Trump as a Symptom

Introduction

Since the surprising results of the 2016 election, we must acknowledge the high degree of anxiety that liberals and progressives have felt before and after the Trump victory. We have never before witnessed the media spectacle of all Trump, all the time. We have watched the rise and triumph of this media personality with both voyeuristic and exhibitionistic pleasures—and some of us with horror. My essay is not about a historical or psychoanalytic investigation into the mind of Donald Trump, but rather an attempt to use historical and psychoanalytic perspectives to grasp the 46% of the electorate that voted for him.

Most of these are the ones who supported him despite his history of unsavory business practices, evidence of sexual misconduct, and patterns of lying. They endorse his presidency despite his ignorance about the specifics of foreign policy, governance, and the practice of politics as the art of compromise. They support him despite his contempt for the separation of the branches of government, his attacks on the judiciary, and his apparent lack of support for the separation of church and state. Trump taps into a deep discontent of certain sectors of American society.

Trump’s primary constituency might be considered the uneducated white working class and underclass of America. In the

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election of 2016, his most zealous supporters were the people Trump called the “uneducated” and whom Hillary Clinton has referred to as “deplorables.” Without patronizing this electorate, I want to approach their mentality and collective psychology as followers, which is ultimately more important than the leader.

Trump’s core base is drawn from but is not exclusively the uneducated white working classes. It also includes the wealthy and educated who want to protect their economic prerogatives and who agree with cutting taxes and oppose government regulation of banks, drug companies, and multi-national corporations. Obviously it extends to evangelicals, right-wing extremists, and some die-hard Republicans. Some voted for him because they are anti-abortion and want him to appoint a very conservative justice to the Supreme Court to replace Antonin Scalia. Trump also appeals to those disenchanted voters who agree that the political system and the media are fundamentally bankrupt. His populist appeal stems from his ability to tap into their anxieties and grievances, their existential dread about the loss of jobs resulting from globalization, the technological revolution, and deindustrialization.

I do not see Trumpism as a coherent ideology with an incisive analysis of America’s domestic or foreign policy challenges. It is too inconsistent, internally contradictory, and emotionally volatile. Its wide appeal may stem from its emotionality. Trump’s grandiose message resonates with his constituency for four overlapping reasons: misogyny and sexism; racism; xenophobia and nativism; and repudiation of political correctness.

Misogyny and Sexism

Trump’s history of demeaning and denigrating women is well-documented. But why do his rhetoric and actions elicit such strong support? He has a predatory attitude toward women, shamelessly speaking of their beauty and their bodies. “Grabbing pussy” reflects an attitude that debases women. “Pussy power” is currently a rallying cry for those opposing his policies, a slogan of agency and integrity to those women who resist objectification. His sexism was strikingly evident in the campaign against Hillary Clinton. It is difficult to imagine a more hostile slogan than “Lock her up!” He called her a “devil,” implicitly advocating that others assassinate her. Michelle Obama eloquently exposed the underlying weakness and inadequacy of men who disrespect and humiliate women. Freud referred to this dynamic as psychic impotence, alerting us to a split in the male psyche between intense idealization of females

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 (ultimately of the mother) and the exaggerated and brutal need to devalue them as worthless or as whores.

There are many psychoanalytic insights into sexism, beginning with Freud’s understanding of a basic psychic division in men between passionate lust and tender devotion. One disastrous result of this division is the angry and cruel debasement of women. From a relational point of view, the desire to dominate or be sadistic toward a woman, the need to maintain her exclusively as an exciting or enticing object, may indicate an underlying infantile dependency on the part of the male—a deep sense of threat, inferiority, and shame about the terror of masochistic submission to a stronger, tougher, highly evolved, and ambitious female. In short, this is a desperate attempt to secure attachment to a female and to connect emotionally, even if it turns on the dynamic of dominating or shaming them.

Racism

Racism has a long and ignominious role in American history. It is always present. Trump’s personal history, beginning with his father’s real estate dealings, has been consistently bigoted toward blacks. His outrageous posturing about the guilt of the “Central Park Five,” despite DNA evidence exonerating them, has been incendiary and extremist. Not least, he emerged politically as the spokesman of the Birther Movement, an attempt to portray Obama as un-American, to fictitiously identify him as African and/or Muslim. “Birtherism” tried to undermine the political legitimacy of both of Obama’s electoral victories.

Trump launched his presidential campaign with the stereotyping of Hispanics as “criminals and rapists.” His hostile slogan of “building a wall,” his rhetoric about deporting 11 million so-called illegal aliens, all need to be designated as plainly racist. The same is true of his call for a ban on all Muslim immigration, codified in an unconstitutional Executive Order soon after his inauguration. Racism is inherent in his insensitivity to refugees from the Syrian Civil War, and his bombastic, unhistorical false allegation that Obama and Hillary Clinton were the founders of ISIS.

In the minds of his followers, these bans serve to counteract America’s decline, to shore up its resources against evil agents. In short, talking harshly toward oppressed minorities and targeting displaced and insecure immigrants appeals to a constituency whose own fears and collective hysteria have been magnified and distorted

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in recent years. These reactionary positions may also stem from a backlash to eight years of an African-American presidency.

Racism always turns on conspiracy theories. Analysts know that racist attitudes stem from deep internal splits in the personality. Projecting out the bad internal parts of the self (“objects” in the language of psychoanalysis) temporarily leaves the one who projects feeling good. Bad parts of the self get expelled into Mexicans, Muslims, and blacks, leaving a false sense of security and well-being. The moral panic of Trump’s base is so extreme at the moment that the inherent, irrational racism of his message resonates deeply. If the racist is fragile and fallible, he is only trying to protect and regulate a vulnerable sense of self. This fragility opens up the acceptance of apocalyptic and absolutist solutions, which echoed at Trump’s campaign appearances, in his tweets, and during his first weeks as president.

If the system is rigged, the entire political apparatus is corrupt, and every politician lies, then it is nonsensical to accept the results of the election—except if Trump won. Many Republican voters apparently agreed with this position. Ultimately, racism and the paranoid style of thinking that goes with it illustrate two primitive defenses: severe splitting of the self into good and bad parts as well as identification with the aggressor. Let’s remember that paranoid modes of expression are not limited to patients certified as paranoid. Identifiable enemies—illegal aliens, Muslims, terrorists—can be targeted, marginalized, and ultimately expelled. This is a politics of crushing the largely imaginary enemy. At their best, these policies threaten American democracy and the rule of law. At their worst, they could unleash massive social unrest and violence.

Xenophobia and Nativism

Trump’s words about restoring America’s greatness go hand in hand with a persistent thread of American nativism and xenophobia. Trump’s base identifies itself proudly and defiantly as white. Fear of the other is not just economic: anxieties about immigrants intensify their deepest fears about their safety and security.

Trump’s presidency feeds on both the strengths and emotional appeals of xenophobia. It gives license to groups to express their deepest rage and resentments. In expelling their own bad internalizations, the Trump follower feels understood, exalted, and liberated by Trump’s presence and his brutal words. They accept these simplistic formulations, these black and white dichotomies,

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precisely because xenophobia permits them to rid themselves of unacceptable and disturbing aspects of their own inner world. It helps them to project out particularly intense anger and aggression. Blaming the other is a powerful internal mechanism. It reflects fundamentally irrational and magical thinking, remaining oblivious to facts, evidence, or logical discussion. Facts and truth have already been casualties of the Trump presidency.

Repudiation of Political Correctness

Trump and his followers repudiate political correctness. Trump’s base is mesmerized by his unpredictability, his wacky performances, and his vulgar gestures; they are catalyzed by his unfettered language; and they are energized by his creation of chaos. They adore his attacks on political correctness, whether about women, blacks, Hispanics, Muslims, terrorists, intellectuals, celebrities who oppose or mock him. Trump’s speech is unfettered and unfiltered. He provokes fights with our allies such as Australia, Mexico, and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), while saying positive things about Putin and other anti-American regimes. He and his followers seem to worship power and the deployment of power over all else. As a bad boy and bully, he speaks his mind with impunity. It is as if his wealth, celebrity status, and star power permit him to get away with palpably bad behavior, egregious ethical violations, scandalous conduct, and scatological forms of speech. His presidency thrives on the intentional construction of chaos, on verbal hand grenades, and Twitter bomb throwing.

So far, these patterns have inoculated him from rational debate and from moral or political accountability. For many in his base, this is unconsciously pleasurable. They have felt shackled and suppressed by decades of political correctness and progressivism. This shame dynamic has been exacerbated by eight years with a despised black president, plus intensified by the country being on the cusp of four years with a woman president and a Clinton to boot, for whom they had massive contempt.

To understand those vehemently opposed to political correctness, we need to acknowledge our bias against bias. Opponents of political correctness feel shame. They have been exposed and humiliated by the disdain and moral superiority directed at them, especially coming from the liberal and progressive elite who have little understanding of their everyday lives. Those targeted as politically incorrect feel condescended to and patronized. In this elec-

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tion cycle, they reacted with resentment and rage toward those who scorned them. Trump says outrageous and vicious things, feeding on the emotions they feel. That’s why they listen to him, find him entertaining, fresh, and enlivening, even reassuring.

Political correctness is double-edged: on the one hand, it shows sensitivity to oppressed minorities or to vulnerable individuals; it can be an expression of compassion and attunement for the other. On the other hand, political correctness can be knee jerk and inauthentic, lacking in substance and real engagement with the insecure and miserable lives of others, particularly the white uneducated people unfortunately designated as “deplorables.” So much of Trump’s constituency basks in his hatred of political correctness.

In 1964, Columbia University historian Richard Hofstadter published an influential essay called “The Paranoid Style in American Politics.” Written in the context of the Johnson/Goldwater election and fears about the rise of an extreme right-wing fringe, Hofstadter described a style of mind marked by “heated exaggeration, suspiciousness, and conspiratorial fantasy.” We now know that the paranoid style extends to more than the disreputable fringes of the population; educated elites and the center have conspiracy theories too. Analysis of the paranoid style still has historical value and contemporary relevance because it reflects attitudes and shared emotional states by more or less normal people, not those with profoundly disturbed minds. What is most enduring about Hofstadter’s essay is his analysis of the projection of the self and of how that mechanism of projection can paradoxically lead to imitation of the enemy (what we would call identification with the aggressor).

Conclusion

The psychoanalytically-informed historian can decode the fantasies and find patterns in those telling stories or spinning myths in American politics. Both historical consciousness and the psychoanalytic method prepare us to be skeptical of paranoid ideas and conspiracy theories, to be aware of how the self can be split into good and bad internal parts. It teaches us to try to struggle to empathize with people and groups who seem radically different from us, like those drawn to Trump. It alerts us to how our own anxieties and vulnerable selves influence our point of view. We must be aware of how we can become paranoid about paranoia, without minimizing the potential damage and destructiveness of the paranoid style. It is often hard to contain these anxieties. It is prefera-

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ble to acknowledge them, beginning a cathartic process of feeling, remembering, and working through the rigors of critical analysis and of self-reflection.

Above all, a psychoanalytically-informed method may help us to maintain a reality-based position on contemporary politics and the outcome of this election. It does so by reminding us that those who govern in America do so by advancing a fear-laden message, exercising power by expressing and often manipulating existing anxieties and prejudices. These include self-protective defenses including misogyny, racism, xenophobia, and attacks on political correctness. It may provide some clarity about how the language of the American dream provides a sense of identification, denying real class divisions, racial distinctions, and sexism. To demythologize the ideals of the American dream, particularly for Trump’s core supporters, we must demonstrate that America is not the land of opportunity, that there is little upward mobility in this country. America is a land governed by powerful entrenched oligarchies without strong or viable political and intellectual resistance. American-dream clichés deny the reality of downward mobility. We must be aware that the appeal to shared values masks the existence of deep class and cultural differences in America, the reality of economic inequality and powerful discrepancies in education, sensibility, sensitivity, and value systems.

Lastly, we are mindful that talk of American greatness, of things being “yuge,” of people being “incredible,” of references to how rich, intelligent, and omnipotent Trump is—all of this is empty speech. We know that his language and posturing resonate with an alienated, disenfranchised part of the population. These folks are inspired or activated by Trump’s appeal to the little guy: the one who is invisible and shamed, eager to embrace the culture wars, and reluctant to see reality in terms of social class or practical forms of politics. We need to be aware of the immense dangers this represents to our democracy. Through historical and psychoanalytic understanding, we see Trump as a symptom.

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