Author Govert SchullerPosted on Categories Politics
In December 2016 I found online a list of 76 proven lies by Trump and read them all. The list is named “Donald Trump’s Bullshitopedia: An Ever Expanding Catalog Of Lies”.[1] The list is a good reminder that Trump is a pathological liar. I am not just saying that to bash Trump, but to make the case that we have to move into larger theoretical frameworks to start understanding both Trump and his followers and what they are doing to this country and the world. So far I have scouted a few contenders, two of which complement each other:
1) Understanding Trump’s behavior within the theory of psychopathology.[2] Trump arguably suffers from what psychologists call ‘the dark triad’ of of narcissism (self-aggrandizing, self-serving), machiavellianism (calculated manipulation) and psychopathy (lack of impulse control and and lack of empathy).[3] Such persons are very hard to handle. Either you evade them as much as possible or suck up to them and play along. Not many people have the skill to stand up to them, stay fair and firm, gain respect and guide them into constructive attitudes and ideas.[4]
2) Understanding Trump within the theoretical framework of ponerology, i.e. the use of evil for political ends.[5] Trump is a psychologically deviant person who has aggressively taken over and pathologized a political machine–the Republican Party–and bamboozled and spellbound a significant part of the American electorate with blatant lies, undeliverable promises and fear mongering. Then he manipulated both the GOP and Americans to get himself into the White House thereby extending the reach and power of a pathocracy which might have started with the Bush II administration.[6] This process of ‘ponerization’ is enabled by more or less normal persons accepting and adjusting to a psychopath instead of standing up to him.[7]
What these two frameworks have in common is the idea that normal people might cave in by either stepping aside or getting spellbound. With these theoretical frameworks in mind the following set of sharp observations from the Bullshitopedia article will give such frameworks flesh and and relevance:
The fact that Trump still manages to attract supporters who are willing to look past his shameless mendacity, and worse, to revere him as a quasi-savior, is a frightening testament to the decline of American democracy. These are people who not only submit blissfully to being lied to, they embrace a philosophy of bigotry, division, fear, and the authoritarian strains of fascism. They have abandoned whatever tendencies they may have had toward freedom, in favor of a despot who reeks of false and unattainable promises of security and prosperity. It is the behavior of cultists who have surrendered to mindless discipleship and have lost the ability to discern fantasy from reality. It’s a learned response that has been ingrained from watching way too much Fox News.[1]
What caught my eye in this quote–and this has been noted before–was the observation that
It is the behavior of cultists who have surrendered to mindless discipleship and have lost the ability to discern fantasy from reality.
This very well accords with the observation in ponerology that when
… a group has succumbed to pathological influence its members soon lose the ability to distinguish normal human behavior from pathological. This atrophy of critical faculties in relation to such individuals becomes an opening to their activities. It can also be used to identify potentially dangerous groups.[7]
That some will try to normalize Trump is understandable as the rise of a pathocrat to the office of president of the USA is for some too horrific to contemplate. It is only normal to want to cover over the fact that a psychologically deviant personality sits in the Oval Room. The only hope in December 2106 was that the US Electoral College would have had the intellectual fortitude and authentic conscience to assess Trump as unfit for the job because of his psychopathology and massive conflicts of interest, and reject him. Unfortunately did this not happen, though impeachment is still possible.
Originally posted on Facebook, December 5, 2016.
[1]. “Donald Trump’s Bullshitopedia: An Ever Expanding Catalog Of Lies“. News Corpse. 29 Nov 2015. According to the compiler this list is based on the file on Donald Trump maintained by PolitiFact. The Huffington Post compiled a list with “The First 100 Lies: The Trump Team’s Flurry Of Falsehoods” enumerating the lies coming from Trump and his spokespersons since his inauguration.
Originally posted on Facebook, February 2017.
[2]. Schuller, G. “On Trump: Diagnosing 301.81 and the Goldwater Rule“. Alpheus. 21 Feb 2017.
[3]. Whitbourne, Susan Krauss, Ph.D. “Shedding Light on Psychology’s Dark Triad: A dirty dozen test to detect narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy“. Psychology Today. 26 Jan 2013.
[6]. Schuller, G. “On Trump: The Aspiring Pathocrat” Alpheus. 24 Feb 2017.
[7]. “The Genesis of Evil“. Political Ponerology Web Site.