I suggest that many supporters need a protector from whatever fear they are told to have at some point in their lives.
A number of people above have given their answers to this and I find much to agree with in them. What I was taught when it was suggested to me by my teacher about the universal disease of self contempt and what I had previously discovered for myself is that we have unconscious motivations that we are terrified of seeing because some of the real facts about ourselves are not all that appealing or so we have been led to believe. In short we are caught in a catch 22 from which only unpleasant realizations offer any escape and those are what we do not want to do. I call this ego defense, where the part of us that defends us from self realization is motivation-wise blind to itself. That's the catch 22. Another way that my teacher put this as a practicing psychologist is that we come into therapy not hoping to get well but to become better at being sick. We want to improve on out sickness not make it go away.
With that said, what I think Trump offers is exactly that which so many are motivated to find, deep mental illness in the form of profound ego pride. He is what we fear to admit without shame or hesitation, without doubt or regret. He is what we fear to become. He offers freedom from self hate by accepting it and going with, surrendering to it, without all the effort that real healing requires, self confrontation and self awareness of what we really feel. He says its great to be sick and we have been trained since children that all there is are material things. Joy is in ownership, wealth, and power. There is no such thing as enlightenment or the joy of just being. He tells us the grief of what we have lost must never again be experienced. Deny and counter attack and most of all lie and lie and lie. Fake it until its real. It's what we all want and all one needs is to deny what we feel via dishonesty.
Why do you think so many people find him so compelling?
Because he's the most astounding con artist our society has ever produced. He messes with people's minds in ways subtle and profound creating an irrational emotional bond.
Human emotion encapsulates many things including how people lie and how people are able to tell when others are lying. It’s similar to how some people get sarcasm and others don’t.
I offer it as an informed opinion based on "cults of personality" of the past, but I ought to add other things such as fear or revenge. As an example I offer the Nazi rise to power, which would have been unlikely except for French retaliation leaving the German people eager for revenge and a return to greatness.Is that what leads someone to Trump in the first place?
Any ideas on how those afflicted by the bond may escape short of removing Trump himself?
It depends on how deep he hooked them. It often comes down to suffering the consequences of being victimized. Only then will they realize that they have been.
I offer it as an informed opinion based on "cults of personality" of the past, but I ought to add other things such as fear or revenge. As an example I offer the Nazi rise to power, which would have been unlikely except for French retaliation leaving the German people eager for revenge and a return to greatness.
McCarthy had power given to him by the "Red Menace". He emerged to destroy people for quite some time and people loved or feared him for it.
Present a solution for the problem of the day (real or imagined) and those vulnerable will cry for salvation and the price is never too high for some.
I have to be careful here. My teacher said that he was able to find that universality because he had a burning question that consumed his mind and to which he devoted intense investigation. One of his suggestions was to follow anything such question that may be haunting you. For that reason I hesitate just to straight up answer as best I can out of concern that I maybe could blunt your curiosity with a formula that satisfies me.I notice the word universal in there. What distinguishes a person who is swayed by Trump and one who isn't?
I do not really like the idea of suffering consequences as an answer to unawareness. I prefer that people know who or what their real enemy is. We grew up in spiritual and psychological darkness and what I think helps best is light, not self inflicted pay back. We have met the enemy and he is us, but the enemy's real name is ignorance.It depends on how deep he hooked them. It often comes down to suffering the consequences of being victimized. Only then will they realize that they have been.
I find it fascinating, the political aspect of the divide. Either Democrats and Republicans, as people, are fundamentally different, or the difference in behavior is explained by difference in environment.
I suggest the latter is more true based on my interactions. If you tease out someone's consciously professed beliefs that organize their point of view from your observations of what values they hold, I don't find a significant difference overall.
It's why I proposed the thought experiment. Very little of our political world and discussion isn't predicated on identifying and countering the enemy regardless of what stance you hold politically. I hope for connection. I hope to identify what we, as Americans (sorry non Americans, you can contribute too), wish to pursue instead of trying to counter what we perceive as holding us back. I think we are lost, not knowing where to head, not feeling agency. And our response to that is to presume this is due to some sort of external restriction. Yes, those exist, but if we cannot identify what we care about pursuing if we imagine the enemies have all been defeated, then our entire existence will be consumed by justifying our own unhappiness, and one way or another we will always find allies to lay blame alongside us. Allies is too strong a word. They don't care about you. They care about defending against taking a closer look at themselves. It is the "people are saying" defense Trump uses so often.
Human emotion encapsulates many things including how people lie and how people are able to tell when others are lying. It’s similar to how some people get sarcasm and others don’t.
I have to be careful here. My teacher said that he was able to find that universality because he had a burning question that consumed his mind and to which he devoted intense investigation. One of his suggestions was to follow anything such question that may be haunting you. For that reason I hesitate just to straight up answer as best I can out of concern that I maybe could blunt your curiosity with a formula that satisfies me.
On the other hand, and like what I sometimes try to do, I use questions in the hope that people will look deeper into themselves. Do you then perhaps already have an answer in mind you wish to explore more deeply, or is your question one you have no real answer to?
I will say this. There are two ways that I see that children can go with abuse and which would be critical in how I answer.
Why do you think so many people find him so compelling?
I notice the word universal in there. What distinguishes a person who is swayed by Trump and one who isn't?
OK, so suppose one set of the tortured can fine no relief except to join the torturers themselves. Stockholm syndrome identification, whereas the other group get a message somewhere from others that sympathizes with them as victims. Whose ox gets gored depends on who you identify with. Mental health then becomes the understanding or comprehension that unites these two opposites, realization at a higher level of what we went through as children. Neither the tormentors and their joiners nor victims and those who sympathize with them are entirely free from the past, empty of attachment. We can’t cut strings we don’t see.The latter. I don't really know any Sufi parables so I'll make up my own.
There was a culture out there that was naive to magic. So one day a Western magician (who wasn't very good) decided to start performing in this new land. His show was simple. He would take a ball in one hand, move it to the other, then crush it in his hand, open it up, and the ball has vanished. But this crowd was amazed. They were a very advanced society, but none considered they were being tricked. They all came to the rational conclusion that this man had the ability to vanish things.
One day, he did his show in a theater where a few sitting in the corner could see how one hand palmed the ball while pretending to transfer it to another. They decided to expose this charlatan. They published their knowledge, went on TV, etc. Before long everyone had heard how the man had fooled them. The magician, of course, said that magic was real and that these detractors were evil people whose goal was to steal his power. Naturally he never agreed to appear on a stage where people could sit in the corner while performing his trick.
The contingent who believed in magic took up this fight and attacked the non-believers on the magician's behalf while the rational observers found themselves dumbfounded at how they could have failed to convince people of what was obviously and rationally true. They could not fathom at how narrow minded the believers were.
Of course, the fundamental difference between these groups was that some folks got seats in the corner of the auditorium and others saw the show head on.
I do not really like the idea of suffering consequences as an answer to unawareness. I prefer that people know who or what their real enemy is. We grew up in spiritual and psychological darkness and what I think helps best is light, not self inflicted pay back. We have met the enemy and he is us, but the enemy's real name is ignorance.
OK, so suppose one set of the tortured can fine no relief except to join the torturers themselves. Stockholm syndrome identification, whereas the other group get a message somewhere from others that sympathizes with them as victims. Whose ox gets gored depends on who you identify with. Mental health then becomes the understanding or comprehension that unites these two opposites, realization at a higher level of what we went through as children. Neither the tormentors and their joiners nor victims and those who sympathize with them are entirely free from the past, empty of attachment. We can’t cut strings we don’t see.
Yes, of course. But when you look at the depth of denial you may notice or let me just say that what I see is extinction. We would rather die than remember what happened to us. I believe it would be a good idea if people were to know that about themselves.I'd prefer that myself but the human psyche often doesn't work that way.
There's a vast amount of resentment out there? Along with a mystification at where the nation's sense of purpose and direction went. I guess.
Race quite obviously has a vast amount to do with it, but it does feel like there was a time when the US had more self-confidence and that feeling of direction and purpose. Maybe winning the Cold war was a pyrrhic victory? Along with the global economic changes (which seem inseparable from the end of communism), there was clearly a source of identity and unity that was lost.
(On that note, I personally find it hard to get my head around the fact that the time between the Berlin Wall coming down and now is longer than the time between then and when it went up.)
What you are saying, in my opinion is that people are actually good and not evil. But the reality for people is what they feel to be true and they are unconscious of what that is. Evil is when evil is assumed to be real. There is no evil. Nobody believes that unfortunately. But I do believe there is nothing wrong with anybody except they believe otherwise. This is why a an imagined caravan of riches can come true. It's about faith and attitude. We all survive because there is a part of us that was once real that got buried but can't ever be fully lost.I think if the believers and non-believers decided to go see a movie with each other and grab a bite to eat and share a few drinks, they'd perhaps decide that they didn't give a crap about whether anyone can vanish a ball in the first place. Before the magician came into town they all had families, they made art, they made scientific study, they helped out those who struggled because they felt it was right to do not ever considering whether anyone deserved it or not.
Yes certainl, but what are the experiences and what is the identity. I believe some of us were presented with a united front from which our capacity to empathize with victims was wiped out vs an environment that had enough life to keep it alive to some degree. I believe you can see this if you know yourself as in know what you really feel. You generally..... One can know this.The context someone is in and the experiences that have formed their identity, surely? What else could it be?