Donald Trump supporters | Lucky Otters Haven

scratchingmyhead

I read a post on a narcissistic abuse blog last night in which the blogger expressed concern and confusion over Ollie Matthew’s support of Donald Trump. For anyone who doesn’t know who Ollie Matthews is, he has a popular Youtube channel for survivors of narcissistic abuse and was himself raised by narcissists. Lately he’s been posting videos that defend Trump’s narcissism by calling it “confidence” and making other excuses for the things Trump does and says. His channel has been losing original subscribers, since so many victims are so triggered by this president and can’t understand Matthews’ need to defend and support a man who is probably the biggest narcissist in the world, and a sociopathic one at that.

Curious, I went to Ollie’s Youtube channel and started to watch one of his Trump videos and I had to turn it off. I felt sick. Here was a guy who has been victimized by people just like Trump and doesn’t exactly have very nice things to say about them. I’ve found his videos– which express a lot of raw anger at “his” narcissists, particular his mother — helpful in the past, especially when I was newly No Contact. Why on God’s green earth would someone who in no uncertain terms tells us to avoid narcissists like the plague be supporting a malignant narcissist who seems to have limitless power to abuse not just a few people, but millions — maybe even billions if he manages to destroy the environment or start a world war?

Unfortunately, Matthews isn’t that unusual. I have come across several narcissistic abuse bloggers and Facebook group owners who proudly and unapologetically support Trump. I don’t understand this. I could understand a victim who is unaware of narcissism or narcissistic abuse supporting him. If becoming educated about this problem is enough to make a person take the huge step of going No Contact with an abuser, why wouldn’t it also make that person think twice before throwing their support behind a narcissist whose behavior is so extreme that mental health professionals are willing to break the Goldwater Rule and publicly diagnose him with NPD or Malignant Narcissism?

Honestly, I haven’t the foggiest idea. Do they see Trump as a good guy? Ollie apparently does — he says his narcissism is “confidence.” Maybe they have Stockholm Syndrome and are unconsciously still drawn to abusive people. Maybe they really agree with his destructive policies and don’t see them as destructive. Maybe they see this man’s abusive language and bullying as a principled refusal to be politically correct. “He’s being honest,” one wrote. They apparently cannot see the gaslighting, the lies, the abusive and chaotic behavior and actions, the fragile ego, the vindictiveness, the crass self-centeredness, the scapegoating of people and groups who dare to criticize him or that he sees as “weak.” Reading posts in support of Trump by narcissistic abuse bloggers, Youtubers, and group owners makes me feel insane. I don’t understand it and never will.

I know I said I’d try to avoid any more Trump posts, but I found this really interesting so I’m going to share it here.

Someone asked this question on Quora:

“Why do some people hate Donald Trump and others like him?”

The question was asked on September 24, 2016, before he got elected.

In response, someone posted a study, that came to the following conclusion: the surprising truth is that it isn’t race, income, social class, or even political party that determines whether someone likes Donald Trump or hates him. The answer is level of authoritarian traits. People who score high in authoritarian traits (as opposed to egalitarianism) tend to support Trump. People who score high in egalitarianism tend to dislike Donald Trump.

authoritarianism

Why Do Some People Hate Donald Trump and Others Like Him?

https://www.quora.com/Why-do-some-people-hate-Donald-Trump-and-others-like-him

Answered by Yegor Tkachenko, MS in Operations Research, Stanford University

Let’s focus not on why Trump is a monster, or on why Trump is a saint, but on why there is such a split in American society in attitudes when it comes to Trump.

To assure everyone that the split exists, the most recent Rasmussen reports survey indicates that there is a 38%-38% match-up between Trump and Hillary if the national election happened now [Trump 38%, Clinton 38%].

As evidenced by many answers to this question, there is a large group of people who believe Trump is a liar, bigot, racist, con-artist, and also not good on foreign policy (on foreign policy, Trump has often avoided details and has offered some radical and not broadly accepted ideas – such as giving nuclear weapons to Japan and South Korea).

This group of the US population would agree that he is completely unpresidential, very offensive, and some might even think he would bring about the end of the world if elected [Introducing the Trump Apocalypse Watch] or could be a new Hitler.

In the eyes of this group, the fact that 38% of voters in the US support Trump might be quite unexplainable, or the explanation is that those voters are uneducated, gullible, racist, bigoted, hate women, hate minorities, or are simply nuts. In contrast, those who oppose Trump, are the sane ones and have seen through his lies.

Trump supporters would largely ignore the accusations of racism. Where the jaws of the Trump opponents drop when they hear Mexicans called criminals, Trump supporters are quick to point out that Trump’s anger overall is directed not at all of Mexicans (as it may often seem from his words), but only at those who are in the US illegally. In such a case, why would someone not condemn the violators of the law?

Trump supporters, while not necessarily believing that the wall between the US and Mexico will be built, find it to be a beautiful symbol and a smart negotiation tactics to force Mexico officials to help crush the drug traffic into the US, whereas Trump opponents ignore the potential benefits of this idea in negotiations and instead focus on how hard it would be to do economically.

When Trump suggests that he could develop good relations with Russia and Putin in particular, Trump opponents are not really impressed (they might view Putin as mainly a journalist murderer [The complicated reality behind Trump’s claim that there’s no proof Putin had journalists killed]).

However, Trump supporters might see in this a chance to finally normalize the relations between 2 leading world powers, which could have immense impact on the world stability (it is true that a lot of progress could be made on many of the world problems if the US and Russia stopped blocking each other’s proposals in the UN security council using their veto rights [Russian vetoes are putting UN security council’s legitimacy at risk, says US, ‘US has been veto champion in UN for decades’ – Chomsky to RT ]).

The list goes on.

The truth is, Trump supporters do not care about offensive language and about the face-value of Trump ideas, and are always able to give a positive twist to what Trump says, focusing not on the details in his words, but on their perceived purpose.

Trump supporters are also enamored by his ability to say what he thinks, even if it offends someone, and by his ability to preserve and accumulate wealth despite multiple setbacks. Trump supporters are attracted to his leadership skills (Trump has employed thousands of people), and the fact that he has so much money (be it 2 bln or 10 bln) that it would be harder for lobbyists to influence him as a President.

Finally, where Trump opponents view Trump presidency as a disaster and the end to the US as we know it, Trump supporters hope for the creative destruction in the government, where Trump won’t have enough power to do real damage to the country because of the limits on executive power, but will be able to stir everything up enough to bring about some change.

As can be seen from the above, neither group is irrational.

One group values civility, respect, politeness above all – and for them Trump is unacceptable.

This group also tends to take Trump’s words literally at their face value and detests the idea that Trump might be saying something that he does not actually think in order to achieve his goals. For this group such behavior is lying.

The group of Trump supporters views economy to be the most important thing for the US and is of the opinion that too much politeness in political discourse leads to groupthink and lack of progress.

Instead, they want more straight talk even if it offends someone – for even if someone is hurt by the words, they can get over it, but at least politicians can start discussing the issues they were afraid to touch before because of the political correctness police.

This group tends to be ok with not taking Trump’s words literally – they understand that a person can say something he does not really think in order to achieve his goal – and in their opinion it is a smart PR strategy. (For example, a claim that President Obama was not born in the US – how much free media has this claim earned Trump? And do you thing Trump really believed it?)

The existence of these 2 camps that view and value things differently explains why there are so many Trump haters and so many Trump fans at the same time.

Neither group is dumb (although there are some not very intelligent individuals in both groups), and each group is quite diverse in terms of age, race, gender, education, and income levels.

Addressing and challenging the views of either of these camps is something campaigns on both sides will have to do to defeat Trump or bring Trump to victory.