The Trump death cult, Section 2

https://www.reddit.com/r/zeronarcissists/comments/1gw8z3h/the_trump_death_cult_section_2/

created by theconstellinguist on 21/11/2024 at 05:29 UTC*

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1. Trump grew up with an absent mother and a domineering father, Fred, who psychoanalyst Justin A. Frank has characterized as “an absent presence—a father inconsistently around but whose strict authoritarian parenting was always present.”85 Mary L. Trump, Donald’s niece, bluntly described Fred as a “sociopath.”86 To punish Donald for unauthorized trips to Manhattan to amass a collection of switchblade knives, his father exiled him to New York Military Academy, where “the faculty … governed with physical and psychological brutality,” according to Frank, and hazing was an institution—with even the occasional use of chains.87 Writing in Psychology Today, Joseph Nowinski, Ph.D., suggests that identification with the aggressor88 was a crucial component of Trump’s development, a conclusion with which Tony Schwartz, co-author of The Art of the Deal, would likely concur.

1. To survive … Trump felt compelled to go to war with the world. … You either dominated or submitted. You either created and exploited fear, or you succumbed to it. 89 The consequences of Trump’s traumatic childhood and his response to it have been momentous. As psychotherapist John Gartner, co-founder of Duty to Warn PAC, explains, “sadism and violence are central” to Trump’s personality. He “enjoys causing harm and suffering.”90 But how is this relevant to evangelicals? A scriptural parody on Daily Kos makes the connection, suggesting that instead of following the Golden Rule (Luke 6:31), “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” the “right’s mantra” is, “Do unto others, as you have been done to.”91 (emphasis in original.) Eschewing mercy, muscular evangelicals get even.

1. In order to form the minds of children, the first thing to be done is to conquer the will and bring them into an obedient temper. … Whenever the child is corrected, it must be conquered. … self-will is the root of all sin and misery.94 Clearly, Dobson is endorsing what deMause characterizes as the intrusive mode, a version of parenting that emerged in the eighteenth-century.95

1. In Donald Trump’s America, the relevancy of such considerations is clear. By defining refugees as the racial Other, Trump has employed immigrants as poison containers99 for GOP venom. He has said, for example, “You wouldn’t believe how bad these people are. These aren’t people. These are animals.”100 In discussing immigrants from Mexico, he has contended that they are bringing drugs and crime to this country. “They’re rapists.”101 Trump has also characterized those seeking asylum as violent criminals and said, “Some people call it an ‘invasion.’ It’s like an invasion. They have violently overrun the Mexican border.” Those from Africa were labeled even more derogatorily, as “people from shithole countries.”102 Perhaps the most dangerous of Trump’s characterizations of immigrants is his description of them as an “infestation.” He has said, for example, that Democrats want “illegal immigrants, no matter how bad they may be, to pour into and infest our Country.” He has characterized sanctuary cities as “this ridiculous, crime-infested & breeding concept,” and has argued that “we have an ‘infestation’ of MS-13 GANGS in certain parts of our country.”103 As columnist Charles M. Blow has observed, this concern with infestation only seems to apply “to black and brown people” and implies extermination. “White supremacy isn’t necessarily about rendering white people as superhuman; it is just as often about rendering nonwhite people as subhuman.”104 Confirmation of the extreme views of White evangelicals comes from the work of an Eastern University political scientist. Ryan P. Burge used data from a 2018 Cooperative Congressional Election Study, which studied 60,000 participants and their views on immigration.

1. An October, 2019, PRRI survey of more than 2,000 voters “found that Republican white evangelical Protestants were 75 percent more likely than all Republicans to assert that ‘immigrants are invading American society,’” and a Washington Post/ABC poll from 2018 found that “three-quarters of white evangelicals nationwide favored the Trump administration’s ‘crackdown on undocumented immigrants’ compared to 46 percent of all Americans.”106 The detention of Hispanic children at the border, their separation from their parents, is a perfect metaphor for the developmental dilemma faced by fundamentalist children, who must cage their bad selves to avoid being the subject of their Heavenly Father’s wrath. Reared in families that force them to split off portions of themselves, i.e., form social alters—they imprison their immaturity—personified by brown-skinned immigrant children, outsiders and evil—behind impervious fencing in cages of religious doctrine.

1. Privately, the president has often talked about fortifying a border wall with a water-filled trench, stocked with snakes or alligators ... He wanted the wall electrified, with spikes on top that could pierce human flesh. After publicly suggesting that soldiers shoot immigrants if they threw rocks, the president backed off when his staff told him that was illegal. But later in a meeting, aides recalled, he suggested that they shoot migrants in the legs to slow them down.108 **Panic over migrants even precipitated consideration of the use of an invisible “heat ray” to repel the alien invaders**

1. A Contaminated Other is the alter of the pure self. Atop the traumatogenic foundation of fear and violent fantasies of the Evil Other, the superstructure of evangelical support for the GOP, is a pernicious group-fantasy that religious leaders have peddled for four years: Trump has been “chosen” by God or is himself the messiah.110 In other words, for believers, the Evil Other is countered by identification with Perfect Good—God—or at least an imperfect representation thereof.

1. In this regard, two 2018 sermons preached by the Rev. John A. Kilpatrick of Church of His Presence in Daphne, Alabama, connected Trump, witchcraft, the deep state and God’s anointing. In one harangue, which went viral and “reached over 1 million viewers on Facebook,” Kilpatrick worried that “witchcraft is trying to take this country over” and that “the deep state is about to manifest.”111 In a later sermon on Trump, Kilpatrick told his congregation,

1. Trump as God’s man goes hand in hand with a frequent meme among God’s elect: Repent from your immoral ways, for God’s punishment is terrible. In January 2020, evangelical pastor Rick Wiles informed his TruNews web broadcast viewers that Covid-19 is a punishment from God for immorality. Look at the United States, look at the spiritual rebellion in this country—the hatred of God, the hatred of the Bible, the hatred of righteousness. There are vile, disgusting people in this country now, transgendering little children, perverting them. Look at the rapes, and sexual immorality, and the filth on our TVs and our movies. Folks, the Death Angel may be moving right now across the planet. This is the time to get right with God.115

1. Strikingly, the group-trance was so powerful that, as the coronavirus intensified in the U.S. in February and March 2020, the number of Republicans who viewed it as a threat plummeted. In February, over 72 percent of Republicans saw the virus as “a real threat,”119 but with President Trump’s constant assurances that the virus would go away, by the middle of March that figure had nosedived to 39-40 percent.120 What could be a better indicator of trance behavior than people risking their lives to adhere to the rhetoric of a man who has lied more than 20,000 times to the American people?121 Perhaps this: As the virus was spreading, some viewed it as indicative of God’s wrath, but many others were convinced it was a fraud.

1. Ultimately, what does the cult of Trump stand for? Growth Panic,128 death and sadism. According to Forbes, by January 2020, the U.S. had recorded the “longest economic expansion” in history—126 months.129 Such prosperity has spawned the cult of Trump, which is premised on fear of changing times. The status of women, African Americans, Hispanics, and other minorities has been improving, and Trump adherents, especially non-college-educated White males, fear they will lose their dominance in society. White patriarchy and “white privilege” are jeopardized. Evil Others threaten to displace “real” Americans, and Trump mobilized this White anxiety, directing it into attack mode.

1. **The cult of Trump, a contemporary iteration of social Darwinism, requires that members risk death to demonstrate their devotion, shunning masks and social distancing during the pandemic and, for those in battleground states, attending superspreader rallies**.130 Jeering at those who fear the virus—self-preservation is for snowflakes—the cult of Trump heralds “herd immunity” as a panacea for the pandemic.131 Let the virus kill as many as it will. The strong and the righteous will survive. Sacrifice as the de facto approach to the pandemic went public in the Spring, when Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick (R-Tx) observed that “Old people should volunteer to die to save the economy.”132 The president agreed and tweeted (in all caps), “WE CANNOT LET THE CURE BE WORSE THAN THE PROBLEM,”133 and shortly thereafter began pushing to reopen the country. Journalist Chauncey Devega has bluntly articulated the action agenda of this approach: Time to kill the ‘useless eaters’ for capitalism. … Trump and the right are embracing and celebrating death.134 A clinical psychologist, psychiatrist and legal analyst go even further, arguing that Trump’s actions amount to “mass murder.” Taken together, Trump’s ongoing lies, failure to warn of the virus’ transmissibility, failure to institute a national plan of mitigation, failure to follow public health experts, and continuing to disavow mitigation practices (e.g., holding “super-spreader” events with little mask wearing and no social distancing) comprise behaviors that meet the standard for second-degree murder.135

1. Premised on sadism,136 the cult of Trump cheers separating immigrant children from their parents,137 overturning Obamacare during the pandemic,138 letting people go hungry,139 and encouraging racists to attack peaceful protesters.140 As progressive author Thom Hartmann noted, “Trump and the GOP are all in on brutality, violence and death,”141 an observation which The Atlantic’s Adam Serwer amplified:

1. “The cruelty is the point.”142 Premised on climate denial, the Trump-trance is a march toward extinction,143 a sub-intended right-wing death wish, which relishes, enables and inflicts massive suffering and mortality.144 It is a death cult,145 following a neofascist savior,146 in pursuit of God and vengeance. Fred Trump taught his son to be “a killer,” and Donny has overperformed.147

1. If it seems anomalous that this poisonous agenda resonates with White evangelicals, deMause has an explanation: “The bad-child self must die for the good-child self to be loved.”148 God sacrificed His Son that the righteous should live, and for the cult of Trump, it stands to reason that the Evil Others must be sacrificed for the good of the righteous—the “real Americans.”149

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