The highly inaccurate science of “psychology from a distance”: Frameworks of thought for grasping Trump that might be wrong.
Some of what is here written about Trump would overstep the boundaries of his private sphere if he did not seek power. Since Trump seeks power on behalf of (and over) others, he is forced to stomach more (saying he “should” be able to would be moralistic). It is not meant whether Trump’s wife – should – be on campaigning tour with him, whether she – should – be easier to like than him, whether Trump – should – have a guilty conscience, or to “post” photos of Trump’s children to try and make him change his course. All of those things would be to stand on road as if owned by you and look in Trump’s private house with a moralizing attitude.
A bit uncharitably, Trump’s own most typically implicit “should” can be interpreted “model learned”. It can look as though he may have experienced that others can usurp definatory power with their “shoulds”, as an expression of “something” that others often accept and that influences consensus, morality. Uncharitably as it admittedly is to suggest that mainstream morality has only been model-learned by Trump, it may probably also seem like a claim too staunch and unfounded.
However, in December 2023, Trump said that immigrants to the USA are “poisoning the blood of our country”: Not very mainstream morality wise. Hitler said almost the very same thing pertaining to jews. Still, mainstream moral from 1956 – that spouces of presidential nominees should show public support for their beloved, awakens the inner moralist in Trump (provided it is about others and not about himself). He seems to lack the capacity for consequential thinking (viewing things from the same set of standards from both sides of the same table), which is a prerequisite for autonomous, ethical responsibility.
The poisoning-statement can also be reminiscent of when Trump calls his own critics “vermin”, echoing various dictators around the globe. The “poison-quote”, however, can be interpreted as the more serious of the two, because people who “poison America‘s blood” cannot have any choice to refrain from “whatever thing about them” that provokes the coarse terms. It might be tempting for some people to say that Trump – should – have a bad conscience, but he must decide on the ethical merit of his statement about blood poisoning alone, individualistically, and without having his strongly defended “I-boundaries” challenged by moral normation by others.
Strangers mostly do not tell strangers to have a bad conscience. That normally requires a strong and uniform, societal sense of morality (a culturally predominant “we’s” moral) as the collective authority base from which a moralist person feels confident to speak out. In the post-modern, culturally individualistic lack of such a collective moral base, it merely speaks of the moralist individual wanting such a base to exist. If that wish is expressed as attempts of moral normation of individual strangers, that has come to be sensed by many as boundaryless and tasteless. Why is it so? The reason may seem to have to do with individualism.
One may sense: “If someone is to have a “moral say” about me, then not some arbitraty individual who I don’t know and who doesn’t know me. I could equally well judge his/her old-school moralist attitude as a breach of my privat sphere and/or a threat to my right to an ethical autonomy inherent to individual boundaries established by individualism”. One may also sense: I fully respect your right to – freely – abide by an old-traditional set of moral codes as long as it does not conflict with my my equal right to moral freedom.
Trump, tried to moralize towards an individual stranger when he called Taylor Swift disloyal to himself (disloyalty = immoral). Personality wise, however, Trump doesn’t come across as a lone standing, old-school moralist, so how to explain that? It could almost seem as though Trump thought there would exist a strong and uniform, culturally predominant “we’s” moral, but if so, it is seemingly not an old-traditional moral (not if we are to go by all the stories about Trump’s personal lifestyle).
“Individuation” in the psychological sense, most fundamentally refers to the ability to know the difference between “my” subjectivity (feelings, thoughts, motives and opinions) and “your” subjectivity (cf. not confusing the two either way). A step less fundamentally, it refers to the ability to grant equal value to “my subjectivity” and to “yours” (cf. not presumptively ascribing to either one a higher value and/or a value as being normative for the other). Being “normative” is close to “a should” and “a should” lies close to the seed of all moral sensation. The degree of personal power one has may often affect to what degree one’s “should” induces a “moral sensation” in others.
Not ranking and norming subjectivities also implies not needing any confirming embrace (like most originally the parental) to assert one’s own subjectivity as valid, and conversely, not acting patronizingly towards safely individuated others as though they need your confirming embrace from you to assert theirs as valid. A safely individuated person (an ideal more than a fully context-independent reality) has achieved these goals as psycho-develompental milestones.
All human beings are born completely egocentric and gradually learn about a “we” through a parental symbiosis that ideally offers confirming recognition of one’s own subjectivity, mirroringly. Only gradually and as the parental symbiosis loosens up, egocentrism receeds and given a predominantly “I-confirming”, “I-recognizing” environment one learns that one’s own subjectivity is just one of many. The parents’ faces are not mirrors. Their feelings are not actually those that I have, and their feelings have equally much to say in the world as mine (and eventually vice versa).
If at some point along the psycho-developmental path, insurmountable obstacles are encountered, some persons may assert his or her “I-concept” with strength to avert the threat of being invalidated, although that may entail a foreclosure of individuation without fully receeded egocentrism. If the personality conceived of in psycho-developmental terms was a tree-stem, the rest of the personality may keep on growing past and around the serious obstacle, but permanently closing that specific, natural growth direction’s continuation. The “we-concepts” of these people are no longer symbiotic, but they are also not fully inter-subjective which would be the cursor of healthy, full individuation.
The concept of other subjectivites has emerged, but egocentrism lingers in the way that any real life “we” including actual others can only be grasped by the pertinent person if it can correspond to his/her own subjective preconception of it as his/her “we-concept”. They may for instance sense that the subjectivity of others – should – be like their own (cf. “there can only be a “we” if I myself as a part of it get recognized embracingly when I think, feel, mean and is motivated by this thing or that thing”). If such a sensation is combined with the attitude “anything else is a ‘not we‘ – are you with me or not?), there is here already the seed-stage of “owning” the “we” at the expence of others’ co-ownership.
The “I-concept” has had to be made “strong” in order to keep actual others in a real life orbit corresponding to an inner “we-concept” the person has. Paradoxally, he or she still needs confirming embraces from others in order to to sense his/her subjectivity as valid, but it’s got to seem like the opposite. The compensatory strong “I” fights for the definatory power to create and/or sustain a “we-frame” in which confirming embrace of him/her can continue to take place, but then only in the form of acclaim – as the rightful owner of the “we”; the “I of the we”.
Far from all insecurely individuated persons have the personality type, such as otherwise defined, to prefer extending their strong “I” into the world in the form of a “unilaterally defined we-concept” to which actual others are drawn or pulled, or the genetics to be able to successfully do so. Most of them do not. Trump, however, may seem to have it. If so, his “I” may seem to create a compensatory – image – of a sovereign “super-individuation” to attract the underpinning we-support it needs. There is less room for a psycho-developmentally ripe, co-defined, equal and mutual “we”.
Trump may be interpreted to rank his subjectivity above that of others. He says “they don’t go after the people who cheated” in stead of “…the people who I think cheated”. He communicates that he has made Taylor Swift a lot of money by signing the music modernization act, and that because of it, she should feel morally guilty lest loyal.
Unsafely individuated persons do not master intersubjective relating as a means of navigation on the “roads” that separate different people’s “private sphere plots”. Because they do not, they may subconsciously perceive the “roads with their unwritten, informal rules” of orderly, well functioning intersubjective relating among more safely individuated others as those other people’sprivate spheres “plots” extended onto the roads through some sort of consensus of mutual interest among them.
That may even be halfway correct. There is often often no equal room for the unsafely individuated among a majority of more safely individuated others bar they change. In reality: Bar they grow into “driving on the road” as though there could exist apt traffic rules through more complete individuation and the intersubjective relating style naturally inherent to it.
Imagine someone driving consequently egocentrically (not necessarily egoistically) and preseumptuously in actual car traffic. If there were no traffic rules, the only responsible manner to drive would be empathically, considerately and communicatively. Only people seeing the subjectivity of others equally valid as one’s own – and vice versa, would manage to do so.
Safely Individuated persons can accept that the definatory power of their own subjectivity is relativized in the form of fair compromises or in the form of respectfully disagreeing to disagree, in the face of others who, “on the roads”, behave normally respectfully and listen duly to one’s own subjective stand, taking it seriously into account. They do not feel that their subjectivity’s validity is thereby threatened, provided they always retain every right to a “private sphere” where the defining power of one’s own subjectivity must not be graded/relativized.
Unsafely individuated persons sense the validity of their subjectivity threatened if a consensus among more safely individuated others denies their own subjectivity definatory power. That is, unless those others at the same time offer confirming embraces that overemphasize, in a manner that individuated persons no longer need, their subjectivity’s validity despite of the loss of definatory power. If a pathological pride gene has awakened (cf. that receiving those confirming embraces feels like allowing others to patronize oneself), then not even so. The only way they will then allow themselves to receive confirming embraces, is in the form of acclaim as rightful definators of a real life “we” corresponding to their “we-concept”.
Even if their own, egocentric relating style is the reason they may lose approval by others, they must always ask “how is it right that my subjectivity should lose definatory power now?” Egocentrism doesn’t have self-insight, or it would cease to be egocentrism. For persons with foreclosed individuation and a compensatory strong “I-concept” in a setting of more safely individuated others, only definatory power is safely and surely felt to mark one’s own subjectivity’s equality and validity.
The lack of it can ultimately be sensed by the pertinent person as a “question mark” by his/her subjectivity on a general basis, threatening to make him/her invalidated or inferior. Those feelings of inferiority even reflect a fact of the world, the incompletion of their individuation. Since that fact is egocentrically unacknowledged, however, one may be prone to paranoid suspiciousness. For those with a compensatory strong “I-concept”, a paradox can arise; that they feel equal to others only if they are in effect “one up”; with their subjectivity retaining definatory power without due intersubjective process.
In response to difficulties with intersubjective relating, a small subset of insecurely individuated persons will annex the interpersonal roads (cf. pre-formal expectation of authority). From a road claimed as property, one can look into the windows of any house. The distinction between “you” and “me” might be there, but it is weak.
Trump meant that Nikki Haley’s husband – should – be campaigning with her, because he was deployed. What does he know of what takes place in the back rooms of Haley’s house, which he is standing still on the road gazing into the entrance room of? Trump said that he likes Taylor Swift’s boyfriend, who Trump does not know. Did Travis Kelce feel an invite to be embraced confirmingly like from a cloud passing in front of his open kitchen window? The cloud even said he liked him although he was probably a liberal – how unduly magnanimous!
Trump’s words, however, can be interpreted as an indirect way for Trump to say that he does not like Swift who, after all, was the relevant focal point as the political motive for the politician Trump‘s statement. His subjectivity turns into normation of others’ subjectivity, which turns into a “should”, and that “should” turns into something morally tinged. Swift is disloyal, an immoral trait. If Swift, despite of it, would simply say “I am not part of your unilaterally subjective and ‘I-based we’”, such “moral normation” would not work. It is simple, but not easy, unless you are strong in your own fullendedness of individuation.
The punishment for such a seemingly immoral “I/we-rejecting affront”, however, is to end up in “the I/we-concept’s cold”, not to be liked (being “morally bad” because disloyal), and having a – splitting – wedge shoved in as some kind of leverage between her and her boyfriend, since he might still belong to Trumps “I/we-concept”, something which in that case could affect Swift’s political positioning. That was likely the real reason that cloud passed by Kelce’s open kitchen window.
Trump can seem as though he would presume, maybe subconsciously and projectively, that Swift is unsafely individuated, since it can look as though he presumes, in effect patronizingly, that she needs his confirming (and morally condoning) embrace to assert her own subjectivity (cf. her political opinion) as valid.
Hence, it is absurdly made to seem as though it should be relevant to the democratic, popular electorate whether the private individual Donald John Trump’s emotional motor has enough horsepower to let him be able to gear into the affect “to like” towards Swift without stalling. He informs the popular electorate about the outcome of these inner, emotional processes of his.
What a road owner (the “I of the we”) feels (likes and dislikes) should be relevant to others, that is only “consequential” and natural, like also when it seemed natural for Trump to state that “there is nothing nice about that one birdbrain of a human being; Nikki Haley”, who could no longer be pulled or pushed to be part of his “we”, running against him.
“Infatuation and delight are not arguments. Neither are reluctance and hate.” (Nietzsche, 1881: The Dawn of Day, book 4, #372)
In a – splitting – manner to express personal “like” for one and not the other in a private love relationship between two non-politicians Trump does not even know…..could Trump still “live well” if robbed entirely of an outer, real life counterpart to his intra-psychic preconception of “we”? Is he individuated enough for that? If yes, then why not with more peace of mind, simply leave Swift as a musician as well as her closest relations alone to his world of “political intrigue”?
Is it beneficial to democracy that a presidential candidate “stamps the character” of single individuals among the eligible voters as “morally disloyal” on behalf of the public consisting of the same eligible voters who, in sum, have the right to determine power? Strangers mostly do not tell strangers they should have a bad conscience, but with Trump, it is as if he might say: “If you don’t support me, I will label you as ‘morally bad’ in front of ‘my we-concept’, which I trust includes a big enough share of the eligible voters that you do not want to be an outsider to it”. Morally bad….hmm….
Such behavior creates the impression, not of humility towards the popular electorate, but of trying to “instrument it” and even attempting to use “moral” to do so. Will Trump keep doing similar also if he is re-elected as president? The people of democracies should not have to get used to the scenario “here comes that head of the executive branch of federal government and ‘gets you’” as normality. Does the nation’s “chief shepherd” then have a sufficiently distraction-free perspective to see the attacking eagle behind the butterflies he is trying to catch?
How does it come to be this way? If someone has expanded his/her own private sphere by making unarticulated ownership demands over the “interpersonal roads”, that person always has a “burdensome presence” of – others – in what is felt by that individual itself to be the equivalent of one’s private sphere.
The private sphere consists of that which it should have healthily been, plus the interpersonal roads – because – those have been sensed as necessary to annex in order for the own private plot to feel fully owned and valuable, maybe due to affronts against the private sphere’s sovereignty charged from positions on the interpersonal roads during psycho-development (Trump the “not responsible victim” may be almost as old as he is).
Unsafely individuated persons do not fully feel the benefits of their private spheres. The relativation/grading of the definatory power of one’s own subjectivity on “the interpersonal roads” gives the same reduction of the felt value of the private sphere plot, as it gives safely individuated persons only when it happens on their private sphere plots.
The full defining power of one’s own subjectivity, which the private sphere is supposed to grant for, can then by those with a compensatory strong I-concept be sought in a constant fight that one’s own subjectivity never loses definatory power on the “interpersonal roads”. Thus, they can be “enduringly unrelaxed” and in a latent “fight mode”.
“Honor”, we call a related but not identical “problem” when seen in collectivist cultures. In collectivist cultures, individuation from a culturally collective “we” is not expected, but your individual defining power in the question of whether you are living up to a collective moral necessary to abide by in order to be included may nevertheless be required. The only time individual subjectivity seems strong, is if needed to affirm the public image of oneself as worthy of “the we”.
For people from collectivist cultures, not being worthy of the “we” is synonymous with not being worthy of one’s own self, as a consequence of the “I” being symbiotic with the “we” in terms of self-esteem and feelings of self-worth. The most primordinal psycho-developmental template for it: If a baby is not worthy of a mirroring parental symbiosis, it is not worthy of the unconditional value it as an egocentric newborn unconsciously needs to feel; not worthy of itself, said more generally. Inhumane experiments from totalitarian states have even indicated that fully emotionally neglected newborns may even die.
“For honor” (cf. to be worthy of their own selves), some individualsfrom collectivist cultures can ultimately “take action” against others to restore their honor even on what for us is the “private sphere plots” of others (cf. not just on the interpersonal roads). The psychological rationale for that is: “If my inclusion in the culturally symbiotic ‘we’ is threatened, then there is nothing left of a private sphere with any value as that for me, hence those who threaten me in such a way cannot have a right to the same thing at my expence”. Rather you than me. Honor must be restored.
Safely individuated persons can feel worthy of their own selves even if they are sadly rejected by a desired “we”. They don’t need revenge to restore an honor that has not been hurt, because it is immunized. What others think is the same to them, at least in terms of self-esteem and feelings of self-worth (and hence also honor), since they have individuated from any symbiotic “we” without which the “I” is nothing.
Through a healthily full-ended psycho-development, they have internalized all the mirroring, confirming embraces as an autonomous emotional resource they carry within them in the form of inpenetrable sense of self-worth (a bit like how a once symbiotic nutritional system of an embryo in a uterus, later is a closed, autonomous nutritional system). The full value of their private spheres is safeguearded (cf. “my home is my castle”, even in a figurative sense, where one’s “self” or “I” is one’s true and sufficient home).
For Trump, however, it can to some seem as though it would be about revenge (he says so – outright). It may seem to some degree as though that could be about him being worthy of “the we” (cf. worthy of his own “unilaterally I-based we”; ultimately his own “I”). That he can only be if enough others embrace his “I-based we” from “the real/outside world”. At least, they have learned how to obtain their own nutrition. There must still be some degree of symbiotic infusion of nutrition, but it must seem like the opposite; like if “nothing of that kind” is the case. Loud demanding is camouflaged by apparent “super-individuation”.
In deeply collectivist cultures, we cannot even talk of an individual subjectivity, since the pre-given collective culture “does subjectivity” for all, alike. There is only collective traffic, no one drives themselves (something that still does not rule out bus fights). Even if there is someone on the top, as “drivers/pseudo-alphas”, even those persons wield something bigger than themselves that they are not morally allowed to elevate themselves above.
For Trump – if – he is correctly interpreted as halfways individuated with foreclosure and with assertion of his “I-concept” with strength under a cultural ideal of individualism, for him to lose definatory power on “the interpersonal roads” would also rob him of what works as the only possible compensatory substitute for the confirming embraces he needs in order to sense his own subjectivity as equally valid (but which he may have become to proud to accept from others). Definatory power as the “I of the we” grants him the only form of confirming embraces ha can accept; acclaim as alpha.
Trump has fairly regularly talked of himself in the third person form. We get to learn that there exist “Trump-hostile judges” (cf. that there does not only exist “Trump-friendly judges” – what a travecy of justice). He has posted things approximately in the line of “new counts shows Trump got the win”. Other candidates often seem to find it natural to say “…. we got the win”. There are many more examples. There are articles on the internet about how he uses the third person form about himself, and what it might mean. It is not here to be attempted to give a serious answer to it. Psychologically, it is way too uncertain and many different ideas could be the right one.
More as a whim, thus, it could almost sound as though Trumps self-conscious mind has two parts. One part has great stature as “the Trump” and one has a lesser stature and can merely refer to the great stature of the aforementioned. It could almost look like the dual seed-stadium of the suggested “I-based we”. He wants, that everyone else sees it the way he does, with “the Trump” as having a great stature for them too. For Trump, that could embracingly confirm “The Trump’s” value – for him.
Losing a presidential election may be felt as the ultimate rejection of his “we” (cf. his “I”). Feelings somewhat corresponding to a violated honor may arise. Restoration then gets more than just a little pertinent. Congress might get stormed. Subconsciously bending the truth becomes a possible means: The “good we” is threatened and schemed against by the “bad not-we”. That is not how the world is supposed to be, no way it can be: Others win only because they are cheating.
The inner “we-template” stuck somewhere on that line stretched between symbiosis/egocentrism and individuation/intersubjectivity cannot accommodate, so the outer “we” must assimilate. People who challenge his definatory power (his ownership demand over the interpersonal roads) may even have to be “boarded” and shoved back onto their private sphere plots.
Unsafely individuated persons still need acceptance to a considerable degree by a collective “we” in order to feel worthy enough of their selves. Although it may seem paradoxical, that may be the case even if they are “on top of” that same “we-concept”, as “alphas”. It is, in principle, the same for those seeking acceptance as subdominants who are offered a “co-ownership” over the interpersonal roads they cannot effectuate themselves (who want to reflect themself upwards in a confirming alpha’s recognition as part of his “we”), as it is for the dominant alphas (who want to reflect themselves downwards in adoring betas’ unison acclaim as they subsume under his “we”).
Conscience is something that always only exists relative to a current morality, and the world contains many different sets of morals, to different times and in different places. Collectivist cultures use their moral also to safeguard the coherence of their “collectivist we”, as a means of resistance to outer threats and change: “Individuation is dangerous!”
Without turning against individualism, they are not even completely wrong to claim so. The world contains “alpha types” individuated with foreclosure who are much more malign than anything we now know about Trump. If freed of a collectivist moral, they are then free of all moral and can bind others to a substitional “we” that is more malign than a collectivist “we”(such as Napoleon’s or Hitler’s “we’s”). Collectivist “we’s” in their most benign form (cf. relatively little morally oppressive) most often wants to retain their idea of a symbiotic, conflict-less happiness in a greater cultural context, hence devoid of a self-contradictory cultural ideal of individual, assertive strength.
If natural growth towards more individualism has been suppressed, a sudden, revolution-like move from a collectivist moral to an individualist mindset can, at first, sometimes be like lifting the lid off a pressure boiler. True, fullfledged individuation (like when the molecules of a liquid gas have re-stabilized as an equally distributed, diffuted gas in a bigger space, not longer affecting each other as dense streams of steam so as to build chemical solids) is not something that is achievable in an instance.
There may be unrest, due to an erupting fight between multiple “I-based we-concepts” trying to subsume others in a way that for those others will then still be collectivistic to a considerable degree, while preliminary individuated alphas thereby want to shine in a distorted public image of full individuation.
“The one who at some point wants to learn to fly, must first learn to stand and run and climb and dance. One does not fly into flying!“. (Nietzsche, 1883: Thus spoke Zarathustra, Part 3, “about the spirit of gravity”)
Trump seems to be trying in effect to “play on” the conscience of others according to a morality that has not previously existed in the United States of America. As an “alpha-type”, he acts in effect to “move morality and conscience” over to “his personal side”, based on his personal and subjective feeling as an emotional human being. He seems in effect to try and build a new liquid solid out of the gaseous remnants (steam) of an evaporated, liquid gas (pressure-boiling water); a new collective, out of his “I-based we”.
What moral appears to be for “his we” seems decided by his emotions as he is the “I of the we“. Things that make Trump feel affronted are supposed to give a bad conscience against an allegedly, but so far unknown, “moral” standard. People are supposed to sense: “Trump is right; the indictments against him are immoral’, and they are supposed to sense a “push/pull-magnetism” towards a “rewarding we”. He seems not to – feel – that there is anything nice about Nikki Haley, thus she is bad / morally inept as president material. He is the morally sound candidate. Voting for Haley after being informed by him as a powerful person about this, might also be morally bad (cf. people are left to ask – so some may consider they should vote for Trump).
If this perception would be truthful, one could say that there would be a “gravitational field” of a force- and powerful individual’s subjectivity, in effect with a “will to power” to subordinate the subjectivity of others so that they “orbit” around him as part/parcel of his “I-based we-concept”. Such a change of the moral sensation in the USA will only succeed if enough others accept to “be part of” a powerful individual’s “I-based we-concept ” from the outer “we-side”.
His means to accomplish it are subjective (seemingly egocentric) sense of a moral legitimacy of sovereignty in the own hands combined with power status and a forceful personality of great immediacy. This is “alpha” in the truest sense and in accordance with behavioral biology. The 18th century enlightenment thought to replace such historical and pre-historical power dynamics with the elevation of the human capacity to reason to the place of definatory power. That is historically a very new thing. Hence, it is still a fragile thing.
Subsumption is to give up one’s own “free trajectory” and granting the powerful gravitational field of a “stronger” other’s subjectivity the defining power in the form of an orbit for yourself around his / her subjectivity. That is what happens if one unwittingly introjects that which is projected; oneself is immoral (if supporting “persecutory” indictments); one’s own lines of thought are less “sovereign” (not true and self-contradictory enough to see that his are); he has credit for more “success” than any of us others individually do (therefore – for our nation’s success).
Subsumption can also take place if one “enacts” one’s own pre-reflected, affective-emotional reaction to what for instance Trump “transfers” to many around him due to his self-understanding: “Admirably, he – actually – seems to wantAmerica’s success more than anyone else are able to want it, so wow – isn’t that a relevant criterion? Maybe he is thus right that his own strong expectation of power is just and right“. When Trump is not president, the USA has “wibecession”. Only he can save America. The rest of America is something lesser unless it has him.
Trump as of 2024 has not been an autocrat and maybe he will never be, not even on his own accord. That is important to admit despite reasons for doubts and mistrust. When an actual dictator somewhere is dead, however, the people sometimes mourns. Why on earth do they? Because the dictator has actually loved them, as part of his own “I-based we”, a kind of self-love. He might for instance have been a charming sociopath, but if so, he has been – their – charming sociopath. They have been able to mirror themselves in “his” triumphs fought for from what is often accepted as a shared set of interests.
Hence, because of the mutually mirroring (seemingly loving) inclusion, many are even able to overlook that he was in fact a charming sociopath. It’s good to be the king, so having finally gotten there, it is mostly superfluous to show off one’s less desirable sides any longer. His/her order of loyalty and executive efficiency has been felt as a force of sound coherence. Only a few morons who “childishly resisted” (what a grand projection!) being part of an ideal system of the not-fully-individuated, might have had adverse experiences while the dictator was alive.
The fact that Trump’ssubjectivity can be “adopted” as someone else’s own, can also be illustrated by the case with the classified information Trump took with him when he left the White House in 2021. Do some among the public sense that “over-problematizing” that topic might equal a “petty invasion” of what should be allowed to be Trump’s private sphere if he himself feels it to be and is thus uncomfortably affronted if it is challenged or attempted disconfirmed (cf. his “I-based we” with his emotions as moral denominators and his ownership of interpersonal roads grown nation wide and government related affairs thus now being his own, private frolicking space)?
If a big enough share of “other people” have allready ended up “orbiting” a person’s subjectivity, that is when criticism of that subjectivity actually becomes sanctioned by the collective conscience, as disloyal; as immoral (like Trump tried to claim Taylor Swift was). Some of the steam has become water again. It misses the pot and the way the pot was full. The question is how much (a) mistrustful bitterness and (b) disregard for other peoples’ feelings and wellbeing is also thrown into that same pot in the process of filling it back up.
When the “I-based we” has become accepted by actual others (cf. from the outer “we-side), challenges to it equals challenges to a force of cohesiveness felt by its members potentially even as a protective love (the alpha’s self-love granted expansively to his “I-based we” in return for recognition as alpha). Persons who are safely individuated sense in their guts that this warmth is one too sticky and distance-less (cf. “I give you love, closeness and protection if you give in to my boundary-overstepping domination techniques and let me patronize you”).
“Don Vito Corleone” (from the Godfather movies) showed no lack of the capacity for relational warmth. Don Vito was perceived initially throughout Little Italy in NYC as a freedom hero. Resistance to leaving one’s “orbit” is “the gravitational field of the new morality” and is sanctionable with “morality-guarding” counter-reactions deemed as fully just and moral by the real life “we-periphery”. If such a novel “displacement” of America’s moral sensation is to be averted, each and every american must individualistically take responsibility for not being subsumed under any alpha-type’s “unilateral we”.
Fighting what for some may seem to be an “I-based we” actively is just another and different way of biting on that person’s fishhook, accepting to orbit him/her by letting his “we” set your agenda, defining you albeit only indirectly – as “anti” – and as an italisizing contrast and as a reason for affirming the “we’s” coherence inwardly: Fighting it might make it crystalize. Fighting it actively means being part of it in a different manner. One should the least of all fight it because of of one’s own need to restore what feels a bit like hurt honor (cf. “that person usurps – our – healthy, well functioning democracy”). You cannot win over a half individuated alpha owning a big “we” with the half individuated sides or counter-impulses within yourself. It is only biting on a fish hook.
It is better to think little of the alpha’s “we”, grant it either as much or as little definatory power in one’s own life as one individually think it deserves, and tolerate the risk having one’s own subjectivity “overridden” for an uncomfortably long period of time if he gets formally defined power (cf. “ignore the buzzing”). There is no need to fight off the alpha’s “we” unless a coercively pro-active push or pull towards subsumption under it must be averted by more proactive means to avert overlasting damage to America’s culture and/or its democracy.
If the people of the United States can resist an enduring cultural and political change resulting from moral subsumption by “ignoring the buzzing” (something which is a real possibility if the threat to individualism remains only mild to maximally moderate) it would be the best thing. No one powerful person will then be able to “displace” America’s traditional moral sensation in under his/her personal subjectivity and thus change it, even if that person gets formally granted power. The old, “conservative”, american-protestant moral sensation can then survive a presidential term and be maintained into the future.
In the 16th century Germany, Martin Luther, whose anti-corruption fight against the pope in Rome set of protestantism, held that there should be division between state and religion. No coming to power for religious reasons and no coming to religion for reasons of power. Whether you have faith is no longer a matter of public record, but a solely private matter, because – you – have the right that your thoughts are free. “You go to hell if you don’t find in you the ability to believe in the pope’s corrupt, foreign and society-wide authority” – is an ugly sentence.
Many christians believe that The Bible is based on divine revelation, and there is a quote in it (Revelation 22; 18-19) that harsh punishments await those who add or subtract anything. In 2024, Trump published the God Bless America Bible (aka “the Trump bible”), a bible in which some of the most important, historical political documents of the USA are added to the book volume, but the amendments 11-27 of the american constitution are subtracted.
The missing amendments include those about abolishment of slavery, of voter suppression based on race and the denial to vote based on sex, the direct election of US senators by popular vote, and the limit to the number of times a person can be elected president. In other words, it is very crudely speaking the US constitution as it was before the civil war.
It is probably a bit extremely distrustful, but one may ask it out loud just to make sure many others are not silent for the very same reason, believing they are alone having such crazy, nearly paranoid whims about Trump? Thus: Does Trump suspect that he will not get enough support for rematch about those amendments, so he wants to create the subconscious impression among the religiously conservative part of the american public that God’s authority is behind it (cf. that this is the US constitution as God wants it to be)?
Disagreeing about that could be disloyal (cf. immoral) to that more than soundly patriotic “God Bless America Bible” and hence – some – may doubt it is not also an offence to God allmighty himself. Some of those who doubt that Trump can be in a position to set valid moral codes, may still not doubt that God can – but who out of the two has been at work here? We still talk about the same guy having alleged affairs with porn actresses, moving like a b… towards safely married women, being convicted for sexual assault and giving jet-set interviews in Playboy Magazine. Is he now the prodigal son and the shepherd of the conservatively christian America? If so, poor them!
In February 2024, Trump said: “Your victory will be the ultimate vindication. Your freedom will be the ultimate reward“. These are, for one thing, unusually big terms: “What I offer you, that noone else before me have had the comparably sovereign wits to come up with, is the ultimate this or that”. Is there a sense of destination here? Hitler admittedly had that, he said his foresight had shown him his path. Are there ideas of grandeur?
It could almost sound as though the presidential election of 2024 is about “more” than just who will be the democratically elected president between 2025 and 2029. On July 26. he encouraged a christian audience to use their right to vote in the upcoming presidential election, and said: “In four years, you don’t have to vote again”. Christians might expect that some day – but not after Trump’s second coming.