Psychopaths, Narcissists, and Their Minions
The deeper question underlying the insanity of Donald Trump is why did we put him there?
"‘We are at a terrifying tipping point,’ wrote Mother Jones editor-in-chief Clara Jeffery. ‘And if people think the hate will only land on undocumented folks, please read up on any past ethnic cleansing.’"
— 'Full on Nuremberg': Internet recoils as Stephen Miller whips up hate at MAGA rally
https://www.rawstory.com/stephen-miller-2669381872
World Affairs
World affairs have become much more complicated over the last 100 years and people are confused. We see this in people’s attempts to understand what’s happening. The word “gaslight” was coined 80 years ago but it came into common use only in the last 10 (see Wikipedia “gaslighting”).
This has led to a pervasive feeling of being under threat and it is this, I suspect, that’s responsible for people aligning themselves with a manipulator who sells simple fantasies. This is not a question of left or right, republican or democratic, it’s simply the common phenomena of frightened, angry people being scammed by a clever criminal.
“Trump's administration is pushing a ‘deliberate destruction of education, science, and history,’ wrote Adam Serwer in a scathing analysis for The Atlantic published on Tuesday — and it recalls the ‘Dark Ages’ that followed the fall of the Roman Empire.”
— Trump Threatens New Dark Age with Policy of Deliberate Destruction
It is no longer arguable that Donald Trump expresses the worst qualities of human nature. Trump is strongly disliked across the world as the archetypal “ugly American”: obnoxious, uncouth, boastful, materialistic, and duplicitous.
He is also a lesson in the failure of democracy. Given that this was not what anyone wanted, how did it come to pass? More importantly, what are you going to do about it?
The Sky Is Falling, Get Used to It
Various forms of Armageddon have appeared in history and mythology. In mythology, this is caused by God. In reality, this are caused by people. History blames the ruling parties and exonerates the people as ignorant victims, yet it’s the people who support the tyrants, provide the resources, and enact the destruction.
I believe the real reason corporate capitalism continues to take root is because the general populace is too uninformed and uninvested to know what to do. Corporate capitalism—which is capitalism guided by large, self-serving institutions—has the limited knowledge to understand its environment and discern what’s good for it. This is beyond the reach of unaffiliated citizens.
If most of you reading this are unaffiliated citizens, how will you redeem yourselves and regain control? Donald Trump teaches us that democratic politics does not work in its present form. The current system of free speech, public debate, and political parties is not just fragile, it’s flawed.
It’s Our Fault
Despite what you may be told, it’s the support of populations that has led to the World Wars, Stalinism, China’s Cultural Revolution, and various genocides. At least we’re not responsible for plagues and famines. Avoiding plagues and famines depends on forward thought and education which, unfortunately, are also being undermined.
“According to MSNBC analyst Ja'han Jones, (Vice President) Vance's dismissiveness was larded with, ‘jingoism and what appears to be thinly veiled racial bigotry... (and) mind-numbing ignorance’… Across New England and the country, thousands of budding scientists have awoken to a stark new reality, one they never could have imagined just six months ago. Funding for laboratories that focus on everything from the genetic causes of aging to cancer is drying up. Jobs in biomedicine are vanishing."
— JD Vance botches defense of the MAGA 'brain drain' Trump has caused in academia
https://www.msnbc.com/top-stories/latest/jd-vance-brain-drain-trump-science-rcna210036
Psychologists talk about our cognitive behavior. That is, how our actions are motivated by our conscious thoughts. As a practitioner of hypnotherapy and altered state work, which includes brain training, meditation, and psychedelics, I recognize our conscious thoughts play little role in how we behave. Much of psychotherapy’s focus on people’s conscious intentions is misguided.
People live in a dream world of unreal projections, unexplored prejudice, unrecognized ignorance, conflicting urges, and perpetual denial. This is the world of our cognitive behavior. The behavior we call sane, informed, and realistic is not any of these. “Normal” is a state of normal ignorance.
We are governed by our emotions as these are the forces that motivate us. It’s not enough to know facts, you need to have an effect. Knowledge of facts is hot air unless it leads to actions that have consequences. Taking action and supporting your actions takes more than knowing facts.
Democracy? Fugget About It
The democratic process fails in a complex world because people don’t know how the world works. As a result, they retreat to their personal needs without any understanding of how their needs affect others, the system they’re in, their environment, or the information they receive. The consequence of this is that the populace cannot come to intelligent decisions and accepts the information they’re fed.
It’s amazing how quickly truth has prevailed. The truth is that authoritarian governments are more powerful than democratic ones. One reason is that democratic government requires failure in order for the voting populace to learn.
This kind of systemic failure, which is what we’re experiencing now, is an opportunity for authoritarian governments. “Watching Trump’s Crazy Gang White House carry on, China’s leader could be forgiven for thinking Taiwan (is) there for the taking,” says Simon Tisdall, foreign affairs commentator for the UK’s Guardian newspaper.
“University scientists in China are making people healthier; research scientists in the US are looking for a job. In China, science is revered; in Trump’s America, science is silenced… This week, Chinese scientists enabled paralyzed patients to walk again using a world-first brain-spinal implant. Just this week in the US, advanced clinical trials on everything from cancer to dementia were defunded.”
— Communist China taught me everything I need to know about Donald Trump
Democracy has been tried before and failed. Rome was ruled by a ruling class. A group that was supposedly composed of the well-informed. It collapsed because the reach of the state exceeded the intelligent control of the rulers.
The same instability gives the democratic system options and resilience. Tyrants are better at exploiting people, but democracies are better at learning through failure, which is the only way anyone learns anything.
What About Progress?
Indigenous societies demonstrate stability because they are slow to expand or advance. They opt for stability over progress. One could argue they haven’t had much choice as they haven’t have the tools for change. It could be that it’s progress that’s destabilized democracy. After all, it’s progress that’s led to globalism, technology, weaponry, commerce, propaganda, and the internet.
The unspoken lesson of all post-apocalyptic dramas is that things will be better after the bad things are destroyed. We’ve all heard those stories so often that we no longer pay them any attention. Paying no attention is probably the wrong thing to do.
Collapse can come in many forms, not necessarily the versions that make the best movies. Real collapse is happening in many places we consider irrelevant: Sudan, Haiti, Venezuela, Western China, and other places we hear little to nothing about. The only reason we hear about Ukraine is because we were trained to see that border as a flash point, and Europeans insist on putting it into our headlines.
I don’t have much hope for democracy under the current conditions. It will cycle its way back to prominence some day, but not for many decades. It’s more likely that corporate capitalism will beat down Trump’s venal pathology, but corporate governance is not democratic.
Unlike “the people,” corporations have more power to collapse the government. Corporations may do that unwittingly through lowered profits, but they can also do it intentionally through propaganda, investment, market and price manipulation. We are starting to see corporate leaders urging collective corporate action against Trump.
“JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon has sounded the alarm about the 'enemy within' the US, which he warned is a bigger threat than China… Dimon claims America is suffering from a worrying 'mismanagement' issue which has the potential to 'kill us'.”
— America's top banker Jamie Dimon issues chilling warning about the country's 'enemy within'
On February 26, The Washington Post reported:
"Broader resistance to Trump is beginning to wake up… The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the Democratic Governors Association and liberal groups are seeing a surge in fundraising. And Democratic members of Congress are seizing on a budget clash as an opportunity to coalesce against the president's plans."
— 'Deep displeasure' explodes as 'resistance to Trump' begins 'to wake up'
https://www.alternet.org/anti-trump-resistance-musk-wapo/
Don’t Just Stand There…
Democracy will recover when the voting population acts to defend itself from intellectual manipulation and decay. Here are steps that are possible and overdue.
Educate yourself just to be informed. If you get angry, good. Anger motivates us, keeping us focused and available. Democracy depends on shared understanding and collective actions, and anger is contagious. It doesn’t take much to gain attention.
Make clear what you see and that you will act when you have the opportunity.
Speak out against Trump’s actions and minions, active or passive.
Go to your schools and insist students learn about current politics, information, propaganda, democracy, globalism, racism, economics, entrepreneurship, religion, and power. Because public schools serve the state their syllabus is insipid and exploitative. Poor education is a threat to democracy.
Insist your kids observe the real world. I have no problem with compulsive internet gaming to which many kids succumb, this is a form of learned helplessness. Speak to your kids. Take a personal role in their education. Show them knowledge is power.
On this last point, here’s a science article that I read to my 14-year old son: How Paradoxical Questions and Simple Wonder Lead to Great Science | Quanta Magazine
“To prevent the next Trump - and there will be more - requires challenging the sources of selfishness in much of modern culture that are everywhere and seemingly on the rise… If we are honest, this behaviour is all around us.”
— 6 types of ugly American, and Donald Trump is all of them
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