The fate of Nixon should temper Trump's arrogant confidence, but what about Napoleon?

 

By Hal Brown

I was enjoying the side-by-side photos of Trump and Nixon with their thumbs up (left) supposedly projecting supreme confidence which Raw Story used to illustrate the article Trump allies plan to rip apart major post-Nixon reforms that limit presidential power: report. 

The reason Nixon's photo was used is because of the following:

As the paper (NY Times) writes, Trump and his allies want to rip apart many of the guardrails that were put in place after the presidency of Richard Nixon that prevented presidents from abusing their power to go after political opponents.

Putting them side-by-side conveys a second message. It is, of course, the ultimate fate of Richard Nixon.

Putting photos of the two of them side-by-side isn't new, for example:

Nixon's fate should represent a cautionary tale for Trump. 

There are certainly other historic leaders he should be thinking of to disabuse himself of his confidence thinking he is going to heroically make it through all of the attempts to bring him down. From Hitler to Hussein, history is fraught with stories of leaders who thought they could rule their domains as they wished with impunity only to go down in humiliating defeat.

Let's consider one leader that may not immediately come to mind: Napoleon, and where he ended up if only because like him Trump could be incredibly lucky and not spend his final years in an actual prison. 

Both could end up in serving a sentence living in a house near the sea.

If Trump was sentenced to home confinement he would live in the luxury of Mar-a-Lago, quite possibly minus the fun of being able to hold parties with adoring fans. 

The watercolor of Napolean shown on St. Helena, where he was forced to live in exile by the British, may look idyllic but his accommodations were anything but luxurious.

Consider this from Wikipedia:

Napoleon stayed for two months at Briars pavilion before he was moved to Longwood House, a large wooden bungalow on Saint Helena, in December 1815. By this point, the house had fallen into disrepair. The location and interior of the house was damp, windswept and unhealthy. The Times published articles insinuating the British government was trying to hasten his death. Napoleon often complained of the living conditions of Longwood House in letters to the island's governor and his custodian, Hudson Lowe, while his attendants complained of "colds, catarrhs, damp floors and poor provisions."  

Modern scientists have speculated that his later illness may have arisen from arsenic poisoning caused by copper arsenite in the wallpaper at Longwood House.

With a small cadre of followers, Napoleon dictated his memoirs and grumbled about the living conditions. Lowe cut Napoleon's expenditure, ruled that no gifts were allowed if they mentioned his imperial status, and made his supporters sign a guarantee they would stay with the prisoner indefinitely. When he held a dinner party, men were expected to wear military dress and "women [appeared] in evening gowns and gems. It was an explicit denial of the circumstances of his captivity".

While the Longword House wasn't Mar-a-Lago, it is interesting to note that he was allowed to hold parties. It would remain to be seen if Trump's "gaolers" would allow him to throw parties.

Christi should educate Republicans about Trump's psychopathology

By Hal Brown, MSW

The following is from the Raw Story, above

"As far as what's going on with Donald Trump in terms of these charges, the fact is that he doesn't believe he won," he explained. "He was concerned before the election that he was losing, and I know that because he said it to me directly. So he knows he didn't win, but his ego, George, won't permit him to believe that he's the only person in America, outside the state of Delaware, to ever have lost to Joe Biden."

Christi makes a reference to Trump's ego here...

So he knows he didn't win, but his ego, George, won't permit him to believe that he's the only person in America, outside the state of Delaware, to ever have lost to Joe Biden."

What needs to be understood in this is what the ego is (in Freudian psychology and common parlance)

The ego is the personality component responsible for dealing with reality.

Everyone has an ego. The term ego is sometimes used to describe your cohesive awareness of your personality, but personality and ego are not the same. The ego represents just one component of one's full personality.

The ego operates based on the reality principle, which strives to satisfy the id's desires in realistic and socially appropriate ways. The reality principle weighs the costs and benefits of an action before deciding to act upon or abandon impulses. Reference https://www.verywellmind.co...

What Christi should have said was that "this pathological grandiose and delusional narcissist is unable to accept that he lost...." even though most people know what he means when he simply says ego.

Christi is in a position to remind people ignorant of psychology who never heard the message form so many mental health professionals that Trump is mentally unfit to be president. He can explain how his psychopathogy renders him dangerous to our democracy not only here but in the world.

Here on Morning Joe he says Trump is detached from reality. This is a diagnostic term in psychiatry.

Mental health professionals from those like the contributors to "The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump" to comparatively obscure psychotherapists like me have been educating those willing to learn about Trump's psychopathology, his malignant narcissism, mostly to Democrats, Independents, and anti-Trump Republicans, since 2016. We need someone like Christi who will educate Republicans ingorant about his psychopathology and who will hear him as he campaigns for the GOP nomination. 

Addendum:

Back in April I published the following on my blog:

Nobody knows for certain how Trump feels except Trump

Caricatures by DonkeyHotey

By Hal Brown, MSW, Retired clinical social worker and psychotherapist

This is the title of a Washington Post (subscription) article today:

Shocked and defiant: How Trump is responding to unprecedented indictment

Since a grand jury issued charges related to hush money to an adult film star, the former president has cycled through a range of emotions and postures.

This is an article by Ashley Parker and Josh Dawsey

I added this comment to the article:

Nobody knows how Trump is feeling except Trump himself. All that can be reported on with certainty is what is observable. The words "as if he is" should preface any sentence purporting to describe how he feels. Thus even the title of this article makes assumptions. This to be accurate it should read Acting shocked and expressing defiance.

Psychotherapists like me look at this through a different lens than many others. The public would gain a better understand of him if they looked up the term narcissistic injury. They will find this article by Mary Trump: Donald Trump's niece says her uncle felt "narcissistic injury" from being GOP's "biggest loser".

Even Mary Trump, a clinical psychologist, is speculating each time she describes her uncle's inner life. Her describing Uncle Donald feeling narcissistic injury makes sense. Look at the definition here and see what you think.

I am as guilty of speculating as all the other mental health professionals who have gone public with their psychological analyses of Donald Trump. Look my name up with Trump and this is what you'll find:

Click above to enlarge image

Google search of Hal Brown Trump here.

My articles and those by mental health professionals who are prominent in the field all helped inform the public as to the likely psychodynamics of Donald Trump, emphasize likely.

If a research psychologist was to construct an experiment in an attempt to determine whether a subject met various diagnostic assessments such as their being a malignant narcissist they could begin with a list of observable behaviors they would predict would manifest themselves in the future if they had the theorized diagnosis. 

Donald Trump has been diagnosed as both an extreme narcissist, a sociopath, and a malignant narcissist which combines the two disorders. We don't actually know, absolutely know, that any of these diagnostic assessments are 100% accurate.

100% certainty is a standard rarely met with a psychiatric diagnosis. There's no MRI machine to scan Trump's brain. There's no pathologist's microscope to put a slide of his mind under to see just how malignant it is.

As Trump will find out within a year or so, 100% certainty isn't even a standard relied on for conviction in a criminal court where the standard is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

Ashley Parker and Josh Hawley, not to pick on them, are not mental health experts. Here's an excerpt of what is in today's article:

Yet in the immediate aftermath of the grand jury’s decision related to hush money paid to an adult-film star, Trump was not happy, said one person with direct knowledge of his reaction. Others described Trump as “upset,” “irritated,” “deflated” and “shocked,” though some noted that he also remained “very calm” and “rather stoic, actually.”

Even they are relying on second hand reporting, and they only say that "others" who aren't identified described Trump's behavior. We don't know if these are people who actually were with him.

More people described in the article say they know how Trump feels:

• “He’ll do Trump,” said David Urban, a longtime Trump adviser who is not working on his 2024 campaign. “He’ll show up. He’ll be indignant.”
• “He initially was shocked,” said Joe Tacopina, a Trump lawyer, on NBC’s “Today” show Friday. “After he got over that, he put a notch on his belt and he decided we have to fight now, and he got into a typical Donald Trump posture where he’s ready to be combative on something he believes is an injustice.”
• “He has never been concerned about any story that paints him as a moral reprobate,” one Trump ally said. “His whole life and career have been full of those stories and they’ve never harmed him, in his mind.”

There's one quote at the end of the article which makes sense:

But the defiant posture seems likely to remain. In a statement, Taylor Budowich, the head of MAGA Inc., railed against the indictment and promised it would deliver Trump another stint in the White House.

The use of the word "posture" is accurate. The head of MAGA Inc. isn't saying he knows for sure what Trump is feeling. He is predicting how he will act. He's probably correct. 

Only Trump is capable of knowing whether he's playing a role or whether he's struggling to avoid experiencing fear. I say "capable" because Trump, like anyone, has psychological defense mechanisms to prevent anxiety from percolating into conscious awareness.

Bottom line:

Only this guy knows what is happening in his mind, and then only in the part of his mind he is aware of.

By definition, nobody knows what is occurring in their unconscious mind. Self-aware people can make informed guesses about this but the unconscious is not conscious. It manifests itself though feelings, behaviors, and hints as to what is going on in the recesses of our minds often comes out in our dreams.

An iceberg is often used to provide a visual representation of Freud's theory that most of the human mind operates unconsciously. Public domain

Updates:

1) In RawStory, writing about the jury pool Trump will face in NYC, Tom Boggioni writes:

Donald Trump faces the embarrassment of arraignment, fingerprinting and a police mugshot in Manhattan on Tuesday, but one legal expert suggested his worst nightmare will come from a jury made up of New Yorkers who know him all too well.

 

Here again we see Trump being described as if he is psychologically normal. He faces what we would be embarrassed by, hell, we'd be mortified. There are two meanings of the word "nightmare" of which one is being applicable here, ie. a terrifying experience. Trump may find it exhilarating. What he can't control is an actual nightmare occurring while he is sleeping. I'd say there is more chance he'll have one or more of these than his actually experiencing conscious manifestations of anxiety.

2) Michael Cohen told Joy Reid that Trump can put on fake bravado but is petrified. He has no way of knowing this is true. He ought to have said that Trump, if he was normal, would be petrified.

3) There is one thing we know for sure abut Trump. It is that yesterday he took a motorcade to play golf (article). However this was arranged, it was done is such a way that he would pass by his supporters. I think it is significant that there were no photographs of him actually playing (at least none that I could find). These might have captured expressions that suggested he was feeling the stress of being indicted.

I didn't know who Jack White was. Then I read what he posted on Instagram. Now I like him... a lot.

 

By Hal Brown

View on one page here.

Before today I'd never heard of Jack White (Wikipedia profile). I discovered he is the frontman for the rock group White Stripes. I read an article about him in HUFFPOST this morning. It was posted on July 10th but I just noticed it. 

Jack White Puts 'Disgusting' Trump-Supporting Celebs On Blast

The rocker called out Mel Gibson, Mark Wahlberg and Guy Fieri after they were photographed with the former president over the weekend.

I know who Jack Black is, though I admit that I didn't know that along with being an actor and comedian he's also a rock musician. Not surprisingly he has been an outspoked critic of Donald Trump. But Jack White was a headscratcher for me.

Shame on me for being so out of touch with the rock world that I didn't know who he was considering he's not only been ranked as one of the 100 best quitarists of all time, but In 2012, the New York Times called him "the coolest, weirdest and savviest rockstar of our time".^[3] 

The HUFFPOST article had a link to this Instagram post:

The White Stripes song "Seven Nation Army" was referred to in the HUFFPOST article so of course I chose it to be the song I listened to and decided to include in this blog:

Click above to hear song

The lyrics are here.

This isn't the first time Jack White used Instagram to rail against someone. Here's what he posted about Elon Musk (for ease of reading I added paragraph breaks):

“So you gave trump his twitter platform back. Absolutely disgusting, Elon. That is officially an asshole move. Why dont you be truthful? Tell it like it is; people like you and Joe Rogan (who gives platforms to liars like alex jones etc.); you come into a ton of money, see the tax bill, despise paying your fair share, and then think moving to Texas and supporting whatever republican you can is going to help you keep more of your money. (How else could trump possibly interest you?) 

You intend to give platforms to known liars and wash your hands like pontius pilate and claim no responsibility? trump was removed from twitter because he incited violence multiple times, people died and were injured as a result of his lies and his ego, (let alone what his coup did to attempt to destroy democracy and our Capitol). 

And how about the division and the families broken apart from his rhetoric and what it did to this country? That’s not “free speech” or “what the poll decided” or whatever nonsense you’re claiming it to be; this is straight up you trying to help a fascist have a platform so you can eventually get your tax breaks. I mean, how many more billions do you need that you have to risk democracy itself to obtain it? 

You did a lot of amazing things with Tesla, Elon, and you deserve a lot of compliments in that department (i personally supported the hell out of that venture), but you've gone too far and are now using your power to promote horrible, violence inducing liars, who are taking the country and the world backwards and endangering the democracy that made you rich and successful in the first place. 

I am a believer in free speech, but for example i’m not about to let the KKK hold a rally at our record label's performance stage. That’s one of the platforms we control and have a say in, it’s not town square operated by the government. And if i owned a gas station, i wouldn’t be selling the KKK gasoline to burn crosses either and then wash my hands as if i didn’t help facilitate hatred. You took on a big responsibility with your purchase, and “free speech” isn’t some umbrella that protects you from that.

Jack White isn't Taylor Swift, the pop mega-mega star who is anything but mega-MAGA. She stayed out of politics for years but became political a few years ago. She also posts on Instagram - read 2020 Newsweeek article about her politics. Still, Jack White has a substantial following in the rock world, and reaches people who don't follow singers like Swift and those from other muscial genres. 

Every celebrity who has a chance to influence people's opinions and opening their eyes to the dangers of Trump and other extremist right wing polticians may help, if not always to change minds,  to prompt some people who wouldn't otherwise vote to cast their votes for Democrats.