Trump Contagion, Past and Future, Part 2

Project 25 and the Time Magazine Interview

If Donald Trump wins election a little more than five months from now, he has already telegraphed the unprecedented authoritarian actions he will take that no American president has ever before even contemplated.  Tragically and contrary to what many think, the Democrats and the legal system have actually played into Trump’s hands.  The criminal proceedings were begun nearly two years too late, so that the most major criminal cases involving electoral college election fraud (Georgia), the theft of top-security classified documents (Florida), and most importantly of all the insurrection against the government (District of Columbia) are not even likely to begin before the fast-approaching election day.   If Trump returns to the White House, as he is determined to do, they probably will never begin.  In the minds of Trump and his followers, this further proves their “invincibility” and “omnipotence”, and emboldens them to make greater attempts to take over the government.

Furthermore, the stage has now been set for Donald Trump to use the Department of Justice, as well as the Pentagon to in effect take dictatorial control of our country and put down any and all opposition.  How do we know this?  Project 2025 is the Republican Party’s 900-page playbook to remake or dismantle the entire federal government after neoconservative, White evangelical “Christian” beliefs, which include the superiority of Whites, the inherent inferiority and criminality of Blacks, and the idea that God called on these White “Christian” soldiers to save America from immigrants, people of color, women, and the “fascist” radical left.  Fashioned after Trump’s speeches or statements of intent, it lays out an efficiently professionalized, detailed vision for decimating democracy in his first 180 days.  Jeffrey Clark, a former Justice Department official who is one of the unnamed co-conspirators in Trump’s indictment in the federal election interference case, is leading the project.

In case there is any doubt that Donald Trump would actually carry out these plans, last month he gave a two-hour interview for Time magazine’s cover story: “How far Trump would go.”  It begins with the lesson he learned from his first presidency: “He was too nice.”  This time would be different:

To carry out a deportation operation designed to remove more than 11 million people from the country,… he would be willing to build migrant detention camps and deploy the U.S. military, both at the border and inland.  He would let red states monitor women’s pregnancies and prosecute those who violate abortion bans.  He would, at his personal discretion, withhold funds appropriated by Congress, according to top advisers.  He would be willing to fire a U.S. Attorney who doesn’t carry out his order to prosecute someone….  He is weighing pardons for every one of his supporters accused of attacking the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021….  He might not come to the aid of an attacked ally in Europe or Asia if he felt that country wasn’t paying enough for its own defense.  He would gut the U.S. civil service, deploy the National Guard to American cities as he sees fit, close the White House pandemic-preparedness office, and staff his Administration with acolytes who back his false assertion that the 2020 election was stolen.

Should the implementation of his neo-fascist policies ensue, Donald Trump plans to deploy the National Guard to “stop crime” and put down “violent” demonstrations, which he will claim justify use of the Insurrection Act by declaring he must do so to enforce “law and order.”

And just recently, he proclaimed that:

“A president of the United States must have full immunity, without which it would be impossible for him/her to properly function….  Even events that ‘cross the line’ must fall under total immunity.”

This is in addition to his lawyer arguing, upon Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s query:

“If the president decides that his rival is a corrupt person, and he orders the military or orders someone to assassinate him, is that within his official acts for which he can get immunity?”

Donald Trump’s lawyer argued it could be.

Who would not steal an election for such privileges, especially if it is a ticket for keeping out of prison?  Donald Trump has already telegraphed that, should he lose this election, he will not accept that result, claiming there was gross “election interference.”  He will relentlessly rant that the election was rigged against him.  Combining all his grievances, he will insist he actually won.  He might even be successful in unleashing many of his followers to engage in violent attacks, in effect provoking some novel kind of “civil war” that so many already say they are now expecting, even desiring.  He will claim, with a kind of delusional justification that many Americans will accept, that Biden’s “witch hunt” unconstitutionally tied him up in false legal court proceedings, drained his time and money, and prevented him from campaigning in ways he is entitled to be repaid.  Thus, he may well create a never-before situation in our nation, where the country will be ungovernable.

Ironically, if this no-longer-unthinkable situation were to come to pass, it might be that Biden and the Democratic Party leaders would be themselves required to invoke the Insurrection Act, that they would be forced to declare martial law, that they would be justified to call out the National Guard to restore “law and order”—for such is the effect of psychological “projection”.

How did we get to where we are today?  Anything concerning Donald Trump and Trump Contagion cannot be understood without bringing a mental health lens to it.  This is why I and some of the most renowned psychiatrists of our day gathered at our 2017 conference at Yale School of Medicine and quickly published that year, The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 27 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President.  This 17-minute video, which opened our 2019 major conference at the National Press Club, contains some of our early interviews.  My textbook, published around the same time and now widely used around the world—Violence: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Causes, Consequences, and Cures—describes the larger sociological, politico-economic, structural, and environmental causes of the violent world unfolding now.  At the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, the World Mental Health Coalition started issuing Prescriptions for Survival, in an attempt to reduce the number of deaths.  Then, I rushed to publish in the months before the critical 2020 election, Profile of a Nation: Trump’s Mind, America’s Soul, in order to warn that an election loss alone would not end Trump’s “presidency” and that violence would ensue.  Now, with the even more critical 2024 election approaching, I am releasing a preview of my new book: The Psychology of Trump Contagion: An Existential Threat to American Democracy and All Humankind.  In it, I explain in detail the extreme dangers of Trump Contagion and the need to prevent his reentering the White House.  Those of you who are paid Substack subscribers are already receiving these chapters.  Those of you who would like to become paid subscribers at this time will be able to read all previous chapters as well as to receive new ones.  Thank you for your valuable support!