Bad Actor
Trump is an idiot. Trump has serious mental issues. Trump is a pathological liar. Trump is totally inept. Trump is a sociopath who doesn’t give a damn about anyone but Trump. Trump has one of the worst cases of Narcissistic Personality Disorders ever recorded. Bernie Sanders says Trump is the worst American President in modern times. I say Trump is the worst President in U.S. history. Period. Trump makes James Buchannan, Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon, and George W. Bush all look good by comparison.
We have had good presidents who had good policies and knew how to look and sound presidential (Teddy Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy.) Then we elected a Hollywood actor (Ronald Reagan) who knew how to act like a president because he could play the role convincingly, but his policies were terrible for the country. Now that television has made TV stars from “reality” shows, we have a president (Trump) who not only has terrible policies, but is such a hack as an actor he can’t even act well enough to either look or sound presidential.
Calling President Trump stupid, or a narcissist, or a sociopath sounds like we are only flinging abusive insults. Nevertheless, he is stupid; he is a narcissist; and he is a sociopath.
Yet we already knew Trump was all these terrible things, and more. What is harder to discern is why, outrage after outrage—the latest being his failure to deal adequately with the corona virus—so many in the White House still stand by him.
It is easy to say it’s because the Trumptorians are sniveling sycophants who lack a conscience and are only concerned with their personal political aspirations. It is easy to say that if we were in the White House we would tell Trump to go to hell and quit at the first signs he is a madman who doesn’t have a clue how to behave as President. It is easy (and maybe even true) that we are far better people and more principled than them. But as a self-professed Political Psychologist, I often wonder why such seemingly irrational behavior by those in his administration persists.
Fracking good book about world-wide corruption
I think I found the answer, in a most unexpected source.
Random Reading
Recently I finished reading Blowout by Rachel Maddow. Her book examines the world-wide corruption of the fossil fuel industry. I was fascinated how in overly socialistic countries like Russia, the government could take over businesses to the extent the businesses were too corrupt to function adequately. I was also fascinated that in overly-capitalistic countries like America, corporations could take over the government to the extent the government was too corrupt to function adequately. I concluded either too much socialism—or too much capitalism—resulted in a mess. For a country to prosper it needs a yin-yang balance of both capitalism and socialism.
Not knowing what I wanted to read next, I randomly selected a book from a shelf where my daughter put the books that used to be in my parents’ house before they both passed away. I discovered the book I randomly chose was a novel. I usually don’t read novels; I prefer non-fiction, particularly political non-fiction. At the time I didn’t realize this novel was about politics in the White House.
Novel approach to White House politics
Co-incidence? Synchronicity? Probability? Who knows? But even though this book, Against All Enemies, was published in 1977, what intrigued me were the hand-written notes on the first two blank pages. The second blank page indicated this book was a gift from my parents to my grand-father on his 80th birthday. But the first blank page was harder to read. Finally I deciphered the handwriting:
For Karl Kohn
Fellow enthusiast of the political process,
With kind regards and best wishes,
Ervin S. Duggan
November 1977
Ervin S. Duggan was the co-author of the book.
Egomania
Obviously, Trump and the current crisis in the White House wasn’t present over forty years ago, but the dialogue on page 111 seemed to be eerily prescient and does much to explain the present predicament of those who work for Trump:
“I mean, would you quit, leave the White House? I am asking how strongly you feel about it.”
“No,…I wouldn’t.”
“Why not?”
“Loyalty, I guess.”…
“Bullshit.”
“No, I really believe that,”…
“Okay,…Maybe you do, and maybe you’re right. Hell, I’m loyal too. But there’s more to it than that. He could invade Canada, drop the bomb on Mexico City, and most of us would stay. You know why?”…Because we’re hooked.”
“Hooked?”
“Yes, sir. We’re hooked. We’ve all had the taste of the White House. I don’t mean the cars, the trips, all that. I mean the chance to play President…We all play President, every day. When I brief the press—why, I’m the President.”
“When I hear him make a speech I’ve written, I get stage fright. I stand there and go through it all, just as though I am the one making the speech.”
“You see?...It’s true with every guy I know, everyone who’s ever gotten close to a President. Their egos get all screwed up, all tied up with his—and they call it loyalty, call it a sense of public duty, call it everything except what it really is. Maybe they were against the whole thing, but they were hooked, they couldn’t let go. They couldn’t quit over a principle, because they couldn’t face life without being able to look across the table…and say those magic words, ‘If I were you, Mr. President…’”
Hooked indeed. Hooked on power, particularly political power. And always with the illusion of the elusive ability to persuade the President of the United Sates to do whatever you yourself believe to be the best course of action. But the longer you stay, the more likely the President will persuade you that whatever action he takes, is for the best—even when such action involves invading Canada, bombing Mexico City, asking the President of Ukraine to do you an illegal political favor, or ignoring the clear warning signs of an imminent epidemic.
And one doesn’t even have to work in the White House to fall into the spell of blindly supporting the President simply because one has the opportunity to get close to the President. Take Lindsey Graham (Please!) Poor Lindsey once believed—and so publicly stated— he supported the President on some issues, but not on others. But today he is a sniveling sycophant who backs every one of Trump’s atrocities. Case in point, in a dictatorial power-grab, Trump is trying to nullify Congress by declaring, as President, he has the right to refuse to give the World Health Organization any more money until they have been investigated for their failures to prevent the Covid-19 pandemic from spreading. Never mind that this entire ruse is a vain attempt to cover up the failure of his own administration to prevent the virus from spreading. What Trump is proposing is an impeachable, unconstitutional violation of a law passed by Congress. Yet even though Senator Graham is a leading member of Congress, he sides with Trump.
Persistence of Belief
History doesn’t always repeat itself, but it often rhymes. As a child I was told the most famous relative in my family was Alfred Dreyfus, my Great-Grandfather’s cousin. Captain Dreyfus was falsely accused of treason by the French Army. The accusations were based on flimsy evidence of similar handwriting, but since Dreyfus was Jewish, he was considered expendable. His court martial erroneously concluded he was guilty and should be sent to Devil’s Island to die.
The Dreyfus Affair didn’t go away. More and more credible evidence surfaced that Dreyfus was innocent. The French Army even found the real traitor, a gambling low-life whose penmanship perfectly matched the document attributed to Dreyfus. Colonel Picquart, head of the Intelligence Service, discovered the identity of the real traitor. But when he went to the Generals of the French Army to confront them with this new conclusive information, they still insisted that their long-hold belief that Dreyfus was guilty was correct. Dreyfus wasn’t freed from captivity until the government of France was replaced by the opposing party.
Persistence of belief is a pernicious psychological tendency. Once we believe something —whether it was Dreyfus was guilty in 1899, or Trump will make America great again in 2020—there is a strong likelihood that belief will persist, even in the face of overwhelming evidence that the belief is false.
Cognitive Dissonance
However, stating humans tend to have persistence of belief, doesn’t adequately explain why we have persistence of belief. But the concept of cognitive dissonance does. As you may already know, people experience discomfort or dissonance whenever their behavior is inconsistent with their beliefs. Consequently something has got to give, either the behavior or the belief. Usually, it’s the belief. So if you say something is true that you really don’t believe—like Trump is doing a great job fighting the corona virus—you soon begin to believe it’s actually true to avoid cognitive dissonance.
Foot-in-the-Door Phenomenon
Another factor out of the pages of Social Psychology textbooks is the principle called the Foot-in-the-Door Phenomenon. Get someone to do something little, and soon they will do something big. Talk them into putting a small unobtrusive sign in their yard, and they are far more likely to put a big ugly sign in their yard. Convince someone to fill out a brief survey, and they are far more likely to fill out a check for a big contribution. Get your foot in the door to show a customer the vacuum cleaner you are selling, (because ostensibly you will be paid $50 by the company just for cleaning their rug,) and they are far more likely to buy your $2000 vacuum cleaner.
Michael Cohen said this is why so many in the Trump White House never stood up to him. Every time they allowed Trump to get away with making some sort of small erroneous statement, it became harder and harder to later object to major erroneous ideas he pushed.
Shocking Behavior
Research Psychologist Stanley Milgram conducted shocking experiments showing how much damage an average person would do. Most Psychology books say these experiments investigated obedience, since subjects were ordered to give electric shocks to “learners” who failed to correctly answer questions. The experimental subjects never saw the person they were giving shocks to, nor did they realize no one was actually given an electric shock, even though they heard cries of pain. The subjects didn’t start out giving dangerous painful shocks; they started out giving harmless mild shocks. But each time “the learner” missed an answer, the subject, “the teacher,” was instructed to gradually increase the amount of shock given. The results: two out of three subjects went all the way to the top of the scale delivering the most painful and deadly shocks possible—past “DANGER: SEVERE SHOCK"—because they were told to do so.
By my reckoning, once someone was willing to give a mild shock, the Foot-in-the-Door Phenomenon made it much easier to go all the way to deadly levels—even if it killed the other person.
Likewise, every time anyone in the Trump administration allowed Trump to get away with a relatively minor false statement, it became harder and harder to object to a dangerously deadly false statement. The Trumptorians in the White House who went along with the lie that Trump had more people at his inauguration than Obama, were more likely to go along with the bigger lie, that there were good people on both sides in Charlottesville, Virginia. And after they went along with that lie, they are now going along with the even more deadly lie that Trump has done, and is doing, all he can to control the Corona virus pandemic.
“—and they call it loyalty, call it a sense of public duty, call it everything except what it really is.”
What it really is, is egomania.
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Author’s note: In almost three years I have contributed over a hundred political diaries here at Daily Kos. I am now running for House Seat 20 in South Carolina. I had planned to walk door-to-door in my district delivering literature about my campaign and meeting voters. The corona epidemic has changed everything including political campaigning. I can use the mail to reach voters, but this is expensive. I need your help. I am proud to be on the same ticket with Jaime Harrison who is running against Lindsey Graham. I wish to be able to help him win in my district as much as he will help me win. That way, we all win. If you would like to contribute to my campaign, please send a check for $25 payable to the Dreyfus Election Fund and mail it to the address below. You can read more about my campaign by visiting my website www.stephedreyfus.com. Thank you for your support.
Dreyfus Election Fund
Arthur State Bank
1410 N. Pleasantburg Drive
Greenville, SC 29607