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

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Chapter Six

What is ‘Trump Contagion,’ and What is ‘Shared Psychosis’?

And on June 14, 1946, God looked down on his plan Paradise, and said: “I need a caretaker.”  So God gave us Trump.  God said: “I need somebody willing to get up before dawn.  Fix this country.  Work all day.  Fight the Marxists.  Eat supper.  Then go to the Oval Office and stay past midnight.  And a meeting of the heads of state.”  So God made Trump (Hall, 2024).

The 2024 election year began with what in any previous year would have been an incredible presidential campaign video, stating the above.  In any other era, claiming to hear the voice of God that is telling him he is the “chosen” one would evoke for most people a psychiatric patient warranting hospitalization.  In Donald Trump’s America, he won between 55 and 69 percent of White evangelical voters in the Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina Republican primary contests earlier in the year.  This was despite being charged with scores of felony crimes, including conspiring to overturn his 2020 election defeat; stealing hundreds of classified documents that compromised national security; more than two dozen sexual assault allegations, one of them civilly affirmed; and “hush money” payments to an adult film actress, to sway the 2016 election in his favor.  This is without going into his past of casino ventures, two divorces, stiffing of workers, a libertine lifestyle, and being a con man and fraudster who lied 30,600 documented times in four years (Kessler et al., 2021).  The Christian Bible itself says: ”Who is the liar?...  Such a person is the antichrist” (1 John 2:22).  Yet, instead of withdrawing their support, his evangelical Christian devotees are more enthusiastic than ever, flaunting slogans such as, “Jesus is my savior, Trump is my president”; “God, Guns & Trump”; or “Make America Godly Again” (Smith, 2024).  What is happening to the religious world?