Every now and then, I see something truly profound online. That happened earlier today, when the Substack column below showed up in my email account. It was the very first time I had seen someone size up in psychiatric terms, what I have been sizing up in demonic possession terms: Donald Trump and his cult. Please understand, the same analysis applies to any political cult, such as the Republican Party and the Democratic Party. Below the column is my comment to the person who published it, and his reply, and my reply back to him. I have been reading his musings for some time, but this time he went out and lassoed something every American should read a few times, but, of course, good luck that happening.
Way back in the day (2017), a brave and outstanding professor of psychiatry Bandi X. Lee edited and then published of The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump, a book of essays by mental health professionals including respected psychiatrists and psychologists, who discussed the mental health of then-President Donald Trump. Dr. Lee can be credited with popularizing Trump as a “Malignant Narcissist.” Her professional focus as a Yale Professor was centered on public health, particularly in the areas of violence prevention, trauma, and the psychological effects of societal and political factors on individuals and communities.
It’s important to note that the concept of malignant narcissism is not an official diagnostic category in mental health. Instead, it’s a descriptive term used by mental health professionals to aggregate and characterize a specific combination of traits that can be observed in some individuals:
1. Narcissism: Exaggerated sense of self-importance, preoccupation with fantasies of unlimited success, a need for excessive admiration, and a lack of empathy.
2. Antisocial Traits: Manipulativeness, deceitfulness, disregard for the rights of others, and a tendency to exploit and manipulate others for personal gain.
3. Aggressiveness: A propensity for hostility, aggression, and a willingness to use others for personal advancement.
4. Grandiosity: An inflated sense of one’s own importance, accompanied by fantasies of power, success, and attractiveness.
5. Lack of Empathy: Difficulty understanding or caring about the feelings and needs of others.
6. Impulsivity: Acting without thinking through the consequences, often driven by a desire for immediate gratification.
7. Paranoia: Suspicion and distrust of others, often accompanied by a tendency to perceive oneself as a victim or under constant threat.
8. Inability to Handle Criticism: Strong reactions to criticism or perceived slights, often responding with defensiveness, anger, or vindictiveness.
9. Egocentrism: An excessive focus on oneself and a disregard for the needs and perspectives of others.
The above list of traits literally is Trump
Get Rid of Trump; Problem Solved – Not So Fast
Dr. Lee understands that the larger problem of Trump is that he is not in isolation. It is the dynamic between him his Fascist Loving Republican base. Lee describes this relationship as “shared psychosis” One small scale example is the crazed mob that he set forth on January 6, 2021 to storm the Capital and by one of several strategies overturn a legal election to return him office as the President.
Lee was essentially prescient when went on to explain this even greater threat posed to society in an article that appeared in a 2022 “Scientific American” article:
When a highly symptomatic individual is placed in an influential position, the person’s symptoms can spread through the population through emotional bonds, heightening existing pathologies and inducing delusions, paranoia and propensity for violence—even in previously healthy individuals. The treatment is removal of exposure.
CBS Polls verify the depth of “Symbiotic Mass Psychosis”
This brings me to recent polls conducted by CBS, because it provides us a far more revealing set of insights than the usual who is ahead in the horse race predictions that we associate with political campaigning.
The CBS poll is far more nuanced and reveal emotive feelings, more like the results derived from a focus group in marketing. With this approach we see levels of underlying emotion and feeling about what drives people’s desires, and commitment about a product or service. In this instance Trump.
Lee explained the dynamic of Trump’s widely accepted “malignant narcissism” which extends into a symbiosis with his cult followers. The Lee, Scientific American article stated that “When such wounded individuals are given positions of power, they arouse similar pathology in the population that creates a “lock and key” relationship.” a form of mass psychosis that goes far beyond normal group psychology.
The two polls conducted in August of 2023 describe the Trump supporter relationship as “transactional.” That is to say, it is more of a two way relationship;
“They know him better than others. Plus they like him personally, but even more, they believe he fights for them,” (CBS Poll 08/23)
Additional beliefs on which Trump and his base mirror at high levels are:
They feel he fights for them.
They want payback.
Violent means are justified
He makes them feel inspired, confident and empowered
Democrats are enemies and a threat to their way of life
Trump will restore to a past when America Was Great
The Deeply Disturbed 30%
One finds that in poll after poll and in research project that the hardcore Trump base seems to be 30 to 35% of the adult American Electorate at or over age 18.
It should come as no shock that according to the John Hopkins school of Mental Health that: An estimated 26% of Americans ages 18 and older -- about 1 in 4 adults -- suffers from a diagnosable mental disorder in a given year. (John Hopkins)
I would suggest this is a conservative under estimate off by 4 to as much as 10%
Meanwhile Cucker Tarlson and Trump on the “X” Interview
As litigation and criminal charges amass Trump is ratcheting up the base, cranking up the symbiosis, acknowledging their hatred and the bond he has with them.
“Asked by former Fox News host Tucker Carlson whether the nation is headed toward open conflict, Trump responded: “I don’t know. I can say this: There’s a level of passion that I’ve never seen. There’s a level of hatred that I’ve never seen. And that’s probably a bad combination.”
Trump compared the current volatile mix of passion and hatred to the crowd on Jan. 6, 2021, and pivoted to defending his supporters who attacked the U.S. Capitol that day — falsely describing the violent assault as a day of “love and unity.” (Source: Washington Post 08/23)”
Trump didn’t respond directly. “I think the people of our country don’t get enough credit for how smart they are,” he said. “They get it. I got indicted four times. All trivial. Nonsense. Bullshit. It’s all bullshit.” (From Slate Magazine: 08/24)
Trump Continues to Chum the Waters
The CBS poll insights provide strong evidence and verifies that the psycho/social dynamic of “shared psychosis” is well established and working ever more intensely.
Most of us have experienced the head banging a wall frustration in trying to get a family member or close friend who “loves Trump”and who will vote form him in 2024, even as a convicted felon to be “woke” from the illusion of Trump and his fellow fascist loving minions
Shared Psychosis is not a new phenomenon. In the The Mass Delusions of Crowds, author William J. Bernstein, quotes Friedrich Nietzsche, “Madness is rare in the individual—but with groups, parties, peoples, and ages it is the rule.” Bernstein cites numerous cases in which Christianity serves as a prime example and a constant source for the generation of mass hysteria.
One example happened in America around 150 years ago. Protestant Christianity evolved a doctrine of dispensationalism which its modern advocates have honed into the world’s most compelling end-times narrative. This includes many tropes like the Rapture, End Times, and of course, the Anti-Christ. Today’s Evangelicals are promoting Christian Nationalism with Trump integrated in these apocalyptic events as none other than a second “King Cyrus” in the role of a living demigod. As a new King Cyrus Trump will save Christians from the horror of slavery and death just as the original Cyrus saved Jews from persecution. That there is absolutely nos such threat is of course never taken into consideration in the mind of symbiotic Trumpers.
You and I are not part of is the “bond” formed by Trump minions who see him as the living embodiment of all the wealth and power they too could and should have. Trump gives legitimacy to previously frowned upon bigotry, racism, misogyny as well as the employment of rampant capitalism that features thuggery and grifting as both moral and normal to ones success.
This is why Bandi X. Lee uses the analogy of a lock and key to explain the relationship. The Trump/Base is always melding. It is a constant feedback loop energized by and for for aggrieved people who see Trump as some form of hope, recompense and even avenging angel for their immiseration. He will enable their deliverance from decades of wage stagnation, drugs, alcohol and deaths of despair. Suffering they never see as caused by rich capitalist, but by a system that caters to the less deserving. An “other” that will breed in such numbers as to overcome them completely.
Trump and his crony sociopathic billionaires have found the ideal means to exploit those they grift to supply their endless narcissism and greed.
The CBS polls are literal handwriting on the wall. When Trump instructs his base to move from “stand down” to fight like hell then we are in truly uncharted territory as a nation.
Our least painful step to precluding the Trump Fascist State is to begin voting him and all Republicans from public office in 2024.
Reference:
The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 27 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President. Thomas Dunne Books, 2017. (Editor) ISBN 978-1250179456
The Delusion of Crowds: Why People GO MAD in GROUPS, 2021 William J. Berstein ISBN 978-0-8021-5709-6 eISBN 978-0-8021-5711-9
Sloan Bashinsky👍, much the same analysis for mass demonic possession, starting at the top, Trump. Yet absent Force Majuere, Trump and his supporters are unreachable, and most Republicans will vote for him, regardless. I still like Amendment 14, Section 3, under which Jan 6 disqualifies him to run for office. Why the DOJ didn’t bring that civil case D.C. US District Court in 2021 baffles me. Maybe the prosecutors can pick juries that don’t include Trump ringers? Maybe Trump will have a coronary or stroke that takes him out? Maybe a Secret Service agent will feel compelled to put country before Trump? Maybe aliens abduct Trump? Do I like Sleepy Joe? No. Do I think the Dems have their shit together? No. But they don’t remind me of Nazi Germany, they don’t look like the Fourth Reich.Ol’ Flawriduh CrackerSloan! Always good to read your responses. You are right in that there a numerous factors at play from electoral politics to strokes (Trump is in no way immune to that end as is Biden).
Your point about a Fascist Amerika becoming reality under a return of Trump is well made and I would add should be taken as fact not a could be.
There is a local PBS affiliate program that serves as a roundup of Florida political events where a Trumpite panelist was literally shouting warnings of get even payback against us Democrats. Evidently it is they who suffer under the “Communist Yoke of Biden.” Who knew?Oh, the DOJ historically has served as a shield for the Executive in power. I give some credit to Jack Smith, but a plurality of Fascist Judges can engage in all kinds of stalls and denials. And they are currently immune from being removed by anyone.Sloan BashinskyAmendment 14, Section 3
Disqualification from Holding OfficeNo person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.I clerked for a U.S. District Judge who presided over ever federal prosecution in North Alabama. I think President Biden was an idiot if he did not twist his Attorney General's arm to bring a Section 3 action in the Washington, D.C. U.S. District Court to disqualify Trump, or kiss adios being the US Attorney General. There are federal judges who are not whored out to Donald Trump. Maybe one of them would have been assigned the case by the D.C. District Court Clerk's AI.That aside, the psychiatric work up you shared parallels what I have been telling people for years. If they latch themselves to a political party/candidate, they do it in all ways imaginable and unimaginable, until and they unlatch themselves by renouncing the party/candidate. Meaning, if the candidate is demonically possessed, they become demonically possessed, regardless of their going to church every Sunday and reading and parading the Bible and so forth.I will feature your post and our discussion at my blog, The Redneck Mystical Lawyer for President on the Unicorn Ticket, which, of course, is a graveyard dead serious spoof.
sloanbashinsky@yahoo.com
! I’m not a scale or a doctor but I have spent some time beneath 215lb men and Tiny was not one of them,” 
Former President Trump’s weight puts him in a class of elite athletes. 
Stormy Daniels 
