Trump said "they get it [data] very easily"

[CharonY]

13 hours ago, dedo said:

Maybe you didn't read all my posts as I outlined several possibilities from "DT fulfills hopes of voters" to "Civil war" with other possible scenarios including agreeing with possible JFK'd scenario, since two attempts made already, false flag,

I think I have been unclear, my apologies. What I was referring to is not the range of potential outcomes, but the false equivalency of the outlined outcomes. I.e. in an earlier post you have placed a variety of outcomes with vastly different likelihoods next to each other. So continuing the grab of power seemed, in your argument, just as likely as stopping and then suddenly do all the good things (or at least what his voters want).

Or that voters despite already having voted him in once and then giving him an even stronger mandate the second time around, despite him and his group outlining all the stuff they want to do being so shocked that they will give Dems enough power for impeachment. Or now false flag operations (where the more likely targets would be folks he withdrew security details from...). Again, probably they are all non-zero likelihoods given how crazy things are going. However, the most likely scenario is a continuation of things he only has been started to do.
In my mind, it does not make sense to make up all possible scenarios and treat them as roughly equivalent, especially as it would ignore the ramifications of ongoing events. There is a non-zero chance that he dies from a stroke in a few weeks. But clearly that is less likely than the ongoing dismantling of American institutions.

I also have no idea what your idea of a psychopathology is. What is wrong with this government is fairly simple, they want to amass power in few hands. That is not a mental illness. But a threat to democracy and the power of the people. Where is the need to reframe it to something more abstract? Why be vague when we have specifics?

 

[iNow]

48 minutes ago, CharonY said:

Where is the need to reframe it to something more abstract? Why be vague when we have specifics?

It's a handy way to deflect from the actual threat and distract into less relevant ethereal subjects where action cannot be taken. Whataboutism in another form...

[exchemist]

8 hours ago, dedo said:

Charon said that my answer was dichotomous, when I believe I mentioned ~5 possible futures for current events (there are probably more).  This whole thread is about "something is wrong" with this current administration, meaning psychopathology.  You mentioned issues in Europe.  So if someone wants to explore it somewhere else, that could be interesting.  Personally think the pathology is an external influence on behavior (in social norms), more than primary mental illness.  Something in society is moving people to follow their autocrat of choice.  Whatever that is, it threatens our survival.  Artists often hint at it first, Elvis Costello (Two Little Hitlers) about relationships but it hints at autocracy & conflict which intersects a political theory of preventing conflict called "Democratic Peace Theory" meaning democracies rarely fight one another.  However, something in society can turn a democracy into an autocracy which is what this thread is about.  (Intersection of art or other disciplines with science could be another interesting thread.)

Thanks for the clarification. However I don't see why you interpret something being wrong with the administration as meaning psychopathology - unless you are referring to Trump himself as the thing that is wrong. Is that what you mean?

There does seem to be a body of opinion that Trump may indeed be a psychopath. I gather he seems to have the classic attributes of one. But Project 2025 and the people behind that do not seem to be mentally ill - far from it. Trump is their front man -  their useful idiot - but not the ideological guiding spirit. His mind does not appear able to focus on anything other than himself. In spite of that, or perhaps harnessing it, it does look as if Project 2025 is being executed, with speed, as I indicated in my earlier post.  

I'm sure you touch on something important when you observe that  "something in society is moving people to follow their autocrat of choice." I am actually not sure if that is a correct inference. As an external observer from across the Atlantic, I am not clear at all whether or not US citizens have actively embraced autocracy (or the risk of it), by electing Trump a second time, in spite of awareness that he tried to overturn an election result. On the face of it, It looks as if they have, but that may be being too rational. From our own recent election choices (and the referendum on EC membership) it seems a fair portion of the electorate simply does not join the dots in a rational way. They seem motivated by single issues of concern to them, or by emotional "feel" about the candidates.

Perhaps you would be right to suggest there may be a collective psychopathy at work in society, in which hatred has been stoked to the point that people voted for Trump, emotionally, in order to "own the libs", heedless of where it could take the country. For instance there is a MAGA man on another forum who is beside himself with glee at how the "libs" will now be crushed. It's pure hatred, not any product of reasoning.  

 

[dedo]

39 minutes ago, exchemist said:

Thanks for the clarification. However I don't see why you interpret something being wrong with the administration as meaning psychopathology

By psychopathology, I meant that there is something wrong with behavior.  Behavior pathology does not have to be from mental illness, it can also be from biology including genetics, difficult birth, or external influences on behavior from toxins, trauma, drugs, or to some sort of indoctrination added to life experiences.

I believe the issues people are concerned about in this thread fall into the latter category, meaning external influences including indoctrination and life experiences.  

One criminologist proposed that criminal violence is caused by 4 specific cumulative life experiences including violent coaching or indoctrination discussed in the book "Why They Kill . . ." by Rhodes.    Much less is known or proposed about what specific life experiences causes violent autocrats to emerge, and for people to follow them.  

What people are concerned about here, may be the same process that creates autocrats around the world and in different periods of history.  What we don't know is how far it will go this time.  I believe it is a good idea to try to figure it out, before we find out.   That is because, if like criminal violence, it comes from a cumulative process then we either defuse the process that causes the pathology, or at some point it becomes fulminant and explodes.

[dedo]

6 hours ago, CharonY said:

So continuing the grab of power seemed, in your argument, just as likely as stopping and then suddenly do all the good things (or at least what his voters want).

Sorry, did not mean to imply probability weighting which is beyond my expertise.  A wild guess would be we are heading for a Constitutional crisis possibly resolved by the Congress, or a false flag issue.  Someone yesterday on X claimed there was a hit team in the US or coming with shoulder fired missiles.  Of course, believing anything on X is a stretch.  So your guess is as good as mine regarding the outcome of where we are now, and I believe I am as concerned as you.

[TheVat]

3 hours ago, exchemist said:

From our own recent election choices (and the referendum on EC membership) it seems a fair portion of the electorate simply does not join the dots in a rational way. They seem motivated by single issues of concern to them, or by emotional "feel" about the candidates.

Yep.  As I read this thread, I am reminded of Hanlon's Razor.  A variant on that might be, Never attribute to psychopathology what can be explained by stupidity.  And the current handmaidens of American stupidity seem to be inattention, civic ignorance, declining literacy, and...okay, there might be something there (especially as regards the toxic effects of social media) that could be framed as a pathology.  A social pathology, perhaps.  And the fundamental symptom might be shortened attention span.  Understanding complex issues, and why single issue obsessions cannot reliably guide a sound choice of governance, require sustained attention and critical thought.  The erosion of that is a sort of pathology in the body politic.

 

[exchemist]

10 hours ago, dedo said:

By psychopathology, I meant that there is something wrong with behavior.  Behavior pathology does not have to be from mental illness, it can also be from biology including genetics, difficult birth, or external influences on behavior from toxins, trauma, drugs, or to some sort of indoctrination added to life experiences.

I believe the issues people are concerned about in this thread fall into the latter category, meaning external influences including indoctrination and life experiences.  

One criminologist proposed that criminal violence is caused by 4 specific cumulative life experiences including violent coaching or indoctrination discussed in the book "Why They Kill . . ." by Rhodes.    Much less is known or proposed about what specific life experiences causes violent autocrats to emerge, and for people to follow them.  

What people are concerned about here, may be the same process that creates autocrats around the world and in different periods of history.  What we don't know is how far it will go this time.  I believe it is a good idea to try to figure it out, before we find out.   That is because, if like criminal violence, it comes from a cumulative process then we either defuse the process that causes the pathology, or at some point it becomes fulminant and explodes.

Behaviour of whom? That is what I am unclear about, from your posts so far. 

Are you talking about Trump as an individual? Or Musk, or others in Trump's administration? Or US society as a whole? Or some other group? 

[dedo]

4 hours ago, exchemist said:

Behaviour of whom? That is what I am unclear about, from your posts so far. 

Are you talking about Trump as an individual? Or Musk, or others in Trump's administration? Or US society as a whole? Or some other group? 

I am talking about the rise of autocracy, those that do it, and those that follow them in all its versions.  So no, I am not talking just about this administration.  Autocracy is seen on both the extreme right, and the extreme left.  Those are the actors that invade, commit genocide, etc. which is where autocracy can lead.  It is not a black & white, good & evil, or right only, phenomenon but a continuum where some are worse than others.                          

 I also don't think it is confined just to political parties or to people of "low intelligence", people who are belligerent etc.  Academics & scholars can also be controlled by ideology or tribalism & have autocratic tendencies effecting their judgement.  Examples include Lyme Wars where patients were initially denied treatment for tick born illness.  Allegations made about the origin of covid & contributions to gain of function research by US scientists, unproven but alarming, could be another example.  

Once I had a conversation with a very polite psychiatrist on a forum about Hitler's pathology & its cause.  He was very nice but gave a "definitive" answer that firstly contradicted everything I read from other analysts, and secondly showed he had not researched the issue at all.  When I gave a list of references he stopped responding.  It was a bizarre encounter with someone obsessed with being some kind of proctor.  A similar conversation with a maga activist just repeating her ideology on an issue of police violence also took a bizarre turn.  She was making statements about wrestling submissions from my comment on a citizen's cause of death & it was clear she had never even seen a match, much less participated in the sport.  The issue was about the difference between a choke & asphyxia.  Activists were trying to accuse someone of attempted murder from starting a choke, never completed, when it was clear the citizen died from asphyxia, or being held down with pressure on the chest, both attacks I personally experienced in training. 

So the process of extreme tribalism (spouting ideology)& a desire to be some kind of autocrat, from my POV is not confined to maga but may be a common process with widespread implications.  Common processes are behind many diseases and pathologies including atherosclerosis, coronary disease, and criminal violence where a researcher claimed 4 specific life experiences accumulate to produce violent criminals discussed in "Why They Kill . . ." by Rhodes.  It is a pathology that is easy to see in actors actively committing or exhorting genocide, but more difficult to see in the process that got groups to that point.  This thread is about the early process in my opinion for the extreme right.  How far it goes is unknown & your guess is as good as mine.

Edited 13 hours ago by dedo

[exchemist]

2 hours ago, dedo said:

I am talking about the rise of autocracy, those that do it, and those that follow them in all its versions.  So no, I am not talking just about this administration.  Autocracy is seen on both the extreme right, and the extreme left.  Those are the actors that invade, commit genocide, etc. which is where autocracy can lead.  It is not a black & white, good & evil, or right only, phenomenon but a continuum where some are worse than others.                          

 I also don't think it is confined just to political parties or to people of "low intelligence", people who are belligerent etc.  Academics & scholars can also be controlled by ideology or tribalism & have autocratic tendencies effecting their judgement.  Examples include Lyme Wars where patients were initially denied treatment for tick born illness.  Allegations made about the origin of covid & contributions to gain of function research by US scientists, unproven but alarming, could be another example.  

Once I had a conversation with a very polite psychiatrist on a forum about Hitler's pathology & its cause.  He was very nice but gave a "definitive" answer that firstly contradicted everything I read from other analysts, and secondly showed he had not researched the issue at all.  When I gave a list of references he stopped responding.  It was a bizarre encounter with someone obsessed with being some kind of proctor.  A similar conversation with a maga activist just repeating her ideology on an issue of police violence also took a bizarre turn.  She was making statements about wrestling submissions from my comment on a citizen's cause of death & it was clear she had never even seen a match, much less participated in the sport.  The issue was about the difference between a choke & asphyxia.  Activists were trying to accuse someone of attempted murder from starting a choke, never completed, when it was clear the citizen died from asphyxia, or being held down with pressure on the chest, both attacks I personally experienced in training. 

So the process of extreme tribalism (spouting ideology)& a desire to be some kind of autocrat, from my POV is not confined to maga but may be a common process with widespread implications.  Common processes are behind many diseases and pathologies including atherosclerosis, coronary disease, and criminal violence where a researcher claimed 4 specific life experiences accumulate to produce violent criminals discussed in "Why They Kill . . ." by Rhodes.  It is a pathology that is easy to see in actors actively committing or exhorting genocide, but more difficult to see in the process that got groups to that point.  This thread is about the early process in my opinion for the extreme right.  How far it goes is unknown & your guess is as good as mine.

You continue to introduce more medical terminology. To be honest I do not think this sheds any light on what is going on in the USA just now.

We could certainly have a thread on the appeal of autocracies in general and what makes people turn to them - or how they come to be otherwise imposed . That would involve revisiting the histories of the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, Spain and Portugal, discussion of incitement to hatred of "out" groups, the turbocharging and exploitation of perceived grievances nowadays by the internet, etc. (I think we could have that discussion without medical terminology, as it happens.) 

But I do not think that is what this thread is about, which is concerned with the outrageous actions of Trump's administration, day by day.    

 

 

Edited 10 hours ago by exchemist

[CharonY]

1 hour ago, exchemist said:

We could certainly have a thread on the appeal of autocracies in general and what makes people turn to them - or how they come to be otherwise imposed . That would involve revisiting the histories of the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, Spain and Portugal, discussion of incitement to hatred of "out" groups, the turbocharging and exploitation of perceived grievances nowadays by the internet, etc. (I think we could have that discussion without medical terminology, as it happens.) 

Exactly, we have historic precedence and much of it is appealing to base human nature. If folks are afraid and feel that they are victims of something, you can make them to do virtually anything. Up and an including genocide. There are many, many books on fascism and other authoritarian systems and one can use those as a framework to describe the current situations. It is certainly not new. The only thing that really changes is the various mechanisms (e.g., social media). But the dismantling of protective (democratic) structures is very similar- erosion of power separation (Gleichschaltung) control of public narratives and so on.

The issue is mixing up terminologies and methodologies from other areas really just obfuscate matters. And where things go is fairly simple, either the structures hold up and resist further erosion, or it doesn't. We have seen that cruelty is really only relevant to a minority of Americans at this point (and to be fair, same can be said in Europe, potentially Canada, too). So rather than thinking we are in unprecedented territory with only guesswork available to us, I would argue that we are stepping in very precedented territory and can draw hypotheses from there.

[TheVat]

1 hour ago, CharonY said:

There are many, many books on fascism and other authoritarian systems and one can use those as a framework to describe the current situations. It is certainly not new. The only thing that really changes is the various mechanisms (e.g., social media).

Katastrophenpolitik....

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/02/hitler-oligarchs-hugenberg-nazi/681584/

free link here:

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/02/hitler-oligarchs-hugenberg-nazi/681584/?gift=43H6YzEv1tnFbOn4MRsWYgtVAaRco4y6FVJIrz5a_hU&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share

(quote)

To this end, Hugenberg practiced what he called Katastrophenpolitk, “the politics of catastrophe,” by which he sought to polarize public opinion and the political parties with incendiary news stories, some of them Fabrikationen—entirely fabricated articles intended to cause confusion and outrage. According to one such story, the government was enslaving German teenagers and selling them to its allies in order to service its war debt. Hugenberg calculated that by hollowing out the political center, political consensus would become impossible and the democratic system would collapse.   (end quote)

[CharonY]

Hugenberg's party (DNVP) has been discussed a lot also as an enabler of the NSDAP. The DNVP was a monarchist, national-conservative party which eventually tried to mellow up right before Hugenberg took over. He moved the party more to the right (closer to its origins) and advocated rule via non-parliamentary means. He did supported the NSDAP personally as they saw them as a means to combat the left parties and to make more inroads with the working class. At a range of events they enabled Hitler to be considered a respectable figure after his failed coup.

I mean, where could one possible see any parallels to current events?

[dedo]

5 hours ago, exchemist said:

We could certainly have a thread on the appeal of autocracies in general and what makes people turn to them - or how they come to be otherwise imposed . That would involve revisiting the histories of the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, Spain and Portugal, discussion of incitement to hatred of "out" groups, the turbocharging and exploitation of perceived grievances nowadays by the internet, etc. (I think we could have that discussion without medical terminology, as it happens.)

Good idea.  A recent easy to read book on the rise of autocracy in the US, that seems to target the current admin. & may appeal to those concerned in this thread is Snyder's "On Tyranny".  I wish this was required reading for everyone in Congress so they might think a little before confirming people with potential to harm institutions for party ideology.

A recent article about the rise of autocracy in general:

https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/articles/2024-02-16/indonesia-election-result-comes-amid-global-rise-of-autocracies

This article, notes that the rise of autocracy is aided by liberal policies that many in the public object to which is my main problem with those policies, discussed in another thread.  I believe it is the same process, & that could be debated, disproven, or improved, on the thread you suggest.

The first reference is more relevant to the current thread.

[CharonY]

28 minutes ago, dedo said:

This article, notes that the rise of autocracy is aided by liberal policies that many in the public object to which is my main problem with those policies, discussed in another thread.  I believe it is the same process, & that could be debated, disproven, or improved, on the thread you suggest.

Uhhh, it only mentions one aspect that could be a liberal policy and that would be

Quote

Secondly, in some places around the world there has been a negative reaction to sociopolitical change, such as increasing LGBTQ+ rights and rising immigration.

I mean, if trying to get folks equal rights results in autocracies, I would imagine that the democratic principles ain't that strong to begin with. Also I find it very interesting how that is phrased. Right-wing conservatives have worked very had to undermine democratic principles ranging from spreading blatant misinformation to incite culture and race wars, forming think tanks and societies that undermine checks and balances and putting anti-democratic forces into key positions, sowing mistrust into systems and also attempting the odd  coups. And yet it is somehow liberal policies that caused all that? I mean come on, at least try to find Ockham's razor here.

I will also note again that part of the autocratic playbook is to blame others for their actions. "Look what [they] make me do? Because of them I just had to overthrow democratic principles and build concentration camps. And taking away your rights is the only way to protect you from [them]."

This has been best explored in fascism, where fascination with victimhood served as justification for the committed atrocities (and it is a common element in the identification of the rather diffuse characteristics of fascism).

Also, how about I cite a few points from the book you mentioned and see if you can spot some overlap (BTW the book was published sometime around the first Trump administration):

Quote

“The most intelligent of the Nazis, the legal theorist Carl Schmitt, explained in clear language the essence of fascist governance. The way to destroy all rules, he explained, was to focus on the idea of the exception. A Nazi leader outmaneuvers his opponents by manufacturing a general conviction that the present moment is exceptional, and then transforming that state of exception into a permanent emergency. Citizens then trade real freedoms for false safety.”

Quote

“There is no doctrine called extremism. When tyrants speak of extremists, they just mean people who are not in the mainstream—as the tyrants themselves are defining that mainstream at that particular moment. Dissidents of the twentieth century, whether they were resisting fascism or communism, were called extremists. Modern authoritarian regimes, such as Russia, use laws on extremism to punish those who criticize their policies. In this way the notion of extremism comes to mean virtually everything except what is, in fact, extreme: tyranny.”

Quote

In the politics of eternity, the seduction by a mythicized past prevents us from
thinking about possible futures. The habit of dwelling on victimhood dulls the
impulse of self-correction. Since the nation is defined by its inherent virtue rather than by its future potential, politics becomes a discussion of good and evil rather than a discussion of possible solutions to real problems. Since the crisis is permanent, the sense of emergency is always present; planning for the future seems impossible or even disloyal. How can we even think of reform when the enemy is always at the gate?

Why do we have something as stupid as the culture wars? Because some kind of enemy had to be found. And in recent times our lives have to be become so comfortable that folks decided to make up enemies and/or revive old tropes, such as immigrants.

Again, there are no new ideas here.