Comments by "" (@DavidJ222) on "SE Cupp: The only question you need to ask yourself about Jan. 6" video.
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Psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton, who taught at Harvard Medical School, wrote a paper titled Cult Formation in the early 1980s. He delineated primary characteristics, which are the most common features shared by destructive cults like Trumpism.
1. A charismatic leader, who increasingly becomes an object of worship as the general principles that may have originally sustained the group lose power. That is a living leader, who has no meaningful accountability and becomes the single most defining element of the group and its source of power and authority.
2. A process of indoctrination or education is in use that can be seen as coercive persuasion or thought reform commonly called "brainwashing".
The culmination of this process can be seen by members of the group often doing things that are not in their own best interest, but consistently in the best interest of its leader.
3. The exploitation of group members by the leader and the ruling members.
Here are some warning signs of a potentially unsafe group or leader.
â˘Â Absolute authoritarianism without meaningful accountability.
â˘Â No tolerance for questions or critical inquiry.
â˘Â No meaningful financial disclosure regarding budget or expenses, such as an independently audited financial statement.
â˘Â Unreasonable fear about the outside world, such as impending catastrophe, evil conspiracies and persecutions.
â˘Â Former followers are always wrong for leaving, negative or even evil.
â˘Â The group/leader is always right.
â˘Â The group/leader is the exclusive means of knowing "truth" or receiving validation, no other process of discovery is acceptable or credible.
"This man is a genius at every level! Why can't we all be like him? He must be something special, and we are clearly not. Ergo, let's listen to him since he knows best."
-- Trump supporters
Scientific American asked Bandy Lee, a forensic psychiatrist, to comment on the psychology behind Trumpâs destructive behavior, and what attracts his followers to him.
"TheReasons are multiple and varied. I have outlined two major emotional drives: narcissistic symbiosis and shared psychosis. Narcissistic symbiosis refers to the developmental wounds that make the leader-follower relationship magnetically attractive. The leader, hungry for adulation to compensate for an inner lack of self-worth, projects grandiose omnipotenceâwhile the followers, rendered needy by societal stress or developmental injury, yearn for a parental figure. When such wounded individuals are given positions of power, they arouse similar pathology in the population that creates a âlock and keyâ relationship.
âSharedPsychosisââwhich is also called âfolie Ă millionsâ [âMadnessForMillionsâ] when occurring at the national level or âinduced delusionsâârefers to the infectiousness of severe symptoms that goes beyond ordinary group psychology.
When a highly symptomatic individual is placed in an influential position, the personâs symptoms can spread through the population through emotional bonds, heightening existing pathologies and inducing delusionsParanoia and a propensity forViolenceâeven in previously healthy individuals."
Destructiveness is a core characteristic of mental pathology, whether directed toward the self or others. When mental pathology is accompanied by criminal-mindedness, the combination can make individuals far more dangerous than either alone.
In my textbookonViolence, I emphasize the symbolic nature ofViolence and how it is a life impulse gone awry. Briefly, if one cannot have love, one resorts to respect. And when respect is unavailable, one resorts to fear. Trump is now living through an intolerable loss of respect: rejection by a nation in his election defeat.
ViolenceHelps compensate for feelings of powerlessness, inadequacy and lack of real productivity."
--Bandy Lee
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 @mrrey8937Â
The truth of the matter is, Trump should have been impeached and removed from office before the election, and we wouldn't even be having this conversation. Trump's crimes are far worse than Nixonâs.
On Aug. 7, 1974, Sen. Barry Goldwater, R-Ariz., House Minority Leader John Rhodes, R-Ariz., and Senate Minority Leader Hugh Scott, R-Pa., made it clear to Nixon that he faced all-but-certain impeachment, conviction, and removal from office in connection with the Watergate scandal...
Nixon announced his resignation the next day, which would be effective at noon on Aug 9, 1974..
In his 2006 book "Conservatives Without Conscience," former Nixon White House Counsel John Dean wrote that the Capitol Hill trio "traveled to the White House to tell Nixon it was time to resign."
In his 1988 autobiography, Goldwater wrote that after hearing their grim assessment, Nixon "knew beyond any doubt, that one way or another, his presidency was finished."
This was back when the Republican party still had at least a modicum of dignity, decency, integrity, and a sense of right and wrong. Today, thanks to Trump, McCarthy, and others, the wholesale corruption of the GOP is now complete.
The Republican Party is now led by a kleptocratic crimeBoss who ruled over the most scandal-ridden administration in history. Nixonâs administration may have been riddled with criminalityâbut in 1973, the Republican Party was still a somewhat normal party, that still played by the rules, so Nixon was forced to resign. But not anymore. Those days are long gone.
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