"It is a sad day in which a member who leads a political party in the United States of America cannot bring themselves to say that issuing a depiction of murdering a member of Congress is wrong...What is so hard about saying that this is wrong?
I’m so sorry to see that trolls and haters have filled this space. I appreciate Ruth’s work and find her analysis spot on. But the drivers of divisiveness wage war on the truth tellers - they can’t stand to see themselves and their destructive goals described accurately.
I agree. Looking at US politics from the outside, I am more and more alarmed at how ordinary people seem unaware of the country's slide into autocracy and even embrace it. In Britain, where I live, there are anti-liberal forces at work too, but the autocratic sickness seems much more acute in the US. The reactionary comments below demonstrate this well.
Honestly, I don't know what world people like the author and Democrats in general are even living in. The double standards, the selection bias, ignorance and naivety and just total woke B.S. of this party is spiraling out of control.
It is truly a group of people who are ruled by emotions. Now is that because they can't help it, or because they choose to be like this, or because they have been brainwashed by their echo chamber?
Who knows? I think James Carvielle said it right "They need a woke detox".
The GOP portrays itself as the party of "freedom." I think that this is meant to forestall attacks that they are authoritarians. However, their concept of "freedom" does not embrace freedom for all to vote or freedom to vote in fairly drawn state house and Congressional districts. How do we make this distinction clear to voters who do not follow politics closely, i.e., most voters? For example, do we hire marketing companies who might come up with pithy slogans?
Nevertheless, it is essential to attempt to understand how the autocrat produces his personal reality-distortion field, and induces both those in his orbit and the entire nation to live under the tyranny of the alternative universe he generates. Psychologically the autocrat is an extremely paranoid, malignantly sadistic, high-functioning sociopath with a severe narcissistic personality disorder. Because he is a narcissistic personality, he is highly adept at manipulating other people: one of the chief life-goals of every narcissistic personality is to turn as many other people as possible into his or her "narcissistic slaves," devoted to satisfying his or her narcissistic needs and demands. In order to turn people into his narcissistic slaves, the autocrat creates a personal reality-distortion field, based on the delusional alternative universe he lives in, and makes it impossible to exist in his orbit without submitting to his delusory reality. The only way to escape his delusions is to exit his orbit altogether. (A familiar situation in private as well as political life.) Those who remain in the autocrat's orbit internalize his paranoid and pathologically narcissistic alternative universe, and impose it in turn on the nation, becoming minor deities in their own right, reflecting the autocrat's divinity. The core of the narcissistic personality is the grandiose self, and the ultimate model of the grandiose self is God. Thus the ultimate model to which the autocrat and his followers aspire is that of the chosen people living in infantile bliss under the dominion of their all-wise, all-powerful Father. (The psychological model in this paragraph is mostly based on Hervey Cleckley's "The Mask of Sanity" and Otto Kernberg.)
Those in the autocrat's nation who are disaffected and outside the leader's personal orbit, but are unable escape his tyranny, must learn to live with his alternative reality, a reality which both is and is not. They must learn every day what the new official truth is, and pretend to believe it, because otherwise they might hear a knock on the door in the middle of the night. Then the next day (as Karl Rove said) they must learn that day's new official truth. Living this way of course deranges their personal sense of reality, and estranges them from their own and others' humanity. Autocracy presents itself as establishing order, but since it is an effort to force reality to conform to sick fantasy and delusion, in reality it can only mask underlying disorder, and must therefore use physical violence both to express its inner nature and to maintain political control.
Escaping from the alternative universe of autocratic discourse is impossible as long as that discourse is accepted on its own terms, that is, as real communication. Autocratic discourse generates an inescapable labyrinth, or hall of mirrors, in which every point of evidence, and every argument, is related to still another point of evidence or argument, thus creating an endlessly proliferating web of pathways, making it impossible to establish any reliable point of reference. One can escape this labyrinth only by recognizing that the discourse is not real communication, but is intended to make real communication impossible in order to dominate its audience, and that the labyrinth is inescapable by design. One escapes not by endlessly exploring its ever-proliferating pathways, but by simply walking out the door (which is far easier said than done).
Autocratic discourse and tyranny should also be understood in terms of the discourse and authority in all societies in general. Every society may be either "primitive" or "advanced." A primitive society is organized for the purpose of maintaining the domination of the wealthy and powerful, who must employ obfuscation in the service of maintaining the social injustice that is the basis of their status. The structure of a primitive society, accordingly, is authoritarian, defining the identity of the individual in terms of his or her relation to society. An advanced society, in contrast, is organized for the purpose of enabling the development and fulfillment of every one of its members, who is defined by his or her self-development as an individual. (This form of society is always characterized by the Establishment, of course, as a raging chaos of renegade, atomistic egos.) All societies exist between the two poles of the few who wish to live in a primitive society, and the few who wish to live in an advanced society. Between them are the many, who can be swayed either way, though they are far more easily swayed by the wealthy and powerful to submit to living in a primitive society. To maintain the authoritarian structure of the primitive society, the wealthy and powerful require an apparatus of what we now call intellectuals--secular, religious, or both. Intellectuals are almost always apologists for their society's authoritarian structure, and the most enthusiastic among them produce the obfuscation that the wealthy and powerful require to maintain social injustice. (Thus professional economists have become one of our own essential priestly orders, demonstrating with mathematicalized and abstract mumbo-jumbo the perpetual necessity of making not only economic but social and political arrangements that result in transferring as much wealth as possible from the people to the oligarchy.) Under modern autocracy, the worst of the intellectuals produce autocratic discourse, or totalitarian propaganda, in defense of their society's endlessly metastacizing social injustice, corruption, and violence. (The concept of primitive and advanced societies is from Northrop Frye's "The Double Vision.")
The nihilism of modern autocracy is not a philosophical but an existential nihilism; that is to say, it is the death instinct. The most primitive and destructive psychological trait of the autocrat is seldom mentioned: his analizing personality. He wishes to turn everything in the universe into excrement. Historically, marauding soldiers and brigands have not infrequently killed and raped the inhabitants of a village, then defecated in their burnt-out homes and smeared their excrement on the walls. (Thus the Republican mob on January 6 defecated in the Capitol, our citadel of democracy, and smeared their excrement on its walls.) The analizing personality is the psychological aspect of nihilism, the death impulse that ultimately wishes to destroy everything in the universe. While the autocrat seems to begin in the hatred and persecution of the Other--female, Black, Muslim and Jew, and so forth--his real hatred is for life itself, beginning with his own. He is a dead soul, and out of envy wishes to murder the soul or the body of everyone with a living soul, and to ensure that no one may achieve happiness or humanity. Whether he dies in his own conflagration like Hitler or lives to old age like Franco, the freedom he achieves, in the reality of his interior life, is only the freedom of a man who jumps off a cliff into thin air, gloriously free of all human and earthly restraints for the few seconds it takes him to hit bottom. His world-historical success is taking as many of the rest of us with him as he can. He has devised innumerable ways of doing so, either quickly (as Trump and Barr did with their eleventh-hour executions), or tortuously, through the innumerable forms of social injustice that have emerged so starkly into our consciousness during the last few years.
"one of the chief life-goals of every narcissistic personality is to turn as many other people as possible into his or her "narcissistic slaves," devoted to satisfying his or her narcissistic needs and demands."
This is known as narcissistic triangulation. Of course Trump does this, due to his being a sociopath (APD).
Thanks for the in-depth discussion exploring the nihilism and autocratic, toxic discourse of Rep Gosar (and Trump and other Trump disciples) Many helpful connections with Ruth’s article. Cult expert Steven Hassan also explores the deviant psychology underpinning the autocrats’ propaganda in his THE CULT OF TRUMP. Hassan makes his examination in the hope that his readers will be able to understand what has happened to the millions of us swallowed up by the autocratic cult, and how to help them escape. As you say …. easier said than done
Glad you found my comment helpful. I’d heard of Hassan. Now I’ve looked into “The Cult of Trump.” It is highly recommended by Bandy X. Lee herself. I’m hoping to find time to read it. Thank you.
Lucid subscriber Jill Cody interviews Steven on her Be Bold America podcast Sept 13, 2020 … good summary in 1hr explores many of his foundational insights; his site freedomofmind.com has 100’s of hrs of his interviews/talks …. 40 years experience and research
When it rains it pours—I have noted your new citations. Thanks again.
It appears (from the new comments above) that the colleagues of the racist hackers who invaded the Zoom call Friday (or perhaps the hackers themselves) have now trolled the Comments. My thought is that it is best to be non-reactive.
"The GOP Wants to Destroy Politics as We Know It. Violence and Lies and Fill the Vacuum" describes the nihilism of the autocratic mentality, which embraces unaccountable lawlessness and violence, while dehumanizing women, and rendering everything that is real meaningless: the truth, human discourse and consciousness, politics and democratic institutions, and conscience and morality.
The political tyranny created by the autocratic mentality is twofold, consisting of acts and words: tyrannical acts, and the propagandistic words that enable or engender those acts. Autocratic mentality may usefully be considered specifically in terms of the nature and technique of its discourse.
Autocratic discourse (also called totalitarian discourse) pretends to be communication, but its real purpose is to make communication impossible. (Thus Schumer characterized trying to negotiate with Trump as like "trying to negotiate with Jell-O.")
The first principle of autocratic discourse is that whatever the leader says is true. Why is it true? Because he says so. What he says is beyond evaluation by normal means of evaluation, that is, by evaluation in terms of empirical evidence and reason, or logical argument. It does not matter if what the leader says contradicts what he said yesterday; contradicts other statements he makes today; or even contradicts itself. (Thus 2016 to 2020 in America.)
The leader not only owns and controls the truth, it is as if he owns and controls reality itself. He believes that reality is his to control; in the alternative universe he creates, he induces others to believe this as well. (Thus an aide to George W. Bush, thought to be Karl Rove, told a reporter that he and other reporters live in "the reality-based community," based on "your judicious study of discernible reality"; but "that's not the way the world really works any more. We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. . . . And while you're studying that reality . . . we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too . . . . We're history's actors . . . and . . . all of you will be left to just study what we do.") Thus the autocrat's tyrannical words pervert and corrupt the truth, which in turn engenders or enables tyrannical acts that pervert and corrupt reality. Autocratic discourse creates a tyrannical political order. (I do not remember where I found the model of totalitarian discourse described in this and the two preceding paragraphs.)
Autocratic discourse is founded on the pretense that it is real communication. Real communication is a two-way, symmetrical interaction between two individuals, based on mutual respect for one other as distinct, autonomous individuals, each with his or her own needs, desires, and ways of understanding and relating to reality. In real communication, each individual attempts to accommodate the other in respect to the differences between them. The purpose of autocratic discourse, in contrast, is not communication but domination: not two-way communication between two individuals based on mutual respect, but weaponized, one-way "communication" based on the determination of one person to dominate and control the other, whom he reduces to the status of an object. Autocratic discourse begins in the pretense of engaging in the two-way, symmetrical relationship of real communication. Acting in bad faith and with a lack of respect for the other, it exploits the other's good faith and trust in order to deceive, engage, and ensnare its victim. This asymmetrical situation occurs in politics when one side acts in good faith, abiding by the norms of democracy, while the other side acts in bad faith, exploiting the norms of democracy in order to destroy democracy and establish autocracy. In religion, this asymmetrical situation occurs when religious hypocrites claim that their phantasmagorical rationalizations for tyrannizing over others must be respected as their "religious" beliefs, and that they must therefore be allowed to put them into practice. (Behavior visible in countries around the world, as well as in America).
Arguably the most important triumph of autocratic propaganda in contemporary America--a propaganda triumph achieved by mainstream American institutions, not by apostles of the far-right--is the suppression of knowledge about the psychological nature of autocracy, its propaganda and its tyrannical rule. That autocracy cannot be understood without understanding its psychological basis should be axiomatic. American democracy is under profound threat in 2021 because one-third of Americans are in a state of mass psychosis. (Thus Werner Herzog, the great German film director, twittered: "Dear America: You are waking up, as Germany once did, to the awareness that 1/3 of your people would kill another 1/3, while 1/3 watches.") Absent this mass psychosis, there would be no political crisis. Where have professional psychologists (mental health professionals) been in American public discourse for the last five years? Preeminently, the psychiatrist Bandy X. Lee and her colleagues, who produced the anthology, "The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump," were embraced by dozens of Congressional Representatives in 2017, who wanted them to educate politicians and the public. Then Lee and her colleagues were quickly censored with brutal efficiency by the American Psychiatric Association, the New York Times (and later by Yale University). They were censored on the basis of the kind of insultingly spurious and maddeningly contorted grounds typical of sophisticated autocratic propaganda. Vladimir Putin might have a hard time matching the efficiency and total blackout of Lee and her colleagues that these august mainstream institutions have achieved. (The crucial support thus rendered to American autocracy by the APA and the NYT was apparently corruptly influenced by their potential loss, respectively, of government funding and pharmaceutical advertising revenue.) Lee and her colleagues continue to produce important work, but institutions that supposedly oppose autocracy in America continue to autocratically censor her and her colleagues, or to allow them to be autocratically censored. Individuals in other fields have made fragmentary attempts to fill the void, and of course amateurs in any field may do important work, but just as there is no substitute for professional historians or professional journalists, there is no substitute for professional psychologists.
Another great article and it appears me that a growing majority of the Americans either don't see what is happening or simply don't care. Politicians are not held accountable by their peers nor the voters for their words and behaviour under the banner of freedom of speech. There seems to be great reluctance to use the rule of law, let alone rules of conduct, against politician and they themselves seem to ignore when being held accountable. Why? Because they are above the law as "law makers"? Defending their foot soldiers, who are being held accountable, from the comfort of their pluche seats and showering donor money to support their defence? Without accountability there cannot be democracy nor true free speech. " Once the words leave your mouth, you lose control over them so be careful with what you say so not to unintentionally hurt others" I was told when I was young Maybe this should become the new motto for Politicians, the Social Media in general and those sharing opinions on in the Media.
My son asks”doesn’t Congress have HR “ any other workplace would call for the firing of an employee for threatening a co-worker. AOC should seek a protective order. Dems need to play rougher.
“Former Trump attorney Michael Cohen says New York state and federal prosecutors have more than enough evidence to bring indictments against his former boss — and are working hard to do so.”, Michael Cohen: Ex-Trump attorney says prosecutors are ‘working very hard’ towards indicting former president, 11/23/21, independent.co. uk
7 GOP Senators voted to convict Trump for inciting an insurrection, Mueller laid out 6 instances of obstruction of justice in volume 2 of his report, Trump was Individual 1 in the SDNY indictment of Michael Cohen, Trump violated the foreign and domestic Emoluments clauses of the Constitution, etc, etc. Trump's the ultimate conman...he convinces people like you that he's an 'outsider' while pocketing your donations, living in a mansion, and sneering privately at his base. The worse he treats his base, the more they adore him, so I guess their getting the contempt they crave.
Trump is like agent Smith in the 3rd Matrrix trilogy film "Revolutions". In the final showdown scene the evil agent Smith dives his hand into Neo's chest and transforms him into a copy of himself. Its a harrowing scene to watch. See it at about 2:30 into the scene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lX0Do0-5vKs.
Trump has done the same thing to the GOP. He has succeeded at transforming it into a copy of himself. The GOP in its current iteration is devoid of humanity, principle or truth. It is malignantly narcissistic, violent and corrupt. It pursues one thing and one thing only and that is the attainment power so it can cement its minority rule status into permanent control of the country and its resources.The rule of law, free fair elections and the ideal of representative government based on the consent of the governed are steamrolled out of existence. Trump with the full support of his made over GOP and the levers of government power will aggrandize himself endlessly. His cronies will see unbelievable wealth showered upon them as well as immunity from legal prosecution. The USA will be hollowed out and resemble other autocracies run by kleptocrats and oligarchs. We will be comrades with Putin, Orban and Lukashenko, not Johnson, Merkel or Macron. This must be stopped!
The GOP, in its resistance to going extinct as a party, has resorted to drastic measures that seem to include fascist politics. They will burn down the house to save their party. Orwell said, "In times of universal deceit, telling the truth will be a revolutionary act."
Trump is sui generis in American history. My point was; would the Republican party be as malignantly narcissistic, violent, neo fascist and corrupt as it is now without Trump, who is by nature fascist and authoritarian in every fiber of his being? It would not I would argue have tried to overturn the counting of electoral votes in a violent coup (autogolpe) that was well planned and organized from the top by he and his conspirators and it would not I would argued have altered the legal frame work in states to steal the next Presidential election in 24 had say Jeb Bush or any other Republican candidate running at the time gotten the nomination in 2015 and become President.
Maybe I'm arguing the (Great Man theory) of history here in a sense? Trump is a gifted demagogue and charismatic cult leader who has transformed the GOP into his own image.
Ha ha it's not just the particles in the standard model that are in superposition, the whole universe is a wave function and there's no collapse upon measurement just subjective decoherence..😁🤣😁
Many people have characterized Trump as stupid and lacking in knowledge of history, government, and many other things. Yet, his cumulative actions demonstrate an understanding, purpose, and plan to turn the U.S.A. into a more authoritarian, less democratic country. Has he figured out how to do this all by himself, or does he have a froup if advisors who tell him what to do? If it's the latter, who are these behind-the-scenes stragetists? Steve Bannon? Steven Miller? Roger Stone? Who?
Steve Bannon loves Mussolini and was a template for him on how to lead. We know that Bannon and Trump had communicated quite a bit while Bannon was on his staff and afterwards. It is very likely that Bannon is behind much of Trump's actions.
Paul Gosar's sister calls him a sociopath and she may be right, considering the number of fascist leaders who have been sociopaths. I consider fascism, the politics of lunacy. Gosar put his hateful video back in circulation after the uproar about it, seemingly to rub people's faces in the manure he has spread. He is sadistic, which is rampant in fascist societies; so is vengeance. The new GOP has lost its mind in a post-truth fog.
As an AZ resident, I have seen much about Gosar and his lunacy. But there is a large tribe of like minded GOP thugs in AZ (Karen Fann, Kari Lake, Mark Finchem, Brnovich etc.) It would not surprise me one bit if they started wearing swastika arm bands.
It does seem though that a number of elites (the only ones who can impact the success of the authoritarian project) are beginning to understand the nature of the enemy thanks in no small part to you, Ruth, and your brave cohorts. TY for your work.
It’s not just the GOP draining this country of hope. Our laws still exist but aren’t being enforced. No wonder we are on the precipice of a Constitutional crisis. Yesterday, I read that our ports are running much better now, thanks to swift and intense efforts fix the problems. Yet our Republic is being dismantled and we are in more danger than we were a year ago. Why isn’t this ship being turned around?
I’m so sorry to see that trolls and haters have filled this space. I appreciate Ruth’s work and find her analysis spot on. But the drivers of divisiveness wage war on the truth tellers - they can’t stand to see themselves and their destructive goals described accurately.
I am on it!
I agree. Looking at US politics from the outside, I am more and more alarmed at how ordinary people seem unaware of the country's slide into autocracy and even embrace it. In Britain, where I live, there are anti-liberal forces at work too, but the autocratic sickness seems much more acute in the US. The reactionary comments below demonstrate this well.
When I grow up , I want to write delusional rants without a scintilla of evidence and get paid for it too.
Honestly one of the questions I find myself asking all the time, who pays these people to write this stuff?
Honestly, I don't know what world people like the author and Democrats in general are even living in. The double standards, the selection bias, ignorance and naivety and just total woke B.S. of this party is spiraling out of control.
It is truly a group of people who are ruled by emotions. Now is that because they can't help it, or because they choose to be like this, or because they have been brainwashed by their echo chamber?
Who knows? I think James Carvielle said it right "They need a woke detox".
A cartoon. A fucking cartoon.
We are well and truly fucked now.
Yes, but how about those of us who adore racism, xenophobia, antisemitism, tobacco products, male supremacy, Wagner, Aryans, etc., etc?
The GOP portrays itself as the party of "freedom." I think that this is meant to forestall attacks that they are authoritarians. However, their concept of "freedom" does not embrace freedom for all to vote or freedom to vote in fairly drawn state house and Congressional districts. How do we make this distinction clear to voters who do not follow politics closely, i.e., most voters? For example, do we hire marketing companies who might come up with pithy slogans?
2/2 [This comment should follow 1/2 below.]
Nevertheless, it is essential to attempt to understand how the autocrat produces his personal reality-distortion field, and induces both those in his orbit and the entire nation to live under the tyranny of the alternative universe he generates. Psychologically the autocrat is an extremely paranoid, malignantly sadistic, high-functioning sociopath with a severe narcissistic personality disorder. Because he is a narcissistic personality, he is highly adept at manipulating other people: one of the chief life-goals of every narcissistic personality is to turn as many other people as possible into his or her "narcissistic slaves," devoted to satisfying his or her narcissistic needs and demands. In order to turn people into his narcissistic slaves, the autocrat creates a personal reality-distortion field, based on the delusional alternative universe he lives in, and makes it impossible to exist in his orbit without submitting to his delusory reality. The only way to escape his delusions is to exit his orbit altogether. (A familiar situation in private as well as political life.) Those who remain in the autocrat's orbit internalize his paranoid and pathologically narcissistic alternative universe, and impose it in turn on the nation, becoming minor deities in their own right, reflecting the autocrat's divinity. The core of the narcissistic personality is the grandiose self, and the ultimate model of the grandiose self is God. Thus the ultimate model to which the autocrat and his followers aspire is that of the chosen people living in infantile bliss under the dominion of their all-wise, all-powerful Father. (The psychological model in this paragraph is mostly based on Hervey Cleckley's "The Mask of Sanity" and Otto Kernberg.)
Those in the autocrat's nation who are disaffected and outside the leader's personal orbit, but are unable escape his tyranny, must learn to live with his alternative reality, a reality which both is and is not. They must learn every day what the new official truth is, and pretend to believe it, because otherwise they might hear a knock on the door in the middle of the night. Then the next day (as Karl Rove said) they must learn that day's new official truth. Living this way of course deranges their personal sense of reality, and estranges them from their own and others' humanity. Autocracy presents itself as establishing order, but since it is an effort to force reality to conform to sick fantasy and delusion, in reality it can only mask underlying disorder, and must therefore use physical violence both to express its inner nature and to maintain political control.
Escaping from the alternative universe of autocratic discourse is impossible as long as that discourse is accepted on its own terms, that is, as real communication. Autocratic discourse generates an inescapable labyrinth, or hall of mirrors, in which every point of evidence, and every argument, is related to still another point of evidence or argument, thus creating an endlessly proliferating web of pathways, making it impossible to establish any reliable point of reference. One can escape this labyrinth only by recognizing that the discourse is not real communication, but is intended to make real communication impossible in order to dominate its audience, and that the labyrinth is inescapable by design. One escapes not by endlessly exploring its ever-proliferating pathways, but by simply walking out the door (which is far easier said than done).
Autocratic discourse and tyranny should also be understood in terms of the discourse and authority in all societies in general. Every society may be either "primitive" or "advanced." A primitive society is organized for the purpose of maintaining the domination of the wealthy and powerful, who must employ obfuscation in the service of maintaining the social injustice that is the basis of their status. The structure of a primitive society, accordingly, is authoritarian, defining the identity of the individual in terms of his or her relation to society. An advanced society, in contrast, is organized for the purpose of enabling the development and fulfillment of every one of its members, who is defined by his or her self-development as an individual. (This form of society is always characterized by the Establishment, of course, as a raging chaos of renegade, atomistic egos.) All societies exist between the two poles of the few who wish to live in a primitive society, and the few who wish to live in an advanced society. Between them are the many, who can be swayed either way, though they are far more easily swayed by the wealthy and powerful to submit to living in a primitive society. To maintain the authoritarian structure of the primitive society, the wealthy and powerful require an apparatus of what we now call intellectuals--secular, religious, or both. Intellectuals are almost always apologists for their society's authoritarian structure, and the most enthusiastic among them produce the obfuscation that the wealthy and powerful require to maintain social injustice. (Thus professional economists have become one of our own essential priestly orders, demonstrating with mathematicalized and abstract mumbo-jumbo the perpetual necessity of making not only economic but social and political arrangements that result in transferring as much wealth as possible from the people to the oligarchy.) Under modern autocracy, the worst of the intellectuals produce autocratic discourse, or totalitarian propaganda, in defense of their society's endlessly metastacizing social injustice, corruption, and violence. (The concept of primitive and advanced societies is from Northrop Frye's "The Double Vision.")
The nihilism of modern autocracy is not a philosophical but an existential nihilism; that is to say, it is the death instinct. The most primitive and destructive psychological trait of the autocrat is seldom mentioned: his analizing personality. He wishes to turn everything in the universe into excrement. Historically, marauding soldiers and brigands have not infrequently killed and raped the inhabitants of a village, then defecated in their burnt-out homes and smeared their excrement on the walls. (Thus the Republican mob on January 6 defecated in the Capitol, our citadel of democracy, and smeared their excrement on its walls.) The analizing personality is the psychological aspect of nihilism, the death impulse that ultimately wishes to destroy everything in the universe. While the autocrat seems to begin in the hatred and persecution of the Other--female, Black, Muslim and Jew, and so forth--his real hatred is for life itself, beginning with his own. He is a dead soul, and out of envy wishes to murder the soul or the body of everyone with a living soul, and to ensure that no one may achieve happiness or humanity. Whether he dies in his own conflagration like Hitler or lives to old age like Franco, the freedom he achieves, in the reality of his interior life, is only the freedom of a man who jumps off a cliff into thin air, gloriously free of all human and earthly restraints for the few seconds it takes him to hit bottom. His world-historical success is taking as many of the rest of us with him as he can. He has devised innumerable ways of doing so, either quickly (as Trump and Barr did with their eleventh-hour executions), or tortuously, through the innumerable forms of social injustice that have emerged so starkly into our consciousness during the last few years.
"one of the chief life-goals of every narcissistic personality is to turn as many other people as possible into his or her "narcissistic slaves," devoted to satisfying his or her narcissistic needs and demands."
This is known as narcissistic triangulation. Of course Trump does this, due to his being a sociopath (APD).
This comment is one of the silliest and most pretentious things I've ever read.
Thanks for the in-depth discussion exploring the nihilism and autocratic, toxic discourse of Rep Gosar (and Trump and other Trump disciples) Many helpful connections with Ruth’s article. Cult expert Steven Hassan also explores the deviant psychology underpinning the autocrats’ propaganda in his THE CULT OF TRUMP. Hassan makes his examination in the hope that his readers will be able to understand what has happened to the millions of us swallowed up by the autocratic cult, and how to help them escape. As you say …. easier said than done
Glad you found my comment helpful. I’d heard of Hassan. Now I’ve looked into “The Cult of Trump.” It is highly recommended by Bandy X. Lee herself. I’m hoping to find time to read it. Thank you.
Lucid subscriber Jill Cody interviews Steven on her Be Bold America podcast Sept 13, 2020 … good summary in 1hr explores many of his foundational insights; his site freedomofmind.com has 100’s of hrs of his interviews/talks …. 40 years experience and research
Randolph,
When it rains it pours—I have noted your new citations. Thanks again.
It appears (from the new comments above) that the colleagues of the racist hackers who invaded the Zoom call Friday (or perhaps the hackers themselves) have now trolled the Comments. My thought is that it is best to be non-reactive.
Yes, Alexander, probably best to be non-reactive … mess will be cleaned up soon by friends assigned the task. Peace
1/2
"The GOP Wants to Destroy Politics as We Know It. Violence and Lies and Fill the Vacuum" describes the nihilism of the autocratic mentality, which embraces unaccountable lawlessness and violence, while dehumanizing women, and rendering everything that is real meaningless: the truth, human discourse and consciousness, politics and democratic institutions, and conscience and morality.
The political tyranny created by the autocratic mentality is twofold, consisting of acts and words: tyrannical acts, and the propagandistic words that enable or engender those acts. Autocratic mentality may usefully be considered specifically in terms of the nature and technique of its discourse.
Autocratic discourse (also called totalitarian discourse) pretends to be communication, but its real purpose is to make communication impossible. (Thus Schumer characterized trying to negotiate with Trump as like "trying to negotiate with Jell-O.")
The first principle of autocratic discourse is that whatever the leader says is true. Why is it true? Because he says so. What he says is beyond evaluation by normal means of evaluation, that is, by evaluation in terms of empirical evidence and reason, or logical argument. It does not matter if what the leader says contradicts what he said yesterday; contradicts other statements he makes today; or even contradicts itself. (Thus 2016 to 2020 in America.)
The leader not only owns and controls the truth, it is as if he owns and controls reality itself. He believes that reality is his to control; in the alternative universe he creates, he induces others to believe this as well. (Thus an aide to George W. Bush, thought to be Karl Rove, told a reporter that he and other reporters live in "the reality-based community," based on "your judicious study of discernible reality"; but "that's not the way the world really works any more. We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. . . . And while you're studying that reality . . . we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too . . . . We're history's actors . . . and . . . all of you will be left to just study what we do.") Thus the autocrat's tyrannical words pervert and corrupt the truth, which in turn engenders or enables tyrannical acts that pervert and corrupt reality. Autocratic discourse creates a tyrannical political order. (I do not remember where I found the model of totalitarian discourse described in this and the two preceding paragraphs.)
Autocratic discourse is founded on the pretense that it is real communication. Real communication is a two-way, symmetrical interaction between two individuals, based on mutual respect for one other as distinct, autonomous individuals, each with his or her own needs, desires, and ways of understanding and relating to reality. In real communication, each individual attempts to accommodate the other in respect to the differences between them. The purpose of autocratic discourse, in contrast, is not communication but domination: not two-way communication between two individuals based on mutual respect, but weaponized, one-way "communication" based on the determination of one person to dominate and control the other, whom he reduces to the status of an object. Autocratic discourse begins in the pretense of engaging in the two-way, symmetrical relationship of real communication. Acting in bad faith and with a lack of respect for the other, it exploits the other's good faith and trust in order to deceive, engage, and ensnare its victim. This asymmetrical situation occurs in politics when one side acts in good faith, abiding by the norms of democracy, while the other side acts in bad faith, exploiting the norms of democracy in order to destroy democracy and establish autocracy. In religion, this asymmetrical situation occurs when religious hypocrites claim that their phantasmagorical rationalizations for tyrannizing over others must be respected as their "religious" beliefs, and that they must therefore be allowed to put them into practice. (Behavior visible in countries around the world, as well as in America).
Arguably the most important triumph of autocratic propaganda in contemporary America--a propaganda triumph achieved by mainstream American institutions, not by apostles of the far-right--is the suppression of knowledge about the psychological nature of autocracy, its propaganda and its tyrannical rule. That autocracy cannot be understood without understanding its psychological basis should be axiomatic. American democracy is under profound threat in 2021 because one-third of Americans are in a state of mass psychosis. (Thus Werner Herzog, the great German film director, twittered: "Dear America: You are waking up, as Germany once did, to the awareness that 1/3 of your people would kill another 1/3, while 1/3 watches.") Absent this mass psychosis, there would be no political crisis. Where have professional psychologists (mental health professionals) been in American public discourse for the last five years? Preeminently, the psychiatrist Bandy X. Lee and her colleagues, who produced the anthology, "The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump," were embraced by dozens of Congressional Representatives in 2017, who wanted them to educate politicians and the public. Then Lee and her colleagues were quickly censored with brutal efficiency by the American Psychiatric Association, the New York Times (and later by Yale University). They were censored on the basis of the kind of insultingly spurious and maddeningly contorted grounds typical of sophisticated autocratic propaganda. Vladimir Putin might have a hard time matching the efficiency and total blackout of Lee and her colleagues that these august mainstream institutions have achieved. (The crucial support thus rendered to American autocracy by the APA and the NYT was apparently corruptly influenced by their potential loss, respectively, of government funding and pharmaceutical advertising revenue.) Lee and her colleagues continue to produce important work, but institutions that supposedly oppose autocracy in America continue to autocratically censor her and her colleagues, or to allow them to be autocratically censored. Individuals in other fields have made fragmentary attempts to fill the void, and of course amateurs in any field may do important work, but just as there is no substitute for professional historians or professional journalists, there is no substitute for professional psychologists.
Another great article and it appears me that a growing majority of the Americans either don't see what is happening or simply don't care. Politicians are not held accountable by their peers nor the voters for their words and behaviour under the banner of freedom of speech. There seems to be great reluctance to use the rule of law, let alone rules of conduct, against politician and they themselves seem to ignore when being held accountable. Why? Because they are above the law as "law makers"? Defending their foot soldiers, who are being held accountable, from the comfort of their pluche seats and showering donor money to support their defence? Without accountability there cannot be democracy nor true free speech. " Once the words leave your mouth, you lose control over them so be careful with what you say so not to unintentionally hurt others" I was told when I was young Maybe this should become the new motto for Politicians, the Social Media in general and those sharing opinions on in the Media.
Thank you....this explains a lot why America is where it is.........
My son asks”doesn’t Congress have HR “ any other workplace would call for the firing of an employee for threatening a co-worker. AOC should seek a protective order. Dems need to play rougher.
“Former Trump attorney Michael Cohen says New York state and federal prosecutors have more than enough evidence to bring indictments against his former boss — and are working hard to do so.”, Michael Cohen: Ex-Trump attorney says prosecutors are ‘working very hard’ towards indicting former president, 11/23/21, independent.co. uk
Waiting for Godot...
7 GOP Senators voted to convict Trump for inciting an insurrection, Mueller laid out 6 instances of obstruction of justice in volume 2 of his report, Trump was Individual 1 in the SDNY indictment of Michael Cohen, Trump violated the foreign and domestic Emoluments clauses of the Constitution, etc, etc. Trump's the ultimate conman...he convinces people like you that he's an 'outsider' while pocketing your donations, living in a mansion, and sneering privately at his base. The worse he treats his base, the more they adore him, so I guess their getting the contempt they crave.
'they're'...
Trump is like agent Smith in the 3rd Matrrix trilogy film "Revolutions". In the final showdown scene the evil agent Smith dives his hand into Neo's chest and transforms him into a copy of himself. Its a harrowing scene to watch. See it at about 2:30 into the scene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lX0Do0-5vKs.
Trump has done the same thing to the GOP. He has succeeded at transforming it into a copy of himself. The GOP in its current iteration is devoid of humanity, principle or truth. It is malignantly narcissistic, violent and corrupt. It pursues one thing and one thing only and that is the attainment power so it can cement its minority rule status into permanent control of the country and its resources.The rule of law, free fair elections and the ideal of representative government based on the consent of the governed are steamrolled out of existence. Trump with the full support of his made over GOP and the levers of government power will aggrandize himself endlessly. His cronies will see unbelievable wealth showered upon them as well as immunity from legal prosecution. The USA will be hollowed out and resemble other autocracies run by kleptocrats and oligarchs. We will be comrades with Putin, Orban and Lukashenko, not Johnson, Merkel or Macron. This must be stopped!
The GOP, in its resistance to going extinct as a party, has resorted to drastic measures that seem to include fascist politics. They will burn down the house to save their party. Orwell said, "In times of universal deceit, telling the truth will be a revolutionary act."
Telling the truth becomes a subversive act.
Trump is sui generis in American history. My point was; would the Republican party be as malignantly narcissistic, violent, neo fascist and corrupt as it is now without Trump, who is by nature fascist and authoritarian in every fiber of his being? It would not I would argue have tried to overturn the counting of electoral votes in a violent coup (autogolpe) that was well planned and organized from the top by he and his conspirators and it would not I would argued have altered the legal frame work in states to steal the next Presidential election in 24 had say Jeb Bush or any other Republican candidate running at the time gotten the nomination in 2015 and become President.
Maybe I'm arguing the (Great Man theory) of history here in a sense? Trump is a gifted demagogue and charismatic cult leader who has transformed the GOP into his own image.
Ha ha it's not just the particles in the standard model that are in superposition, the whole universe is a wave function and there's no collapse upon measurement just subjective decoherence..😁🤣😁
Many people have characterized Trump as stupid and lacking in knowledge of history, government, and many other things. Yet, his cumulative actions demonstrate an understanding, purpose, and plan to turn the U.S.A. into a more authoritarian, less democratic country. Has he figured out how to do this all by himself, or does he have a froup if advisors who tell him what to do? If it's the latter, who are these behind-the-scenes stragetists? Steve Bannon? Steven Miller? Roger Stone? Who?
Steve Bannon loves Mussolini and was a template for him on how to lead. We know that Bannon and Trump had communicated quite a bit while Bannon was on his staff and afterwards. It is very likely that Bannon is behind much of Trump's actions.
Outstanding article Ruth!
Paul Gosar's sister calls him a sociopath and she may be right, considering the number of fascist leaders who have been sociopaths. I consider fascism, the politics of lunacy. Gosar put his hateful video back in circulation after the uproar about it, seemingly to rub people's faces in the manure he has spread. He is sadistic, which is rampant in fascist societies; so is vengeance. The new GOP has lost its mind in a post-truth fog.
As an AZ resident, I have seen much about Gosar and his lunacy. But there is a large tribe of like minded GOP thugs in AZ (Karen Fann, Kari Lake, Mark Finchem, Brnovich etc.) It would not surprise me one bit if they started wearing swastika arm bands.
The truth of this piece stings.
It does seem though that a number of elites (the only ones who can impact the success of the authoritarian project) are beginning to understand the nature of the enemy thanks in no small part to you, Ruth, and your brave cohorts. TY for your work.
It’s not just the GOP draining this country of hope. Our laws still exist but aren’t being enforced. No wonder we are on the precipice of a Constitutional crisis. Yesterday, I read that our ports are running much better now, thanks to swift and intense efforts fix the problems. Yet our Republic is being dismantled and we are in more danger than we were a year ago. Why isn’t this ship being turned around?