't provide much comfort to a bully's victims. I'm also very aware--and wary--of what seems to be our natural human propensity to blame victims for what happens to them. So, on balance, I don't find it particularly helpful to empathize with bullies or try to excuse their behavior.

That brings us to Donald T. number two, the bully-in-chief of the United States.

 Trump and followers at a rally

Credit: Gage Skidmore

I never paid much attention to Trump until he emerged as a presidential candidate. But once I saw him in action, all of my bully-alarm-bells went off. Nothing he's said or done since then has changed that first impression (and a lot that he's said and done has deepened and strengthened my belief that he is a damaged, disturbed and dangerous individual).

I recently read an article from the Washington Post by social scientist Bella dePaulo, entitled "I study liars. I've never seen one like Donald Trump," that clarified why I find Trump so disturbing. DePaulo used the Post's Fact Checker feature to study the more than 1,600 lies or "misleading claims" that Trump emitted during his first 298 days in office--about six whoppers per day. The sheer number of lies he told was "remarkable," but, according to dePaulo, what really set Trump apart was the number of "cruel lies, told to hurt or disparage others."

Here's one example:

Donald J. Trump‏Verified account @realDonaldTrump

Vanity Fair, which looks like it is on its last legs, is bending over backwards in apologizing for the minor hit they took at Crooked H. Anna Wintour, who was all set to be Amb to Court of St James’s &; a big fundraiser for CH, is beside herself in grief &; begging for forgiveness!

7:24 AM - 28 Dec 2017

In one tweet, Trump manages to demean and disparage Vanity Fair (on its last legs and bending over backwards apologizing), Hillary Clinton (crooked), and Anna Wintour (beside herself with grief and begging for forgiveness).

Here's another:

Lightweight Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, a total flunky for Chuck Schumer and someone who would come to my office “begging” for campaign contributions not so long ago (and would do anything for them), is now in the ring fighting against Trump. Very disloyal to Bill &; Crooked-USED!

5:03 AM - 12 Dec 2017

Senator Gillebrand is a lightweight, a total flunky, begged Trump for contributions, "would do anything for them," and is disloyal, crooked and used. That's a lot of venom to pack into 140 characters, but Trump has obviously mastered the art.

Trump is especially fond of depicting people as begging him for favors, as documented here.

By now, Trump has bashed through so many norms and revealed his pathologies so blatantly and in so many ways, that the fact that he loves to put others down as a way of building himself up is no surprise, nor that the enormous prestige and responsibilities of the presidency have not caused him to temper his behavior. What's more worrisome is that he seems to revel in the cruelty, which means he's not just a bully but a sadist (for examples, click on these links from Alternet, USA Today, the Irish Times, the Chicago Tribune, the book Fire and Fury, and the DailyKos).

But what I find most concerning is that 35 to 45 percent of Americans remain faithful to the bully-in-chief even as he sneaks money out of their pockets to give to giant corporations and the richest one percent. As of January 5, according to the Rasmussen poll, 44 percent of likely voters approve of Trump's job performance, and a remarkable 29 percent strongly approve.

On my grade-school playground, only a handful of sycophants ran with Donald T., basking in the reflected light of his cruelty. But if a third of the kids had rallied around him, joined him in scapegoating, isolating and tormenting one child after another, modeled themselves after him, my sunny and happy elementary school would have become a dark and dangerous place.

I don't know about you, but I don't like where this train of thought is taking us.

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7/17/18--one place is has already taken us is the inexpressibly cruel separation of parents and children at the U.S border, apparently without any mechanism in place to re-unite them.

10/4/18--we saw another ugly glimpse of the sadism of Trump and many of his supporters in his taunting of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford at a rally in Mississippi. As Atlantic author Adam Serwer puts it, "the cruelty is the point."

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*** For a remarkable example of "the gleeful joy of bullying" check out this video of Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene harassing Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez:

https://twitter.com/i/status/1393208622054842368

or you can watch the whole premeditated sequence in this longer video. The most striking part starts at 10:30:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HK6XEqG3UgE

SYRIA, NICARAGUA AND US--CLIMATE-CHANGE BUDDIES

The company we keep

If Donald Trump follows through on his threats to take the United States out of the Paris Climate Accord, it will put the US in the same basket as just two other countries. On the issue of saving the world from anthropogenic climate disruption, we will stand shoulder to shoulder with Syria and Nicaragua versus 194 other nations--the rest of the world.

Syria is a fractured, war-torn country of 17 million people with a per-capita GDP somewhere between $2800 and $5000 per year, led by its dictatorial president, Bashar al-Assad. More than 6 million of its citizens have been internally displaced or have fled as refugees. Because of its ongoing civil war and international sanctions, Syria was "in no position" to commit to climate-related goals.

Bashar al-Assad

Credit: Wikipedia

Nicaragua is an equally impoverished country, one of the poorest in the Americas, whose 6 million citizens generate somewhere between $2200 and $5700 per year in GDP, and are led by dictatorial president Daniel Ortega. Due to instability, poverty and crime, it's also the source of thousands of refugees, most of whom flee south to Costa Rica. Ortega refused to sign the Paris Accord because he wanted it to be binding and enforceable.

Daniel Ortega

Credit: Wikipedia

And then there's us, and our president.

Donald Trump

Credit: Wikipedia

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"SHOCK AND AWE" COMES HOME--WHAT TO EXPECT AFTER JANUARY 20

I hope I'm wrong, but . . .

I've been re-reading Naomi Klein's 2007 book, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. In it, Klein details how for the last three decades powerful disciples of radical-free-market economist Milton Friedman have perfected the art of seizing on chaos, crises and disasters to implement their agendas of deregulation and free trade, privatization and the gutting of the social safety net while those who are impacted or might resist are still reeling and disorganized.

Klein opens the book with an enlightening story about Hurricane Katrina, which struck in August, 2005, killing more than 1200 people and wreaking more than $100 billion in property damage. Even while thousands of its victims were still struggling to survive, Friedman was urging his moneyed and powerful acolytes to seize the moment to advance one of their pet projects--privatizing education. The result was that most of New Orleans' public schools were never re-opened, thousands of teachers lost their jobs, their union and their legal protection, and the entire public education system of New Orleans was the victim of a quick and thorough takeover by voucherized charter schools. And that was only one of the many ways in which the catastrophe was turned into a fantastic profit opportunity for the few while the people of New Orleans were re-victimized.

Interestingly, Republicans are now using New Orleans as a poster child for school privatization nationwide.

Flooding from Hurricane Katrina--What a Great Opportunity!--Credit US Navy

Klein goes on to discuss many other instances of what she calls disaster capitalism, such as the murderous history of Chile under Pinochet; Russia under Yeltsin and Iraq after the 2003 "shock and awe" invasion by the United States under George Bush. Many of these forced transformations took place outside the U.S., but some, such as the surge of the surveillance state following 9/11, happened right here at home.

Shock and Awe: Operation Desert Storm/Credit ultradesktop.us

On January 20, 2017, all the pieces will be in place for a massive, multi-front assault on the entire public sphere. We will have a president who has a deep authoritarian streak, whose main motives seem to be self enrichment and self aggrandizement, and who has little or no respect for the rule of law; a cabinet filled with billionaire capitalists, a congress dominated by tea partiers and other conservatives drooling to demolish pretty much everything that's been implemented to help ordinary people since the New Deal, and a Supreme Court that will soon be dominated by the right.

How likely do you think is that this energized and empowered collection of conservatives will advance their programs in a studied, thoughtful way, for example consulting with stakeholders--that's all of us--considering implications and alternatives, and negotiating in good faith with the opposition?

It's much more likely--to my mind almost a certainty--that they will launch a simultaneous attack on every front with the most radical versions of their plans. Name an issue or program you care about--the environment, energy, climate change, healthcare, consumer protection, financial regulation, education, labor, immigration, civil rights, reproductive rights, LGBTQ rights, surveillance, torture, taxation, separation of church and state, freedom of speech, a free press, voting rights, gun control, Social Security, Medicare, Obamacare, Planned Parenthood, the EPA, NASA--and expect legislation, litigation or presidential fiat to slash it, gut it, kill it or push it as far to the right as can be imagined.

And not one issue or program at a time, but all at once and as soon as possible.

As I wrote in the days after the election:

. . . things appear normal. But in New York and Washington, angry, arrogant men and women are circling like wolves, salivating as their time draws near. For them, life is a zero-sum game that they have won. That makes the rest of us losers, and in their world losers deserve no more than scorn. Women and children, Muslims and Mexicans, journalists and Jews--and who knows who else--beware, because the knives are out.

The newly empowered threaten that undesirables will be registered and tracked, millions deported and the press whipped to heel. People will need to watch what they say. Torture-lovers will be re-empowered; drillers, extractors and polluters will run free, climate and environment be damned. Schools must be privatized. Obamacare must go, along with Medicare, Planned Parenthood and women's right to choose. Discrimination by Christians against the LGBTQ community or others will be legalized along with discrimination against Muslims. NASA will be ordered not to monitor the Earth, but the NSA will monitor us all. The rich will have their tax cuts and sooner or later the deficit hawks will have theirs. We know who will bleed; it will not be the billionaires.

Their goal is a simple one--use shock and awe to overwhelm and rout any resistance in order to radically reshape America. The means to do it are in their hands. And the people who will be in charge after January 20 are not the kind to use power with moderation.

I very much hope I'm wrong, but it sure looks like a deluge to me.

Storm Front Approaching / Credit Jonny Ross

Note (1/7/2017): I was wrong--thinking that the storm would hit after Trump's inauguration on January 20. Media Matters reports that Trump has scheduled his first press conference in months for January 11. His cohorts in the Senate, led by Mitch McConnell, have scheduled six confirmation hearings for the same day. A beautiful example of overloading the opposition, the press and the public. The Office of Federal Ethics points out that the early hearing date has overwhelmed their staff, leaving them with inadequate time for the necessary ethics reviews, made worse in that many of the nominees have not provided financial and other information.

Shock and awe has come home.

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For a similar, more detailed analysis of the coming "shock doctrine blitzkreig" by attorney and commentator Miles Mogulescu, click here.

And for an update on how the deluge has progressed in the first 10 days of Trump's reign, read this piece by William Rivers Pitt.

JUST SAYIN'

 Donald Trump, 2016
Credit CNN

Benito Mussolini, 1922
Credit AP

Adolph Hitler, 1924

Credit Library of Congress

TRUMP THROUGH THE EYES OF SOMEONE WHO LIVED WITH HIS CLONE

As a psychologist, it's obvious to me (and every colleague I've talked to) that Donald Trump suffers from a serious and dangerous personality disorder. However, there's nothing like first hand experience. So please read this piece by Helene Stohne telling us what it was like to live with (and survive) a sociopath, and what all of us are in for if Trump wins.

 Credit: Mike Licht/NotionsCapital.com

Remember, in this extremely close election, not voting or voting for a third-party candidate is actually a vote for Trump. This is especially true if you live in a swing or toss-up state, including Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin.

TRUMP KEEPING YOU UP AT NIGHT?

Don Hazen and Kali Holloway of AlterNet have published a thoughtful essay entitled "We Can't Elect a Psychopath President." In it they summarize the range of psychopathological traits that Trump displays, and the barrage of crazy-making maneuvers that he's inflicting on all of us. The piece is well worth reading--being able to recognize and label his crazy-making manipulations may help to minimize their impact.

Donald Trump, Phoenix, Arizona/Credit: Gage Skidmore

In the last few paragraphs of the essay, headed "Trump Anxiety," the authors highlight something that many of us may have been feeling without clearly identifying it. Psychotherapists, teachers and representatives of many minority communities report an upsurge in anxiety, fear, sleeplessness, depression and other signs of stress flowing from the threat of Trump ascending to the presidency. I, for one, have no problem relating to that.

I'll second the authors' heartfelt hope or plea: We can't elect a psychopath president.

Please vote!

HEADS I WIN, TAILS YOU LOSE--TRUMP'S VERSION OF DEMOCRACY

In keeping with Trump's incredible refusal during the third debate to commit to accepting the November 8 election results, check out this highly scientific poll on his website.

In case the "poll" is taken down, here's a screenshot:

Credit: Walter Einenkel

To end any "suspense," Donald Trump does not "get" democracy. 

Roy Cohn would be proud of Donald Trump

After viewing the second presidential debate, historian Lev Adler posted this commentary on the Daily Kos. He paints Trump as Roy Cohn's prize pupil, a master of the dark arts of demagoguery that Cohn honed as Joseph McCarthy's hit man during the infamous House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) witch hunts of the 1950s.

Donald Trump at a 2016 rally. Credit Wikipedia