The Psychology of Trump Contagion: An Existential Threat to American Democracy and All Humankind, Chapter One

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Chapter One

A National Mental Health Crisis

On October 31, 2022, in a Federal courthouse in Washington, DC, Graydon Young testified against Stewart Rhodes and other members of the Oath Keepers militia group.  The defendants had been charged with seditious conspiracy against the United States and other crimes related to the January 6, 2021, attack on Congress….

Prosecutor: And so how do you feel about the fact that you were pushing towards a line of police officers?

Young: Today I feel extremely ashamed and embarrassed….

Prosecutor: How did you feel at the time?

Young: I felt like … we were continuing in some kind of historical event to achieve a goal (Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, 2022).

The goal that Graydon Young was describing, under sworn testimony, was “attacking Congress in the manner the French had attacked the Bastille at the outset of the French Revolution.”  Donald Trump’s “tweets” and false claims that the 2020 presidential election had been “stolen” from him provoked Young and other Oath Keepers to travel to Washington, DC.