i understand we must keep an eye on this sociopathic monster ("keep your friends close, and your enemies closer") but i do not understand why we need to constantly be elevating this person in the media. just about everything he does is front page news -- why not relegate him to page 4 news instead?
I will never do any more business with any of the criminal corporations that are financially supporting Trump and his attempt to violently overthrow the government of the United States.
These corporate CEOs and any and all of Trumps accomplices including members of the Congress of the United States who support Trumps violent insurrection attempt must be prosecuted.
I disagree, Dr. Reich. I think a civil war, one in which blood is let, to be very likely. In fact, I think we are still fighting the Civil War of the nineteenth century. Though it has been a (mostly) cold war for the last 150 years or so, the problems it was meant to solve were never fully settled and continued to infect our society like a festering carbuncle under a putrid bandage. The rEpublicrites have been pulling at that bandage in earnest since the election of 1980 and tRump managed to rip it completely off. A bloody scalpel will now have to be wielded in order to clean out that infection once and for all.
I think this presidential run is going to prove to be bilking his faithful on steroids. Trump will raise hundreds of millions, then snub his nose at the FEC rules, pocket it all, then hop over to Hungary where a safe haven awaits with no extradition.
“I’ll be back when you’ve won the revolution,” he’ll say from a safe distance. But the reality is he’ll never come back, and his real message is:
I agree that Trump can’t win in 24 and he knows it.
What that essentially means is as you said--he’s not running to win. His campaign and the 2024 election
are his last chance at metaphorically binding his supporters to him emotionally to help propel him into a dictatorship. His campaign speeches now have a distinctly malevolent tone. I’ve had a sense that his supporters in Congress have recently ratcheted up their animosity and intensity as if they’re preparing for something.
I don’t remember where I read or heard this today,
but someone pointed out extremists on the right
are buying firearms as fast as they can, possibly in order to be prepared for a showdown of some sort & it chilled me to the bone. There’s no doubt in my mind that he intends to whip his supporters into a frenzy of hate & violence.
I don’t believe Trump can succeed with either votes or violence. What he can and will do is cause as much violence as he can. His mafia legacy and narcissistic personality disorder could fuse together to result in hurting as many people as he can and cause as cause as much destruction & chaos as he can. I can definitely envision Trump dying before he’ll go to prison. Narcissists are control freaks.
He won’t survive in prison and I think he knows that. That means in his mind he has nothing to lose.
At last! You have put your finger on the issue. To treat him as a "candidate" for a recognized, constitutional "office" is to miss the main point of this delusional, mind-warping scam. It is as though a B-movie actor so inhabits a badly written part that he forgets it's a role and starts wearing the costumes, etc full time. But here, the actor is writing the role as he goes on.
I like GrrlScienti's term: sociopath monster. I can only add that he's an omni-directional sociopath. Somehow, this idea that his supporters "are" him in no way interferes with his willingness to rip them off at every turn.
Absolutely correct; "Trump will never be president for those who did not vote for him". I addition he will never accept an election where he is not the winner.....People need to understand this before he is even considered a nominated candidate.... Once he is on the ballot, he cannot loose and will try to destroy democracy either as an elected candidate or as a bad looser.....
Have said it before and will keep saying it ! Until someone either the DOJ or Alvin Bragg has the Guts , the you know what to put this Severe Mentally Ill man in Prison showing not only our Country but the World that No one is above the law not even a former President then it will help regain order on all you spoke of especially those who are in The House Republicans who are Super MAGA and want or Country to have laws that Protect them forever cause they want to remain super Rich and continue their Love affair with the NRA funding them and Others to keep them that way ! They want the Poor and the rest of us as unable to survive as possible by letting Food Prices continue to climb and everything else so we are forever stuck haveing to Work or worse if unable stuck in a who gives a dam about you mentality so … We better make sure that doesn’t happen there is still Time but it’s seriously running out for those who seek Justice for Trump if those who can affect him directly don’t or choose to do the right thing and hold him accountable for the first time in his I think 75 years 🤡
This isn’t so much what the media doesn’t understand about Trump as what the media has ignored about him since he entered the race in 2016. All of his personal life, as well as his business life, had made it clear that the only thing he has ever cared about is himself, and that he was utterly unfit to serve in any public capacity. He has, in fact, no concept of service or of why anyone would think of serving others or their country. When he looked at the endless rows of graves at Arlington, he felt neither gratitude nor humility, just bafflement: “What was in it for them?” And so, once he occupied the White House, he and his family, from his sons and daughter to his current wife and his son-in-law, used the presidency for their own personal purposes, with no concern for the results for anyone else.
Having studied cult leaders, cults and the cultic mentality my whole adult life, along with helping a number of people leave cults, which is not an easy thing for them to do as certain cultic fears are deeply ingrained in their subconscious mind, there is little hope of Trump's followers ever truly understanding that they are destroying themselves, their families and our country with their anger, hate and fear. They are completely encapsulated in their bubble of perception. Arguing with them only drives them deeper into their position. The only possibility I know that works is to really listen to them, hear their fear and anger, and from a place of sincere compassion, ask them good questions about what they are believing, doing and why. We can't do this from a position of our being one-up and right, and their being one-down and wrong. That will only drive them deeper into their position. We have to sincerely hear them out and express our care for them. Asking them good questions can trigger their discernment and then there is a possibility of their putting down the barrier of their beliefs for a moment, looking around and seeing things more clearly. That is when they begin to shift and question what they are doing. Maybe.
And yes, the media loves hysteria and makes money from it. Talk about a cult.
From the article; "This is key. Trump views himself, his supporters (whom he calls “my people”), and their domains as one and the same. Anyone who opposes him is “them” — outside the universe of his identity, past the places that embrace him, beyond the borders of his pathological ego."
Trump looks at the world through the lens of his black, evil, fearful heart and sees all the evil and fear he has pent up inside himself reflected back at himself. His cult of followers, made up of authoritarian personality types, are more than happy to fall into lock step agreement with Trump's warped world view.
Excellent piece, Mr Dr Secretary Professor Robert Reich. Thank you for your (continuing) service.
I like all this intellectual approach. I'm all for law & order. But we are at war with Enemies Domestic (ED; Electile Dysfunctionists) and have been since 2015. Time to wake TF up.
At war.
Law & Order is not equipped for this. The Black Shirts, the Brown Shirts, and these scoundrels in the Red White & Blue Shirts...removing each of these by opinion AND law AND in some cases brute force is the step necessary to short-circuit disaster of this level of historical magnitude.
What would Eisenhower have done? What should Biden do? Giving up on the second Biden term and instead eliminating these crackhead zombies, resetting America at any cost, that is about all I can see that will save the world from this repeating pattern. And that includes all players in the business-as-usual corruption we've seen since January of 1981.
i understand we must keep an eye on this sociopathic monster ("keep your friends close, and your enemies closer") but i do not understand why we need to constantly be elevating this person in the media. just about everything he does is front page news -- why not relegate him to page 4 news instead?
I will never do any more business with any of the criminal corporations that are financially supporting Trump and his attempt to violently overthrow the government of the United States.
These corporate CEOs and any and all of Trumps accomplices including members of the Congress of the United States who support Trumps violent insurrection attempt must be prosecuted.
I disagree, Dr. Reich. I think a civil war, one in which blood is let, to be very likely. In fact, I think we are still fighting the Civil War of the nineteenth century. Though it has been a (mostly) cold war for the last 150 years or so, the problems it was meant to solve were never fully settled and continued to infect our society like a festering carbuncle under a putrid bandage. The rEpublicrites have been pulling at that bandage in earnest since the election of 1980 and tRump managed to rip it completely off. A bloody scalpel will now have to be wielded in order to clean out that infection once and for all.
I think this presidential run is going to prove to be bilking his faithful on steroids. Trump will raise hundreds of millions, then snub his nose at the FEC rules, pocket it all, then hop over to Hungary where a safe haven awaits with no extradition.
“I’ll be back when you’ve won the revolution,” he’ll say from a safe distance. But the reality is he’ll never come back, and his real message is:
“So long, suckers!”
Thank you, Robert.
It's even more simple: For the last 40+ years, Trump's only goal is to evade Prison. He (and other GOP turds) are doing just that every day
I agree that Trump can’t win in 24 and he knows it.
What that essentially means is as you said--he’s not running to win. His campaign and the 2024 election
are his last chance at metaphorically binding his supporters to him emotionally to help propel him into a dictatorship. His campaign speeches now have a distinctly malevolent tone. I’ve had a sense that his supporters in Congress have recently ratcheted up their animosity and intensity as if they’re preparing for something.
I don’t remember where I read or heard this today,
but someone pointed out extremists on the right
are buying firearms as fast as they can, possibly in order to be prepared for a showdown of some sort & it chilled me to the bone. There’s no doubt in my mind that he intends to whip his supporters into a frenzy of hate & violence.
I don’t believe Trump can succeed with either votes or violence. What he can and will do is cause as much violence as he can. His mafia legacy and narcissistic personality disorder could fuse together to result in hurting as many people as he can and cause as cause as much destruction & chaos as he can. I can definitely envision Trump dying before he’ll go to prison. Narcissists are control freaks.
He won’t survive in prison and I think he knows that. That means in his mind he has nothing to lose.
At last! You have put your finger on the issue. To treat him as a "candidate" for a recognized, constitutional "office" is to miss the main point of this delusional, mind-warping scam. It is as though a B-movie actor so inhabits a badly written part that he forgets it's a role and starts wearing the costumes, etc full time. But here, the actor is writing the role as he goes on.
I like GrrlScienti's term: sociopath monster. I can only add that he's an omni-directional sociopath. Somehow, this idea that his supporters "are" him in no way interferes with his willingness to rip them off at every turn.
Absolutely correct; "Trump will never be president for those who did not vote for him". I addition he will never accept an election where he is not the winner.....People need to understand this before he is even considered a nominated candidate.... Once he is on the ballot, he cannot loose and will try to destroy democracy either as an elected candidate or as a bad looser.....
Have said it before and will keep saying it ! Until someone either the DOJ or Alvin Bragg has the Guts , the you know what to put this Severe Mentally Ill man in Prison showing not only our Country but the World that No one is above the law not even a former President then it will help regain order on all you spoke of especially those who are in The House Republicans who are Super MAGA and want or Country to have laws that Protect them forever cause they want to remain super Rich and continue their Love affair with the NRA funding them and Others to keep them that way ! They want the Poor and the rest of us as unable to survive as possible by letting Food Prices continue to climb and everything else so we are forever stuck haveing to Work or worse if unable stuck in a who gives a dam about you mentality so … We better make sure that doesn’t happen there is still Time but it’s seriously running out for those who seek Justice for Trump if those who can affect him directly don’t or choose to do the right thing and hold him accountable for the first time in his I think 75 years 🤡
All true and well diagnosed. Imagine if Trump were elected and then pardoned thousands of his supporters.
Don't laugh. Trump always gets worse. And he is now cornered.
This isn’t so much what the media doesn’t understand about Trump as what the media has ignored about him since he entered the race in 2016. All of his personal life, as well as his business life, had made it clear that the only thing he has ever cared about is himself, and that he was utterly unfit to serve in any public capacity. He has, in fact, no concept of service or of why anyone would think of serving others or their country. When he looked at the endless rows of graves at Arlington, he felt neither gratitude nor humility, just bafflement: “What was in it for them?” And so, once he occupied the White House, he and his family, from his sons and daughter to his current wife and his son-in-law, used the presidency for their own personal purposes, with no concern for the results for anyone else.
It's all about the money. He will say and do any thing to keep his base angry enough to keep the contributions coming in.
Having studied cult leaders, cults and the cultic mentality my whole adult life, along with helping a number of people leave cults, which is not an easy thing for them to do as certain cultic fears are deeply ingrained in their subconscious mind, there is little hope of Trump's followers ever truly understanding that they are destroying themselves, their families and our country with their anger, hate and fear. They are completely encapsulated in their bubble of perception. Arguing with them only drives them deeper into their position. The only possibility I know that works is to really listen to them, hear their fear and anger, and from a place of sincere compassion, ask them good questions about what they are believing, doing and why. We can't do this from a position of our being one-up and right, and their being one-down and wrong. That will only drive them deeper into their position. We have to sincerely hear them out and express our care for them. Asking them good questions can trigger their discernment and then there is a possibility of their putting down the barrier of their beliefs for a moment, looking around and seeing things more clearly. That is when they begin to shift and question what they are doing. Maybe.
And yes, the media loves hysteria and makes money from it. Talk about a cult.
From the article; "This is key. Trump views himself, his supporters (whom he calls “my people”), and their domains as one and the same. Anyone who opposes him is “them” — outside the universe of his identity, past the places that embrace him, beyond the borders of his pathological ego."
Trump looks at the world through the lens of his black, evil, fearful heart and sees all the evil and fear he has pent up inside himself reflected back at himself. His cult of followers, made up of authoritarian personality types, are more than happy to fall into lock step agreement with Trump's warped world view.
Excellent piece, Mr Dr Secretary Professor Robert Reich. Thank you for your (continuing) service.
I like all this intellectual approach. I'm all for law & order. But we are at war with Enemies Domestic (ED; Electile Dysfunctionists) and have been since 2015. Time to wake TF up.
At war.
Law & Order is not equipped for this. The Black Shirts, the Brown Shirts, and these scoundrels in the Red White & Blue Shirts...removing each of these by opinion AND law AND in some cases brute force is the step necessary to short-circuit disaster of this level of historical magnitude.
What would Eisenhower have done? What should Biden do? Giving up on the second Biden term and instead eliminating these crackhead zombies, resetting America at any cost, that is about all I can see that will save the world from this repeating pattern. And that includes all players in the business-as-usual corruption we've seen since January of 1981.