He’s already using the language of narcissistic collapse, priming his cult followers to experience rage and act out revenge fantasies on his behalf in a clear call to stochastic terrorism...
Those of us who are anti-trump/white supremacy have seen through him all along. We are also confounded by Trump’s supporters who now sit in prison. And those who put Trump paraphernalia on their vehicles and deface the American flag by wearing it as a costume.
I agree with you 100% he should be taken from the public eye and placed in a secure place where he can’t threaten those who don’t agree with him. He is a known criminal and convicted sex offender. His passport should be revoked and no more pity rallies for him and his perceived victim hood. He is a poor excuse for a human being and he knows this, very painful to understand that about yourself. The thought of committing violence on his behalf is arousing to him and to his base. He is a very dangerous person to be allowed to move freely around our country.
Bravo Karen that you see through the Trump facade, and an excellent article Thom - you've portrayed both Trump & Hitler clearly for us to comprehend. I agree with Karen - let him run his "campaign" from inside a prison cell, if he's so set on 2024. He always projects his thoughts, so everything he's saying about weaponization actually is how he's thinking - he's the one who's grabbed hold of running for president as a last-ditch effort to save himself, to make himself great again. Sadly, he's weaponized the U.S. Congress through what - fear? I'm sure Jack Smith and Fanni Willis are consulting as we speak about how best to handle this felon; how to minimize the very real threat he poses to the security of the American people.
"People need to wake up. They can't hear God's voice if they're asleep."
--Vernon Cooper, LUMBEE
Black Elk, a Sioux, talks about the hoop of many hoops. He says that above the people is a hoop, a conscience, the total belief of the people. If the hoop is sick, meaning dysfunctional, co-dependent, a lot of alcoholism, family abuse, violence, racism and sexual abuse, the people can get used to this and think this is normal. In other words, the people are asleep. If we have left the spiritual way of life, the people are asleep. If we are giving our power to another entity, the people are asleep. In most tribes, there are Coyote Clans. The job of the Coyote Clan people is to wake the people up. They need to become a nuisance and irritate the people. We must return to the spiritual walk.
Oh Great Spirit, keep me awake today. Let me hear the voices of our ancestors...let me hear the voices of the Grandfathers. Because everybody is doing it doesn't make things right. Let me hear the truth today and become a coyote for the people. Give me the courage to be willing to be different. Let me walk straight on the Red Road.
Beautifully written! Seems that it reflects the original meaning of being woke from generations past not how the radical, racist, homophobic right use it now.
Many years ago, I too was a victim two violent attacks from someone I dated, a classic malignant narcissist. So not only did I identify with this post, its psychological description of Donald Trump is both logical and chilling. Thank you for another enlightening post.
The problem is Fox "News." If Fox spouted the same garbage, but with a liberal bias, the Republicans would have found a way to shut it down decades ago. Until we figure out how to get a handle on disinformation in a way that still honors the first amendment, we will continue our "Narcissistic Collapse." There is something deeply wrong (even evil) about Rupert Murdock and now his heirs. If we can't find a way handle this one man and his destructive empire, we are doomed.
Wow, You just stirred a thought. Hitler, Putin, Trump, Netanyahoo, Orban, XI all share one dangerous thing narcissimus extremus. Apparently nations can have it as well. When the culture of a nation reaches 30%, it becomes dominant because the other 70% is somnolent, preoccupied or non caring. Given that then America is narcissistic.
Enthralled by our own success, at the cost of the lives and liberty of the natives, imported slaves, and immigrants like the Irish, Italians and Jews who were treated as non white, until they lost their accents and native dress. Then the nativists could no longer pick them out of a crowd.
One thing Suzie. It isn't just Fox, t is the whole corporate media. CNN CBS,NBC, ABC, and local channels gave Trump millions of free air time. CNN, MSNBC held the camera on an empty podium for 20 minutes until Trump arrived.Remember Les Moonves, Chuckled when he told his Board that Trump was bad for America, but great for CBS, and now CNN has given up all pretense, and has made it self Fox Lite in the hope of attracting some of Fox's viewership.
"It isn't just Fox, it is the whole corporate media. CNN CBS,NBC, ABC, and local channels gave Trump millions of free air time." I was about to write this same thing and you saved me the trouble. I agree 100%. Even now, they are rushing to set microphones in front of his lying mouth, helping him to spew more invective and falsehoods to rile our country. This is totally irresponsible and a prostitution of any values the networks have in exchange for ad money.
Thom wrote another great post today, his analogies are spot on and his recommendation of Downfall (Original German Title: Der Untergang) is completely appropriate. It is not only because the atmosphere of a spiraling, maniacally deluded and abusive Hitler in a bunker tracks as an apt comparison. The nuanced, convincing and mesmerizing performance of the late Bruno Ganz as Hitler is spellbinding. After awhile, you'll be hard-pressed to believe they didn't dig up and reanimate the real one just for the film.
Talking of Hitler, you just jogged my memory. When I was 13 I had just left Big Brothers in South Phillie. I lived in North Phillie and it took a trolley and subway to get me downtown and then walk to Big Brothers,
Anyway as I walked by an alley, I noticed a pile of stuff at the end, still smoking. So went to investigate, a book store had burned down, and the pile was books, looking through it (this was 1952, the war had been over 7 years. The book was The Strange Death of Adolph Hitler, the front piece was a copy of an official document, with German, NAZI seals and everything, and a translation, certifying the story within.
The Strange Death of Adolf Hitler is an anonymously written 1939 book which claims that Adolf Hitler died in 1938 and was subsequently impersonated by . doubles... He was murdered because of his embarrassing affair with his niece. Geli Rabaul, she was murdered in 1931, because of her infatuation with Hitler and he declaring that she was the only woman he ever loved, he even made a shrine for her. IIRC his devotion to Geli had him judged unfit to lead the party and nation.
I loaned he book to a neighbor and the bitch never returned it, years later I found a copy via Abe Books, however it was not a first edition and did not have the original face plate which was certification of the document. The edition I have has the English Translation, but not the original document. It is stored in my garage along with hundreds of other books. I have not and probably never fully unpack since my last move.
Remembering that and out of curiosity. I've looked up various photos of Hitler, from his days as a student in Vienna, to WWI when he was a communications runner, to Nuremberg, and episodes of his life to the fall of Berlin, when he was a crippled old man patting pubescent Hitler youth on the head.
The reason. Ears are like fingerprints and no two are alike, and neither are the photos of Hitler.
It isn't him, which makes me question, who was really running the NAZI party and Germany.
My suspicion is the same people that financed him, Germany's military industrial complex, they had a lot of money to make by re arming Germany, and occupying neighbors who had natural resources they didn't have.
If that is so, the real culprits behind Germany's war crimes and the holocaust were never really punished, besides a handful that spent some time in prison., some that were hanged and there are 8 who got off easy, and after release became head of the corporations that they managed during the war, and mind boggling Frederick Flick Head of Flick KG, Friedrich Flick was sentenced to 7 years (including time served) for war crimes and crimes against humanity, including enslavement of civilians in occupied territories and concentration camps, and the plundering and seizure of industrial plants.
After his release Flick became the richest person in West Germany during the Cold War and largest shareholder of Daimler-Benz.
2. Fritz ter Meer
In 1948, board member of chemical conglomerate IG Farben Fritz ter Meer was sentenced to 7 years imprisonment for looting and enslavement at Auschwitz. He was released in 1950 and became chairman of Bayer AG (formerly part of IG Farben) in 1956.
I hope that this comment is not perceived as an attempt to rehabilitate Hitler, his rant in Mein Kampf, (another book , like the Wealth of Nations, The Theory of Moral Sentiment and Das Kapital that people who never read it (almost impossible to read), like to bloviate about)
tells people loud and clear what his intentions are, and it doesn't take much to read between the lines. His rants about Jews and Slavs raises the hair on your neck.
I like Hannah Ahrendts analysis that an authoritarian tells you their intentions, by first attributing their own intentions to those they intend to persecute and eliminate.
But the nature of the garbage, aka the message, matters. The essential message is that white America -- YOUR America -- is under threat. This has been a big motivator on the white right since the rise of the civil rights movement, the passage of the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts, and Nixon's embrace of the "Southern Strategy." The GOP was clever enough to bring in the "traditional family values" ground troops and the billionaires and multi-millionaires who were lying in wait for an opportunity to dismantle the welfare state (a state dedicated to equal opportunity and a living wage for all).
Fox, the GOP, and others tapped into that and hit a gusher. And the Democratic Party was largely asleep at the wheel, and some of them still haven't woken up.
The Democratic Party is awake, but they can't do anything to upset their donors. Our government is for sale and any politician not somehow on the take will not get elected. Sad, but depressingly true. This is the Federalist Society's dream and the corrupt (Alito, Roberts and of course, Thomas) SCOTUS's number job - protect the wealthy and their property at all costs, shovel money upwards, and ignore the "little people."
Maybe where you are the Dem Party is awake, but I've just been in a meeting of activists who are trying to come up with ways to wake our state party (MA) up or give it a transfusion. Some divide the Dems into "corporate Dems" and "progressive Dems" -- I think it's more complicated than that, but for plenty of elected Dems schmoozing with donors is part of the attraction.
Well damn. You made me open that dark closet of my mind that I manage to keep shut for days at a time, while soothing myself that the evil energy is diminishing, not gathering force. Every instinct I have tells me there is no choice but to face this thing, stand against it with calm & resolve, prepare for the worst while searching for signs of hope. Try not to over react as irrational forces explode all around us. Trust and help preserve the justice system we have - that it may one day be fortified & sharpened by this present madness. Hang together as a unified Coalition of the Sane with one purpose: preserving the democracy we have so we can get past this trouble and make the democracy we want.
I find this article frightening yet very helpful in mentally preparing for the near future. Thank you, Thom.
Rudolph Hess, the nazi war criminal, was held in Spandau prison in Germany as the only prisoner for 20 years until he died. There were 6 other nazi war criminals who were incarcerated along with Hess and had died, leaving Hess as the only prisoner for the last 20 years of his life. That is what needs to happen to trump when he is convicted and sentenced to prison. A decommissioned prison, or a building that is able to house the secret service agents who will double as "guards" . He should not have access to the internet, his phone, or anything else that allows him access to the outside world to continue to stir up even more trouble.
I think we face more of a journalistic collapse leading to a tribalism that precludes critical thinking than the narcissistic collapse you cite. Although there is something to that Thom, what with pundits and performative politicians seeking attention at all costs, even to the point of embracing a moral and spiritual collapse to prop up corrupted leaders in order to satisfy the echo chamber in the interest of maintaining sponsorships and revenue.
You bring up a very interesting point, Barry. There IS widespread journalistic collapse. One reason is the the internet has completely disrupted print media and proliferated the growth of right-wing disinformation/propaganda sites, paid for (with anonymous money, mostly) by wealthy oligarchs. Another reason is the consolidation of media into the same wealthy oligarch hands - a symptom of unregulated end-stage capitalism. None of this was by accident and went into overdrive when Reagan dismantled the Fairness Doctrine. Either the forces of progressivism deal with the propaganda or the right-wing will simply nullify the first amendment when they get the power to do so. Why don't the Democrats in the administration re-introduce a Fairness Doctrine?
Yes. You’ve made a point I’ve been thinking about recently. Just as we now have several categories of corporate monopolies/oligarchies as a result of our now 40+ years of federal and state policies supporting big business at all costs, what many folks don’t seem to realize is the same thing has happened with our news organizations. They have been consolidated into just a few news corporations with just a few owners and have become what is essentially news monopolies/oligarchies. That combined with the loss of traditional ways of making money from printed and televised news transitioning into the only news that puts money in the bank are the pieces that generate the most clicks, it has created a misinformation and disinformation mecca with almost no room for true, accurate, non-biased news. Fox News is likely one of the most egregious examples but a person doesn’t have to look very hard to find similar examples in more “reputable” news organizations like CNN, PBS, The New York Times, etc.
The worse destruction is from the "reputable" news organizations with their "both-sides-ism" reporting. They basically let the right-wing lies go unchallenged as just "other opinions" when it is mostly outright lies. They rarely call their interviewees on these lies (with a few exceptions.). Mostly they lob softball questions anyway. They present Q-conspiracies with, "OK, that's a valid viewpoint, when it is sheer insanity."
I agree. At least with Fox News I expect what comes from them to be BS. But CNN, PBS, New York Times, I expect better from them, but sadly more and more, I’m as disgusted by them as I am by Fox News.
NYT has a news room editor and an opinion editor. The News room was once populated by real journalists, but now has an editor who has one ear tuned to the corporate owners, the Opinion editor is pure corporate and right wing.
Two studies, one by Politifact and one by University of Minnesota, found that Fox News lies about 55% of the time to varying degrees, while MSNBC does so 35% of the time. Both of these sources will criticize the other political party, but rarely if eer will they look in the mirror.
Very good. But here is something that the average citizen doesn't know, unless they have an MBA or the curiosity and energy to investigate.
Back in he 1980's there was a book, only found in libraries,especially Universities named Who owns the Banks. They stopped publishing the book, but continued publishing Who owns who.
It boils down to this. A corporation is managed by a CEO, CFO, COO, all of which are appointed by the Board of Directors. Corporations have only one purpose, according to the Supreme Court, and that is, as my Econ 101 professor, a Friedmanite and purveyor of intellectual born, the Free Man, published by the Koch financed FEE or Foundation for Economic Education, said, "The only social responsibility a corporation has is to make a profit. I believe that it was Justice Lewis Powell that made that statement as part of his ruling.
The members of this boards, make huge sums, sitting on boards of the companies that own shares of the company on whose board they sit. In other words an oligarchy of mutually dependent corporations who have representatives sitting on other boards. An interlocking boards of directors.
There is one institution that is soley owned by one purpose and that is David Koch, who owns practically everything tha you use in your household, from cardboard boxes, and paper towels, to fuel, fertilizer and even chemicals used to make their products.
Daddy Fred Koch made his wealth, bu building oil wells and refineries for Stalin.
He also picked up his libertarianism from Stalin. To wit article 12 of the 1936 Soviet Constitution which reads "work is a duty and a matter of honour for every able-bodied citizen, in accordance with the principle: "He who does not work, neither shall he eat." The principle applied in the U.S.S.R. is that of socialism : "From each according to his ability, to each according to his work.""
Translated, if you don't work you don't eat., he also picked up the Soviet idea of a 100% gold standard. Which in itself is a cause of perpetual depression and starvation.
Because the Soviets rightfully claim that they were orthodox Marxists, And Marx was not a ssocialist, he was a proto libertarian, an advocate of free trade, and exploitation of workers via the market for labor.
Dickensian Britain had a maximum wage, not a minimum wage, which left the worker in perpetual poverty, and struggling to just eat and put a roof over their heads. This stymied the mobility of labor, and kept them captive to their employer as sure as chains on their ankles, which deprived his partner, Frederick Engels, of employees for his textile mill.
As an additional response to your comment, a few months ago, I read Timothy Snyder’s Bloodlands. It described in great detail the results of “If you don’t work, you don’t eat.” policies. I had to read it in small doses because it’s so upsetting. We now have a large percentage of our citizens here in the US, who think this type of policy is where our future should be. It scares the bejeebers out of me.
And interestingly, perhaps ironically, definitely alarmingly, the, “The only social responsibility a corporation has is to make a profit.” position, when coupled with the SCOTUS decision “corporations are people” from Citizens United, coupled with the SCOTUS gutting of the Voting Rights act, means that not only do these big corporations have an overwhelming influence because of their bank accounts outside of our laws and governmental policies, now their money also carries the most weight in our elections. If a “normal” citizen doesn’t have money or isn’t an owner of a corporation, they cannot compete, and therefore, having any impact on our Representatives and Senators is an uphill battle. It makes a person wonder if there is any meaning to “One person, one vote” anymore. I still have some hope and some optimism that we can hold things together and not lose our democracy. But I worry if the Republicans win in 2024, even if it’s not Trump, our democracy may be gone with virtually no way to get it back.
I agree, and it scares the sh... out of me. I am not optimistic at all. I am hopeful though, but is it a forlorn hope. I hope not.
The problem with money is speech, is that no one on the left side of the divide, especially in the media has mentioned that if money is speech, then corporations and the plutocrats have unlimited speech, they have trillions of voices, while we have only one voice
Exactly. My optimism waxes and wanes depending on the day. But even on good days it isn’t very high. However, I also know that resignation is exactly what the GOP and MAGA folks are trying to achieve. If they can get me to stay home on election day they’ve won. I refuse to let them, even if I worry that my vote doesn’t really matter much anymore.
'...If a “normal” citizen doesn’t have money or isn’t an owner of a corporation, they cannot compete, and therefore, having any impact on our Representatives and Senators is an uphill battle...."
Nor can they access the "justice" system in any logical or consistent way.
Agreed. You also had Bill Clinton and the Telecommunications Act of 1996 which enabled the consolidation of media which merged news and entertainment departments. Unfortunately, Thom Hartmann is now a propagandist for the imperialism and negligence of the Democratic Party, and journalists are roundly condemned and persecuted by Democrats. Barack Obama prosecuted a record number of "whistleblowers" (investigative journalists), and Matt Taibi was roundly humiliated by Democrats for telling the truth about elements of the Ukraine war that liberals do not want to acknowledge. Investigative journalism was the progressive movement which now is a shadow of its former self, with "progressive" talk radio becoming merely an extension of Democratic Party bullet points.
Most of that is untrue, or at best only partially true. I've seen Thom take on Democratic policies. If you read his essays long enough, you will see it too. Those people Obama prosecuted had, in almost all cases (I could find no exceptions,) illegally released classified, national security information - among them Manning, Snowden, Drake (former senior executive at NSA), Jin Woo Kim (released nuclear information to reporter), and James Hitselberger an Arabic linguist who released classified information (and his terrible "punishment" was a $250 fine.) These are NOT "whistleblowers." They were prosecuted for their crimes, which put US service people and other government personnel at risk. Personally, individuals might not like the secrecy, but they signed contracts (their security clearance paperwork) that they would keep those secrets. Nowhere do they legally have the right to make their own decisions about these things. They were, in almost every case, trained yearly on the consequences. I know, I've had a clearance most of my life - retired now; don't need it, but probably still on the books.
You may think it is fine to release classified national defense information willy-nilly to sources that will publicly release it, but I don't. Might be my years in the military, both officer and enlisted, and then my 30 career in defense. I wish we didn't have to keep such secrets, but newsflash! We have enemies in the world who will use them to our disadvantage.
SCOTUS has ensured that both parties must be in the pockets of the same wealthy/stealthy donors to have a chance at office. Sadly, we are a two party system. You can support Republicans or Democrats (or continually losing third parties.) I support Democrats because they support equality for all; not because I think their foreign policy is that much different than the Republicans.
Yes, Bill Clinton did damage with the Telecommunications Act. And he militarized the police across the nation, primarily because those at the top always need "guns" and the military hated Clinton. I am not blind to Democratic misbehaviors. It's become a lesser of two evils and only a revolution will sort it out, with likely a hundred years of misery as it all unfolds.
Finally something we agree on. However as I pointed out narcissism is not limited to people, societies and groups fall into narcissism as well, hence conflict, civil war, persecution of groups, persecution of the other.
Critical thinking is not something that is killed or suppressed by tribalism. It is a matter of native intelligence, and how you were raised. If raised to believe that you are part of a group, that is superior and/or persecuted, There is no chance to develop critical thinking skills, the group identity subsumes everything, like the MAGAts, I will say that over 90% were raised as true believing Christians, who believe that man was superior (that's when the Old and New Testament says, and the Charlatans who use their god as a sock puppet, to maintains and advance their own social position, income, status, use the pulpit or podium to instill fear in their captive minds of the threat of the other.
However this victim virus is not confined to a religion,it permeates the world. Hence the violent outrage among Muslims when a Quran is burned. You don't see such things, among Christians and Jews, they have their own hot buttons that can be pushed.
I don' think there is any question that Trump in his Narcissistic Collapse will try to take out anyone who opposed him , or who he believes opposed him.
He is truly losing his grip made more pronounced by adderral addiction.
Every thing Trump has done that is destructive , he will ‘up the ante on ‘at least verbally . But his most fervent followers will also be melting down .
Adderall is not his only addiction, aspartame is one, he must drink a 24 pack or more of Diet Coke, a day. All Diet Drinks, the one word Diet, seems to be trademarked for Drinks that contain aspartame, is cancer causing, addictive and actually causes diabetes and weight gain.
When you drink anything with aspartame, the sweet taste trigger your pancreas to release insulin. The insulin then attacks your glucose, you become Hypoglycaemia,, and you crave sweets. It is nothing to see a person in the supermarket with a case or two of Diet Coke or Pepsi, on top of which are a couple of cases of Twinkies or some other sugary laden snck
Why he isn't dead already from diabetes and cancer can only be attributable to his private physician , most certainly he has the best health care money can buy. He also would have died of COVID19, had not he been treated in Walter Reed and given an experimental drug, al the while pushing Hydroxychloroquine
Mofo used medical science to save his life, but condemned his cult to death (not enough though)
Our system of governing has been corrupted so thoroughly by our politicians on both sides of the politics that we cannot have justice for wrong doing as they all over the last 40/50 years have closets full of corruption so they can't name the wrong doers now.......I am so sick of "the wheels of justice turns slowly"!!!! Criminals run free even after convicted. Why is Bannon still free after conviction? Why is Julian Assange(ms) still in prison deteriorating in confinement and no one in our government is willing to set him free for telling the truth. "it never can happen here" has been torn to shreds.
I agree on Assange. His persecution by Democrats, like Hillary, and Republicans only show the duplicity and hypocrisy.
I am old enough to remember how "liberals", lauded Assange and Snowden, for exposing the American version of the GESTAPO or KGB, with the National Security state, created by the PATRIOT act. Big hero;s then, but instant enemies because Assange released Hillary's emails, then the liberal knives came out.
The ignored the fact that Assange was simply exposing Hillary, who had made a career out of trying to extradite and punish Assange. You see she too, by default is a member of the national security state..
It is easy and satisfying to diss he fascism of the Republicans. but not so easy to diss Democrats when they demonstrate the same.
I don't want to help the Republicans, but I do want the Democrats to police themselves, reform, to stop caving to the Republicans and the corporations. Lots of luck with that, they need every penny that their money bosses dispense/. And liberals to stop being hypocrites.
A person without principles, including organizations, that won't stand for principles will kneel for anything, willingly or by force.
The narcissists support the institutions that have failed them. Capitalism (unlimited greed), religion and the family unit. They have supported their own demise. Now, they want to blame it on those who opposed unlimited greed, religions that rely on faith not facts, and the broken family unit where mental illness grows faster then a weed does after a rain. Instead of fixing the institutions, they fantasize about exterminating all of the people that do not meet their expectations. That way, they won't be proven to be losers. That is how a loser becomes a winner, in a narcissists mind. The narcissist mind, is so closed and self-centered, it can't be rehabilitated. What are we going to do with all these narcissists if Trump goes to jail? What are we going to do with all these narcissists if Trump does not go to jail? You just can't live in peace around a narcissist. They can turn on you at any moment. Americans need to keep the narcissist away from running the military and police forces.
Not being proven to be a loser is so key with re: a narcissist on the personal level, but I think can be seen as a larger context for the backlash against truth in history. It's only relatively recently that there's really accumulated a serious dismantling of the jingoistic fairy tale of European "manifest destiny" "taming" a (somewhat) vacant wilderness and bringing "civilization" to the sub-human prior inhabitants. (And to the "benefit" of African slaves, of course!) Now we're getting a major "shot across the bow" of the still-so-recent re-imagining of females as full citizens and humans! I guess there's a sort of critical mass of what can be seen as attacks on the white male identity and privilege that has been cruising along on such a towering scaffold of fiction that really is falling apart all at once. (Never mind the man behind the curtain!) I also don't know of any limit on how far the narcissist component will go in denial and resistance.
I couldn't resist sharing this "king" of narcissist clips of T.: in the context of a series of "takes" re: T. and evangelicals, Willie Geist interview with Dr. Russell Moore, (author) MSNBC "Morning Joe" 7-25-23: "Why do I have to ask for forgiveness if you're (sic) not making mistakes?" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYLQ_Ok1kWw Of course, there was the "I am the Chosen One." moment. It is fantastic that self-identified godly/bible people swallow this stunning blasphemy. My god, to coin a phrase......
Brilliant article, Thom. How often I, as a proponent of non- violence, have been taunted with,” Well, what would you have done about Hitler?” My reply has often been,” Hitler would have and could have been stopped earlier in his rise to power if people had acted on foresight.”
Your brilliant public recognition and discussion of the mental disease of one who seeks to lead our country by winning elections-as-popularity-contests( and in Trumps case, via an effort backed by actual geopolitical enemies waging war to destroy our country by this means)is key to stopping Trump. Since people are reluctant to point the finger at some and say “ You’re mentally ill”- especially when that person appears rich and successful, so people depend on the persons continued success- it is the law that is our only defense here. And of course the GOP, fueled by historic racism in its belief that only white men can rule our country and keep it intact, is going after the courts.
The solution, it does seem to me, must include a recognition of Trump’s personal mental sickness.(sudden thought: will he resort to an Insanity Defense?) A good leader could help summon the narcissistic followers to better goals. Though such a leader would have to survive the war plans of monied interests arrayed to smear them. As long as our country, our world & our inner compulsions as humans driven by survival-guilt-and-terror, demand more and more material wealth as personal protection against both inner and outer collapse, justice-oriented nonviolent activists will have to work hard and long and creatively (with scarcer resources and more crises) to fulfill the promise we inherited of self- government and equal value for all humans. And, it becomes increasingly clear, for all life on earth- but that’ll take a while too!! But it’s our task- our dues for life on earth.
My worst funeral attended EVER---the wife was leaving, the husband/father killed her and himself, and their daughter, with her 4 year old in tow, found them. He knew she would, because she just left to get and return with their grandchild . The daughter also got to decide the "arrangements". The wife's parents and siblings had to sit through a funeral for THEIR daughter/sister with the murderer on full display. That pastor had nothing; God is not in something like this.
You cannot walk through this life without some of these sick, sorry people turning your world up-side down. Work, home, school---we all have to deal with them. From what I have read, the only solution is to avoid contact whenever possible. I think that translates into not going out of your way to confront one of the cult members, no matter how much your middle finger is itching.
A sober response from us to convictions and jail-time for Trump would be best, but you know that's probably unlikely in the event it happens. Always be careful. Keep your game-face on. .
What a frightening and interesting time to be alive!!!
A synchronicity is in the works - the Lincoln Project released another of their short videos, and this one features Republicans admiring Hitler's quotes and behavior: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xai5yE4rr-c
I am finally feeling empowered and hopeful. I agree-incarcerate him for well documented crimes as soon as possible. We as a nation must not be victimized by this psychopathic narcissist and his grasping followers. We are so much better, so much stronger than this. This is the strongest and longest lasting democracy in the entire history of human kind. Of the people by the people and for the people! We Shall Overcome!!!
Thom - I thoroughly enjoy your newsletter and your thinking. I think that you are quite correct about Trump. A book that I would recommend to you is "People of the Lie: The Hope for Healing Human Evil" by M. Scott Peck. Dr. Peck, a psychiatrist, is no longer with us. But, his work has stood the test of time. He defines evil as "lazy narcissism." His book, in my view, describes Trump exactly. You might find Peck's discussion of exorcisms quite illuminating. I did. The "it" of evil, according to Peck, is centered on destruction. If you look at Trump and his behavior it is all about destruction, hate, grandiosity, and violence. He must be locked up. He will never change his behavior. Bill Schneider [bill@cdg-corp.com]
Those of us who are anti-trump/white supremacy have seen through him all along. We are also confounded by Trump’s supporters who now sit in prison. And those who put Trump paraphernalia on their vehicles and deface the American flag by wearing it as a costume.
I agree with you 100% he should be taken from the public eye and placed in a secure place where he can’t threaten those who don’t agree with him. He is a known criminal and convicted sex offender. His passport should be revoked and no more pity rallies for him and his perceived victim hood. He is a poor excuse for a human being and he knows this, very painful to understand that about yourself. The thought of committing violence on his behalf is arousing to him and to his base. He is a very dangerous person to be allowed to move freely around our country.
Bravo Karen that you see through the Trump facade, and an excellent article Thom - you've portrayed both Trump & Hitler clearly for us to comprehend. I agree with Karen - let him run his "campaign" from inside a prison cell, if he's so set on 2024. He always projects his thoughts, so everything he's saying about weaponization actually is how he's thinking - he's the one who's grabbed hold of running for president as a last-ditch effort to save himself, to make himself great again. Sadly, he's weaponized the U.S. Congress through what - fear? I'm sure Jack Smith and Fanni Willis are consulting as we speak about how best to handle this felon; how to minimize the very real threat he poses to the security of the American people.
Native American
"People need to wake up. They can't hear God's voice if they're asleep."
--Vernon Cooper, LUMBEE
Black Elk, a Sioux, talks about the hoop of many hoops. He says that above the people is a hoop, a conscience, the total belief of the people. If the hoop is sick, meaning dysfunctional, co-dependent, a lot of alcoholism, family abuse, violence, racism and sexual abuse, the people can get used to this and think this is normal. In other words, the people are asleep. If we have left the spiritual way of life, the people are asleep. If we are giving our power to another entity, the people are asleep. In most tribes, there are Coyote Clans. The job of the Coyote Clan people is to wake the people up. They need to become a nuisance and irritate the people. We must return to the spiritual walk.
Oh Great Spirit, keep me awake today. Let me hear the voices of our ancestors...let me hear the voices of the Grandfathers. Because everybody is doing it doesn't make things right. Let me hear the truth today and become a coyote for the people. Give me the courage to be willing to be different. Let me walk straight on the Red Road.
Beautifully written! Seems that it reflects the original meaning of being woke from generations past not how the radical, racist, homophobic right use it now.
I didn't write this; it's from a daily reading I receive. At this point, I will share it in hopes that we will listen to the Ancients; be a Coyote!
Many years ago, I too was a victim two violent attacks from someone I dated, a classic malignant narcissist. So not only did I identify with this post, its psychological description of Donald Trump is both logical and chilling. Thank you for another enlightening post.
Thank you, Thom, for another great essay!
The problem is Fox "News." If Fox spouted the same garbage, but with a liberal bias, the Republicans would have found a way to shut it down decades ago. Until we figure out how to get a handle on disinformation in a way that still honors the first amendment, we will continue our "Narcissistic Collapse." There is something deeply wrong (even evil) about Rupert Murdock and now his heirs. If we can't find a way handle this one man and his destructive empire, we are doomed.
Wow, You just stirred a thought. Hitler, Putin, Trump, Netanyahoo, Orban, XI all share one dangerous thing narcissimus extremus. Apparently nations can have it as well. When the culture of a nation reaches 30%, it becomes dominant because the other 70% is somnolent, preoccupied or non caring. Given that then America is narcissistic.
Enthralled by our own success, at the cost of the lives and liberty of the natives, imported slaves, and immigrants like the Irish, Italians and Jews who were treated as non white, until they lost their accents and native dress. Then the nativists could no longer pick them out of a crowd.
One thing Suzie. It isn't just Fox, t is the whole corporate media. CNN CBS,NBC, ABC, and local channels gave Trump millions of free air time. CNN, MSNBC held the camera on an empty podium for 20 minutes until Trump arrived.Remember Les Moonves, Chuckled when he told his Board that Trump was bad for America, but great for CBS, and now CNN has given up all pretense, and has made it self Fox Lite in the hope of attracting some of Fox's viewership.
"It isn't just Fox, it is the whole corporate media. CNN CBS,NBC, ABC, and local channels gave Trump millions of free air time." I was about to write this same thing and you saved me the trouble. I agree 100%. Even now, they are rushing to set microphones in front of his lying mouth, helping him to spew more invective and falsehoods to rile our country. This is totally irresponsible and a prostitution of any values the networks have in exchange for ad money.
Thom wrote another great post today, his analogies are spot on and his recommendation of Downfall (Original German Title: Der Untergang) is completely appropriate. It is not only because the atmosphere of a spiraling, maniacally deluded and abusive Hitler in a bunker tracks as an apt comparison. The nuanced, convincing and mesmerizing performance of the late Bruno Ganz as Hitler is spellbinding. After awhile, you'll be hard-pressed to believe they didn't dig up and reanimate the real one just for the film.
Talking of Hitler, you just jogged my memory. When I was 13 I had just left Big Brothers in South Phillie. I lived in North Phillie and it took a trolley and subway to get me downtown and then walk to Big Brothers,
Anyway as I walked by an alley, I noticed a pile of stuff at the end, still smoking. So went to investigate, a book store had burned down, and the pile was books, looking through it (this was 1952, the war had been over 7 years. The book was The Strange Death of Adolph Hitler, the front piece was a copy of an official document, with German, NAZI seals and everything, and a translation, certifying the story within.
The Strange Death of Adolf Hitler is an anonymously written 1939 book which claims that Adolf Hitler died in 1938 and was subsequently impersonated by . doubles... He was murdered because of his embarrassing affair with his niece. Geli Rabaul, she was murdered in 1931, because of her infatuation with Hitler and he declaring that she was the only woman he ever loved, he even made a shrine for her. IIRC his devotion to Geli had him judged unfit to lead the party and nation.
I loaned he book to a neighbor and the bitch never returned it, years later I found a copy via Abe Books, however it was not a first edition and did not have the original face plate which was certification of the document. The edition I have has the English Translation, but not the original document. It is stored in my garage along with hundreds of other books. I have not and probably never fully unpack since my last move.
Remembering that and out of curiosity. I've looked up various photos of Hitler, from his days as a student in Vienna, to WWI when he was a communications runner, to Nuremberg, and episodes of his life to the fall of Berlin, when he was a crippled old man patting pubescent Hitler youth on the head.
The reason. Ears are like fingerprints and no two are alike, and neither are the photos of Hitler.
It isn't him, which makes me question, who was really running the NAZI party and Germany.
My suspicion is the same people that financed him, Germany's military industrial complex, they had a lot of money to make by re arming Germany, and occupying neighbors who had natural resources they didn't have.
If that is so, the real culprits behind Germany's war crimes and the holocaust were never really punished, besides a handful that spent some time in prison., some that were hanged and there are 8 who got off easy, and after release became head of the corporations that they managed during the war, and mind boggling Frederick Flick Head of Flick KG, Friedrich Flick was sentenced to 7 years (including time served) for war crimes and crimes against humanity, including enslavement of civilians in occupied territories and concentration camps, and the plundering and seizure of industrial plants.
After his release Flick became the richest person in West Germany during the Cold War and largest shareholder of Daimler-Benz.
2. Fritz ter Meer
In 1948, board member of chemical conglomerate IG Farben Fritz ter Meer was sentenced to 7 years imprisonment for looting and enslavement at Auschwitz. He was released in 1950 and became chairman of Bayer AG (formerly part of IG Farben) in 1956.
https://www.historyhit.com/convicted-nazi-war-criminals-who-got-off-easy/
I hope that this comment is not perceived as an attempt to rehabilitate Hitler, his rant in Mein Kampf, (another book , like the Wealth of Nations, The Theory of Moral Sentiment and Das Kapital that people who never read it (almost impossible to read), like to bloviate about)
tells people loud and clear what his intentions are, and it doesn't take much to read between the lines. His rants about Jews and Slavs raises the hair on your neck.
I like Hannah Ahrendts analysis that an authoritarian tells you their intentions, by first attributing their own intentions to those they intend to persecute and eliminate.
But the nature of the garbage, aka the message, matters. The essential message is that white America -- YOUR America -- is under threat. This has been a big motivator on the white right since the rise of the civil rights movement, the passage of the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts, and Nixon's embrace of the "Southern Strategy." The GOP was clever enough to bring in the "traditional family values" ground troops and the billionaires and multi-millionaires who were lying in wait for an opportunity to dismantle the welfare state (a state dedicated to equal opportunity and a living wage for all).
Fox, the GOP, and others tapped into that and hit a gusher. And the Democratic Party was largely asleep at the wheel, and some of them still haven't woken up.
The Democratic Party is awake, but they can't do anything to upset their donors. Our government is for sale and any politician not somehow on the take will not get elected. Sad, but depressingly true. This is the Federalist Society's dream and the corrupt (Alito, Roberts and of course, Thomas) SCOTUS's number job - protect the wealthy and their property at all costs, shovel money upwards, and ignore the "little people."
Maybe where you are the Dem Party is awake, but I've just been in a meeting of activists who are trying to come up with ways to wake our state party (MA) up or give it a transfusion. Some divide the Dems into "corporate Dems" and "progressive Dems" -- I think it's more complicated than that, but for plenty of elected Dems schmoozing with donors is part of the attraction.
Well damn. You made me open that dark closet of my mind that I manage to keep shut for days at a time, while soothing myself that the evil energy is diminishing, not gathering force. Every instinct I have tells me there is no choice but to face this thing, stand against it with calm & resolve, prepare for the worst while searching for signs of hope. Try not to over react as irrational forces explode all around us. Trust and help preserve the justice system we have - that it may one day be fortified & sharpened by this present madness. Hang together as a unified Coalition of the Sane with one purpose: preserving the democracy we have so we can get past this trouble and make the democracy we want.
I find this article frightening yet very helpful in mentally preparing for the near future. Thank you, Thom.
Rudolph Hess, the nazi war criminal, was held in Spandau prison in Germany as the only prisoner for 20 years until he died. There were 6 other nazi war criminals who were incarcerated along with Hess and had died, leaving Hess as the only prisoner for the last 20 years of his life. That is what needs to happen to trump when he is convicted and sentenced to prison. A decommissioned prison, or a building that is able to house the secret service agents who will double as "guards" . He should not have access to the internet, his phone, or anything else that allows him access to the outside world to continue to stir up even more trouble.
I think we face more of a journalistic collapse leading to a tribalism that precludes critical thinking than the narcissistic collapse you cite. Although there is something to that Thom, what with pundits and performative politicians seeking attention at all costs, even to the point of embracing a moral and spiritual collapse to prop up corrupted leaders in order to satisfy the echo chamber in the interest of maintaining sponsorships and revenue.
You bring up a very interesting point, Barry. There IS widespread journalistic collapse. One reason is the the internet has completely disrupted print media and proliferated the growth of right-wing disinformation/propaganda sites, paid for (with anonymous money, mostly) by wealthy oligarchs. Another reason is the consolidation of media into the same wealthy oligarch hands - a symptom of unregulated end-stage capitalism. None of this was by accident and went into overdrive when Reagan dismantled the Fairness Doctrine. Either the forces of progressivism deal with the propaganda or the right-wing will simply nullify the first amendment when they get the power to do so. Why don't the Democrats in the administration re-introduce a Fairness Doctrine?
Yes. You’ve made a point I’ve been thinking about recently. Just as we now have several categories of corporate monopolies/oligarchies as a result of our now 40+ years of federal and state policies supporting big business at all costs, what many folks don’t seem to realize is the same thing has happened with our news organizations. They have been consolidated into just a few news corporations with just a few owners and have become what is essentially news monopolies/oligarchies. That combined with the loss of traditional ways of making money from printed and televised news transitioning into the only news that puts money in the bank are the pieces that generate the most clicks, it has created a misinformation and disinformation mecca with almost no room for true, accurate, non-biased news. Fox News is likely one of the most egregious examples but a person doesn’t have to look very hard to find similar examples in more “reputable” news organizations like CNN, PBS, The New York Times, etc.
The worse destruction is from the "reputable" news organizations with their "both-sides-ism" reporting. They basically let the right-wing lies go unchallenged as just "other opinions" when it is mostly outright lies. They rarely call their interviewees on these lies (with a few exceptions.). Mostly they lob softball questions anyway. They present Q-conspiracies with, "OK, that's a valid viewpoint, when it is sheer insanity."
I agree. At least with Fox News I expect what comes from them to be BS. But CNN, PBS, New York Times, I expect better from them, but sadly more and more, I’m as disgusted by them as I am by Fox News.
NYT has a news room editor and an opinion editor. The News room was once populated by real journalists, but now has an editor who has one ear tuned to the corporate owners, the Opinion editor is pure corporate and right wing.
Two studies, one by Politifact and one by University of Minnesota, found that Fox News lies about 55% of the time to varying degrees, while MSNBC does so 35% of the time. Both of these sources will criticize the other political party, but rarely if eer will they look in the mirror.
Very good. But here is something that the average citizen doesn't know, unless they have an MBA or the curiosity and energy to investigate.
Back in he 1980's there was a book, only found in libraries,especially Universities named Who owns the Banks. They stopped publishing the book, but continued publishing Who owns who.
It boils down to this. A corporation is managed by a CEO, CFO, COO, all of which are appointed by the Board of Directors. Corporations have only one purpose, according to the Supreme Court, and that is, as my Econ 101 professor, a Friedmanite and purveyor of intellectual born, the Free Man, published by the Koch financed FEE or Foundation for Economic Education, said, "The only social responsibility a corporation has is to make a profit. I believe that it was Justice Lewis Powell that made that statement as part of his ruling.
The members of this boards, make huge sums, sitting on boards of the companies that own shares of the company on whose board they sit. In other words an oligarchy of mutually dependent corporations who have representatives sitting on other boards. An interlocking boards of directors.
The company is controlled by the Murdoch family via a family trust with 39.6% ownership share, and by Rupert Murdoch himself to the effect of 40.1%. U.S. The rest is owned by institutions that are shareholders in Fox https://money.cnn.com/quote/shareholders/shareholders.html?symb=FOX&subView=institutional
There is one institution that is soley owned by one purpose and that is David Koch, who owns practically everything tha you use in your household, from cardboard boxes, and paper towels, to fuel, fertilizer and even chemicals used to make their products.
Daddy Fred Koch made his wealth, bu building oil wells and refineries for Stalin.
He also picked up his libertarianism from Stalin. To wit article 12 of the 1936 Soviet Constitution which reads "work is a duty and a matter of honour for every able-bodied citizen, in accordance with the principle: "He who does not work, neither shall he eat." The principle applied in the U.S.S.R. is that of socialism : "From each according to his ability, to each according to his work.""
Translated, if you don't work you don't eat., he also picked up the Soviet idea of a 100% gold standard. Which in itself is a cause of perpetual depression and starvation.
Because the Soviets rightfully claim that they were orthodox Marxists, And Marx was not a ssocialist, he was a proto libertarian, an advocate of free trade, and exploitation of workers via the market for labor.
Dickensian Britain had a maximum wage, not a minimum wage, which left the worker in perpetual poverty, and struggling to just eat and put a roof over their heads. This stymied the mobility of labor, and kept them captive to their employer as sure as chains on their ankles, which deprived his partner, Frederick Engels, of employees for his textile mill.
As an additional response to your comment, a few months ago, I read Timothy Snyder’s Bloodlands. It described in great detail the results of “If you don’t work, you don’t eat.” policies. I had to read it in small doses because it’s so upsetting. We now have a large percentage of our citizens here in the US, who think this type of policy is where our future should be. It scares the bejeebers out of me.
And interestingly, perhaps ironically, definitely alarmingly, the, “The only social responsibility a corporation has is to make a profit.” position, when coupled with the SCOTUS decision “corporations are people” from Citizens United, coupled with the SCOTUS gutting of the Voting Rights act, means that not only do these big corporations have an overwhelming influence because of their bank accounts outside of our laws and governmental policies, now their money also carries the most weight in our elections. If a “normal” citizen doesn’t have money or isn’t an owner of a corporation, they cannot compete, and therefore, having any impact on our Representatives and Senators is an uphill battle. It makes a person wonder if there is any meaning to “One person, one vote” anymore. I still have some hope and some optimism that we can hold things together and not lose our democracy. But I worry if the Republicans win in 2024, even if it’s not Trump, our democracy may be gone with virtually no way to get it back.
I agree, and it scares the sh... out of me. I am not optimistic at all. I am hopeful though, but is it a forlorn hope. I hope not.
The problem with money is speech, is that no one on the left side of the divide, especially in the media has mentioned that if money is speech, then corporations and the plutocrats have unlimited speech, they have trillions of voices, while we have only one voice
Exactly. My optimism waxes and wanes depending on the day. But even on good days it isn’t very high. However, I also know that resignation is exactly what the GOP and MAGA folks are trying to achieve. If they can get me to stay home on election day they’ve won. I refuse to let them, even if I worry that my vote doesn’t really matter much anymore.
'...If a “normal” citizen doesn’t have money or isn’t an owner of a corporation, they cannot compete, and therefore, having any impact on our Representatives and Senators is an uphill battle...."
Nor can they access the "justice" system in any logical or consistent way.
Exactly.
Agreed. You also had Bill Clinton and the Telecommunications Act of 1996 which enabled the consolidation of media which merged news and entertainment departments. Unfortunately, Thom Hartmann is now a propagandist for the imperialism and negligence of the Democratic Party, and journalists are roundly condemned and persecuted by Democrats. Barack Obama prosecuted a record number of "whistleblowers" (investigative journalists), and Matt Taibi was roundly humiliated by Democrats for telling the truth about elements of the Ukraine war that liberals do not want to acknowledge. Investigative journalism was the progressive movement which now is a shadow of its former self, with "progressive" talk radio becoming merely an extension of Democratic Party bullet points.
Most of that is untrue, or at best only partially true. I've seen Thom take on Democratic policies. If you read his essays long enough, you will see it too. Those people Obama prosecuted had, in almost all cases (I could find no exceptions,) illegally released classified, national security information - among them Manning, Snowden, Drake (former senior executive at NSA), Jin Woo Kim (released nuclear information to reporter), and James Hitselberger an Arabic linguist who released classified information (and his terrible "punishment" was a $250 fine.) These are NOT "whistleblowers." They were prosecuted for their crimes, which put US service people and other government personnel at risk. Personally, individuals might not like the secrecy, but they signed contracts (their security clearance paperwork) that they would keep those secrets. Nowhere do they legally have the right to make their own decisions about these things. They were, in almost every case, trained yearly on the consequences. I know, I've had a clearance most of my life - retired now; don't need it, but probably still on the books.
You may think it is fine to release classified national defense information willy-nilly to sources that will publicly release it, but I don't. Might be my years in the military, both officer and enlisted, and then my 30 career in defense. I wish we didn't have to keep such secrets, but newsflash! We have enemies in the world who will use them to our disadvantage.
SCOTUS has ensured that both parties must be in the pockets of the same wealthy/stealthy donors to have a chance at office. Sadly, we are a two party system. You can support Republicans or Democrats (or continually losing third parties.) I support Democrats because they support equality for all; not because I think their foreign policy is that much different than the Republicans.
Yes, Bill Clinton did damage with the Telecommunications Act. And he militarized the police across the nation, primarily because those at the top always need "guns" and the military hated Clinton. I am not blind to Democratic misbehaviors. It's become a lesser of two evils and only a revolution will sort it out, with likely a hundred years of misery as it all unfolds.
Finally something we agree on. However as I pointed out narcissism is not limited to people, societies and groups fall into narcissism as well, hence conflict, civil war, persecution of groups, persecution of the other.
Critical thinking is not something that is killed or suppressed by tribalism. It is a matter of native intelligence, and how you were raised. If raised to believe that you are part of a group, that is superior and/or persecuted, There is no chance to develop critical thinking skills, the group identity subsumes everything, like the MAGAts, I will say that over 90% were raised as true believing Christians, who believe that man was superior (that's when the Old and New Testament says, and the Charlatans who use their god as a sock puppet, to maintains and advance their own social position, income, status, use the pulpit or podium to instill fear in their captive minds of the threat of the other.
However this victim virus is not confined to a religion,it permeates the world. Hence the violent outrage among Muslims when a Quran is burned. You don't see such things, among Christians and Jews, they have their own hot buttons that can be pushed.
I don' think there is any question that Trump in his Narcissistic Collapse will try to take out anyone who opposed him , or who he believes opposed him.
He is truly losing his grip made more pronounced by adderral addiction.
Every thing Trump has done that is destructive , he will ‘up the ante on ‘at least verbally . But his most fervent followers will also be melting down .
Anyone not holding his hand will be at risk.
Adderall is not his only addiction, aspartame is one, he must drink a 24 pack or more of Diet Coke, a day. All Diet Drinks, the one word Diet, seems to be trademarked for Drinks that contain aspartame, is cancer causing, addictive and actually causes diabetes and weight gain.
When you drink anything with aspartame, the sweet taste trigger your pancreas to release insulin. The insulin then attacks your glucose, you become Hypoglycaemia,, and you crave sweets. It is nothing to see a person in the supermarket with a case or two of Diet Coke or Pepsi, on top of which are a couple of cases of Twinkies or some other sugary laden snck
Why he isn't dead already from diabetes and cancer can only be attributable to his private physician , most certainly he has the best health care money can buy. He also would have died of COVID19, had not he been treated in Walter Reed and given an experimental drug, al the while pushing Hydroxychloroquine
Mofo used medical science to save his life, but condemned his cult to death (not enough though)
Our system of governing has been corrupted so thoroughly by our politicians on both sides of the politics that we cannot have justice for wrong doing as they all over the last 40/50 years have closets full of corruption so they can't name the wrong doers now.......I am so sick of "the wheels of justice turns slowly"!!!! Criminals run free even after convicted. Why is Bannon still free after conviction? Why is Julian Assange(ms) still in prison deteriorating in confinement and no one in our government is willing to set him free for telling the truth. "it never can happen here" has been torn to shreds.
I agree on Assange. His persecution by Democrats, like Hillary, and Republicans only show the duplicity and hypocrisy.
I am old enough to remember how "liberals", lauded Assange and Snowden, for exposing the American version of the GESTAPO or KGB, with the National Security state, created by the PATRIOT act. Big hero;s then, but instant enemies because Assange released Hillary's emails, then the liberal knives came out.
The ignored the fact that Assange was simply exposing Hillary, who had made a career out of trying to extradite and punish Assange. You see she too, by default is a member of the national security state..
It is easy and satisfying to diss he fascism of the Republicans. but not so easy to diss Democrats when they demonstrate the same.
I don't want to help the Republicans, but I do want the Democrats to police themselves, reform, to stop caving to the Republicans and the corporations. Lots of luck with that, they need every penny that their money bosses dispense/. And liberals to stop being hypocrites.
A person without principles, including organizations, that won't stand for principles will kneel for anything, willingly or by force.
The narcissists support the institutions that have failed them. Capitalism (unlimited greed), religion and the family unit. They have supported their own demise. Now, they want to blame it on those who opposed unlimited greed, religions that rely on faith not facts, and the broken family unit where mental illness grows faster then a weed does after a rain. Instead of fixing the institutions, they fantasize about exterminating all of the people that do not meet their expectations. That way, they won't be proven to be losers. That is how a loser becomes a winner, in a narcissists mind. The narcissist mind, is so closed and self-centered, it can't be rehabilitated. What are we going to do with all these narcissists if Trump goes to jail? What are we going to do with all these narcissists if Trump does not go to jail? You just can't live in peace around a narcissist. They can turn on you at any moment. Americans need to keep the narcissist away from running the military and police forces.
Not being proven to be a loser is so key with re: a narcissist on the personal level, but I think can be seen as a larger context for the backlash against truth in history. It's only relatively recently that there's really accumulated a serious dismantling of the jingoistic fairy tale of European "manifest destiny" "taming" a (somewhat) vacant wilderness and bringing "civilization" to the sub-human prior inhabitants. (And to the "benefit" of African slaves, of course!) Now we're getting a major "shot across the bow" of the still-so-recent re-imagining of females as full citizens and humans! I guess there's a sort of critical mass of what can be seen as attacks on the white male identity and privilege that has been cruising along on such a towering scaffold of fiction that really is falling apart all at once. (Never mind the man behind the curtain!) I also don't know of any limit on how far the narcissist component will go in denial and resistance.
I couldn't resist sharing this "king" of narcissist clips of T.: in the context of a series of "takes" re: T. and evangelicals, Willie Geist interview with Dr. Russell Moore, (author) MSNBC "Morning Joe" 7-25-23: "Why do I have to ask for forgiveness if you're (sic) not making mistakes?" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYLQ_Ok1kWw Of course, there was the "I am the Chosen One." moment. It is fantastic that self-identified godly/bible people swallow this stunning blasphemy. My god, to coin a phrase......
Brilliant article, Thom. How often I, as a proponent of non- violence, have been taunted with,” Well, what would you have done about Hitler?” My reply has often been,” Hitler would have and could have been stopped earlier in his rise to power if people had acted on foresight.”
Your brilliant public recognition and discussion of the mental disease of one who seeks to lead our country by winning elections-as-popularity-contests( and in Trumps case, via an effort backed by actual geopolitical enemies waging war to destroy our country by this means)is key to stopping Trump. Since people are reluctant to point the finger at some and say “ You’re mentally ill”- especially when that person appears rich and successful, so people depend on the persons continued success- it is the law that is our only defense here. And of course the GOP, fueled by historic racism in its belief that only white men can rule our country and keep it intact, is going after the courts.
The solution, it does seem to me, must include a recognition of Trump’s personal mental sickness.(sudden thought: will he resort to an Insanity Defense?) A good leader could help summon the narcissistic followers to better goals. Though such a leader would have to survive the war plans of monied interests arrayed to smear them. As long as our country, our world & our inner compulsions as humans driven by survival-guilt-and-terror, demand more and more material wealth as personal protection against both inner and outer collapse, justice-oriented nonviolent activists will have to work hard and long and creatively (with scarcer resources and more crises) to fulfill the promise we inherited of self- government and equal value for all humans. And, it becomes increasingly clear, for all life on earth- but that’ll take a while too!! But it’s our task- our dues for life on earth.
Exactly!
My worst funeral attended EVER---the wife was leaving, the husband/father killed her and himself, and their daughter, with her 4 year old in tow, found them. He knew she would, because she just left to get and return with their grandchild . The daughter also got to decide the "arrangements". The wife's parents and siblings had to sit through a funeral for THEIR daughter/sister with the murderer on full display. That pastor had nothing; God is not in something like this.
You cannot walk through this life without some of these sick, sorry people turning your world up-side down. Work, home, school---we all have to deal with them. From what I have read, the only solution is to avoid contact whenever possible. I think that translates into not going out of your way to confront one of the cult members, no matter how much your middle finger is itching.
A sober response from us to convictions and jail-time for Trump would be best, but you know that's probably unlikely in the event it happens. Always be careful. Keep your game-face on. .
What a frightening and interesting time to be alive!!!
A synchronicity is in the works - the Lincoln Project released another of their short videos, and this one features Republicans admiring Hitler's quotes and behavior: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xai5yE4rr-c
We know "Who let the dogs out!"
I am finally feeling empowered and hopeful. I agree-incarcerate him for well documented crimes as soon as possible. We as a nation must not be victimized by this psychopathic narcissist and his grasping followers. We are so much better, so much stronger than this. This is the strongest and longest lasting democracy in the entire history of human kind. Of the people by the people and for the people! We Shall Overcome!!!
Thom - I thoroughly enjoy your newsletter and your thinking. I think that you are quite correct about Trump. A book that I would recommend to you is "People of the Lie: The Hope for Healing Human Evil" by M. Scott Peck. Dr. Peck, a psychiatrist, is no longer with us. But, his work has stood the test of time. He defines evil as "lazy narcissism." His book, in my view, describes Trump exactly. You might find Peck's discussion of exorcisms quite illuminating. I did. The "it" of evil, according to Peck, is centered on destruction. If you look at Trump and his behavior it is all about destruction, hate, grandiosity, and violence. He must be locked up. He will never change his behavior. Bill Schneider [bill@cdg-corp.com]
Yep. I read Peck's book decades ago; he was spot-on.