I call it Munchausen masculinity, By Hal M. Brown

 

Here’s the link to the RawStory article about Trump and his duputies wielding power with a ”macho hand.”

This is an excellent article well worth reading. Here’s just one excerpt:

There is a method to all this maleness, experts say.

"The emphasis on a rigid gender binary is an outgrowth of a nostalgic patriarchy that wants to return to a mid-20th century understanding of gender relations, with white, heterosexual men at the pinnacle of a hierarchical identity pyramid," said Karrin Anderson, a communications professor at Colorado State University.

Trump, of course, is at the heart of the movement.

Shortly after his return to power on January 20, the president ordered an end to passports with a gender-neutral "X" option and moved to restrict gender transition procedures for people under the age of 19.

The 78-year-old billionaire, who has promised to "protect" women "whether the women like it or not," also signed an order banning transgender athletes from participating in women's sports events.

At the signing event, he surrounded himself with women and young girls.

I call what we see in these people “Munchausen masculinity.” The real life Baron Munchausen “became a minor celebrity within German aristocratic circles for telling outrageous tall tales based on his military career.”  Wikipedia  A cinical syndrome was named for him, technically called Factitious disorder imposed on self.  

Basically, these modern men inflate their self-worth by exaggerating their masculinity. They brag about their prowess and some of them, like Hegseth, spend lots of time body building When they have the authority to do so, they sometimes bully people because, to them. beng able to impose their will on others equates with being masculine.

It's all a confusion delusion about the meaning of masculinity. The dictionary tells us masculinity is the “quality or attributes regarded as characteristic of men or boys”. These are some of the synonyms: virility, manliness, maleness, vigor, strength, muscularity, ruggedness, toughness, and robustness. Note these are attributes or charateristic which are “attributed.” They are cultural and societal. A woman can have any of the characteristics just like a man can have characteristsistcs considered by some, often in a disparaging way, to be feminine.

Aside from physical differences between men and women, concepts about masculinity and femininity are just that, concepts. To the extent they exist in reality they are a manifestation of social norms and expectations followed by some, but not all, people.

Consider the two heroes in the DC universe who fans consider to be the strongest, Wonder Woman and Superman, and how they are depicted. Wonder Woman has a shapely figure and Superman has rippling muscles. Fans even speculated about who would win a fight between them (here).

Only in the manosphere would anybody even think of pondering such a battle.

Addendum:

The term toxic masculinity has been used to decribe the personality of some men when it becomes harmful to others. I won’t go into this because it has been addressed in numerous acticles (here). I’ll just offer a brief definition from Wikipedia:

Toxic masculinity is thus defined by adherence to traditional male gender roles that consequently stigmatize and limit the emotions boys and men may comfortably express while elevating other emotions such as anger. It is marked by economic, political, and social expectations that men seek and achieve dominance.

Trump and MAGA cohorts don't lack empathy. As sadists, they have perverse empathy, by Hal M. Brown, MSW

 

I wasn't sure which word to use in the title of this Substack to describe the unique kind of empathy Trump and his MAGA cohorts have. The other terms I considered were obscene, meaing offensive to moral principles, and repugnant. I settled on "perverse" because it was less judgmental.  It decribes a person or their actions showing a deliberate and obstinate desire to behave in a way that is unreasonable or unacceptable.

People who understand, and care about, emotions know that empathy is a deeper human experience than sympathy. It means that one can temporarily put themselves inside of another person's experiential world and get a profound sense of what they are feeling. It is as if they are feeling another's feelings themselves. When someone is empathizing, their feelings can be said to be resonating with the other person's feelings. These individuals are called empathetic (sometimes empathic, meaning the same thing).

Trump has been called a malignant narcissist. He fits the definition on Wikipedia and on many other websites. 

All of the definitions address the lack of empathy. This is from Wikipedia:

Because traits of antisocial personality disorder are present in malignant narcissism, the "malignant narcissist" has a more pervasive lack of empathy than someone with NPD (narcissstic personality disorder) alone and will lack feelings of guilt or remorse for the damage they cause.

Definitions also include a sadist element:

Psychologist Keith Campbell has defined malignant narcissism specifically as the rare but dangerous combination of narcissism and sadism.

In thinking about Trump and some of the people he is relying on to advance his agenda like Stephen Miller, I've concluded that they have a unique kind of empathy. I am calling it perverse empathy. Because they are sadists they enjoy being able to make their enemies suffer. They want them to be scared. They take pleasure in knowing that they can make millions of migrants, even children, frightened about being deported. They want trans people to be miserable. They want DEI hires to worry themselves sick about where their next paycheck is coming from. They want political enemies to be anxious about their personal safety. They want people like us to be worried sick about the country becoming a dictatorship. As Trump and his minions find more groups to demonize and terrorize the list will grow.

I've been posting the illustration above on my Substacks about Trump lately, but on the bottom of the page. Today it is the main illustration. This is because unless Trump sees the cruelty he unleashes he doesn't enjoy it. He not only wants to know how much he is hurting people, he wants as many other people to know this as possible. For example, he wants immigrant roundups, like the one happening today in Chicago, to get as much publicity as possible.

Here's why I suggest that Trump and his ilk have a particular kind of empathy. 

To really enjoy hurting someone a person has to be able to have a good sense of how they, the victims, are feeling. Here's where sympathy and empathy diverge. They actually get into that person's skin and are able to get a glimpse of how they feel, of their fear or terror. 

Bishop Budde said directly to Trump that she hoped he would show mercy, as if he was capable of this.

People like Trump take pleasure in inflicting pain. They certainly don't sympathize with their victims. Asking Trump to show mercy is like asking the same of Hannibal Lector. 

An empathetic therapist empathizes with their client during a session and often when thinking about them. They learn to pull back emotionally lest they become overwhelmed with what is referred to as caregiver fatigue or burnout. People in all healthcare professions have to learn what is referred to as controlled emotional involvement. 

The perversely empathetic person empathizes with their victims because it enhances their own pleasure. Obviously, it never bothers them so they certainly don't need to learn controlled emotional involvement. They really want to know how much the people they injure are suffering. 

Trump is on a crusade of cruelty. In this respect he is like Hitler. I expect we will see editorial cartoons about Trump similar to these about Hitler:

Cartoon by British artist David Low.

How much Hitler personally enjoyed the pain he inflicted is, as far as I can tell, unknown. He was a psychopath and may or may not have been a sadist. We don't know if he enjoyed thinking about what was happening in the death camps. Of course, he didn't care about how many people he had killed. Killing was a means to achieve an ends.

Trump has many traits of being a psychopathic personality. While not killing people, he is on a path to hurting millions of people, and he is enjoying this.

Using Trump and "having empathy" in the same sentence may seem like an oxymoron. My premise it that he does have empathy, but it is a unique loathsome kind of empathy.

Addendum:

Practical Examples of Empathy (Reference)

To further illustrate the practical use of these terms, consider the following examples:

• Everyday Language: “His empathetic nature made him a great friend, always knowing how to console others in times of need.”
• Clinical Setting: “The therapist used an empathic approach to build trust and understanding with her patients.”
• Literary Context: “The novel’s protagonist had an empathic connection with animals, sensing their emotions as if they were her own.”
• Social Interaction: “Being empathetic towards others can significantly improve your relationships and social connections.”

I post my Substacks (formerly blogs) on several platforms. They are on Substack where, if you want to submit your email, you can be notified of all new blog posts. They are on HalBrown.org. They are also on Stressline.org I also post them on Medium because this enables them to be easily found on internet searches.

For MAGA oligarchs it's all about rubbing our noses in their billionaire power privilege, by Hal M. Brown

 

I'm not going to write about how Trump again proved he's above the law by getting barely a slap on the wrist in his sentencing this morning. Instead, I will focus on another wrist. This is the wrist of Mark Zuckerberg who, of course, is in the news having announced that he is ceasing to have fact checking on Facebook and Instagram.

Rather than that, I am going to write about this:

Zuckerberg wears $900,000 watch to announce end of Meta fact checks 

Here's more.

If Zuckerberg thought nobody would notice that he was wearing one of the most expensives watches anyone can buy, he's unbelievably naive about the way people scrutinize the internet. I think he absolutely knew what he was doing.

What we see with Trump and his billionare cronies is worse than an unabashed display of their wealth. There's a malevolence in what they do.

Ho-hum, we expect this of some of the super-wealthy. A goodly number of them were happy to show the public how rich they were in shows like Life Styles of the Rich And Famous. It ran for 11 years. They have pictorial articles about them in glossy magazines. The proletariat eats this crap up.

What the billionaire MAGA oligarchs are doing is rubbing the noses of their adversaries in their privilege. They enjoy knowing they can get away with just about anything. 

There's no "just about" with Trump. He thinks he can get away with absolutely anything. I doubt that the likes of Zuckerberg and Musk think that they could shoot somebody on Fifth Avenue and suffer no consequenses. They probably think the can do everything else, but probably not commit a cold blooded murder in plain sight. 

The only one of these billionaires who seemed to have gone a bit too far was Jeff Bezos. He got a lot of negative press when he nixed letting The Washington Post make an endorsement prior to the election. It is a telling observation about the times we live in that he got as much blowback later when he spiked the Ann Telnais editorial cartoon. Of course that cartoon expresses what I am writing about, i.e., that money can buy just about anything. Still, Bezos is not running for anything and he can easily afford to loose some Washington Post subscribers.

The Zuckerberg watch wearing story may seem like a small thing. However, since men, unless they're rappers, generally don't wear jewelry and thus can display their wealth by wearing an expensive necklace. Watches are the most visible way men can demonstrate their wealth by how they look.  

Women, oh say let's pick Melania Trump at random, have their own way of showing off privilege. See:

A look inside Melania Trump’s extravagant jewelry collection – From beloved husband Donald Trump’s $3 million wedding band to her Van Cleef & Arpels diamond earrings she wore for the 2017 White House inauguration

Perhaps Musk, who doesn't collect and wear expensive watches (as far as I know), is a tad bit more secure than Zuckerberg. Who the hell knows? Both seem to have been nerdy kids who may not have been popular. I'll put it simply saying that they may be playing their own script of "The Revenge of the Nerds." Since I am here today to bury these guys, not to psychoanalyze them, I'll refer you to the following which describes them as feeling like nerds when they were growing up:

History of Mark Zuckerberg: the nerd who created Facebook and changed the world

Elon Musk biography portrays a brutal character driven by lofty dreams

These two proved to the world that their brains were more valuable in the long run than being a prom king. What both of them have in common with Trump that they like to rub our noses in their privilege. 

Update:

'So rich and yet so weak': Vitriol unleashed as Mark Zuckerberg lauds Trump to Joe Rogan

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Sabrina Haake's "take" on Musk and his admitting he uses ketamine prompted me to write today's blog, by Hal M. Brown, MSW

 

Under the influence of ketamine, by Sabrina Haake

I am an admirer of Sabrina Haake who publishes a SubStack with the eponymous and rhyming title of The Haake Take. Her columns are also published on RawStory, Salon, and elsewhere. She is an attorney specializing in 1st and 14th Amendment defense.  She  ran unsuccessfully in an Indiana Democratic primary for Congress in 2020.

In the first sentence of her article she refers to this NY Times article from a few days ago:

Her article begins:

Psychedelic drugs hit the news last week just as America’s unelected oligarch started blowing up the government, because, chaos.

She writes the following about Elon Musk:

Musk, whose life is not ending anytime soon, uses ketamine to reduce his “negative chemical states like depression,” and says he uses the drug once every other week “or something like that.”

She goes on further about Musk:

Elon Musk’s judgment is… impaired

Although a budget finally passed yesterday, Musk created deliberate and unnecessary chaos to get there. Musk posted 100+ feverish tweets with misleading or outright false claims to kill the first deal. Among other juvenile rants, he posted, “Just close down the govt until January 20th. Defund everything. We will be fine for 33 days.” He posted in a separate tweet that a federal government shutdown “doesn’t actually shut down critical functions.”

He’s a complete governance idiot, but all Trump the intellectual midget sees is shiny rocket. Trump assumes that since Musk works with technology, Musk is all wise; it's a dangerous assumption any teenage boy might make.

Ketamine, according to doctors who prescribe it, is wildly effective at suppressing fear of death, which is great for patients facing imminent death. But for people like Musk who aren’t facing death, I’m not so sure losing fear of death is a good thing. I’m not sure a giant national defense contractor should have an “alternative perspective” of what death means, because for the rest of us who aren’t on ketamine, death means we’re dead and it’s not a temporary condition.

As a therapist retired after over 40 years in practice, I was pleased when my state of Oregon legalized the use of psilocybin, which is similar to ketamine, for treatment of certain emotional disorders. This is the psychedelic chemical obtained in certain mushrooms. These mushrooms have been used by native tribes where they are called "sacred mushrooms" and used in certain ceremonies. In Oregon there is a protocol for treatment with psilocybin which always includes a trained facilitator. The following is from the State of Oregon Heath website:

Will someone be there to help me during the administration session?

Yes, a licensed facilitator will support you in your journey. The Oregon Psilocybin Services Act ensures that psilocybin services will be non-directive, which means that licensed facilitators will not direct you or psychoanalyze you while you are in an altered state. They will help calm you, make you comfortable, and be present with you through the entire session but will not interfere with your experience unless you need additional support. For example, facilitators are allowed to engage in appropriate touch, such as on the hand or shoulder, and perhaps a hug, but only if that is agreed up on before the administration session. If you have toileting, mobility, assistive device support or interpretation needs, a client-support person may be allowed to be present with you for an administration session, but they would have to be prepared for the administration session by a licensed facilitator to learn about informed consent, the Client Bill of Rights, and how not to interfere with a session while supporting a client with specific accessibility needs.

Musk is taking katamine on his own. This is no surprise given his egotism. However, it also shows to me that he doesn't want anyone privy to his innermost thoughts and feelings. 

As a therapist I can say that one runs a huge risk when they take a psychedelic drug like ketamine, LSD, or psilocybin on their own. 

Those, like myself, who were in college in the 1960s, knew people who did. I didn't use these substances myself but had friends who did. They sometimes told about their so-called "bad trips."  A few ended up in hospital psychiatric units sometimes being treated with major anti-psychotic drugs. When I was doing my clincial internship I saw someone in a psychiatric hosptial who I was barely acquainted with.  He hung out at the student grill and knew some people I knew. He was on Thorazine which was used in those days for such reactions. He had experienced a severe reaction on LSD and was like a zombie because of the medication. 

Musk has revealed his that he is neurodivergent and has Asperger’s syndrome. This is part of the autism spectrum disorder. WebMd tells us that There aren't any drugs approved by the FDA to specifically treat Asperger's or autism spectrum disorders. WebMD tells us that "some medications, though, can help with related symptoms like depression and anxiety." Another website (The Mood Center) says:

 "People with Asperger’s have benefited from ketamine treatments to help with various issues that may have been caused by the difficulty of living with autism. Additionally, there have been reports that ketamine therapy may also improve the primary symptoms of autism."

 

Note the word "treatments" which is used in the section on ketamine assisted psychotherapy. 

Musk isn't, as far as we know, engaged in any kind of psychotherapy. We don't know if he ever had been. I doubt Trump understands that Musk, while apparently not an alcoholic, is using a substance that effects his brain functioning as much as alcohol does, albeit in a very different way.

Addendum:

Here's an article about the differences between katamine and philocybin.

The founder of the Duty to Warn movement, Dr. John D. Gartner, in addition to being one of the top mental health professionals who have warned about the dangerous psychopathology of Donald Trump (since 2017), has taken an interest in psilocybin therapy calling it the enlightenment cure (read article).

Yesterday's blog was also about Elon Musk. 

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