We keep reading about the possibility that Trump will make major changes to policy that the majority of Americans don’t support. Some fly in the face of logic, climate change for example, and others in attitudes about issues like abortion and most forms of birth control.
We read today on Daily Kos that a radical anti-abortion group is ready to help Attorney General designate Jeff Sessions prosecute Planned Parenthood. Most Americans support Planned Parenthood. I’m tired of saying “oh, the insanity” when I read a piece entitled “It’s not to late to get an IUD.”
We have a president that supposedly has no objection to same sex marriage but a vice president that doesn’t, and who actually believes in conversion therapy. Most Americans support same sex marriage and know that sexual orientation is not changeable by therapy.
I don’t have time to find citations for the following, but I hope the polling statistics back up my conclusions. Even if “most” isn’t exactly correct, I would say that it can be said that a significant number, i.e., close to 50%, feel this way about these issues.
Can you think of any more besides the following?
- Most Americans don’t want us using torture.
- Most don’t believe in a registry for Muslims.
- Most don’t think undocumented children should be deported.
- Most don’t think Hillary did anything that should end her up in prison.
- Most don’t think we should undo the newly established relationship with Cuba.
- Most don’t want the most important parts of Obamacare rescinded.
- Most won’t want the wall to be built if it increases the deficit.
- Most don’t want the very rich to have a tax cut.
- Most don’t want us out of NATO.
- By far most want medical marijuana both legalized and researched.
- Most want recreational marijuana to be legal.
- At least most seniors or soon to be seniors do not want Medicare privatized.
The more unpopular changes Trump makes, the less he will have the nation’s support.
He ran like he didn’t care what half the nation thought, what the most educated segment of the population thought about him, and what the press thought. But now he is about to be president of all of us.
I doubt he really will feel good just because he’s admired by thepeople who buy the National Enquirer, which as of this week is blaring “Trump Must Build That Wall” on its front cover (I was at the supermarket this morning). Plus, when he doesn’t build the wall, even those people will be angry at him.
The power of the president through executive order and through the various departments is vast. He has the power to royally fuck up the country and the world. In doing so may find the adoration he enjoyed from his supporters has eroded to the point where this narcissistic who thrives on admiration may not be able to maintain his psychological equilibrium.
My fellow psychotherapists know that the ego of a narcissist is fragile, and that even a successful boisterous blowhard like Trump has a breaking point. We can expect protests around the country, marches on Washington, ever more irreverent SNL sketches, and more snarky New York Daily News front pages. There are likely to be continued investigations and revelations about his conflicts of interest. He will be called out on every unpresidential utterance and Tweet.
Even his poor grammar will be mocked: "I join the many Cuban Americans who supported me so greatly in the presidential campaign….” “So greatly!”
I expect that we’ll see failures of signature programs so obvious that even Fox News has to report on them.
My online support group of psychotherapists debate whether deep down inside, or as we say, in the unconscious, Trump just wants to get the love he never received from his parents. He certainly seems to need to be admired and thought to be the smartest and best looking person in the room, irritable * irresistible to attractive women and worthy of fealty from powerful men.
When Trump looses all this he could become a dangerous president.
Sunday, Nov 27, 2016 · 12:16:00 AM +00:00 · HalBrown
A commenter pointed out that I wrote irritable (a Freudian slip) I wrote back:
Actually you made me chuckle, mean a real honest to goodness out lout chuckle… really out loud , like a one of the scenes (I can’t remember which one unfortunately but maybe it will come to me) from Dudley Moore and and Bo Derek’s move “10” .. I laughed so hard my stomach hurt and that kind of mood is hard to imagine now…. but I best go back and make the correction but I will put an asterisk on it for you.
Sunday, Nov 27, 2016 · 1:01:33 AM +00:00 · HalBrown
Trump supporters will resist admitting they were suckers, and only conclude that reluctantly when they realize millions like them were also conned. But my main point is that when millions who didn’t vote for him, people he wants to admire him, turn on him en masse it will effect him psychologically. Add to that millions more Republicans who only voted for him because they couldn’t stand to vote for Hillary, and assure a liberal Supreme Court. They are the “maybe Trump won’t be that bad” wishful thinking “normal” Republicans. That’s why I see the chance that in a year or two when everything goes FUBAR he could become dangerously unhinged.