Why is anybody surprised that the worse Trump's legal troubles get the more his cult loves him, gives him money, and contemplate violence?

 

By Hal Brown

Anyone who follows experts like neuroscientist Bobby Azarian, whose latest article in Raw Story is  "A neuroscientist explains why Trump extremists will grow violent as Election 2024 approaches", or read articles like  "The ‘Shared Psychosis’ of Donald Trump and His Loyalists" (Scientific American 2021) knows the scientific reasons why Trump has such an iron grip on members of his cult.

Azarian explains:

Terror management theory is particularly relevant to current political events because it provides a scientific explanation for tribalism. The theory suggests that in the face of threat or fear, we bolster our worldviews, and become more ideological. We also become more tribal, which will strengthen our support for like-minded others, while at the same time making us more prone to aggression toward those who are not like us, and who do not share our worldview.

 They also know, as Azarian explains, how dangerous some of them may be:

This suggests that an atmosphere of existential fear would simultaneously promote aggression while strengthening support for Trump, who regularly projects a “strongman” image and suggests violence as a remedy to political matters. 

This is a very scary combination of psychological effects. For this reason we must be aware of this problem, which will become increasingly salient as the 2024 presidential election begins to heat up.

Azarian concludes with a plea for empathy, using our knowledge, and optimism as follows:

So, we must be empathetic during these times, but we must also be vigilant. If we stay on the current trajectory of increasing polarization, we can almost be certain that a whole new level of unrest is headed our way. Now the question is whether we have the ability to use this knowledge to avert the coming train wreck. But I’m an optimist, and I think if we can predict something ahead of time, we can figure out how to prevent it. That is precisely why science has been such a powerful force for human civilization, and it’s time we start applying that knowledge to solving the existential threat that is the culture war in America.

What puzzles me is why so many rational people are surprised, shocked even, that the more is revealed about how Trump defied the law and put national security at risk and now may face the sword of Lady Justice for what he did, the more members of his cult support him. For example:

On June 14th, after his documents case indictment he reportedly raised $6 million.

At a subliminal level have all of these people bought into the illusion of Telfon Don, of Superman Trump, of Rambo Trump, on bulletproof Trump riding a tank into battle?

From members of the general public who zealously support him no matter what he's done or how outlandish his behavior is to members of Congress and Republicans running for president it seems as if they fall into one of two groups. The first is the group who believe he is the superhuman being he portrays himself. The more imperiled he becomes for many the more enthusiastic their support of him becomes.  The second group is composed of the politicians who are scared shitless of him and the voting block he controls. In private they may wish he'd just disappear (see Would Republicans support Trump in 2024 if he's convicted of crimes? They're split, NBC News).

Group two is afraid of group one. They are hitching their political wagons to horses that have been grazing in locoweed.

On the psychopathology of Donald Trump: John Kelly says Trump is scared sh-tless but there's fear one experiences and fear one represses

There's a reason why Edvard Munch's "The Scream" is the second most famous painting after the Mona Lisa. It represents an all too human, and all too normal reaction, to existential horrors. https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20160303-what-is-the-meaning-of-the-scream

By Hal Brown, MSW

Update Aug. 15, 2023: I just read this article and say the reference (my bold):

Perhaps he's setting himself up to plead diminished mental capacity after a slew of recent posts on his favorite social media platform that sound like a horrible cry for help. Call it the wailing of the banshees or whatever else you want, but Trump now seems the living embodiment of Edvard Munch's famous 1893 painting in oil tempera, pastel and crayon, "The Scream." He is out there with only his Kool-Aid drinkers beside him as he melts down into a puddle of sweat, makeup and a Rodney Dangerfield suit. From: 

Donald Trump has gone off the deep end for real: He's a danger to humanity, Salong Aug 10, 2023

Who would have thought we'd see profane words in headlines with dashes or asterisks referring to a presidential candidate, president, or former president. Probably the best known is a word which also is what you call a domestic cat.

Now we are reading that Trump's former chief of staff, John Kelly, is using a colloquial expression to describe extreme fright speculating that this is how Trump feels.

If you made it to middle age without being this scared, consider yourself lucky. You may have been this frightened if you were in combat or entering a burning building to fight a fire, but soldiers and fire fighters are trained to deal with this. Likewise, medical professionals like members of surgical teams deal dispassionately with life threatening emergencies.

Most people are not trained and thus prepared to handle this level of trauma. For example they may be sitting in a bomb shelter in Ukraine, or be an African villager who is victimized by genocide, or a Kansas farmer watching a tornado bearing down on his house, or much more commonly an ordinary person hearing a dire medical diagnosis for yourself or a loved one. 

In these and similar situations if you are like 99.99% of the world's population you will experience being really, really scared. You may feel more frightened than you knew was possible.

You will feel this viscerally. Your mind will react with the flight or fight response, but you will often be unable to do either.  You will probably experience a range of decidedly unpleasant physical reactions.

Then we have Donald Trump who, while very few people think will actually end up in prison, is actually facing charges which if convicted could end him up behind bars. 

He's already experienced the loss of freedom for the first time in his life. The closest most people have come to knowing how this feels is during a traffic stop. Even though you aren't under arrest during a traffic stop, or being questioned by a police officer in another situation, for that period of time you are not free to simply leave until you are told you can do so.

Trump has been under arrest now. Despite the fact that he was surrounded by lackeys they could leave if they wanted to do so. He couldn't. 

He didn't suffer what an ordinary suspect would have gone through when being booked. I have seen this from the point of view of a police officer (I was a reserve officer for 20 years). I helped arrest countless drunk drivers and observed the booking process in the county jail. This included mugs shots, finger printing, breathalyzer tests, and being put in one of several small cells behind the booking desk. (Our jail didn't house drunks together in what is often called the drunk tank.)

These would have been outrageous indignities for him. Instead he was treated like the celebrity he was.

Even so, Trump has had the experience of not being free, albeit for a very short time.

The following is from The Washington Post (subscription) 

Trump greets arraignment with showmanship in bid to upstage charges

The former president, in growing legal peril, faced down the most serious threat to his personal liberty and political future like just another day on the campaign trail

The almost celebratory display on Tuesday, clashing with the more typical sobriety of court proceedings, highlighted Trump’s instinct to face down federal charges with the same bluster he marshaled against previous threats to his business and candidacy, and to project strength for his supporters, constructing an alternate reality where he is not in deepening legal jeopardy.

“He’s scared s---less,” said John Kelly, his former chief of staff. “This is the way he compensates for that. He gives people the appearance he doesn’t care by doing this. For the first time in his life, it looks like he’s being held accountable. Up until this point in his life, it’s like, I’m not going to pay you; take me to court. He’s never been held accountable before.”

Kelly is assuming that he knows what Trump is feeling. What ought to be recognized as a known unknown is whether what Kelly calls compensation is something Trump is aware of. He may be exercising what mental health experts consider the most primitive of all psychological defense mechanisms, denial.

To the extent Trump is engaging in denial he is more and more unmoored from reality and closer to becoming clinically delusional. A defendant who becomes so psychotic that they can't participate in their own legal defense might be referred to a psychiatric treatment facility until they are rational enough to do so.

Trump ignored at lawyers who gave him good advice. One was the lawyer Christopher Kise, who he paid a $3 million advance. He told him his best course of action was to settle with the DOJ on the documents case. 

This is from The Washington Post (subscription)

Trump rejected lawyers’ efforts to avoid classified documents indictment

The former president was not interested in attempting to negotiate a settlement in the classified documents investigation

The attorney, Christopher Kise, wanted to quietly approach Justice to see if he could negotiate a settlement that would preclude charges, hoping Attorney General Merrick Garland and the department would want an exit ramp to avoid prosecuting a former president. Kise would hopefully “take the temperature down,” he told others, by promising a professional approach and the return of all documents.

But Trump was not interested after listening to other lawyers who urged a more pugilistic approach, so Kise never approached prosecutors, three people briefed on the matter said. A special counsel was appointed months later.

In addition to Kise, "former Trump attorney Alex Cannon in the fall of 2021 repeatedly urged the former president to return documents to the National Archives, according to the report, which notes that he repeatedly admonished him that he was required to do so."

 (reference)

Instead will seek out those like conservative activist Tom Fitton who isn't even a lawyer. Fitton told him he should fight the DOJ because he had every right to keep the documents.

Consider the following, from The Washington Post article first cited:

Trump has wanted to show, according to his advisers, that he is ready to fight — instead of looking downtrodden and glum — as he appeared in court Tuesday. The advisers, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private interactions, have said in the past that few things bother him as much as news accounts of his surly mercurial moods and occasional volcanic temper.

“It’s fine,” Trump said when asked about his mood in a right-wing radio interview on the eve of his arraignment.

“You sound like you’re in great spirits,” the host, Howie Carr, concluded.

“I am,” Trump said. “I’m just fighting for the country.”

Having "surly mercurial moods and occasional volcanic temper" are signs of mental decompensation, of psychopathology. They suggest his defense mechanism of denial is failing him. But then the bravado demonstrated in the answer to Howie Carr and his other "what me worry" behavior in addition to his attacks of his accusers show that he is walking on thin brittle ice (representing his personality) over shark infested waters.

To quote Harvard psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Lance Dodes from Lawrence O'Donnell last night:

"... as Trump's legal troubles continue to grow, he will "look worse and worse. That is the psychiatric explanation. He is fundamentally different from normal people. We'll see more and more of that" 

Indeed, Trump is truly different from normal people. Not only that, there are no indications that this behavior will change which means we will see more and more abnormal behavior from him.

The best thing for Trump, if convicted, could be that he actually does become severely mental ill and like Joe Bananas, John Gotti, and perhaps most appropriately Larry Flynt the publisher of Hustler Magazine, he could end up in the federal  Department of Corrections medical facility in Springfield, Ohio:

Update:

Click above to read article.

Addendum:

Hardly anybody clicks on what I tweet but I still usually put links to my blogs there. I was doing this today and looked down my Twitter page and was amazed to see that the tweet I made to publicize one of my favorite photo manipulations got thousands of impressions or views. 

Click above to enlarge without going to Twitter

Reading how the magnificent in his own mind megalomanic was mocked by George Conway as nihilistic moron led me to think of what it would be like if Trump was imprisoned.

 

Click above to enlarge my photoshop of Trump
playing with his little putter in prison yard.

Trump in jail for the documents would be like Jack the Ripper
 getting caught and sent to a London gaol for filching a bicycle.
 For such a magnificent in his own mind megalomanic
 this would be the ultimate affront. In some countries
an attempted coup to subvert a legitimate election
a conviction could mean the death sentence.

By Hal Brown, MSW, Retired psychotherapist

George Conway mocked Donald Trump as a "nihilistic moron" for risking years in prison by hoarding classified documents at his private resort at Mar-a-Lago on Morning Joe this morning:

Click to watch video

This is some of what he said:

"We are approaching the very end. I kept hearing this ear worm in my head as I was coming to the studio this morning, 'this is it, make no mistake.' We're getting down to the final strokes of this race, and what's clearly really remarkable about it is that of all the things that this man has done, eight decades of lying and cheating and stealing, this case, this documents case, is probably the easiest, shortest, simplest and yet carries the most severe penalties, likely penalties, of any of the cases, any of the legal issues that he's ever faced."

"Now people will say, you know, he really, in a just world, he would go to jail for what he did on Jan. 6, the weeks approaching Jan. 6... And I kind of agree with that, but for this man who is basically a nihilistic moron, for him to go to jail potentially for a long time, these Espionage Act charges bring very heavy sentences to potentially go to jail for something so pointless and silly and useless as keeping these documents is actually kind of fitting."

Instead of being imprisoned among criminals who worked their way up to being crime bosses by making their bones by cutting the throats of their rivals in the underworld, he'd be with a bunch of pickpockets and and shoplifters. Sure, he'd be their king, but he'd be a rock star among ruffians. 

Seriously, though, it doesn't matter whether Trump goes to a county jail or a state or federal prison. While he may end up, if convicted of a felony, ending up in home confinement which would be a travesty considering that his home is a mansion where staff will wait on him hand and foot. He might even be able to entertain anyone he want to have there. 

For justice to be served he needs to be locked up where, while inmates may be thrilled to have him there, and correction officers may enjoy telling their friends and family stories about what he'd like, he'll still be subject to all the rules of the facility.

From having his freedom of movement dictated to and having to wear standard prison clothes Trump will have to suffer the indignity of no longer being in charge of his domain. I doubt he'd be able to wear a MAGA hat, let alone a t-shirt like this:

While there is no proof Trump uses a golden toilet obviously he uses a normal porcelain one. It would be an adjustment, to say the least, to find he has us one of these for his morning ablutions and must perch his prodigious posterior on this:

I've never being in jail, but I have been inside of two jails numerous times in my capacity as a mental health consultant where I assessed inmates who were thought to be suicidal. It was always disconcerting to go through the sally port, the double doored entry area where a corrections officer briefly had you in a small locked area. If they didn't know and like you they could make you wait as long as they felt like it in the locked area. 

Not surprisingly some of these CO's took perverse delight in keeping me waiting for a few minutes while they pretended to attend to some more important matter. I knew I would soon get in and be escorted to interview an inmate, again in a locked room. More importantly I knew I would be getting out, but even that short loss of freedom had an impact.*

Actual inmates are at the absolute mercy of corrections officers for everything. Even a former president would be compelled do what he is told to do.

* I have also been given private tours of the Bidgewater State Prison (MA) by the stress officer who worked with staff and who was a friend who referred many CO's to me for therapy.

J6 Committee top investigator lays out a provable case that Trump led a conspiracy to overturn election

 By Hal Brown

The Raw Story summary -

Trump's Jan. 6 conspiracy 'potentially broader' than final House report described: lead investigator

 - of The New York Times article -

Timothy J. Heaphy Led the House Jan. 6 Investigation. Here’s What He Learned.

The top staff investigator for the House inquiry on the Capitol attack opened up about his biggest takeaways and why proving intent is the key to a criminal charge against former President Donald J. Trump.

 - doesn't do it justice (no pun intended).

Unfortunately you have to subscribe to The New York Times to read the revealing and unnerving interview with Timothy J. Heaphy (Wiki profile), the former U.S. attorney who served as the top staff investigator for the Jan. 6th Committee. 

Asked by Luke Broadwater, author of the article (profile), when the J6 Committee realized they would be breaking new ground, Heaphy said it was when the J6 Committee saw how early the multipart plan to stop the transfer of power started to take shape:

The world had seen the violence of the Capitol and how awful it was. But how we got there, and how methodical and intentional it was — this ratcheting up of pressure that ultimately culminates in the president inciting a mob to disrupt the joint session — that was new. 

 Below, the emphasis in red is mine:

When we started to see intentional conduct, specific steps that appear to be designed to disrupt the joint session of Congress, that’s where it starts to sound criminal. The whole key for the special counsel is intent. The more evidence that we saw of the president’s intent, and others working with him, to take steps — without basis in fact or law — to prevent the transfer of power from happening, it started to feel more and more like possible criminal conduct.

Heaphy was asked by Broadwater to address the failures of law enforcement to prevent the attack on the Capitol and the workings of the J6 Committee, which he did, but the meat of interview as far as I am concerned in how former the former president is implicated in being the leader of an illegal conspiracy. This is in scattered almost wlly-nilly through the interview. 

Another excerpt: 

There’s evidence that the specific intent to disrupt the joint session extends beyond President Trump. There is a cast of characters that includes the ones you mentioned (i.e. John Easton and Jefferey Clark). I think you could look at [Rudolph W.] Giuliani, and Mark Meadows. I think that the Justice Department has to look very closely at whether there was an agreement or conspiracy.

As far as I am concerned, the only reason we need to know how far beyond Trump the conspiracy extended, besides bringing the conspirators to justice, is to make an airtight care against the leader of the conspiracy.

There is only one person who must, absolutely must, suffer the consequences for trying to treasonously sabotage our democracy. I don't care whether everyone else goes free, makes a fortune selling tell-all books and getting gigs on Fox News as long as Donald Trump gets one or more fair trials for the felonies there is enough evidence to indict him for having committed.

If he is found innocent because a jury or juries think a case hasn't been made beyond a reasonable doubt that he committed crimes and he walks free, I will have no choice but to deal with my disappointment and anger. I will have to live with my belief, my lack of having a reasonable doubt, that he really did the equivalent of committing a murder on Fifth Avenue and got away with it.

A footnote to history is that Trump is the only president to have said things about getting aways with committing felonies. Another, lest we forget, is "grabbing" line from the Access Hollywood tape. Of course there also are the "perfect" phone calls he made, to Zelensky and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. 

Addendum:

To understand the meaning of reasonable doubt one must grasp that such a finding does not mean that the person being tried is innocent.

Under U.S. law, a defendant is considered innocent until proven guilty. Reasonable doubt stems from insufficient evidence. If it cannot be proved without a doubt that the defendant is guilty, that person should not be convicted. Verdicts do not necessarily reflect the truth, they reflect the evidence presented. A defendant’s actual innocence or guilt may be an abstraction. (Reference)

A moment of snark:

I meant this to be a serious blog but when someone posted a cartoon on another Raw Story article I didn't resist my impulse to make an illustration to go with it.

The sheriff's badge was added to the picture of Lucy. I didn't enlarge Trump's ass though a number of people used photo manipulation to make it even bigger.

 

I found Trump in Medieval painting of legal Hell

  I found Trump in Medieval painting of legal Hell

By Hal Brown

Okay, that's a lie. I added a stylized version of Trump (made by using BeFunky) putting him in Hell, legal Hell. Above is a detail of a detail from a fresco in the medieval church of St Nicholas in Raduil, Bulgaria which is part of the Wikipedia entry on Hell.

I noticed that in the upper left corner of this painting the Scales of Justice were drawn. They are being held by a hand coming out of the clouds. Presumably this is the Hand of God. Also coming out of the cloud, I think it represents Heaven, is a flume of fire with a dark demon, perhaps meant to be the Devil himself, which would fit with God casting him out of Heaven.

Of all the paintings of Hell I could find online this was the only one with the Scales of Justice even though Hell is where people who break the law in egregious ways are supposed to go.

I was inspired to look for a depiction of Hell thinking I might blog about this article from Raw Story this morning:

There's no sense to bullet point the tally here, but to be reminded you can just glance at the article or click below to enlarge the photos I took when "Morning Joe" re-aired the segment this morning:

Mika, after describing all the legal jeopardy and entanglements facing Trump, concludes with a  personal message to Trump who, it has been reported, sometimes watches the show: 

"That's a lot of law stuff happening there, Donald, just something to think about."

Then there's this:

... and this:

the goodies keep coming...

Did I mention that if Stormy in the leak in the Trump ship that starts to sink him it would be poetic justice?

Raw Story is getting very raw for The Donald:

I mean, really raw:

This is getting repetitious:

The more stress Trump is under the more likely he will make mistakes...

This is cray-cray... supper time but juts on last article:

The trout was delicious. Thank you Fred Meyers.One last look before bedtime:

Okay, closing out the day, here's a tweet from Stormy Daniels. Note that Trump infamously referred to Daniels as "horse face" after her allegations against him became public, to which Daniels responded by mocking the size of Trump's genitalia.

For your entertainment, The King: Jailhouse Rock:

More recent version.

By chance there are two definitions of the word don (among a few others) which are applicable here. One is the proper name which is short for Donald and the other lower case is what the head of a Mafia family is called. 

For decades Trump's Teflon has been like a coating of incredibly slippery mercury, his version was gold rather than silver colored, but just as difficult to hold onto as the real chemical element which is used in thermometers and other devices. It also happens to be poisonous.

As all this is happening we have the extraordinary case of the former FBI agent Charles McGonigal who had been in charge of the New York City office who was arrested for being basically a Russian spy. As this case moves forward we may find that Trump's fake Russian conspiracy was a more successful Russian espionage case of an American double agent than that involving Aldridge Ames.

Here a some images that I put together to illustrate previous blogs. The following could end up to be more than fantasies:

Trump grift goes on despite losing NYC case

 Trump grift goes on despite losing NYC case

By Hal Brown

Archives on Right >

Why I was banned from Daily Kos

DonkeyHotey caricature, illustration by Hal Brown

Despite losing the NYC case he will stay wealthy and stands to get richer with his deal in Oman. Only in prison his money won't do him any good. The easier to make documents case must be won but only the conspiracy to subvert the Constitution case could result in a long prison sentence. Getting out in a few months or years a wealthy man would be an affront to justice. 

So the Trump Organization lost the case in New York City and was fined a paltry $1million. If his pending deal to build a multi-billion dollar despot in Oman goes through it will be a drop in the bucket. Here's the story from Arab News.

Excerpt:

RIYADH: Saudi developer Dar Al Arkan has signed an agreement with former US President Donald Trump’s company to develop its $4 billion project in Oman, it said in a filing on the Tadawul on Sunday.  

The Trump resort will include residential villas, a hotel and a golf course. It will be located at Aida, a 100-meter-high hilltop project jointly developed by Dar Al Arkan and the Oman Tourism Development Co.   

The project will be developed over 10 years on an area of 3.5 million square meters and is expected to reach a joint investment of SR6 billion ($1.59 billion), the filing said.  

“We are always looking to enhance Dar Al Arkan's unique projects with premium facilities and experiences. Our partnership with Trump will distinguish our first venture in Oman and put it on the global map,” said Yousef Al Shelash, chairman of Dar Al Arkan, in a company statement.  

The 100-meter-high hilltop development is one of the largest premium mixed-use real estate projects in the world, situated by the sea. 

While here in the United States a Chicago paper called for 'jackhammering' controversial Trump name off of their Trump Tower (below).

It appears that in some countries having the Trump name emblazoned, no doubt literally in gold letters, on a humongous project is considered a major selling point.

Trump is beloved, even worshipped, by a terrifyingly large minority of Americans who would, if they could, elect him president for life. Residents of Democratic countries around the world look at the United States and are dumbfounded by how Americans could be taken in by this mentally unbalanced grifter. Of course, as I wrote yesterday, Democracies like Germany also have their problems.

The only way Trump can be punished for his crimes can will be to imprison him. As long as he stays out of prison he will be very, very rich. He'd luxuriate in all the trappings money buy. His wealth means he will have sycophants fawning over him. He won't have a true friend but he's a malignant sociopathic narcissist and as such doesn't care. With people like him, relationships, even with their spouses and family, are all transactional. They love themselves,  being worshipped, money, and power.

If Trump goes to prison he'd probably be isolated from the general population so he'd lose having inmates fawning over him.

If he's lucky the prison will let him play with his little putter in an isolated area of the prison yard:

He'd have to settle for guards who admire him to make his life a little more comfortable. Money will do him little to no good in prison unless he can bribe the guards to smuggle in goodies for him.

Perhaps they can bring him a poster for the wall of his cell:

 He can't buy out the commissary where his spending would be capped. Of course, regular readers know I try to document claims like this:

Excerpt:

Most facilities have individual limits of the amount of funds that inmates can have for commissary. Most do not allow an expenditure of over $ 300 per month on commissary items. However, in many federal and state facilities, an amount between $120 and $ 200 is quite a reasonable budget. There is always the question of how does an inmate know they have money? Well, after a deposit is made, an inmate receives a receipt after 24hours to three days.

He'd be able to buy snacks but the prison kitchen won't prepare special foods just for him. The best he might be able to do is convert to Judaism so he can get kosher meals. I heard kosher meals in prison were better than the regular fare. It turns out that generally this is true and has led to the "fake Jew" phenomenon.

Maybe yarmulke wearing Trump will go from Jerusalem to the big house...

They're two kinds of juries who will determine Trump's fate.  Grand juries are now or will be deciding whether to indict him, however only a trial jury can convict him of a crime and send him to prison. When it comes to where Trump ends up, it is fair to say one kind of jury is still out, and the other kind hasn't even begun to hear his case.

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'If you're new to the blog the archives in the right column will take you back through the period I began posting political stories and before that when the blog only had photo essays documenting road trips around Portland and Washington with photos of both scenery and unusual restaurants. Remember you can click the small images to enlarge them. These are from 2021.

 I started the blog in 2012, here.