Tag Archives: sociopathy

We need a lot more awareness about narcissism and psychopathy.

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darktriad

Elizabeth Mika is one of the 27 mental health professionals who contributed to the  bestselling book,  The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump.   She is a psychologist who writes about narcissism, psychopathy and authoritarianism (specifically Donald Trump’s authoritarianism) on her Medium blog.  I follow her on Twitter (she’s under @yourauntemma if you want to follow her too) because I never want to miss one of her articles.    The other day, she tweeted this in reference to the many pleas to “remember the Holocaust”:

Unless we teach about the conscience-impairing character defects, like psychopathy & narcissism, shared by genocidal leaders & their followers, these calls for remembrance will remain hollow.

She’s absolutely right.   Even though the Cluster B personality disorders, specifically those in the Dark Triad — Narcissistic Personality Disorder, psychopathy (Antisocial Personality Disorder), and malignant narcissism (a combination of both disorders with paranoid traits)  — are getting a lot more attention than they used to, they still don’t get nearly enough.   There are a few terms formerly confined to the narcissistic abuse community such as  “gaslighting” and “blame shifting” that have recently become household words since Trump took office, but if you try to talk about narcissistic or antisocial personality disorder or malignant narcissism with most people you will still usually get a blank stare, especially if you try to talk about it in regard to the dangers these disorders pose to us all when a world leader is most likely afflicted with one or more of them.

Until — and if — the general public receives education in how these personality disorders work and how to recognize them, people will still fall prey to the phony charm and false promises of a narcissist in their personal lives, staying with friends and family members who are psychologically destroying them.  But even worse than that, people will still believe the lies and promises of con-men like Donald Trump or Adolf Hitler.  They will keep trying to find the goodness that must exist under all the flash and bluster, even though in all likelihood, there is nothing hiding under the mask but a black void of hate and fear.

Hitler rose to power because he promised to “make Germany great again.”  He promised jobs, a thriving economy, and a better life for all Germans, and people believed him, at least at first.  Later, when the deportations and roundups began, and militarized police began knocking on doors late at night, people may have begun to suspect Hitler was dangerous, but they still wanted to believe he was what Germany needed, so they told themselves what he was doing wasn’t really that bad or even was necessary (but well-meaning).   This is called “normalization” and it happens both in countries and in families headed by a malignant narcissist.    When there are too many outrages, people can’t process them normally, and things that were once seen as outrageous or shocking begin to seem normal.   As the dividing line between what is “normal” and what is “not normal” continues to shift, more and more “not normal” behavior is tolerated.   This is how a psychopathic or narcissistic leader conditions average, non-sociopathic people to accept the unthinkable.   It takes time, but eventually even genocide begins to be seen as acceptable or at least doesn’t raise any eyebrows.

hitler

Leaders with malignant narcissism and/or psychopathy tend to be very charismatic and forceful.   They seem extremely confident and this makes people trust them.   They say things like, “I alone can fix it” (this is always a red flag) or “I am all you need.”  They make lofty and unrealistic promises.  They brag about past accomplishments and  exaggerate what they have accomplished (which often wasn’t much).  They take credit for things others have done.  Whenever they are found to be lacking, or when they are called out for their lies and hypocrisy, they will never accept that blame and will either deny their wrongdoing, or blame it on someone else.   They never apologize.

They may seem to care about you, but they don’t, for they have no empathy.   They see everything in black and white.   They are blind to nuance in others.   You are not a person to a narcissistic or psychopathic leader: if you are not useful to them in some way (if you are useful they will shower you with praise — in relationships this is called “love-bombing”),  then you are the enemy.    And when you become an enemy, you are fair game for vengeance.   These people believe in revenge and “getting back at” their perceived enemies.

They speak in superlatives.  What they have done is always the best, the biggest, the most, the greatest.  They had the biggest crowd at their inauguration, they have created the most jobs, and they are the most beloved or respected leader in the entire world or even in all of history.   If their lies or misdeeds are pointed out to them, they become enraged.  Sometimes this rage manifests as self pity, and their self pity is as grandiose as their self-aggrandizement.  When they think they’ve been wronged, no one else has ever been so wronged or so mistreated as they have been!  They turn self pity into another contest of superlatives:  Trump whining to a group of Boy Scouts about how he was the most misunderstood and poorly treated politician in American history!

If they have deemed you an enemy (which doesn’t take a lot — you need only disagree with them to be devalued), you are the worst person on the face of the planet and have no redeeming qualities.  You will be devalued and called hurtful names, and that’s just for starters.    Leaders with malignant narcissism are very paranoid and always suspect others — often their political rivals or people who merely disagree with them, but have no ill intentions — of plotting against them, talking badly about them, or trying to destroy them or take away their power.    They pre-emptively fight back by attempting to discredit, dehumanize, or destroy their rivals or perceived enemies.

These kinds of leaders (who are almost always male) are fixated on toxic masculinity.  They admire and emulate those who they see as “strong.”  Thus, they glorify war, forceful oppression, abuse of power,  police brutality, and total control.   They value authoritarianism much more highly than democracy, which requires cooperation and some semblance of empathy.   They look down on higher values like compassion, humility, forgiveness, or love as “weak” or “feminine.”   They also like to “punch down” — which means enacting draconian policies or shifting blame onto the most  vulnerable or the weakest.   It’s schoolyard bully behavior writ large.  They hate anything they see as soft or vulnerable or “weak” because they are so afraid of their own vulnerabilities.   Deep inside, they have little to no self esteem and hate themselves, though they will not ever admit it and may not even be aware of it.   They puff themselves up to mask their own feelings of worthlessness.

Because these kinds of leaders can initially convince people they are strong and powerful and can fix every problem themselves, and because they seem so confident in their ability to do so, people continue to be duped by them and believe the lies they tell.    They ignore the red flags (which includes making lofty promises and saying “they alone” can fix things), because they have not been educated in what to look for.

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If awareness and education about NPD, malignant narcissism, and psychopathy were more widespread (perhaps it should even be a required part of school curriculums), people would learn how to recognize the red flags and avoid such people in their personal lives — and avoid voting for leaders who have these traits.   As long as people remain ignorant about the red flags of these personality disorders, we will still be vulnerable to electing sociopathic, dangerous leaders and being taken in by dangerous people in our personal lives.   We will still find ourselves under the thrall of people and leaders who see us as nothing but marks.

All that being said, there has been more awareness about this problem since at least the 1990s.   I wrote about the history of narcissism/narcissistic abuse awareness over the decades in this two part post — please give it a read!

How Did Narcissism Get So “Popular”? (part 1) 

How Did Narcissism Get So “Popular”? (part 2)  

So things are better than they’ve ever been, but we still have a long way to go.   If there was enough awareness, we would not be in danger of repeating what happened during the Holocaust.

 

The unholy alliance that is ushering in a new Dark Age.

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When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross. –Sinclair Lewis, 1935.

This article is going to be dark.  I wasn’t looking forward to writing it, but I must do so. Dark as the subject matter is, it’s the light within most of us that makes us able to know when darkness is descending and take the necessary action to avoid being annihilated by it.

Education and science are under attack by an unholy alliance between right wing evangelical Christianity and far right politics.    This has been going on since the late 1970s (The Moral Majority was the first obvious sign this was beginning to happen), but only now has the situation in America become critical, so critical we are fast losing our democracy and becoming a fascist state.

Protecting democracy and liberty is the primary reason why the Founding Fathers made sure the Constitution protected the separation of church and state.   It’s not because these men regarded religion as a bad thing.   In fact, some of them were personally quite religious.   It’s because mixing the two always corrupts both.   Enter politics into religion, and religion becomes authoritarian and punishing; enter religion into politics and  government becomes the same way.   Religio-fascist, authoritarian states like Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan became that way because religion (in their case, Islam) was allowed to infiltrate politics without regulations to keep its excesses at bay.   Islam itself became corrupted due to the influence of radical Islamists (ISIS and the Taliban) who wanted to make their religion about politics and use it as an excuse to control the people.    The same thing is happening in America with certain factions of evangelical Christians (dominionists) who believe their Godly duty is to force others to think and behave the way they do.

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I realize not all conservatives are like this — if I made this table, I would substitute the term “Trumpist GOP and Dominionism” for “Republicans and Conservatives.”  I’d also leave out the term “Muslim” since most do not support ISIS and Sharia Law.

Unfortunately — but not surprisingly, given their belief that they have been chosen by God to “take dominion” over other mortals and the planet itself —  the highest echelons of government are now populated by toxic dominionist Christians who believe tyranny and oppression is the God-ordained way to rule a nation and the only way to bring about God’s kingdom on earth.    I’ve come to believe the real reason so many right wing Christians hate Muslims is because they see radical Islam as competition for their own desired Christian Taliban — it’s the same damn thing with a different name!   Trump and his cronies don’t seem to hate Saudi Arabia or its richest, most powerful rulers at all (Trump seemed to be having the time of his life when the Saudis treated his arrival last spring like the arrival of a beloved king) — they only hate powerless Muslim refugees coming to America to escape from that oppressive regime.    Radical Christian extremists and malignant narcissists like Trump who crave and admire only power and wealth have far more in common with regimes like Saudi Arabia’s than they do with western democracies where the people have a say in how they are governed.

Authoritarian religion –whether Christian, Islam, or some other faith system — tends to attract people with narcissistic or sociopathic personalities, and research has shown that people with these personality types also score high in authoritarian traits.    Authoritarian religion provides a handy way for people without a conscience or with sadistic tendencies to justify their abuse and judgment of “the Other” — anyone who they believe is inferior to them — or anyone who threatens to shine the harsh light of the truth on them.    It’s easy to say, “Well, it’s what God wants” or “it says right here in the Bible” (which more often than not, is a faulty interpretation of Scripture anyway) than to say, “I’m a sadistic SOB who wants to control you and make your life a living hell.”   Malignant narcissists do not want to take responsibility for their inhumanity; they’d much rather blame it on someone else.  If they can “blame” it on God, that’s even better, because then they can tell you “it’s for your own good.”

A few years ago, I had a falling out with another blogger who wrote about narcissistic abuse.   We are still not on speaking terms, and probably never will be again, but recently I started to read her blog again, not just because she happens to be a good writer, but because during the past few months I’ve actually found her blog inspiring.   I won’t go into all the details of what led to the falling out, but one of the reasons was because of the woman’s religion.   She had made some critical — even cruel — comments about and to me, using what I felt to be her fundamentalist Christianity as a weapon of judgment and intolerance.   From what I could observe from her older writings, she appeared to be stuck in a victim mentality, unable to move forward in her recovery due to her tendency to judge others harshly because of her fundamentalist Christianity.   I saw no evidence of any real self awareness or willingness to self-criticize.   So, at the time, I dismissed her as a covert narcissist masquerading as someone with “only” C-PTSD.

But apparently I was wrong.  It seems like Trump’s election changed her in a positive way.     She wrote about what she saw happening with politics and the religious right, and became increasingly critical of both.   She began to realize that her fundamentalist church was infested with malignant narcissists who judged her negatively for her poverty and health problems, believing, as they did, that wealth and good health were proof of God’s approval.   It wasn’t long before she ditched her fundamentalist church and began to seek answers outside religion.    This actually didn’t surprise me, since I always got the impression her religion was a bad fit and she was miserable within its confines.  This woman was clearly intelligent and well educated, but it was almost as if she had been trying to force herself to adapt to a restricting mold that didn’t allow her to grow as a human being.   She was telling herself lies that she knew were lies, because of the fear of Hell and judgment.   Freed of that, suddenly she was exploring and seeking answers in secular fields like science and psychology, and her mind seemed to blossom.  At the same time this happened, she seemed to develop more tolerance and empathy toward others.  Most impressive of all, she began to develop an ability to self-reflect and as a result, began to make changes to herself.   Her writings indicated a new insight into herself I hadn’t seen while she was under the thrall of toxic religion.    She seems happier than she ever did, and a lot less angry in general.   She’s exploring old interests and talents that she had neglected while she was in that church, and more positive things seem to be happening to her now too.    I’m sure being happy and using one’s mind to question and explore the world aren’t sins, and God is not judging us harshly for doing so.   If God didn’t want us to ask questions or think critically about things, he would not have given us brains!

I won’t link to her blog here or even name it, due to the fact we stopped speaking several years ago, but her most recent article about the religious right’s war on science was one of her most enlightening and insightful.    It was also very dark and unfortunately all too true.   In it, she criticized the religious right’s scorched-earth mission of squelching all independent thought and critical thinking, which has led to an all out war on secular education itself and an accompanying celebration of ignorance and superstition.

Religio-fascist societies always attack education and science as the enemy, because the ability to think and ask questions challenges their belief system.   This always leads to the decimation of civilized society and overpowering oppression, premature death, human suffering, and covert or overt genocide to “purge” the society of undesirable populations (I believe the current GOP’s tax bill and attempts to destroy the social safety net is a covert attempt to dispatch the elderly, poor, disabled, and sick).    Such rigid and cruel regimes held power during the European Middle Ages, when the Catholic Church doubled as government and forbade the questioning of religion and condemned scientific thought, even sentencing scientific thinkers to be burned at the stake (the Catholic Church has since renounced and repented for this dark period in its history, and today embraces science, and since Vatican II, this includes the acceptance of evolution).  It happened more recently in countries of the Middle East, with radical Islam taking over government and leading to the oppression of women, expansion of the death penalty to include personal or sexual “immorality” like homosexuality, abortion, contraception, adultery, and even a child’s disobedience to their parents; and other human rights atrocities.

Any religion whose dogma regards the fight for human rights as a sin (as dominionist Christianity and radical Islam both do), is one where God isn’t benevolent or good, but is a false entity made in the rulers’ own image:  their God has become a malignant narcissist who does not care about the well-being of his creation, demands adulation and worship, and only approves of and rewards narcissistic or sociopathic behavior.    Leaders of such religions shift the blame for their society’s ills to their most vulnerable or powerless members (the poor, women, immigrants, or others),  gaslight their followers and those under their rule by saying that we, as humans, are unable to determine what God deems good because we are so “depraved,” and hence the means, no matter how cruel, always justify the ends.   Dominionists believe that only certain “elect” (God’s “golden children”) have been given dominion over creation — with wealth and power being proof of God’s favor — and must do whatever it takes to destroy the old ways  (which includes jettisoning empathy for the vulnerable) in order to usher in God’s kingdom.   Apparently, they forgot about God’s grace and mercy and the earlier fundamentalist belief in free will.

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The 7 “mountains” of the New Apostolic Reformation (dominionism)

There are two glaring problems with this doctrine.  First of all, if humans are so depraved, why is the cruelty of certain powerful religious people okay to God but not the benevolence of others?  Second, their doctrine flies in the face of everything Jesus taught in the New Testament.   It’s interesting the dominionists rarely quote from the New Testament, unless it’s from the missives of Paul, who lived after Jesus and seemed to have harsher views toward women and sexual behavior than Jesus himself did.     They justify cruelty by misinterpreting Scripture to fit their harsh  narrative.   As one example, they often use the verse, “Those who do not work do not eat” (2 Thessalonians 3:10) as proof that Jesus was a Republican who didn’t believe in helping the poor.    What Jesus actually meant was that if you are an able bodied person who can work, you shouldn’t sit on your ass expecting handouts.   This is common sense!   But Jesus never said we shouldn’t help people who truly are in need — in fact, the New Testament (and even parts of the Old Testament) are full of verses instructing us to care for the “least among us.”  Dominionist evangelicals cherry pick from the Bible and conveniently ignore the many passages telling us to be inclusive and loving toward the most vulnerable members of society, while glorifying the the most punishing parts of the Old Testament as God’s true nature.

America today is extremely narcissistic, and celebrates narcissistic, even sociopathic, values.   It’s become an orgy of malignant narcissism, and its associated traits and values (lack of empathy, arrogance, coldness, racism, sexism, sadism, bullying, dishonesty, cheating, unchecked power, greed, revenge, war, division, destructiveness, and hatred) have become synonymous with both the Trumpian Republican Party and far right Christian extremism.  These two groups, thanks to Trump and his far right evangelical supporters and donors, have become increasingly merged to the point it is sometimes hard to separate one from the other.    This, of course, is part of their plan — destruction of the separation between church and state would allow these sociopaths to carry out their plans to destroy or punish anyone they dislike, all in the name of God.   It’s heresy of the highest order, but there are people who really believe a white, conservative, Christian society is the only kind of society acceptable to God.   To them, science is a creation of Satan and critical thinking or questioning of any kind is flirting with the devil.   That’s why they hate education and science so much: because only the gullible and uneducated will unquestioningly believe — and obey — such a toxic and destructive doctrine.    They want obedient sheep without working brains.   That’s the most effective weapon they have, and the one that will catapult us into the new Dark Age.

The “prosperity gospel” used to be a seemingly harmless, feel-good vaguely Christian doctrine that gave people permission to not feel guilty or ashamed of achieving great success or wealth, or about their desire to have those things.   It held that God wanted his people to be successful in life and in fact it was their duty to strive for that.   While I can’t argue that there’s anything wrong with ambition or wanting to be successful (who wants to be a poor failure?), the real problem started when the prosperity gospel (and other “positive thinking” belief systems) began to regard the emotions of guilt, remorse, and shame as something shameful in themselves.  Anything went, even if to get what you wanted, you had to exploit or hurt others (which is why Ayn Rand became so popular in recent years).   It wasn’t okay to feel guilty — unless you felt guilty!   But guilt, though unpleasant (and unhealthy when excessive) is necessary for civilized society.   The ability to feel guilt (and the related ability to feel empathy) is what separates sociopaths and narcissists from people who care about other people.

At the same time the more new-agey positive thinking movement (which also eschewed guilt and shame) was gaining steam, the prosperity gospel (basically a Christian version of the positive thinking doctrine) and Christian evangelism/fundamentalism were beginning to merge.  It wasn’t long before having great power or wealth, rather than being a sign of a Pharisee or false prophet, became a sign of God’s favor.   Christianity as taught by Jesus in the Gospels was turned on  its head into its polar opposite!   Given that sociopaths and malignant narcissists tend to be attracted to any religion that tells them their power or wealth is holy,  soon the prosperity gospel took on a dark cast by demonizing those without such power or wealth as somehow sinful or even evil.  The Christian Dominionist/Reconstructionist movement (which had been considered  “loony fringe” ever since Rousas Rushdoony published his Institutes of Biblical Law in the 1960s), now known within evangelical circles as the New Apostolic Reformation (don’t read late at night if you don’t want nightmares), exploded into the upper echelons of the Republican Party.  Suddenly, it was perfectly okay for a narcissistic sociopath like Roy Moore to run for Senate, regardless how immoral his personal behavior (in his case, alleged pedophilia and stalking teenage girls) because he also promoted the extremist Christian doctrine that fit in so well with far right Republican politics.

Both dominionist Christianity and Trumpian Republicanism are fascist movements that believe anything they do is alright, as long as it achieves their desired ends:  unlimited accumulation of wealth and power (which includes unbridled corporate power), ending the right to vote for anyone who isn’t a white male property owner (this is actually part of their overall plan and explains why they don’t seem to care anymore what the public thinks), repealing the First Amendment, putting women back in the kitchen without access to contraception, removing laws that protect women and children against abusers, decimating the social safety net (getting rid of Medicare and Social Security is a big part of their agenda), denying facts and science, rolling back all protective regulations, including those that protect our planet; building walls to separate us from our allies, revising history so it supports their fascist agenda (the insistence that the Founding Fathers intended to create a Christian nation is one example of revisionist history used to justify the legislation of Sharia biblical law), denying access to education unless it’s fundamentalist religious education, privatizing all public goods and infrastructure so nothing is free (anyone like toll roads or for-profit prisons and fire departments?), and oppressing, punishing, deporting, and killing anyone who isn’t rich, Republican, Christian, or white.    How very Christ-like of them.

The means to achieve their nefarious ends simply don’t matter, no matter how immoral or how many people they hurt.   It’s okay to lie, cheat, steal, break the law, deride the FBI and the Justice Department, collude or conspire with hostile foreign powers, even to the point of treason;  accumulate obscene amounts of wealth on the backs of the working and middle class, emotionally harass and abuse, gaslight, blame-shift, project onto, mislead, arrest without due process, and inflict draconian punishments on others who don’t fit their ideal or who dare to speak out against such harsh treatment.   They talk about “small government” but that only means small government for them — they are above the law,  you see.    They want to inflict a Big Brother government on all the rest of us lowly ingrates.

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This is all incredibly sad and scary, but what’s even more tragic is that one third of the country is seemingly so ignorant they support Trump and his billionaire, white supremacist, and evangelical cronies’ vision for America and the world.   I don’t really think they are as ignorant as they seem.   I think they are perfectly well aware of the fascist hell on earth that Trump and his minions are aiming for.    It’s even beginning to dawn on a few of them that maybe Russia was involved in the 2016 election, and maybe Trump did collude with them.   But that doesn’t faze them one bit:  now they say that maybe Russia is better than America, and that Trump was in his right to collude with them.   Far right extremists and trolls are still promising civil war against the rest of us if he is removed or impeached.

No, Trumpists are not all ignorant.  After reading many comments on right wing websites and studying the right wing mindset in depth over this past year,  I have come to believe that people who like Trump and the new Republicanism are attracted to it precisely because it is so sociopathic.    They love it for the same reasons the rest of us hate it.   They don’t care if they lose their healthcare or their rights — as long as they get to see the people they hate suffer.   Trumpists are people who are either narcissistic or sociopathic themselves (how else does one explain the preponderance of Internet trolls and neo-Nazis among them?), or who have severe codependency issues and look up to narcissists and sociopaths as viable leaders.   They want a strongman leader and admire dictators, either because they don’t want to have to think for themselves and gain a perverse sense of security from being told exactly what they have to believe and do, or because they are narcissists and sociopaths who regard higher human values such as empathy, kindness, fairness, compassion, civility, generosity, and love as “feminine” or weak.   On the contrary, it’s the strongest and most spiritually evolved people who are able to embrace these higher values and act on them.    If Jesus, the embodiment of these virtues, were to walk on Earth today, he would be despised by the religious right.  I’m pretty sure they would persecute him all over again.

It is not too late to nip this cancer in the bud and return to America as the land of freedom and democracy, even improving on what we had before — preferably with some new checks and balances put in place to prevent anything like this from ever happening again.   But the hour is getting late and the cancer is metastasizing.   One positive effect of Trumpism and the carnage it’s creating is that finally, higher human values like I mentioned in the last paragraph are being given the respect due them again.  There is a general recognition by two thirds of Americans — even by traditional Republicans (both Bushes are among them) — that these values have been devalued for so long that they are now are nearly nonexistent in American politics, and demonized where they appear (compassion and kindness are now “socialism”).  Narcissism has run amok, ignorance is admired, and greed has been glorified.   Sociopathy is now becoming acceptable.  Over time, these vices have been turned into virtues instead of the destructive forces they really are.  But there’s a painful awareness now, a passion for truth, and a desire to repair or reclaim what has been lost or damaged that I see now among most people.  Two thirds of us strive to be rid of the invasive cancer of societal malignant narcissism, a desire that wasn’t evident before 2017.    In addition, like the narcissism blogger I discussed in the beginning of this article, some of us have been transformed spiritually in the face of this existential darkness, and in spite of the ominous threat of being silenced held over us, we are finally finding our voices.

I have to believe that good will always “trump” evil (pun intended).

It always does, in the end.

The most effective defense against gaslighting.

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Narcissists and sociopaths not only try to make you think you are insane, they can literally drive you insane.   They do this most effectively and insidiously through gaslighting, a method of mental manipulation in which you are made to doubt or question reality or told your feelings are invalid.   This occurs on a personal level with narcissistic people and extends today all the way up to the national and political level. It is always extremely damaging.  People who are constantly gaslighted by a narcissist or sociopath often develop PTSD or Complex PTSD (C-PTSD).

Examples of gaslighting in relationships:

“I was joking. Stop being so sensitive.”

“That’s not what I said.” (when they definitely have said it).

“You are imagining things.”

“It never happened.”

Trump gaslights his political rivals, his enemies, and the entire country on a daily basis.   I can’t and won’t attempt to list all the examples, but his Twitter account is a treasure trove of gaslighting if you can stomach it.   Perhaps the most egregious example to date is his recent denial of the Access Hollywood tape where he now denies he ever said he could “grab women by the pussy.”  Another good recent example is Roy Moore (who I believe is as sociopathic as Trump) justifying his pedophilia by comparing himself to Jesus being persecuted — he is pinning the blame on the truth-tellers (projection and blame shifting) and denying reality (gaslighting) at the same time.

When our own reality is questioned or denied, or when actual events are called “fake news” and the free press “the enemy of the people,” it’s not uncommon for us to begin to question the truth itself.   You begin to think that maybe, just maybe, the gaslighter is actually the one telling the truth and you are just nuts (which the gaslighter will happily confirm).

My favorite Bible verse ever is this one, from Matthew 7:15-20 (New Living Translation) because it’s so useful in gaslighting situations.

Beware of false prophets who come disguised as harmless sheep but are really vicious wolves.  You can identify them by their fruit, that is, by the way they act. Can you pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles?  A good tree produces good fruit, and a bad tree produces bad fruit.  A good tree can’t produce bad fruit, and a bad tree can’t produce good fruit.  So every tree that does not produce good fruit is chopped down and thrown into the fire. Yes, just as you can identify a tree by its fruit, so you can identify people by their actions.

When a gaslighter makes you question the truth or wonder if your honest feelings are invalid, I’ve found this verse stops any doubt I’m having and calls out the abuser for the liar they really are at the same time.   Look at what the person is producing.    If they’re creating nothing but chaos, destruction, fear, and misery, if they’re sowing discord instead of unity,  if they always break their promises,  don’t believe anything they tell you.    They are lying and will never produce any good fruit, no matter what they might want you to believe.

The eerie similarities between the alt-right and Charles Manson’s cult.

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charlesmanson

When Charles Manson, the infamous mass murderer who ordered his followers to carry out a series of brutal murders in 1969, died in prison in early November,  I was intrigued by the many comments I read that half-jokingly (but also half-seriously) said that had Manson been free (and still alive) he would have become an icon for the alt-right and possibly even become a de facto alt-right leader.

If you don’t think about it too deeply, the comparison seems preposterous.  After all, Charles Manson was an outcome of the 1960s far left (or at least seemed to be):  an aging LSD-tripping, wild-eyed, long haired musician (I hesitate to call him a hippie because he actually was not) and ex-convict psychopath who headed a commune of long-haired young hippies, most who were girls and most who were runaways (or castaways) from broken homes.   The girls (and the few boys) who lived with him at the Spahn Ranch in the remote California desert worshipped him as if he were a God, and he played the role well.   He had a mesmerizing, almost supernatural effect over his charges, and these lost kids, who weren’t necessarily bad people when they joined his ranch, became so brainwashed they were willing to do anything for him — even commit murder for him.

During their time at the Spahn Ranch, Manson and his disciples (collectively they were known as “The Family”) engaged in sex orgies, dropped LSD together, listened to music, especially the Beatles (Manson believed the words of certain Beatles songs spoke directly to him and were prophetic), and even made music (there is actually an album of music they released). They listened raptly to Manson’s sermons letting them know he was Christ and Satan wrapped in one, and about the coming Helter Skelter, which they were to set off.

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Some members of the Manson Family.

The young women cooked, cleaned and had sex with Manson, and even bore his children, who were also fed drugs and indoctrinated in Manson’s strange religion.  There was nothing Manson could do, no matter how heinous, that wasn’t perfect in their eyes, and his followers defended him and his actions to the death, even after he (and several of the followers) were convicted of first degree murder.   To these kids, Charles Manson was the Messiah.

But Manson’s “Family” was not just a late ’60s hippie commune that went bad.  In fact, Manson himself (who was already a good bit older than the average hippie) held hippies in contempt and looked down on them.   He was irritated by their idealism and obsession with peace, love, and Vietnam.   He could not relate to either their pacifism or their idealism.   He disliked their attitudes that “we are all one,” because Manson did not share their views about race or unity.  He was a racist who hated black people and admired Adolf Hitler so much that he tattooed a swastika on his forehead, and required his “girls” to do the same.   The Family’s entire belief system revolved around a future apocalyptic race war Manson called “Helter Skelter”:

manson-girls

Patricia Krenwinkle, Susan Atkins, and Leslie Van Houten at their murder trial.  They believed they did no wrong.

Per Wikipedia:

Manson had been predicting racial war for some time before he used the term Helter Skelter.  His first use of the term was at a gathering of the Family on New Year’s Eve 1968. This took place at the Family’s base at Myers Ranch, near California’s Death Valley.

In its final form, which was reached by mid-February 1969, the scenario had Manson as not only the war’s ultimate beneficiary but its musical cause. He and the Family would create an album with songs whose messages concerning the war would be as subtle as those he had heard in songs of the Beatles.  More than merely foretell the conflict, this would trigger it; for, in instructing America’s white youth to join the Family, it would draw the young, white female hippies out of San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury.

Black men, thus deprived of the white women whom the political changes of the 1960s had made sexually available to them, would be without an outlet for their frustrations and would lash out in violent crimes against whites.  A resultant murderous rampage against blacks by frightened whites would then be exploited by militant blacks to provoke an internecine war of near-extermination between racist and non-racist whites over blacks’ treatment. Then the militant blacks would arise to sneakily finish off the few whites they would know to have survived; indeed, they would kill off all non-blacks.

In this holocaust, the members of the enlarged Family would have little to fear; they would wait out the war in a secret city that was underneath Death Valley that they would reach through a hole in the ground. As the only actual remaining whites upon the race war’s true conclusion, they would emerge from underground to rule the now-satisfied blacks, who, as the vision went, would be incapable of running the world. At that point, Manson “would scratch [the black man’s] fuzzy head and kick him in the butt and tell him to go pick the cotton and go be a good nigger.”

The term “Helter Skelter” was from the Beatles song of that name (from their 1968 White Album), which referred to the British amusement-park ride of that name, but was interpreted by Manson as concerned with the race war.

There are a lot of similarities between the attitudes and beliefs of the alt-right and those of the Manson Family, which includes the cult-like worship of morally questionable, even psychopathic leaders.  Trump (and to a lesser extent, Steve Bannon and Roy Moore) are seen as messiahs to those who relate to their message:  heroic, refreshingly (to them) politically incorrect, abusively outspoken (they hear that as “honesty”) avengers and destroyers of the institutions and establishments they believed ruined America.  In Trump, Moore, and Bannon, they see men who sympathize with their racist, sexist, nationalist, anti-establishment, anti-government, and unpopular beliefs.

neonazis

Neo-Nazis in Charlottesville.

Like Manson, Trump also seems to have a cult-like appeal to his supporters.  It seems there is nothing he can say or do that will end their devotion to him.  Trump, possibly speaking the only truth he’s ever told, was right when he said he could shoot someone on 5th Avenue and he would keep his supporters.   They would walk off a cliff if he asked them to.   Manson’s followers were under similar thrall, believing him perfect and right even after he ordered them to commit murders to set off his dreamed of racial Armageddon.

jerryrubin

Jerry Rubin, 1970.

Parallels between the alt-right and 1960s radical far left.

In some ways, the alt-right/white nationalist movement is even similar to the radical/militant 1960s far left movement that spawned groups like The Weathermen and the Yippies.    This far left movement, led by people such as Jerry Rubin (who later became an establishment businessman and 1980s yuppie) and Abbie Hoffman, was a movement that also encouraged anarchy and destruction of the establishment, by violent or militant means if necessary.  The anarchy and destruction encouraged by both groups had opposite goals of course: the radical 1960s far left wished to create a socialist, egalitarian utopia (using militant tactics to achieve that); the alt-right prefers a fascist nationalist dystopia.

Both movements attract(ed) young disaffected men who felt alienated from the society they were raised in.    Both movements also spread their message and inform each other of events using non-traditional, covert means of communication: for the far left radicals, it was “underground” papers, mimeographed flyers, and word of mouth; for alt-rightists, it’s social media like Reddit, 4chan, troll or neo-Nazi sites, and the “deep web.”   The alt-right, unlike the ’60s radicals, are more likely to achieve their nationalist dream, since they actually have a president (and others in power) who share their views.

doit

Jerry Rubin’s how-to guide to left wing anarchy (published 1970).

Here’s another article from VICE that draws a similar conclusion about Manson and the alt-right.

What Charles Manson Had in Common with the Alt-Right

 

Trump hates anything beautiful, truthful, or good.

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“Destruction” by Binouse49/Deviantart

 

In the 1987 Cohn Brothers movie “Raising Arizona,” there was a mysterious character ironically named Leonard Smalls, a/k/a “Lone Biker of the Apocalypse. ” Smalls was a bounty hunter hired to look for a kidnapped baby, but he seemed like the worst possible choice to be put in charge of returning a child to its rightful parents:  he was hardened, violent, silent, and sadistic, and probably psychopathic.  In keeping with that, he despised anything small or vulnerable. Throughout the film, the lead character (played by Nicholas Cage) narrates several semi-prophetic dreams — including one in which Smalls tears through the desert on his Harley, shooting at rabbits, small lizards, and even struggling flowers growing along the lonely highway with grenades and huge assault weapons.

While the Smalls character was played up for humor (the movie was uproariously funny), there are actually people like him in the world.   People without a conscience, without empathy, sadistic people who will gleefully and deliberately hurt and destroy “the small, vulnerable things,” as Cage put it in the film.   There are people who live to destroy, and love every minute of it.

At first, like many people, I wanted to give Donald Trump the benefit of the doubt.  I wanted him to prove himself to be a good guy after all, or at least have a few redeeming qualities.  Like many, in the beginning of his presidency, I kept telling myself to give him a chance.    But knowing about his malignant narcissism and probable psychopathy, I knew in my bones that his heart, if he had one, was as black as coal.  He is an abuser and destroyer.

In the eight months since Trump became president, he has done nothing but destroy.  As I put in an earlier post, he brings out the worst in everyone, including his own staff and supporters.    He’s a toxic presence who smears his predecessor, his opponents, and even his own staff.  He tells lies about people that are intended to undermine them, destroy them, or ruin their careers.

Not only is he toxic to individuals, he is toxic to the nation and even the world.   Not one thing he has said or done has been life-affirming, empathetic, positive, encouraging, diplomatic, gentle, intelligent, or inspiring.   The people who still support him tend to be people who are much like he is — authoritarians, racists and other haters without empathy — or fearful and ignorant people who feel most comfortable with a strongman dictator who tells them exactly what to do.   He admires and encourages the most base and vile qualities of humanity and openly praises and curries the favor of cruel dictators.  He makes fun of the most vulnerable:  a disabled reporter, women, productive and ambitious young immigrants who came here as children, Muslims, Mexicans, the poor, and people who show any empathy or vulnerability.   He threatens and bullies reporters, politicians, and entertainers who tell the truth about him.

destruction

He passes bills that threaten to take things away from people that make their lives better.  He has gutted any funding for climate science or research and grows angry at any discussion about climate change, even after two devastating hurricanes and wildfires spreading through the western states.    He seems to like to pillage and plunder our environment, supporting fracking and selling off our public lands to huge corporations for oil drilling.   He has plans to blast off the tops of mountains for coal mining, an industry which the rest of the civilized world knows is unsustainable and practically obsolete.   He has removed laws that protect our water, air and food.

Trump cares nothing about wildlife or beauty.  In fact, it seems that he wants to destroy our national treasures and replace them with the base and the ugly.    On one of the revamped government websites having to do with environmental issues, former photographs of beautiful natural vistas have been replaced with pictures showing heavy mining equipment, people fracking, and oil rigs.

Trump’s budget cuts funding for anything that help people live better or contribute to the greater good, including organizations that combat hatred and domestic terror, while he has increased funding for for the military, the Mexican border wall, ICE agents that arrest and detain undocumented immigrants without probable cause and for indefinite periods of time and that separate children from their parents, and anything else that potentially oppresses and makes our country more dangerous, scary, or ugly.

Now he is militarizing police departments, allowing them to purchase military equipment, and removing laws that prohibit the carrying of concealed weapons.  He tacitly encourages police brutality by pardoning a sheriff known to use torture to keep prisoners in line and even referred to one of his prisons as a concentration camp.

Trump is a warmonger, and seems to be chomping at the bit to start nuclear war with North Korea.   Rather than making us safer, he has made us more vulnerable to attack from both without and within.  His rallies are hate fests in which he emboldens white supremacists, Nazis, and hatred in general.   He has turned Americans against each other.

He has hired people who are dead set on destroying from within the departments they were hired to oversee:  education, the EPA, the Justice Department, and health and welfare.   Obamacare, which has helped many vulnerable people get health insurance for the first time, is now back on the chopping block.  Yes, again.     Trump and the more hardline members of the GOP are relentless in their cruelty and seem to like tormenting people with the constant threat of taking away their access to healthcare, not caring one iota how traumatizing the threat is.

After he was criticized for his cold response to the victims of Harvey, telling the people of Texas “Good luck,”  he made a lame attempt to show a little more fake empathy than usual after Irma.    He was probably ordered to do so, because it was obvious his “empathy” was forced.   Maddeningly, the mainstream media ate this up, speculating and theorizing that perhaps Trump was changing and he was capable of empathy after all.

But they are wrong.   Trump is not capable of empathy.  I wish the mainstream media would stop making excuses for him, because it’s a form of enabling.   Those of us who are familiar with his form of narcissism know that the more he is enabled, the worse he will become.   Trump is a malignant narcissist, and not only can’t he change, he will only grow worse over time.   The only remedy is for him (and the equally toxic people he has appointed) is to be removed as soon as possible.   What he has destroyed in eight months will take years to recover, if we can ever recover it.   Our beautiful country is already beginning to resemble a third world country or a dystopian nightmare.  Soon, people will begin to die of preventable diseases caused by contaminants that those pesky and “oppressive” regulations have helped keep at bay — and that’s just for starters.

Perhaps most heartbreaking of all, Trump has destroyed our unity as a country and our trust in each other.   That’s his intention, because a people who have been divided can be more easily conquered.  This is standard practice in all authoritarian regimes and dictatorships.

Donald Trump only knows how to do one thing well, and that is to destroy.  He despises anything beautiful, truthful, or good.

Truth or Dare?

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Elizabeth Mika writes probing, fascinating, and, well, creepy posts about Trump’s malignant narcissism and the ways our narcissism as a nation inevitably led to an election of someone like him.   She also writes about the psychology of his most ardent followers, who seem eerily reminiscent of cult members.   This is a phenomenon she accurately dubs “Trumpism.”    When under the thrall of a cult leader, many people seem to forget their own morals and not have minds of their own.   They will continue to deny truth and support their leader even when there is irrefutable proof of the leader’s immorality and even criminality held up to their noses.

In fact, I believe Trumpism is a cult, and Trump qualifies as a cult leader.

cult_definition In Ms. Mika’s most recent post, she writes about this disturbing trend and the true intentions of the criminal mob who hijacked the White House in November.

Truth or Dare?

Would you want to know ahead of time if your future president suffered from a dangerous, incurable character defect — not mental illness — that was typical for all tyrants in the history of human race?

What if that defect, with its predictable manifestations and consequences, was described to you early on, so you could perhaps help prevent the tyrant’s rise to power? Or, if too late for that, at least understood what to expect and pursue appropriate action as his reign took hold?

Would you want to know?

This knowledge is easily available, though for some reason we prefer not to find it, and that’s as our government, country, and the entire world come under threat from just such a characterologically defective leader and his circle of similarly impaired enablers.

Yet we don’t want to see it, and we loathe talking about it, even though, as Lee Siegal reminds us, avoiding questions about Trump’s mental unhealth is “a betrayal of the public trust, a denial of human nature, and an insult to posterity.”*

In a September 2016 post, The Red Herring of the Candidates’ (Physical) Health, I wrote:

If / when Trump is elected and proceeds to dismantle our democracy (yes, we know this is a very real possibility, thanks to correct diagnosis, as chaos and destruction are assured by his character defect; but he also said so, should there be any doubts), will we perhaps revisit and rethink the Goldwater Rule? If we have that chance, of course, and courage and a desire to do so.

The dismantling of our democracy is in full swing now and proceeds according to schedule.

Make no mistake: What we are witnessing is not some incompetent bumbling of political novices, but purposeful and vengeful destruction of our government, country, and possibly — if the pathocratic Trump/Bannon cabal is allowed to remain in power unopposed— the world.

*****

Read the rest of this post here. 

I highly recommend Ms. Mika’s blog on Medium.  This is where hers and other’s articles on Trump, Trumpism, and the normalization of sociopathy/narcissism in general can be found.

Trump’s personality disorder brings out the worst in everyone.

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manbaby

I think it’s pretty safe to say Donald Trump has a very malignant case of Narcissistic Personality Disorder and appears to fit all of its psychiatric criteria.    Unfortunately, he’s only the tip of the iceberg, merely a symptom of America’s soul-sickness.

Trump has surrounded himself with a staff of other Dark Triad or Cluster B personality-disordered types.   Congress and the Senate are also populated by people who appear to have no conscience or empathy, and only feel entitled to take from others to enrich themselves.    Many of them appear to have antisocial or psychopathic personalities.

Narcissists like Trump become codependent and simpering in the hands of psychopaths, because of their emotional neediness.   Vladimir Putin appears to using him to achieve his own nefarious ends of world domination or at least the destruction of western democracy. Trump, being a narcissist and therefore far more emotionally fragile than Putin, doesn’t realize he’s only being used and exploited.

I could go for pages speculating about the psychology of Trump, his enablers, and those who are using him for their own ends (and many have), and I feel pretty confident saying that almost his entire administration is made up of sociopathic and codependent types, the latter of which have mostly already left or been fired (Reince Preibus and Sean Spicer seemed more codependent to me than personality-disordered themselves).

I don’t see any obvious Borderlines in the Trump administration, although Trump himself appears to have a few Borderline or Histrionic traits.    As far as I can tell, Trump is the only obvious case of NPD.   The rest seem more like people with ASPD or psychopathy to me, seemingly emotionless and willing to use and enable Trump for their own ends.

How Trump brings out the worst in everyone.

Authoritarianism and racism are highly correlated with antisocial and narcissistic personalities, and we saw the worst of society become violent at the KKK rally and protest in Charlottesville, Virginia today.    The undercurrent of hatred in this country runs deep, and our election of a black president in 2008 and 2012 did nothing to quell it — if anything, the hatred and racism that were always lurking beneath the surface became even deeper and more toxic than at any time since the Jim Crow days.

America is a sick country and only a sick country would elect a malignant narcissist for its president and psychopathic or antisocial people for high political positions.    Trump isn’t the problem, since the problem would still be there whether or not he was president.   He is the ugly symptom, and is now bringing all the darkness out in the open.   We are finally seeing how deep this cancer runs and hoping against hope it hasn’t reached Stage Four.

In some ways this is a good thing, since now we can see exactly how sick our nation has become and how deep and dark the divisions between us really are.   But Trump also has a way of bringing out the worst traits in everyone he comes in contact with, even indirectly — in his administration, in his supporters, in his enemies, and in his opponents.  Even though I’ve never met the man, whenever he’s on TV I feel as if all the oxygen has been sucked out the room.  He’s everywhere.  You can’t get away from him.

Trump enables his cabinet members and sycophants in their lack of empathy, lack of conscience, and crass greed and selfishness.  They use him for their own ends and they know he will never call them out if they just keep on flattering him and giving him the praise he wants.

Trump brings out the worst in his staff.   He causes drama and chaos whenever his bottomless need for admiration and approval isn’t met — he will attack, devalue or discard whoever he believes isn’t giving him the approval he craves, even those who could benefit him.     He always has a scapegoat, always — even among those who have been loyal to him, like Mitch McConnell or Jeff Sessions.   Never in my life have I seen a White House so filled with drama and discord.   Even the Nixon administration at the height of Watergate seemed like a sanctuary of sanity in comparison.  Trump brings out the very worst in his staff, while anyone with a semblance of a conscience or a soul left has already resigned or been fired.

Trump brings out the worst in his supporters.  He enables them to display their authoritarianism, racism, hatred, and ignorance — even to the point of violence, as we see happening today in Charlottesville.   On social media, the rhetoric of his supporters has become increasingly hate-filled and ugly, to the point of threatening non-supporters with terrorism and even civil war against them.    Trump appears complicit in all this, and acts  as if it isn’t happening.

Trump brings out the worst in his non-supporters.   Many people are suffering from PTSD or even C-PTSD that has been retriggered by his constant gaslighting, projection, threats,  need for revenge, and denial of the truth.   Depression, despair, feelings of dissociation and unreality, and dread are problems for many Americans right now, and therapists even have a name for it:  Trump Traumatic Stress Disorder (TTSD).   Anger is also being triggered in his non-supporters, though not in quite the same way as in his supporters.   Righteous anger differs from hatred, and it may be the only good thing he’s bringing about.   He’s forcing his opponents to expose the truth about what has happened in our country over the past few decades and demanding that we change course — drastically, if necessary.

I was involved in a discussion on Twitter about Trump’s fragile ego, and we agreed that he seems to be a collapsed narcissist, who knows it’s only a matter of time before the whole house of cards comes toppling down and he’s exposed, even to many of his supporters, as the criminal and fraud he really is.   As he grows more desperate, he increases the volume on his endless demands for admiration and approval, holding more hatred-enabling rallies and even threatening nuclear war over a perceived insult from North Korea’s equally unhinged leader.   That’s how bottomless Trump’s emotional void is:  that he would be willing to send millions of people to their deaths — even the entire planet — just to save his fragile ego.  It doesn’t help that many far-right religious leaders are stroking his ego even more by telling him he’s been anointed by God.

We can never begin to think of what he’s doing is normal, because it’s anything but.

trump_2

That’s the sound of your soul being sucked into oblivion. 

****

Further reading:

The Soul-Sucking, Attention-Eating Black Hole of the Trump Presidency.

Objectification: making dehumanization okay.

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antisocial_personality

In Trump’s post-PC America, it’s become okay to dehumanize people or groups of people you don’t like. Then they justify it by calling it “straight talk” or “honesty,” which of course it is anything but.

Dehumanization means objectifying a person or group in such a way that it becomes okay to treat them as second class citizens or even resort to abuse or torture.

“Gay people are all abominations.”

“Jews are vermin.”

“Women are all stupid c__ts.”

The trick is to make the target less than human.  Make them an object and it’s okay to do whatever you want with them.

It works on an individual level too, of course.  Narcissists and sociopaths dehumanize their victims all the time, which has a way of making them “feel better” about the abuse they proceed to dish out.  Serial killers and rapists use it; so do abusive parents and spouses.

“You’re a fat pig.”

“You’re a disgusting waste of air.”

“You’re a nothing.”

In David Pelzer’s autobiography, A Child Called It, the harrowing story of a boy who was scapegoated by his narcissistic, alcoholic mother until the age of 13 when a sympathetic teacher finally reported the abuse to authorities and he was removed from the home.   Pelzer describes how his mother went so far as to referring to him as an “it” before meting out her horrific “punishments” and abuse.    Making him eat off the floor with the dogs and not recognizing his humanness (by making him a thing, an “it”) was how she was able to justify the horrible things she did to him.

In the larger sphere, hate groups use dehumanization to “feel better” about abusing, ostracizing, torturing, or sometimes even killing members of the groups they target.     The Nazis dehumanized the Jews and others they deemed “unfit” in order to justify their killings and other atrocities. KKK members dehumanize their black victims in a similar manner.  This is how they are able to justify carrying out the crimes they commit.  Dehumanization is also used during wartime, and may in some cases be a necessary evil in order for a combat soldier to psychologically process the massive guilt over having to kill another human being, though I don’t think it ever justifies atrocities done to women and children, or innocent civilians.

We see it more than ever now, since we have a president who regularly dehumanizes and makes negative generalizations against those he doesn’t like, especially at his rallies.   His hostile rhetoric riles up his supporters, who then feel justified to mete out verbal abuse and even violence at Muslims, liberals, reporters, gay people, peaceful protesters, or whatever.

Dehumanization isn’t confined to the right though.  I’ve seen it on the left too.    Both sides are using objectification and dehumanization to justify abusive behavior toward those they disagree with.    It’s a national disease, and it’s contagious.  We are not living in normal times.

I want to share this story a friend of mine told me about a man she met through a dating site.   He sounds like a sociopath to me, but I’m also pretty sure he’s been indoctrinated by his “hero” that this sort of toxic rhetoric is okay.

This new man and I had met on a dating site, and we spent quite a while on the phone getting to know one another, before we met at a fancy French restaurant.

I overlooked one or two overly crude flirtatious comments, as I have a weakness for outgoing, A- type personality men, and we had tasted a lot of wine.

But somehow, at a bar, the subject came around to Trump and Muslims. I was saying that I didn’t like that Trump said we should target their women and children, because they target ours. I could understand that during war, some innocents will be killed – say if a terrorist purposely housed them in his compound, but terrorism doesn’t justify intentional revenge terrorism.

He said, “We should target them, because they’re all cockroaches. Muslims are all coakroaches, and criminal invaders.”

He then went on to call all Mexican illegal immigrants criminal invaders and human coakroaches as well, who by nature of their race, “like blacks”, were disproportionately “more criminal”.  When I compared his remarks to Hitler calling the Jews coakroaches, and said it was racist and fascist to dehumanize whole classes of people, his voice got louder and louder against me, and no one at the bar verbally came to my aid.  He called me an emotional liberal and mocked me, “Wah, wah, wah” as if I was crying while getting up to “walk me to my car.”

Gone was the charming man who had induced me to go out with him, and I had to follow behind him to find my car, while he mocked loudly passers-by for “being fat” and “farting” in his face.  When we were alone in the parking lot, I had had enough and my temper and voice rose in an attempt to stop him from talking over me.  He had said I hadn’t experienced trauma like his because I had never been shot.   I said, “I may not have been shot at, but my own mother attacked me when I was only five years old, and I can tell you one thing:  I would never dehumanize all of humanity by calling the mentally ill, the handicapped, or any human race ‘coakroaches'”.

He said he would have slit my mother’s throat.  I got in my car and got out of there as fast as I could, and reported the incident to the dating site.

This is what we’re up against.  Sociopaths like this man now feel perfectly justified to amp up their abuse and hatred, because of the political times we are living in.

The modern GOP is incapable of empathy.

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–robberbarons

Today, The Huffington Post published this article imploring the GOP to show as much sympathy and compassion for its constituents as it does for its wealthy donors and to each other.

While I wholeheartedly agree with the sentiment, I take issue with this article because of its unrealistic assumption that the modern GOP is capable of compassion or sympathy.

In fact, they are not.    Maybe back in the old days (B.T — Before Trump), and among some moderate Republicans, that may be true.  But moderate Republicans are in the minority these days and hold almost no power anymore.   All three branches of government are hamstrung by far right Freedom Caucus or alt-right fascist types who want to take us back not to 1953 — remember, we had a lot more “socialism” during the ’50s, a decade that the far right seems to otherwise love —  but to 1900!  They want a Dickensian dystopia: a new Gilded Age, complete with robber barons, people dying from preventable illnesses (for lack of healthcare); hordes of uneducated, illiterate citizens; children begging in the streets or stealing so their families could eat (and providing a handy reason to send them to work at an early age); harsh punishments for minor victimless crimes, workhouses for the poor, rampant sexism and racism, voting rights only for property owners, women treated as second class citizens, and no civil rights at all.  The early 1900s cartoon above this post could just as well apply to today.

The type of regime the modern GOP wants to install would be hell for all but the very wealthy.   It’s the type of oppressive regime you find all the time in the third world, but not in any civilized country.  It’s interesting to me that Trump admires and acts respectful to   fascistic, authoritarian rulers, but insults and is rude to leaders of western democracies.

I’m speculating here, but I wouldn’t be surprised if repealing child labor laws is part of their eventual plan to destroy democracy and any chance of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” for those who aren’t white, Christian, able-bodied, or unable for various reasons beyond their control to attain great wealth and power.    These ruthless monsters are waging war on the most vulnerable among us and I truly believe their intention is a modern day version of eugenics.  Denying healthcare to millions, attempting to dismantle public education, and removing laws that protect our air, water and food — while building underground bunkers for themselves so they stay safe when the air is unbreathable, the landscape looks like a war zone, and desperate hordes of impoverished are forced to steal and kill just to survive — is a sneakier, more underhanded version of the gas chambers of Nazi Germany.   Dark Triad people like Mitch McConnell want to thin the herd — but let “natural law” do the job instead of poison gas and concentration camps.   I’m enraged and terrified because I and most of the people I love are among those these conscienceless rulers want to eliminate, and that’s why I’m so passionate about this scourge on our nation.

malcolmx

I decided to comment on the HuffPo article:

Sympathy and compassion are traits of a democracy.   America is no longer a democracy. It’s an oligarchy. The modern GOP is a criminal, sociopathic organization whose members lack any empathy or conscience. They are all about greed and power, and they gaslight and demean and lie to anyone who cares about the “least of us.”   They call us weak, snowflakes, un-American, elitist.  This organized crime ring of grifters, pathological liars, Ayn Rand acolytes, greedy sociopaths, their spineless enablers, and the fake “Christians” who have twisted Christianity into something more closely resembling Satanism never will. They can’t because it’s alien to their dark natures. They are modern day Pharisees.

“By their fruits you shall know them.”

They bear rotten fruit.

“We have met the enemy and it is us.”

We have become the Evil Empire the rest of the world hates and fears.

How DARVO could prove which of us is telling the truth (reblog)

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darvo

This is a good article I reblogged from Nyssa’s Hobbit Hole.  I think this information about determining accountability is not only useful on a personal level for those of us who have had to deal with narcissists, but as a useful way to decipher who are the real liars and truth-tellers in the current political mess we’re in.   Narcissists and sociopaths use all kinds of tactics such as gaslighting, smear campaigns, and playing the victim while making the real victim the “enemy.”    Of course, in our current political situation, both sides accuse the other of the exact same things, so it can be hard to determine who are the real victims and perpetrators.    Personally I think a quick determination of who are the real liars and truth-tellers can be made by observing who protesteth too much and which side acts more aggressive.    This can also be applied to dealing with people on a personal level and is very effective if you’re paying attention.

I have left Nyssa’s links in place.  Her ongoing tale about narcissistic abuse by two former close friends who sunk to new lows by stalking her blog is riveting and educational.

How DARVO Could Prove Which of Us is Telling the Truth

By Nyssa McCanmore, Nyssa’s Hobbit Hole

DARVO refers to a reaction perpetrators of wrong doing, particularly sexual offenders, may display in response to being held accountable for their behavior.

DARVO stands for “Deny,, Attack, and Reverse Victim and Offender.” The perpetrator or offender may Deny the behavior, Attack the individual doing the confronting, and Reverse the roles of Victim and Offender such that the perpetrator assumes the victim role and turns the true victim into an alleged offender.

This occurs, for instance, when an actually guilty perpetrator assumes the role of “falsely accused” and attacks the accuser’s credibility or even blames the accuser of being the perpetrator of a false accusation.  –Jennifer J. Freyd, What is DARVO?

While re-reading this article on Shrink4Men, I came upon a section which hit me as proof to my readers (who can read Tracy and Richard‘s bizarre, intimidating and remorseless e-mail to me in the “Now I’m Being Stalked” post, and how they’ve been trying to stalk and intimidate me online and off for the past few weeks) of which of us is telling the truth:

Of course, not everyone who denies wrong doing is engaging in DARVO. Many partners and exes of abusive women are accused of things they didn’t do or of things that never happened.

Naturally, when this happens, you deny the accusation and perhaps feel a little (or a lot) bewildered. How do you know if an individual’s denial is the truth or an instance of DARVO? Freyd (1997, pp. 23-24) proposes:

“It is important to distinguish types of denial, for an innocent person will probably deny a false accusation. Thus denial is not evidence of guilt. However, I propose that a certain kind of indignant self-righteousness, and overly stated denial, may in fact relate to guilt.

I hypothesize that if an accusation is true, and the accused person is abusive, the denial is more indignant, self-righteous and manipulative, as compared with denial in other cases.

Similarly, I have observed that actual abusers threaten, bully and make a nightmare for anyone who holds them accountable or asks them to change their abusive behavior.

This attack, intended to chill and terrify, typically includes threats of lawsuits, overt and covert attacks, on the whistle-blower’s credibility and so on.

The attack will often take the form of focusing on ridiculing the person who attempts to hold the offender accountable. The attack will also likely focus on ad hominem instead of intellectual/evidential issues.

Finally, I propose that the offender rapidly creates the impression that the abuser is the wronged one, while the victim or concerned observer is the offender. Figure and ground are completely reversed. The more the offender is held accountable, the more wronged the offender claims to be.”

Please click on this link to read the full article.