Michael Cohen and others claim to know what's in Trump's headspace. They don't..

 By Hal Brown

We know how Trump wants people to see him. The digital trading cards are in contrast to the photo he choose to be on "The Art of the Deal" cover. 

We might conclude that something in his mind changed between 1987 when the book was published and when he put out his digital cards. Then again, we also might say that the "I'm Superman" narcissistic grandiosity has been an underlying, perhaps driving part, of Trump's personality all of his adult life. It's probably more accurate to say that the choice of the photo on his book cover was a considered marketing decision approved by Trump but that experts at Random House, the publisher, persuaded him to use this one.

All someone like me, who practiced as a psychotherapist for 40 years, or anybody else can do is make educated guesses about what motivates Trump and what he is feeling. For example, many people say he has been frequently motivated by money. On the surface this makes sense. However, nobody, not even Trump himself, knows what money unconsciously represents to him. Even a psychoanalyst would be making an educated guess.

We see what he does but when we delve into the feelings and psychodynamics underlying his behaviors we are in an unknowable realm.

For example, this was the top story on HUFFPOST this morning:

Excerpt:

“Diaper Donald will be filling up that diaper, because this is not something that Donald is capable of either understanding or contending with,” Cohen, who worked closely with Trump as his personal attorney for more than a decade, told Ari Melber on Monday on MSNBC’s “The Beat.”

“He believes he could control every situation. This is not a situation that he has any control over, and that’s making him sick to his stomach,” he added. “I think right now he’s beyond petrified.”

There's nothing in the above (taking the diaper remark as a metaphor of course) that Cohen absolutely 100% for certain knows. Even saying that Trump believes he could control every situation, which sounds accurate on the face of it, ought to include modifiers like usually or ought to.

I wrote the following as a comment to the article:

All people like Cohen can do is speculate on what Trump is actually feeling, on the emotions he is experiencing. All anyone knows for certain is what is observable. Let's not forget that he is posting all cap messages on Truth Social in the wee hours of the night. This could be performative but it is a fact that the time stamp say it is, for example, 3AM. Trump has been an actor for decades. Even trying to analyze his facial expressions, even if he tears up, even if his sing-song voice quivers this is an exercise in drawing a conclusion about what is in what Cohen calls his headspace. Add to this imprecision is the possibility his feelings may vacillate. He may experience fleeting anxiety but then may push these feelings down (into the unconscious) and replaces them with anger. Like anyone he has psychological defense mechanisms, the most primitive of these is denial and another is projection. More about this here: https://www.halbrown.org/2023/04/nobody-knows-for-certain-how-trump.html

I admit that part of why I did this was to promote my blog. However this speculation in the media continues to be rampant so I thought a reprise of what I wrote in the blog from April 2, was warranted.

This is what Omarosa Manigault Newman told Joy Reid (video here):

Donald Trump is approaching his arraignment in a Manhattan courtroom. "Yes, he is going to try to pivot and distract and make you all think that he's not upset or nervous, but Donald Trump is terrified,” Omarosa Manigault Newman tells Joy Reid. “I can just certainly tell by his telltale signs... he doesn't look well."

You can look at Trump's posture, for example, and make an educated guess as to how he feels. For example these are from The Washington Post:

This is from The NY Times:

Click to enlarge

These are the photos the two New York City tabloids used:

You can also make your own conclusions based on what Trump isn't doing in these photos. For example, below he is waving but not smiling at cameras he knows are taking pictures of him. 

On Fox News with  Sean Hannity Trump said (about the documents at Mar-a-Lago) "I would have the right to take stuff, I have the right to do stuff." Talking heads, for example on Morning Joe, are pointing out that this was basically him admitting to having done something being investigated by Jack Smith. 

We can conclude that admitting something that will be likely be used against him should the documents case go to court shows poor judgement. We can with a high degree of confidence say that in his "headspace" or gut when he said these words he wasn't experiencing anxiety. What we don't know is that whether or not just below the surface of awareness anxiety was roiling around in what is sometimes referred to as the preconscious mind (see below). 

Here's the public domain iceberg graphic
of the mind I used in my other blog story.

Al Sharpton, also on Morning Joe, said Trump is humiliated. Again this is a speculation about what Trump feels. He said people underestimate the effect this has on Trump psychologically. It would be correct to say that if Trump was like the vast majority of people this and all these conclusions would be accurate. 

Here's someone else assuming they know what Trump is feeling (From Raw Story)

"The View" co-host Alyssa Farah Griffin worked for Donald Trump in the White House, and she's not buying reports that he's calmly relishing his legal predicament...

..."I know him well enough to know he is not loving this. He is spiraling. As someone, who despite his terrible actions, does think about legacy and how he is perceived. Now, his life, whether it's his obituary, is going to say he was indicted, the first American president to be."

Trump isn't psychologically like most people. See my Daily Kos essay from 2020 

Add a section to the DSM-5. It doesn't come close to having a category for Trump.

The closest anyone might come to understanding what is in Trump's unconscious mind is if he honestly told them about his dreams. This is what Freud called the royal road to the unconscious in The Interpretation of Dreams.

Nobody but Trump, and Melania if she sleeps with him, knows if he is awakening at night screaming from having nightmares.

Updates: Trump leaving Trump Tower on way to courthouse:

He waved when he was entering the courthouse but his face remained as it was in other photos taken earlier.

Play on words HUFFPOST article on top of page:

Get it? A rain man...

'He looks sad': CNN panel sees reality 'sinking in' on Trump's face

Is he sad or maybe just tired? After all he is posting on Truth Social in the middle of the night. The panelists said he had to feel lonely too. They would feel lonely in a similar situation. Most people would. At the risk of repeating myself, Trump is not most people.

So many in the media are making assumptions abut Trump's emotions  based on what they and everyone they know would feel. He could be feelings this way, but he may not.

Andrea Mitchel on MSNBC just got got it right. She asked if Donald Trump is different and does he process things differently. She asked whether these things penetrate.

Trump just leaving and heading to courtroom where the indictment will be read and he will plead:

The MSNBC commentators observing the pictures below are saying that this is what Trump didn't want televised. They were taken prior to the cameras being removed from the courtroom. They are saying that he looks like someone reacting to being is a situation he doesn't want to be in. 

This is the most expressive screenshot.

Trump should have interpreter to tell us that what he says isn't what he means

 By Hal Brown

When someone posts on social medias in all caps it is considered to be the same thing as shouting. Trump's call to his followers to protest if he's arrested made the news and not, for him, in a good way. This was interpreted as his instructing his followers to engage in violent protests. 

Anyone with any common sense wanting to help Trump weather the coming storm of legal entanglements knows that violent protests on his behalf will turn at least some sentiment among his less zealous supporters against him.

Considering what occurred after his January 6th speech there's no way he couldn't have known the power he has to incite violence with his words.

Not long after the media pointed this out the walk-back from others in the GOP and ardent Trump supporters began. Pence told Jonathan Karl that the American people know they should protest in a peaceful and lawful manner. 

McCarthy echoed this. So did Alex Jones:

Ali Alexander, who as an organizer of the “Stop the Steal” movement staged rallies to promote Trump’s baseless claims that Democrats stole the 2020 election from him, warned Trump supporters that they would be "jailed or worse” if they protested in New York City.

“You have no liberty or rights there,” he tweeted.

One of Alexander’s allies in the “Stop the Steal” campaign was conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, who amplified the election fraud claims on his Infowars show. Alexander posted that he had spoken to Jones and said that neither of them would be protesting this time around. Reference

None of these interpretations of what a call to protest means comes from Trump, the one person who could have influenced the very people who could assure that protests, if any, were peaceful. 

Here's one reply posted to Trump's Truth Social post (clicking below will enlarge but not go to Trump Social):

.

The simple fact, as shown in the post above, is that there are people who may want to express their support of him in a violent manner. These are a group of people who don't look at Jan. 6th as a total failure. Rather they look at it as a success even though it was a failed coup that they think but for the traitor Mike Pence almost succeeded. 

Trump never apologizes, never reverses a position that may disadvantage him, never admits he was wrong about anything. It's been pointed out the he could have urged supporters to peacefully protest in his posts, but really, can you see him even considering that? There no way he'd go back and post "ops, I really meant to use the word peacefully".

On MSNBC Ali Vitali said they are trying to put Trump's comments through a filter that doesn't actually exist. She made my point. I see the filter as really being an interpretation device. What comes out of Trump's screaming mouth (shown in DonkeyHotey's often reposted caricature) for his own sake should be filtered. 

Trump's worst enemy is his unfiltered brain. That brain is our friend. It's also a friend to Ron DeSantis who would be a more difficult candidate to defeat if he wins the GOP primary.

Update:

On the other hand you have stories like this:

Right-wing broadcaster calls for Barack Obama and others to be executed if Trump is arrested

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Predictions of Trump's legal downfall could be a big nothing burger, but what if it's the opposite?

 Predictions of Trump's legal downfall could be a big nothing burger, but what if it's the opposite? 

What if the Trump indictment proves to be a giant everything burger with all the fixings?

By Hal Brown

Trump not only has nicknames for just about everyone he wants to disparage. He also is referred to in numerous ways by his enemies when they post comments about him on progressive websites. Here's an exhaustive list of both, obviously out of date since it's from 2020.

The man with many names has apparently decided that all-caps is the way to go on his Truth Social posts, leaving no other way to scream his outrage unless the techies working there decide to add formatting so he can add bold or enlarge the font. Click below to enlarge without going to Truth Social:

If these posts are any indication, there's at least one person who doesn't think the legal machinations happening behind the scenes represent a big nothing burger. 

Progressive pundits are handling the prospect that the coming Stormy Daniels case ending up with an indictment gingerly with a lot of equivocation and the most common word you hear and read is "if".

Progressives and anti-Trumpers of any stripe by and large don't want to engage in wishful thinking by getting their hopes up in anticipation lest nothing come of this. After all, Trump has avoided serious consequences for his misdeeds so many times in the past that one runs out of metaphors and similes to describe what he's like in this regard. For example fill in the blank here: he's been as slippery and slimy as a __________.

To the vast majority of us, engaging in an illegal act involving $130,000 and an adult film star, and getting caught would scare the living crap out of us. Still, many pundits tending to writing this off  or minimizes this because ,not only of Trump's history of avoiding having his life seriously disrupted by his lawlessness, but because even though he lies about how much money he has, for a multi-millionaire $130,000 is chump change.

My own view is a bit more nuanced. I am a hard and fast disbeliever in karma, that is, as in Hinduism and Buddhism the belief that the sum of a person's actions in this and previous states of existence is viewed as deciding their fate in future existences. 

If I did believe in karma I would be thinking how fitting it would be to see that the first domino to fall in Trump's delicious destruction would be something involving his behavior with a woman. Of all the women who could start this process I'll be happy if it is the one he once thought was gorgeous and now calls "horseface". 

I wrote Clinton: It depends on the meaning of 'is", while Trump's basic defense re. Stormy depends on the meaning of the word "affair" and see that Crooks and Liars also published the same thing in 'Sleazebag': Trump Reacts To Stormy Daniels Meeting With Prosecutors -Lumpy didn't get much sleep last night.

So, if the former President hadn't seen her in 18 years, what was the $130,000 payment in 2016 for? And he keeps using the word "affair" when it was allegedly a one-time sexual encounter. And the sexual (alleged!) encounter occurred in 2006. This feels like a badly scripted soap opera.

Stormy Daniels humorously noted that what happened could only be considered an affair in Trump's mind (click to see on Twitter or below to enlarge image without going to Twitter):

I will add, just because it bears repeating, is that Stormy called this the worst 90 seconds of her life.

I am always in quest of really good hamburgers. 

While I don't want to get my hopes up too high, there is mounting evidence that realistically one or another case against Trump will be the first rock to fall leading to a legal avalanche that will bury Trump.

I admire Stormy Daniels. She has astutely handled the fame that Donald Trump handed her on a golden platter. She avoided becoming a political pawn and made career moves which proved she was anything but a run-of-the-mill adult film performer.

Full disclosure: Stormy Daniels is one of the 123 people I follow on Twitter:

Perhaps she'll retweet this:

Addendum

Even if Trump is indicted and eventually this all turns out to be a plate of beans without a juicy burger underneath Trump will experience the following:

"Look, Jake (Tapper), he's very anxious about the prospect of being indicted for a couple of reasons," she began. "Yes, two things can be true at once: he is aware that there are reasons to believe this could help him politically, we have heard a lot about this morning already, but he does not want to face getting arrested, which is what happens when you get indicted."

"You get fingerprinted, you get brought in, you have to ask for bail," she elaborated. "None of that is something that he's excited about." on CNN's"State of the Union," the New York Times' Maggie Haberman (story).

This is what Chris Cristie said here:

"But the vision of a former president of the United States being processed, fingerprinted, mug shot," he added. "You know, what else do you expect Trump to say, as I said to [George Stephanopoulos] last week, than to say it helps his campaign? But being indicted, I don't think it ever helps anybody.

For a change, Marjorie Taylor Greene is a voice of restraint on her Twitter page (here):

Clicking above will enlarge image but not go to Twitter.

About the blog:

I am posting these essays on both Booksie and Medium. It is gratifying and motivating to know people read what I write. When I was banned from Daily Kos and switched only to posting my opinion writing on my online readership dropped significantly. Now it averages around 1500 a week at this address, but by posting the same story on two new platforms there are additional readers.

Please scroll down to the comments link and let readers know what you think. Sharing on social media, also through the links below, is appreciated. New to the blog, note that the archives are on the very bottom of the screen.

Trump has ants is his pants and so does this guy named Steve Cheung

Trump has ants is his pants and so does this guy named Steve Cheung

By Hal Brown

This is a logo, title-card, or title-screen owned by Treehouse TV for Ants in Your Pants. Fair use.

It would have been easy to put ants in the background of the image used in the HUFFPOST top of the webpage article:

Click above to read article

The word "antsy" is derived from the saying having ants in one's pants:

Imagining this literally happening to you evokes decidedly unpleasant feelings. Even tiny sugar ants, itchy ick, but imaging carpenter or red ants, ugh!

Rather than put a background of ants in my illustration (just for my fun and hopefully readers enjoyment) I changed the ad that appeared in the article:

Click above to enlarge image

Trump did nothing wrong? Hmmmm... 

I suppose just like his claiming he didn't have an affair with Stormy Daniels (as I wrote here, he didn't, he had a one-night-stand, the worst 90 seconds of Ms. Daniels' life) it depends on the meaning of the word "wrong" (below is how the dictionary defines it):

Click above to enlarge image

This is from the HUFFPOST article:

“President Donald J. Trump is completely innocent, he did nothing wrong, and even the biggest, most Radical Left Democrats are making that clear,” Steven Cheung, a spokesperson for his campaign, said in a statement. “From Russia, Russia, Russia, to the Mueller Hoax, to Impeachment Hoaxes 1 and 2, and even the Unlawful Mar-a-Lago Raid, Democrats have investigated and attacked President Trump since before he was elected — and they’ve failed every time.”

Steven Cheung

Steven Cheung, who is quoted above, is basically mouthing the words from his boss. Wikipedia tells us that he used to be a communications executive for the Ultimate Fighting Championship and attended, but not necessarily graduated from, California State University in Sacramento. In a Politico interview he said:

“My career began in the California governor’s office as a communications and speechwriting intern while in college. It was one of the most rewarding jobs I’ve ever had, because I learned the importance about what not to do just as much as what I should do. That experience has helped guide me throughout a variety of jobs in my career from working on political campaigns across the country to sports organizations like the UFC.”

Since Mr. Cheung was a speechwriting intern for Gov.

Arnold Schwarzenegger it is fair to assume he knows the meaning of the word "wrong" even if Donald Trump doesn't.

He must also know what side of the bread his butter has to go on. For example, he worked for the Ultimate Fighting Championship which it by some accounts is a scripted pseudo-sports competition, for example It's all fake, right? A professional wrestler explains everything. Whether these matches are scripted or not, you know anyone promoting them has to make sure fans believe the outcomes aren't pre-determined.

There are so many prevarication promoting people today working for right-wing politicians and media who must have in their job description that they have to be adept at saying the opposite of the truth. They could be working for Big Brother.

What the hell... I made the illustration anyway:

.Also published on Medium and on Booksie, because why not?

Please scroll down to the comments link and let readers know what you think. Sharing on social media, also through the links below, is appreciated. New to the blog, note that the archives are on the very bottom of the screen.

How will Trump react to being indicted?

 By Hal Brown, MSW

If you're reading this you are a news junky and probably have read some of the news and opinion articles shown above. You've seen what is being reported as Trump's likely indictment in New York City by DA Alvin Bragg.

The closest thing I have heard about how Trump will react to being indicted, whether in New York or Georgia or both, is that he will use this to his advantage. This is the glove that does fit when it come to applying what we know about his personality to this situation.

A frequently used phrase is that he will play the victim card. I doubt he will bemoan his plight as shown in my second illustration, at least not in public. Trump may actually feel overwhelmed at times but he won't show this where a camera can catch him. 

Most likely he will rant and rave at an escalating level reaching a crescendo of incoherent rage so far unseen. The man lives by the polls and when he see his support for the GOP nomination dropping this will be a trigger. Then the more the chance that he may actually go to prison percolates into his awareness he will begin to slide down the slippery slope of mental decompensation. 

Trump has what mental health experts calls rigid psychological defense mechanisms. These are unconscious built-in ways all people protect themselves from experiencing anxiety. Depending on the level of stress and threat of major life setbacks this anxiety can be devastating.

Those with flexible defense mechanisms are considered more psychologically healthy. They can adapt and adjust to life stress without breaking down. Those with rigid defense mechanisms are more likely to have them shatter and be vulnerable to having severe psychiatric reactions from debilitating depression all the way to psychotic episodes.

If this happens to Trump, as good a performer as he is, he won't be able to fake it successfully. He's a good actor but he's not that good.

Trump may never do the perp walk to Rikers or another jail, but his downfall may very well be a psychological breakdown. This could result in his either being secretly spirited off to an inpatient psychiatric hospital, or more likely being treated at Mar-a-Lago which mysteriously will be closed to guests for renovations.

Click above to enlarge

Addendum:

Click above to enlarge

Donald J. Trump

@realDonaldTrump. 16s

I did absolutely nothing wrong, I never had an affair with Stormy Daniels, nor would I have wanted to have an affair with Stormy Daniels.

This is a political Witch-Hunt, trying to take down the leading candidate, by far, in the Republican Party while at the same time also leading all Democrats in the polls, including Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. Congress and numerous Democrat District Attorneys, Attorneys General, and the...

Donald J. Trump

@realDonaldTrump. 53s

...Department of Injustice itself, which has unprecedentedly placed top DOJ prosecutors into the Manhattan District Attorney's office in order to "get Trump", have found that I did nothing wrong. Now, they fall back on the old, and rebuked case which has been rejected by every prosecutor's office that has looked at this Stormy "Horseface" Daniels matter, where I relied on counsel in order to resolve this Extortion of me, which took place a long time ago. Since then, I have won lawsuits...

Comments:

Someone on Mastodon wrote:

Maybe you can riff on his CPAC self-description as a “warrior.” This from the guy who dodged the draft with his spurious Bone Spurs diagnosis. Hence my suggestion of a new hashtag: #BoneSpursWarrior

So I added to one of Trump's NFT trading cards:

Click above to enlarge. The image on the upper left is from this blog.

 Ben Kalom said...

 

In his usual bloviating style.
He will never see the inside of a correctional facility.

He has opened the door for the real dangerous people - -the individuals who did perform, who did participate, who did accomplish, who have held their personal desires and fantasies in check, who are truly dictatorial, who will amass a weaponized force, who can institute martial law, who are not going to defend the U.S. Constitution because it stands in the way of their grand schemes.

If you give Mr. DeSantis a first look, merely peruse his wikipedia page, not stop to think about the underlying architecture of who he is, his roots, his upbringing, his participations, his accomplishments, his credentials, his current success at pedagogic and unilateral dogmatic management of his Florida statehouse, his unilateral way of wiping out history and "nationalizing" the areas of Florida where Disney Theme Parks reside, his singular method of revealing a militarized precision for assault

If all you do is stop at his superficial characteristics, you would think he's a good candidate for making things great.

Personally, I see nothing more than another Lorenzo Di Medici - a power-hungry, careful, tactical strategist who can get done what Donnie could never do...

Let's start looking at DeSantis as a more dangerous, more "Il Duce" type, with even more of the Etruscan peninsular genetics flowing through his very Italian veins.

As bad as Donnie was, Meatball Ron is far worse. Far, far, worse. Exceptionally dangerous.

Peace, brother from another mother...

Ida Haley commented:

I think he will continue his victim hood. He is now pronouncing himself the one who will take retribution against those who are bedeviling the faithful.

He apparently posted hunter Biden d**k pics on his own truth social. He will ramp up the assault on the Biden s to distract from his and his spawn's own criminality.

His fifth column is alive and well and very active under the radar. Bannon, Flynn, stone, manafort, the Russian and Arab government's are all working to protect him from prosecution and TO GET HIM BACK IN THE WHITE HOUSE.

Qanon runs deep. We are still being surprised at the depth of involvement by Fox news, we haven't even opened the can of worms at the FBI and secret service. They just arrested a retired FBI agent from NY for conspiring with the Russians. He was in charge of the FBI in NY covering Russia and he's the one who announced trump had no Russian help. We have secret service people who have destroyed evidence about jan6.

Not to get hysterical, but we don't know how deeply compromised our government is. We have insurrectionists sitting in Congress who now control the house and possibly the Senate. I'm not hearing anything about Mitch McConnell; if he has to be replaced, who would that be?

We still have a supreme court that is Vatican 2.0. how far are they willing to go to undermine the democracy because that is certainly their plan.

We are facing possibly the biggest threat to our democracy in modern times, yet the MSM PLAYS IT LIKE BOTH SIDES DO IT. It's business as usual, it's not. We had a huge fasc*st movement in the 30's that funded Hitler's rise to power and plotted to overthrow FDR.

Please comment below

Will Manhattan DA's case against Trump have deadly tentacles

 Will Manhattan DA's case against Trump have deadly tentacles

By Hal Brown

I read this article in RAWSTORY and the phrase shown above leaped off the page and sent me to DuckDuckGo Images to find man-of-war jellyfish.

The article begins:

Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg may finally have changed his mind about indicting former president Donald Trump.

The recent conviction of the Trump Organization and its chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg gave a glimpse of evidence that could tie the ex-president directly to the tax fraud scheme, such as a memo he signed approving chief operating officer Matthew Calamari’s illegal request to reduce his taxed salary to cover the cost of his untaxed corporate apartment, reported The Daily Beast.

Here's the portion about the tentacles:

“This case has tentacles,” said Duncan Levin, a former prosecutor who now represents Jennifer Weisselberg and has been communicating with investigators.

The district attorney's office declined to comment on what Bragg meant about another chapter, but former prosecutors from that office say their experience leads them to believe prosecutors will go after Trump.

“For people who want a certain outcome — to go after Trump — it gives hope," said Catherine A. Christian, a former assistant district attorney who investigated financial fraud. "They’re going to be thorough. I’m doubtful he would have said ‘next chapter’ if they weren’t looking."

To tell the unvarnished truth I don't have anything particularly original to say about this. I just wanted an excuse to make a couple of illustrations. I leave it to readers to indulge in fantasies about the Teflon don Don falling into a jellyfish swarm.

I think he might a need a full immersion wetsuit rather than a coating of Teflon to protect him from the jellyfish swarming around him not only in New York (cue music video) but also in Georgia (cue video two).

Update:

Irrelevant to today's story, items to share:

Funniest puniest of the week:

More seriously, everyone should share this image.

This hopefully will be the final straw to break for Santos and humiliate McCarthy. It would be truly great if McCarthy has to take steps to remove him from the House, and at least to immediately kick him off his committee assignments. There are a number of Republicans who shoot their dogs because they can't hunt anymore, but far more are dog lovers. I just wish more articles shared this photo:

More people should see the video in this article. It is of a former Santos roommate describing how he used the Jewish sounding name Zebrosky on his GoFundMe pages because Jews give more money. 

"He would say, 'oh well, that Jew will give more if you're a Jew," Morey-Parker quoted his former roommate.

I wouldn't say that you can make a firm judgement of how smart someone is by how they look, but then again.... (article)

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