Trump's fanciful claims of victimhood

"He’s consumed with retaliatory and sadistic rage."

Trump interviews Trump. Watch the video here

“Trump’s psyche needs a cover story. As a result, his presidency rests on his claims that he is being persecuted by Democrats, the media, and the deep state. These claims are necessary to enable him to act in cruel and reckless ways without guilt. This, of course, is why impeachment is so potentially traumatic to him. The world is pointing a finger of accusation at him which he cannot escape. He’s consumed with retaliatory and sadistic rage. And, thus, as a result of the increased threat of guilt and shame, he has to become more and more of a victim, which permits him to be even more cruel. Unfortunately, we ain’t seen nothing yet.”— Dr. Michael Bader, podcast 2019

When a government turns into a demagogic oligarchy, driven by uncaring rage, the final collapse of the West looms large. History stands as the ultimate arbitrator of humankind's follies,… always has and always will in spite of our numerous conceits.

We are living in very dire times when there are momentous forces reshaping the world and threatening global populations. We are in a time when the impact of bad decisions and erroneous policies are amplified as never before and will reverberate through our societies for decades to come.

It is largely the failure of Western governments and the corruptions therein that we are in this mess. This writer has followed politics for 50 years and I have been spectator to the decline of democracy, the corporate takeover of governments, the forever wars, and the massive betrayal of our smug complacent and thuggish political elites.

As is human nature we procrastinate, prevaricate and go into denial on the issues that threaten us now. It is a hard task to accept that we individually might have heart attacks or dreaded cancer. Collectively, as societies, it is equally difficult to come to grips with the facts. Our societies are being ripped apart by ruinous ideologies. To make matters worse we are suffering a leadership crisis in the West a long time in the making, that won’t be resolved any time soon and is going to get worse before it gets better.

We have political systems where lying, cheating, stealing, bribery and assassinations are are openly gloated over with sly smirks and icy dispatch. The legacy media has gone dead in the water as the crippled propagandist, and its journalists become prestitutes.

Voters are so gullible as to think presidential elections make a difference, as one stooge for the empire is replaced with another— the package may be different but the brand is the same, and the anomic factor high.

The credibility of the office of the US presidency is now shattered where political parties have neutered themselves and can’t even deliver sane candidates. As one slides into a long over due retirement he is replaced by another who has been a granted a second term in spite of his many conspicuous deficiencies as if the presidency is a care home for morally and intellectually bankrupt souls.

In 2017 Dr. Michael Bader published in Salon; You Don’t need to be a Shrink to Understand Trump’s Mind …..

“Everybody knows that Donald Trump is mentally disturbed. His mental illness is hiding in plain sight. Someone who can never admit a mistake or show remorse or guilt is unbalanced. Someone who frequently brags and demeans others is emotionally insecure and volatile. And someone who appears to lack empathy invariably has something missing inside. No one has to go out on a limb to know that these things are true….

The mental frailties of Joe Biden were known long before he even ran for the presidency, a matter of public discussion and official indifference which eventually saw him removed from office one lost war and one genocide later. (It was never mentioned Article 25 of the US constitution for the removal of presidents should have been activated).

Now we have Trump who has leap-frogged into a second term when his mental illness was well documented in his first term. Bader was far from the only one to comment on Trumps eccentric behaviors as he became the demagogue with a cult following cheered on as the false prophet who was going to save America.

Trump like Biden is an agent of “anomie” a term coined by French sociologist Emile Durkheim. It refers to a systematic social destruction and alienation where the norms, values, and institutions of societies are ripped down in favor of a fascist totalitarian state where populations are abandoned and alienated. War is a prime example of anomie as a means of social repression and dislocation. The COVID pandemic was but another. The dominance of corporations is another as profit becomes the bottom line for societies, as democracy and humanism are ushered out the door. In other words profits come before people, and social progress become sociocide in service to psychopathic elites.

We have to ask ourselves how is it that two consecutive American presidents served terms they were unfit for. Now the latter is back for an encore performance and is floundering badly only days after his inauguration.

There are already rumblings politicians appointed or elected to high office must under go psychological screening, much like the screening, references, interviews and criminal record checks we mortals must undergo for employment. Politics is a vocation where the “applicants “ are not credentialed, and possibly suffering pathologies that should bar them from participating in governance, especially at an executive level. Good sound governance is more important than ever today. The free ride for wayward politicians is over as a matter of existential necessity.

Trump has no moral compass. He is a predator, a cherry picker, always on the look out for the low hanging fruit he can pick off. America needs visionary leadership not another recycled demagogue trying to turn back the clock on an empire lost to a world in dynamic progressive change.

Addendum

The full text of Bader’s podcast

1 PODCAST TEXT #51 --TRUMP AND THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE VICTIM Donald Trump is completely committed to being a victim. According to him, he’s misunderstood, mistreated, persecuted, falsely accused and unfairly punished. As in his phone call to Zelensky, he is 100 percent innocent; his enemies are 100 percent evil. Here is an example, excerpted from Trump’s recent six-page letter to Nancy Pelosi:

There is nothing I would rather do than stop referring to your party as the Do-nothing Democrats. Unfortunately, I don’t know that you will ever give me a chance to do so. After three years of unfair and unwarranted investigations, 45 million dollars spent, 18 angry Democrat prosecutors, the entire force of the FBI, headed by leadership now proven to be totally incompetent and corrupt, you have found NOTHING! Few people in high position could have endured or passed this test. You do not know, nor do you care, the great damage and hurt you have inflicted upon wonderful and loving members of my family.” 2 And then: More due process was afforded to those accused in the Salem Witch Trials. This commitment to victim hood is deeply embedded in Donald Trump’s character.

Let’s look more carefully at exactly how Trump’s victim hood functions. What is the point of making yourself out to be a victim? Psychologically speaking, what does it accomplish? The answer is that it counteracts feelings of guilt. I use the word guilt to include feelings that someone has done or is doing bad things and feelings of being a bad person. In this sense guilt includes feelings of shame. In the end, it’s all about feeling like a bad person, either by virtue of a person’s actions or shortcomings. Feeling and proclaiming that you are a victim, when objectively you are not, is a way of restoring a feeling of innocence, a feeling that you are good—and, therefore, not bad. And once guilt is negated and innocence restored, the victim can then go about hurting others and doing bad things 3 again. Consciously, the victim experiences him or herself as innocent or martyred, but less consciously, under the table, he or she can continue to pursue hostile aims. The whole thing is cyclical, because whenever guilt begins to insinuate itself into awareness, a person again plays the victim card and innocence is restored. “It’s not me, it’s them.” “I’m not doing bad things—bad things are happening to or being done to me.” Ultimately, victims aren’t responsible for anything bad that they do or that happens to them. Badness is outside them, or bad things are being done to them by others, and, therefore, it therefore has nothing to do with the victim’s essential being. Think of the psychological advantages victim hood promises to deliver. A person is not only good instead of bad, but also is entitled to sympathy rather than disapproval. Enduring the mistreatment of others can even come to be a source of pride. Victim hood then seems heroic, more akin to great martyrs like Joan of Arc than the Devil or just ordinary SOBs. And, as I said, being an innocent victim psychically enables someone to do bad and harmful things. It’s like a free pass. The 4 logic goes: Since I’m persecuted, I have the right to do anything I want without regard for others. Victim hood is a living and breathing get-out-of-jail-free card that constantly sprinkles forgiveness and exoneration on one’s harmful actions. Trump is a perfect case in point. He is always a victim; this position enables him to be nasty. Since he’s always aggrieved, he feels entitled--entitled to be cruel and bully others without ever having to feel that he’s doing anything wrong. People say that he lacks a conscience or even that he is psychopathic. In fact, his investment in victim hood explains the underlying dynamics. Since the world owes him some type of indemnity for all the ways he’s been misunderstood and mistreated, his conscience is constantly put on the back burner or extinguished altogether. The guilt that a normal person would feel for acting and speaking like Trump is neatly counteracted by his need to always see himself as the injured party. Starting from the premise that the mind seeks out ways to diminish guilt and shame, Trump’s grandiosity—his presenting himself as 5 “perfect”—easily fits this same bill. Thus, feelings of victimization and superiority are easily compatible. Since his basic instincts are to cheat, lie and disparage others, Trump’s psyche needs a cover story. As a result, his presidency rests on his claims that he is being persecuted by Democrats, the media, and the deep state. These claims are necessary to enable him to act in cruel and reckless ways without guilt. This, of course, is why impeachment is so potentially traumatic to him. The world is pointing a finger of accusation at him which he cannot escape. He’s consumed with retaliatory and sadistic rage. And, thus, as a result of the increased threat of guilt and shame, he has to become more and more of a victim, which permits him to be even more cruel. Unfortunately, we ain’t seen nothing yet.

All Bader quotes with permission of the author.