"Complete complicity with a war machine." We have to think bigger than that. The Middle East has been a hotbed of tension of violence for --not decades-- but thousands of years. Now, nuclear weapons are in the mix. While what is going on in Gaza is horrendous, think bigger. We don't really know what Biden is up against in Israel. To blame him for this, is like saying that the Romans killing off whole villages 2,000 years ago just because they felt like it never happened. I dare anyone who is upset about the genocide to come up with a better solution. What would you do in the case where each side of an argument has said that the other side has no right to exist? Especially when nuclear capability is involved. I don't have any kind of an answer but we can't afford to think small by pointing fingers. That has never helped.
I agree that there is no comparison between the two likely presidential candidates. However it doesn’t bother me even if you can make the case of cognitive decline for Biden because I’m concerned ( or appreciate) the people that president’s select as advisors, cabinet secretaries, and their relationships w congressional leaders. It seems Biden has done well w this as borne out by the improved economy, the continued infrastructure projects and policies that reflect our values and commitment to our allies. I’m not concerned if someone walks a little stiff or flubs a word or mixes up a name, especially if there are no serious consequences. On the other hand the alternative is a real existential crisis waiting to happen.
I marvel at the fact that pro-democracy (a wide breadth of citizens) focus on Biden’s “mental decline”. Aside from the fact that a neurologist wrote a great article in the NYT’s about aging, cognition and an early speech disability, there is a frame being established that Biden has not done his job. Remember when Hillary Clinton fell and the right pounded away at her declining health? To this day, people who once supported HRC can’t explain why they don’t now except to put her in the bucket that “she had to much baggage”. We on the other side of the anti-democracy movement have absorbed their talking points without even realizing it. The far right’s message and money machine is a huge factor in all this and has been for decades, long before Trump came along. Christian Nationalism, mafia tactics to candidates and representatives from billionaire donors, the permission structure of racism and sexism that likely always has been a factor and right wing propaganda masquerading as media and platforms run by tech authoritarians -Zuckerberg and Musk- also contribute to the position we are in. I love Dr. Lee’s and her colleagues persistence in educating the public about the ‘unconscious’ and pervasive creep of ‘contagion’ on the American and global psyche. In spite of trying to silence her she’s done something no other in psychology or psychiatry has ever done. Her work comes up in every conversation that I have. But, Biden is the candidate for the Democratic election in 2024. He’s done a lot of good. He’s a man of heart and integrity and what he’s capable of behind scenes in the political sphere we don’t see. He’s far from perfect. And, equalizing MSNBC to right wing propaganda so called media is counterproductive. (Personally, I hope we have a President Gretchen Whitmer or Pete Buttigeg one day). But, we’ll have neither if we endlessly hand wring about Biden being too old (isn’t it ironic that the other guy is just as old yet 1000x’s less competent while being so malignant). Someone said the other day the difference between Biden if he falls ill and Trump’ is that Biden will have people in place who will carry the torch if keeping the ship of Democracy upright while Trump will unleash chaos with the nihilists he surrounds himself by. I am so grateful for Letitia James, Fani Willis, Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, Bsndy Lee among so many others who have taken on this machine because they believe in fairness, justice and Democracy! (I’m not on social media so forgive me for unloading here).
I am an avid reader of your Substack on the Trump Contagion. Thank you for sharing your expertise albeit at great risk to you and your professional standing.
From an early age I was an empath and became interested in people’s psychological motivations and abnormal mental inclinations. I grew up in a family in which alcoholism, bipolar, BPD and narcissistic disorders were rampant. My initial major in college was psychology and acting. Understanding the human psyche was a huge part of my life. (I then switched to music and communications.)
Before 2016, I paid very little attention to trump. I thought he was a blowhard clown. After the 2016 election, trump’s psychosis and the sycophants enabling it became horrifyingly apparent to me.
I continuously reiterate to those around me that he will not stop and will continue to act violently and immorally because of his mental psychosis. I have repeatedly stated, in my opinion, he belongs in jail and a straight jacket.
My friends and I have worked tirelessly to elect those who preserve democracy and fight the ‘GOP disease’ in this country. (Of course, it is a very complex set of issues concerning income equality and our US citizens’ disenfranchisement and despair. )
And I have exhaustively repeated: “ When you do not call out the lies and misinformation, even to those you call friends, YOU ARE ENABLING AND COMPLICIT. This is how fascism spreads. (Cult-brainwashed behavior is much harder to combat. It needs professional deprogramming. I refer to the book, ‘The Cult of Trump’ by Steven Hassan. )
I can only now imagine those who had great courage and risked their lives acting out against Hitler.
I am very grateful to Engoron: ‘Engoron was also cogently candid when he said Donald Trump’s “complete lack of contrition and remorse borders on pathological.” ‘; AG James: ' "No matter how rich, powerful or politically connected you are, everyone must play by the same rules,” James laid bare….’ ; and all the legal, election and political people taking relentless action (at their great peril) against the Trump Contagion and the assault on our democracy.
I "hearted" this one about Trump--yes, yes, yes, such good news about some *justice* (even if his classic delaying tactics through appeals keep happening). Thank you again, Dr. Lee. Even "preaching to the choir" can nevertheless be necessary, at least as a welcome comfort to the choir members. It also shows how the message can have a ripple effect, where keeping silent otherwise accomplishes nothing. As to the Democratic candidate, I'd prefer a better one, too, but what we have is reality. So, if it's the "lesser of the two evils" (the other one being purely so), then so be it.
There's a saying - amateurs talk strategy and professionals talk logistics. In political arena, the campaign finance is the logistical lifeline of politician. I've said it before. To really destroy Trump, we need to destroy his dark pool of campaign finance. NY ruling is thus very crucial in two ways - first it holds Trump accountable for his crimes & second it paralyses his campaign financing. Trump has already spent more than $50 million on his legal costs which is growing every day. That's millions of dollars Trump is unable to spend in organizing more of his toxic rallies (festivals of mass psychosis), propaganda ads and whole list of brainwashing operations.
So legal penalties on Trump keeps him bogged down. Trump's entire campaign is a fraud. First is siphoning Republican campaign money into personal legal expenditure. That's a scandal in itself. Trump is now bankrupting the RNC to resuce him from his personal financial ruin.
Another is Trump's dark money pool. The plutocrats have been financing & nurturing Trump through direct & indirect funding. With rising legal penalties, Trump is now becoming a baggage. It would be interesting to see to what length Trump's plutocratic financiers stay put to throw money in black hole to rescue Trump. Legal penalties are like tying weights to Trump campaign and with enough burden he may eventually sink.
On Trump vs Biden choice.
This is bad & mad world. You won't find people doing right things for right reasons. You won't find perfect candidates & perfect politicians. The political system itself is failing badly. In this time, you have to check how much of your own objectives align with the field of political candidates, and thus chose candidates from a lot. Call it choosing of bad among worse. Biden is a far better Realpolitik choice in present time compared to Trump. In fact, it's a no brainer. Choose Biden right now is to live to fight another day. A fight for finding better candidate & reforming political system in future. Choosing Trump is like wishing for the end of the world. Trump is the Armageddon candidate. He will destroy US political system at home. And his foreign policy chaos will inevitably leads to some kind of global confrontation that will end in disaster.
I have plenty of grievance with Biden but it by no means warrants to consider the alternative - that is Trump or any other Republican candidate.
I’ve been voting since the early 1980s & most of the time my votes were cast for the lesser of two questionable personalities. Today there was a meeting of our local Democratic Party chapter. To participate one must pay dues. Thus, all the suggestions of participating locally comes at a financial burden. I retired early for medical reasons. I haven’t the free cash to pay to play. This is not democracy. If we get through this, etc, then somehow we must adjust our society to prioritize democratic participation. To me this falls under the larger necessity of societal constructs supporting health especially mental health.
"...it is powerful when principle is upheld before person of power."
The psychology of contagion startles me. The fact that Trump became president is more interesting than his personal psychology because it makes me wonder about the psychology of us all.
What weakened his voters' mental immune system so much that they became infected? It's more than our economic or social situation. We're responsible for our own immune systems.
If we view each of us as being kings or queens in our own personal empire of personhood, what stands up for correct principle in ourselves? How do we stand up before the entitled grievance that pure Ego gives us? What within us is capable of resisting outside contagion?
Another way to ask this is: What is it that is capable of identifying and upholding correct principles to ourselves? Each of us likes to think we're paragons of strong rational thought and feeling--and people should be strong like us--but how good are we at monitoring and standing up to our own behavior? How can we trust the arbiter of ourselves if the arbiter is infected?
Upholding principle is not a battle or war; it's something else.
Until our schools, universities, labs, churches, synogogues, and ashrams get serious about how we identify, sideline, and tame the anti-social power-instinct of Ego, we'll suffer an ever-growing number of Trumps and given the power of technology probably do the species in.
Without modern technology, Trump might have remained a blowhard in a back room, but now trillion dollar industries promote rampant Egoism 24 hours a day globally.
If we're to keep technologies and become sane, we have to make a science of standing up for principle in ourselves so we're not overwhelmed by our own Ego. Ego is not set in stone and not the root of what we are, nor does it represent the best of what we can be and do; it just wants us to think so.
Acceptance of our political reality- political parties are a corporate machine in and of themselves does not mean agreeing with it being so. We should have other candidates idea, while noble puts the responsibility on a mythical system, that a rare voter is even aware of. The corporate party system is designed to choose candidates first then let people choose based on their choice.
Without this specific function, there are no teeth in the suggestion of other candidates .
Critically, we need an educated populous about the monopoly on politics, all in the service of corporate interests , not the interests of the citizens.
We need to maintain and save democracy. Yet, we also need a vision for taking back our voting structure so that truly the people have a voice.
We are a true democracy because we have structurally constrained ourselves. It’s like the Giving Tree. Where one dies we must count on another’s mans nature to seed another. Maybe we should count on God’s?
"Complete complicity with a war machine." We have to think bigger than that. The Middle East has been a hotbed of tension of violence for --not decades-- but thousands of years. Now, nuclear weapons are in the mix. While what is going on in Gaza is horrendous, think bigger. We don't really know what Biden is up against in Israel. To blame him for this, is like saying that the Romans killing off whole villages 2,000 years ago just because they felt like it never happened. I dare anyone who is upset about the genocide to come up with a better solution. What would you do in the case where each side of an argument has said that the other side has no right to exist? Especially when nuclear capability is involved. I don't have any kind of an answer but we can't afford to think small by pointing fingers. That has never helped.
I agree that there is no comparison between the two likely presidential candidates. However it doesn’t bother me even if you can make the case of cognitive decline for Biden because I’m concerned ( or appreciate) the people that president’s select as advisors, cabinet secretaries, and their relationships w congressional leaders. It seems Biden has done well w this as borne out by the improved economy, the continued infrastructure projects and policies that reflect our values and commitment to our allies. I’m not concerned if someone walks a little stiff or flubs a word or mixes up a name, especially if there are no serious consequences. On the other hand the alternative is a real existential crisis waiting to happen.
I marvel at the fact that pro-democracy (a wide breadth of citizens) focus on Biden’s “mental decline”. Aside from the fact that a neurologist wrote a great article in the NYT’s about aging, cognition and an early speech disability, there is a frame being established that Biden has not done his job. Remember when Hillary Clinton fell and the right pounded away at her declining health? To this day, people who once supported HRC can’t explain why they don’t now except to put her in the bucket that “she had to much baggage”. We on the other side of the anti-democracy movement have absorbed their talking points without even realizing it. The far right’s message and money machine is a huge factor in all this and has been for decades, long before Trump came along. Christian Nationalism, mafia tactics to candidates and representatives from billionaire donors, the permission structure of racism and sexism that likely always has been a factor and right wing propaganda masquerading as media and platforms run by tech authoritarians -Zuckerberg and Musk- also contribute to the position we are in. I love Dr. Lee’s and her colleagues persistence in educating the public about the ‘unconscious’ and pervasive creep of ‘contagion’ on the American and global psyche. In spite of trying to silence her she’s done something no other in psychology or psychiatry has ever done. Her work comes up in every conversation that I have. But, Biden is the candidate for the Democratic election in 2024. He’s done a lot of good. He’s a man of heart and integrity and what he’s capable of behind scenes in the political sphere we don’t see. He’s far from perfect. And, equalizing MSNBC to right wing propaganda so called media is counterproductive. (Personally, I hope we have a President Gretchen Whitmer or Pete Buttigeg one day). But, we’ll have neither if we endlessly hand wring about Biden being too old (isn’t it ironic that the other guy is just as old yet 1000x’s less competent while being so malignant). Someone said the other day the difference between Biden if he falls ill and Trump’ is that Biden will have people in place who will carry the torch if keeping the ship of Democracy upright while Trump will unleash chaos with the nihilists he surrounds himself by. I am so grateful for Letitia James, Fani Willis, Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, Bsndy Lee among so many others who have taken on this machine because they believe in fairness, justice and Democracy! (I’m not on social media so forgive me for unloading here).
Dr. Lee
I am an avid reader of your Substack on the Trump Contagion. Thank you for sharing your expertise albeit at great risk to you and your professional standing.
From an early age I was an empath and became interested in people’s psychological motivations and abnormal mental inclinations. I grew up in a family in which alcoholism, bipolar, BPD and narcissistic disorders were rampant. My initial major in college was psychology and acting. Understanding the human psyche was a huge part of my life. (I then switched to music and communications.)
Before 2016, I paid very little attention to trump. I thought he was a blowhard clown. After the 2016 election, trump’s psychosis and the sycophants enabling it became horrifyingly apparent to me.
I continuously reiterate to those around me that he will not stop and will continue to act violently and immorally because of his mental psychosis. I have repeatedly stated, in my opinion, he belongs in jail and a straight jacket.
My friends and I have worked tirelessly to elect those who preserve democracy and fight the ‘GOP disease’ in this country. (Of course, it is a very complex set of issues concerning income equality and our US citizens’ disenfranchisement and despair. )
And I have exhaustively repeated: “ When you do not call out the lies and misinformation, even to those you call friends, YOU ARE ENABLING AND COMPLICIT. This is how fascism spreads. (Cult-brainwashed behavior is much harder to combat. It needs professional deprogramming. I refer to the book, ‘The Cult of Trump’ by Steven Hassan. )
I can only now imagine those who had great courage and risked their lives acting out against Hitler.
I am very grateful to Engoron: ‘Engoron was also cogently candid when he said Donald Trump’s “complete lack of contrition and remorse borders on pathological.” ‘; AG James: ' "No matter how rich, powerful or politically connected you are, everyone must play by the same rules,” James laid bare….’ ; and all the legal, election and political people taking relentless action (at their great peril) against the Trump Contagion and the assault on our democracy.
I "hearted" this one about Trump--yes, yes, yes, such good news about some *justice* (even if his classic delaying tactics through appeals keep happening). Thank you again, Dr. Lee. Even "preaching to the choir" can nevertheless be necessary, at least as a welcome comfort to the choir members. It also shows how the message can have a ripple effect, where keeping silent otherwise accomplishes nothing. As to the Democratic candidate, I'd prefer a better one, too, but what we have is reality. So, if it's the "lesser of the two evils" (the other one being purely so), then so be it.
There's a saying - amateurs talk strategy and professionals talk logistics. In political arena, the campaign finance is the logistical lifeline of politician. I've said it before. To really destroy Trump, we need to destroy his dark pool of campaign finance. NY ruling is thus very crucial in two ways - first it holds Trump accountable for his crimes & second it paralyses his campaign financing. Trump has already spent more than $50 million on his legal costs which is growing every day. That's millions of dollars Trump is unable to spend in organizing more of his toxic rallies (festivals of mass psychosis), propaganda ads and whole list of brainwashing operations.
So legal penalties on Trump keeps him bogged down. Trump's entire campaign is a fraud. First is siphoning Republican campaign money into personal legal expenditure. That's a scandal in itself. Trump is now bankrupting the RNC to resuce him from his personal financial ruin.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/feb/17/donald-trump-legal-fees-how-will-he-pay
Another is Trump's dark money pool. The plutocrats have been financing & nurturing Trump through direct & indirect funding. With rising legal penalties, Trump is now becoming a baggage. It would be interesting to see to what length Trump's plutocratic financiers stay put to throw money in black hole to rescue Trump. Legal penalties are like tying weights to Trump campaign and with enough burden he may eventually sink.
On Trump vs Biden choice.
This is bad & mad world. You won't find people doing right things for right reasons. You won't find perfect candidates & perfect politicians. The political system itself is failing badly. In this time, you have to check how much of your own objectives align with the field of political candidates, and thus chose candidates from a lot. Call it choosing of bad among worse. Biden is a far better Realpolitik choice in present time compared to Trump. In fact, it's a no brainer. Choose Biden right now is to live to fight another day. A fight for finding better candidate & reforming political system in future. Choosing Trump is like wishing for the end of the world. Trump is the Armageddon candidate. He will destroy US political system at home. And his foreign policy chaos will inevitably leads to some kind of global confrontation that will end in disaster.
I have plenty of grievance with Biden but it by no means warrants to consider the alternative - that is Trump or any other Republican candidate.
I’ve been voting since the early 1980s & most of the time my votes were cast for the lesser of two questionable personalities. Today there was a meeting of our local Democratic Party chapter. To participate one must pay dues. Thus, all the suggestions of participating locally comes at a financial burden. I retired early for medical reasons. I haven’t the free cash to pay to play. This is not democracy. If we get through this, etc, then somehow we must adjust our society to prioritize democratic participation. To me this falls under the larger necessity of societal constructs supporting health especially mental health.
"...it is powerful when principle is upheld before person of power."
The psychology of contagion startles me. The fact that Trump became president is more interesting than his personal psychology because it makes me wonder about the psychology of us all.
What weakened his voters' mental immune system so much that they became infected? It's more than our economic or social situation. We're responsible for our own immune systems.
If we view each of us as being kings or queens in our own personal empire of personhood, what stands up for correct principle in ourselves? How do we stand up before the entitled grievance that pure Ego gives us? What within us is capable of resisting outside contagion?
Another way to ask this is: What is it that is capable of identifying and upholding correct principles to ourselves? Each of us likes to think we're paragons of strong rational thought and feeling--and people should be strong like us--but how good are we at monitoring and standing up to our own behavior? How can we trust the arbiter of ourselves if the arbiter is infected?
Upholding principle is not a battle or war; it's something else.
Until our schools, universities, labs, churches, synogogues, and ashrams get serious about how we identify, sideline, and tame the anti-social power-instinct of Ego, we'll suffer an ever-growing number of Trumps and given the power of technology probably do the species in.
Without modern technology, Trump might have remained a blowhard in a back room, but now trillion dollar industries promote rampant Egoism 24 hours a day globally.
If we're to keep technologies and become sane, we have to make a science of standing up for principle in ourselves so we're not overwhelmed by our own Ego. Ego is not set in stone and not the root of what we are, nor does it represent the best of what we can be and do; it just wants us to think so.
The NYT’s article https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/12/opinion/neuroscientist-on-biden-age-memory.html
Acceptance of our political reality- political parties are a corporate machine in and of themselves does not mean agreeing with it being so. We should have other candidates idea, while noble puts the responsibility on a mythical system, that a rare voter is even aware of. The corporate party system is designed to choose candidates first then let people choose based on their choice.
Without this specific function, there are no teeth in the suggestion of other candidates .
Critically, we need an educated populous about the monopoly on politics, all in the service of corporate interests , not the interests of the citizens.
We need to maintain and save democracy. Yet, we also need a vision for taking back our voting structure so that truly the people have a voice.
Thank you Dr Lee.
Trump is borderline.
We are a true democracy because we have structurally constrained ourselves. It’s like the Giving Tree. Where one dies we must count on another’s mans nature to seed another. Maybe we should count on God’s?