The Dangerous Case of Trump Contagion
America’s Collective Psychosis
“Groping the American Psyche and Psychic Contagion. There are so many potentially destructive consequences of the emerging Trump presidency—on the climate, on minorities, on immigrants, on women’s rights, on the integrity of the Constitution, and on our relationships with China, Russia, Syria, Iran, North Korea, and even our own allies. But one of the most disturbing thoughts about the Trump presidency is that he has taken up residence not just in the White House but in the psyches of each and every one of us.”
We so wrote in 2017 for our publication, The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump. I wrote in 2020 that the Trump presidency would not end with an election: “he will likely refuse to concede the results, call the election a fraud, and refuse to leave office.” This was possible because of the psychic contagion Donald Trump had spread—conditioning the minds of his followers not to accept anything other than his “reality”—which we called “Trump contagion” by 2019 but which I came to describe in many places as “shared psychosis.”
“Shared psychosis” is not a diagnosis but a psychosocial phenomenon (“shared psychotic disorder” is an individual diagnosis that results from the phenomenon). Here, we are speaking of the public health crisis arising from psychic contagion (in a collective psychosis, the collective may take on characteristics of psychosis, but not every individual will be psychotic).
The primary source may have been Donald Trump, but through four years in office, two years without accountability, and the continued rewarding of those who imitate him, a “contagion” has now spread far beyond the point of origin.
Could we have imagined a mediascape of the level of lying we see today? Could we have conceived of a U.S. Congress taken over by traitors and insurrectionists? Could we have fathomed a health crisis we would so mismanage, so as to incur over 1.1 million American deaths? Could we have foreseen the current collapses of industry? The new Axis Powers of Russia, China, and Iran?
Few would now argue that we have a very dangerous contagion in our hands—which may accelerate to render even more extreme psychic realities possible, such as Trump’s return (or the equivalent) in 2024.
You are correct. The sad thing is that this sort of knowledge is not widespread. Emotional states are contagious - e.g. hatred and paranoia. 'Conversive thinking' is also contagious (the sort of thinking that Trump and his followers exhibit, where you select a convenient outcome and then consciously or subconsciously convert the reasoning process to arrive at it). Trauma is contagious (by exposure to a pathological individual such as Trump, and by bearing witness to traumatizing events - vicarious trauma, which psychologically healthy people will experience when they witness the actions of Trump and his followers). Lastly, national 'hysteria' is contagious - a potent mix of emotionalism, egotism and 'conversive thinking'. Too many quotes that I could give here, and far more information, but it would be overwhelming.
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'Emotional states can be transferred to others via emotional contagion, leading people to experience the same emotions without their awareness. Emotional contagion is well established in laboratory experiments, with people transferring positive and negative emotions to others.'
'Experimental evidence of massive-scale emotional contagion through social networks'
Adam D. I. Kramer, Jamie E. Guillory, and Jeffrey T. Hancock
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'Neurosis is a natural response of human nature if a normal person is subordinated to domination of pathological people. The same applies to the subordination of a society and its members to a pathological system of authority. In a pathocratic state, every person with a normal nature thus exhibits a certain chronic neurotic state, controlled by the efforts of reason. The intensity of these states varies among individuals, depending upon different circumstances, usually more serious in direct proportion to the individual's intelligence. Psychotherapy upon such people is only possible and effective if we can rely on adequate familiarity with the causes of these states. Western educated psychologists thus prove completely impractical with regard to such patients.'
'People who have lost their psychological hygiene and capacity of proper thought along this road (conversive thinking - converting the outcome of the reasoning process to a more convenient outcome e.g. by subconsciously cherry-picking facts) also lose their natural critical faculties with regard to the statements and behavior of individuals whose abnormal thought processes were formed on a substratum of pathological anomalies, whether inherited or acquired. Some have even been influenced by others to grow accustomed to such "reasoning", since conversive thinking is highly contagious and can spread throughout an entire society.'
'Subordinating a normal person to psychologically abnormal individuals has severe and deforming effects on his or her personality: it engenders trauma and neurosis. This is accomplished in a manner which generally evades conscious controls. Such a situation deprives the person of his natural rights: to practice his own mental hygiene, develop a sufficiently autonomous personality, and utilize his common sense.'
'Political Ponerology', Andrzej Lobabczewski - a psychologist who studied Hitler's and Stalin's regimes and came to the conclusion that they were led by a small class of mentally disordered individuals.
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'Once power is attained, however, a complete system is created (in legal and political terms) that transforms the intrinsically antisocial and criminal behavior of the tyrant and his associates into measures necessary for the preservation of the polity against internal and external enemies. When the tyrant nears his zenith, the criminality takes on massive proportions, as in Stalin's purges or Hitler's "Final Solution." In short, as Robins and Post have noted, "when a paranoid leader becomes chief of state, his paranoia infects the nation" (Robins & Post, 1997, p. 244).'
'Why tyrants go too far - malignant narcissism and absolute power', Dr. Betty Glad
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'Trauma is contagious. In the role of witness to disaster or atrocity, the therapist at times is emotionally overwhelmed. She experiences, to a lesser degree, the same terror, rage, and despair as the patient.'
'Trauma and Recovery', Dr. Judith Herman
Dr Lee, the spread of Trumpism was heavily influenced by sewers of social media where Trump fed people with conspiracy theories, falsehoods, misinformation and daily propaganda. Finally, all of that culminated into "big lie" and Jan 6 Riot. Now social media companies like Facebook have allowed Trump to return on their platform. So not only, Trump remains unpunished (even after committing treason and numerous other crimes), Trump is again provided with public platform to restart gaslighting the American people.
People like Zuckerberg and Elon Musk have allowed their companies to spread Trump contagion (collective psychosis / societal collective insanity) just so that their platform becomes clickbait filthy, controversial, enraging to attracts more users and companies earn bigger profits. In India, facebook is the favorite platform for Hindutva Fascists (they are like MAGAts of Trump) who spread religious hatred. And all this practice is enabled & supported by Facebook in India.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-services-are-used-to-spread-religious-hatred-in-india-internal-documents-show-11635016354