Trump Versus Biden

[GSOgymrat]

Here is a summary of an interesting psychological analysis of Trump's support

A Complete Psychological Analysis of Trump's Support

1. Practicality Trumps Morality - For some wealthy people, it’s simply a financial matter.

2. The Brain’s Attention System Is More Strongly Engaged by Trump - According to a study that monitored brain activity while participants watched 40 minutes of political ads and debate clips from the presidential candidates, Donald Trump is unique in his ability to keep the brain engaged.

3. America’s Obsession with Entertainment and Celebrities - Essentially, the loyalty of Trump supporters may in part be explained by America’s addiction to entertainment and reality TV.

4. “Some Men Just Want to Watch the World Burn.” - Some people are supporting Trump simply to be rebellious or to introduce chaos into the political system.

5. The Fear Factor: Conservatives Are More Sensitive to Threat - Science has  shown that the conservative brain has an exaggerated fear response when faced with stimuli that may be perceived as threatening.

6. The Power of Mortality Reminders and Perceived Existential Threat - A well-supported theory from social psychology, known as Terror Management Theory, explains why Trump’s fear-mongering is doubly effective.

7. The Dunning-Kruger Effect: Humans Often Overestimate Their Political Expertise - Some who support Donald Trump are under-informed or misinformed about the issues at hand.

8. Relative Deprivation â€" A Misguided Sense of Entitlement - Relative deprivation refers to the experience of being deprived of something to which one believes they are entitled. It is the discontent felt when one compares their position in life to others who they feel are equal or inferior but have unfairly had more success than them.

9. Lack of Exposure to Dissimilar Others - Intergroup contact refers to contact with members of groups that are outside one’s own, which has been experimentally shown to reduce prejudice.

10. Trump’s Conspiracy Theories Target the Mentally Vulnerable - While the conspiracy theory crowd â€" who predominantly support Donald Trump and crackpot allies like Alex Jones and the shadowy QAnon â€" may appear to just be an odd quirk of modern society, some of them may suffer from psychological illnesses that involve paranoia and delusions, such as schizophrenia, or are at least vulnerable to them, like those with schizotypy personalities.

11. Trump Taps into the Nation’s Collective Narcissism - Collective narcissism is an unrealistic shared belief in the greatness of one’s national group.

12. The Desire to Want to Dominate Others - Social dominance orientation (SDO) â€" which is distinct from but related to authoritarian personality (#13) â€" refers to people who have a preference for the societal hierarchy of groups, specifically with a structure in which the high-status groups have dominance over the low-status ones.

13. Authoritarian Personality - Authoritarianism refers to the advocacy or enforcement of strict obedience to authority at the expense of personal freedom, and is commonly associated with a lack of concern for the opinions or needs of others.

14. Racism and Bigotry - It would be grossly unfair and inaccurate to say that every one of Trump’s supporters have prejudice against ethnic and religious minorities, but it would be equally inaccurate to say that few do.

[SGOS]

Mike CI:  Good news.  The law is starting to take speech seriously.  This doesn't mean the courts will, but it's a start.

NYT
He Threatened Pelosi. Agents Didn’t Wait to See if He Really Meant It.

After a “9/11 moment,” federal authorities have begun arresting people for domestic threats they might have just monitored in the past.

A Proud Boys supporter in New York accused of posting violent threats on the social media network Parler. A Colorado man charged with sending a text about “putting a bullet” in Speaker Nancy Pelosi. A man near Chicago implicated in a voice mail message about killing Democrats on Inauguration Day.

They were all arrested in recent weeks as part of an escalating effort by law enforcement officials across the country to react more quickly to menacing rhetoric in the wake of the deadly U.S. Capitol breach.

Law enforcement agencies have long struggled to decipher whether online statements could lead to real danger, wary of bringing cases hinged largely on speech that could be protected by the First Amendment. But the volume of tips about threats has skyrocketed since the Capitol assault, leading some officials to decide not to wait to see if violent language developed into action.

Nearly a dozen people who the authorities said made politically motivated threats by social media or phone have been charged with federal crimes.

[drunkenshoe]

Here is a summary of an interesting psychological analysis of Trump's support

I have problems with this list. The key is the self entitlement but it looks like it is being treated seperately. Because when you put it this way:

1. Practicality Trumps Morality - For some wealthy people, it%u2019s simply a financial matter.

It sort of suggests that they are OK with other groups' prosperity as long as theirs is intact. No, they are not. One of the pillars of ALL nationalist, far right ideologies; devisive politics in the world is that the accumulation of wealth is 'changing hands' and going to the 'undeserved ones' and somebody, a some sort of minority, a different group is usurping the rights of being the first class from the white. Because if other groups have started to jump class, esp. beyond the usual celebrities like black athletes and musicians, that means white people are being actively 'prevented' and pushed back.

2. The Brain%u2019s Attention System Is More Strongly Engaged by Trump - According to a study that monitored brain activity while participants watched 40 minutes of political ads and debate clips from the presidential candidates, Donald Trump is unique in his ability to keep the brain engaged.

What does that even mean? This is even more fringe than my 'mass schizophrenia' take. This is NOT something special about Trump himself. Trump has nothing special in him. This is by far the most mythfiying bullshit I read about a thug.

This reception and reaction to Trump is the result of years of mass emotional abuse and injection of made up victimhoods at every side. So it is the other way around.

I feel like I've been saying the same thing for some time now. At some point, people, esp. young generations found out that they can get a voice and say whatever they like with videos taken out of contexts from real life, agitative, provocative memes; building their own contexts and reality turning into movements and make tons of money from this, become famous and get recognition and respect beyond their peers. It's like a highly addictive designer drug.

Yes it goes around in every groups, but unfortunately, the heteroesexual male is the most vulnerable target and the easiest victim of this by the nature of far right propaganda mechanisms. For example, for a young man to watch countless videos how disgustingly solipsist and evil women are by nature, how the system is bent on for their destruction from an early age is like binging on high quality heroin that won't kill them. For the men beyond a certain age, it is the sweet confirmation of why they have been unsuccesful in life, why their ex-wife is a horrible evil being, how unfairly treated they have been all thir life.

First you crush them; brand in their brains that they are nothing but garbage, that they have no value what's so ever, no future...nothing. And when they start to internalise it, you tell them who is responsible for it and what they should do to fight with it... and that moment you start to feed how big their potantial actually is. Narcissism starts here. And it has no end, then 15 to 25 year old kids hate women with a vengeance (?) as if they've had any bit of life experience about anything and think they are some sort of 'scientific' minded people because they were born with a penis. What's been going out there is that tragic and comical.

Once people are hooked into this, all they need is a bigger dose. And that's what happened. What started as 'how to pick up women' ended with real life battle of political ideologies and different realities. More and more and more...these groups kept getting extreme and extreme. Because they need more of the same drug to go on. And what was their first motto? Expressing their arguments out loud everwhere possible. It's the first rite of passge for all young men in certain circles. Going against women, black people, Jewish people, immigrants...every kind of minorities out loud to be accepted in that group. Nothing is wrong with expressing one's opinion in the way they like, right? Yeah but it matters and it has huge consequences. In this case, Brexit and Trump.

Because all that red pill groups have started with anti-semitisim and racism against nonwhite groups in places like old 4chan. It's exactly the good old Hitler argument. Jews are controlling all the accumulation of wealth and so everything idea which never really died in far right circles but strongly resurrected by the 9/11 conspiracies and has become mainstream by the gender fight component; the idea of the controlling of Hollywood with nonwhite and female and lghtb+ promotion against white het males.

So in this case, this little luxury called 'freedom of speech' of Western civilisation -with strong incentives like money and power- worked for everything against freedom and equality in mass scale. It's become a threat to it. Because these groups actually HAVE TAPPED INTO TRUMP. Trump was just there. He wasn't different when he ran for the presidency for the first time 20 years ago. He was exactly the same man. He was talking the same way for that time, defending the same ideals. It just didn't make any sense to anyone because this culture didn't exist then. People just laughed and mostly didn't even take him seriously. Actually he was dismissed so much by certain groups, even when this culture was established, nobody actually recognised the connection and guessed that he will win.

In the end it is all about 'profitting' on everything possible. It's not really different than selling shampoo in the 70s. The make up is different and it is more elaborated.

Everything down the list is tied to this created world vision. A mass of people celebrating a thug with low street talk, his fascist demeanor in every aspect. Racism and bigotry...no shit. How difficult to agitate prejudices and turn into full bolwn racism/bigotry with a highly addictive constant emoitonal abuse. Very easy. Takes a few weeks. I have seen it happening live. Seriously.

We all have natural prejudices to begin with. I'll give myself as an example. I'm conscious that I have general prejudice against heterosexual male and female. The first is an object of desire for me to begin with. So, it's not just that I see him as traditional perpetrator, this emprial figure, but I also don't trust myself because I don't believe I can be neutral about him without trying. The second one is also problematic again, because I'm a heterosexual female and I know what is going on there. No, I can't be objective to my gender/sexuality group, and you can't be either. Noone can. My queer tendencies nowhere near strong enough to feel at home with lesbians, I've found them too closed, yeah I get them, but doesn't change the outcome.

And almost all my adult life, trying to get the better of myself, working hard to catch myself out if you will, I've realised the only group I really take seriously is the homosexual males and female transgenders. (Probably why I'm so reactive to right wing gay men. Can't stand them. There is a kind of feeling of strong betrayal there.) Also liberal Jews. I have predilection for these groups. And that makes me conscious and actively check for my opinions. Yeah, I'm a regular crackpot, but if I looked for some group to fit in, build some fake ego and watch videos of a fucked up sub groups of these people 24/7, you'll bet some time later I will see other groups as enemies. Same with socialist groups. I know that what's gonna happen in my brain if I try to follow them. So I prevent it.

[By the way, this is not the first time the Western Civilisation is going through the same path. Gender and sexuality, how human behaves in soial life is always the best first step to push some ideology down people's throats because it is the only way that connects any argument to real life and agitate people so that they can relate instantly in an emotional level. Perfect for manipulation.

If memory serves correctly, a similar thing happened in 1905-1906 in middle Europe with German speaking student movements. their movemnets were completely genderless and without any sexual character and then the moment it received those characters, ideologies start to devide people in every aspect of the society. Freud. Machiavelli. No tstating the obvious. The same thing is happening. And human culture is fast becoming a 'tournament species' behind all this.]

[drunkenshoe]

4. “Some Men Just Want to Watch the World Burn.” - Some people are supporting Trump simply to be rebellious or to introduce chaos into the political system.

What does this mean? This part is rather weird coming from a PHD in psychology today. I get the urge to ask if they had this notion with certain pop culture elements. 'Breaking Bad' for example? The Joker movie is some sort of a 'mourning triad' for the white man but the tradition starts with Breaking Bad I guess. But then the far right white groups are nowhere near in any position like Walter or Arthur, are they? Joker is a comic book character. He is fictional mass murderer.

When it comes to Walter White, when men -and women- break bad, they don't make some super high quality drugs and become philosopher like scientist criminals. They buy automatic weapons and open fire to people in some public place. Yes they have manisfestos which changes nothing form unabomber to the piece of shit in the Las Vegas hotel balcony.

What takes for a person to want to see the world burn? People who get armed to commit mass murder, do it because they want to do it and they can. They make a decision and a plan for it. They're perfectly aware what they are doing.

Introducing chaos to politics? What does bringing plastic handcuffs and weaponry to a planned coup attempt, planning to kill elected officials have to do with chaos? It's opposite of chaos; it is organised. It's planned. They have been screaming they will do this for how long now? How many threats have been made just last year before the pandemic?

You know what, I'm starting to think that these people might actually never be defined for what they are or even lawfully sentenced for the crimes they have comitted. Not as an organised domestic terrorists attempting a coup on the United States government, but some sort of mysterious, poor 'idiosyncratic' nut jobs going crazy and having a 'mishap' because they are white and therefore without criminal liability, 'upset' on losing an election. After all, this has happened in the USA.

[Draconic Aiur]

It feels like were losing and may still end up in a civil war. These republicans are simply human garbage that needs to be taken out permanently.

[GSOgymrat]

Here is an interview with a woman who went down the QAnon rabbit hole. Her journey was started and perpetuated by social media. She acknowledges she tends to conform-- "I've always been someone that you just tell me what to do and I do it. I grew up being told we were Republicans so I've always been that straight red ticket." She also acknowledges she was depressed and obviously is very fearful about the state of the world.

https://youtu.be/QHOK_9hWU5U

[SGOS]

That was so sad.  I know it's a story of redemption, but I'm sad that people so easily buy into nonsense.

[Mike Cl]

That was so sad.  I know it's a story of redemption, but I'm sad that people so easily buy into nonsense.

That is true.  But that is who and what we are.  As a society in this nation, we have always fallen for the conspiracy ideas.  I don't think we will ever stop.  From the beginning, we have been the place where the christian wackos came who broke off from the christian mainline (who are wackos in their own right) who insisted they wanted to be free (to tell all others how to live and what to think).

[aitm]

It is not "just us" every culture in history, it seems, wants to believe that the ills of society are due to the new comers, the oddballs, the different.

[Hydra009]

Because of Twitter ban, Trump reportedly writing out insults and asking aides to tweet them

[drunkenshoe]

Yeah...Nope. That QANON mom video is bullshit. You don't get brainwashed to a degree that you don't know what happened in the country for the last 4-5 years, have some breakdown -physical reaction level- when your leader loses, who by the way admittedly the only person you would believe for anything going on, thinking you'll have to take your kid from school, go into hiding while you don't even have any financial security AND THEN SUDDENLY recover perfectly in days or a week (?), run to the world's biggest news network to tell your story, posing running around in beach with a family picture.

That woman doesn't look like a recovered cult member, but more like someone who lost his job because of the pandemic, and looking for ways out with 15 minutes of fame. Who is that man with her and her daughter? Brother, husband, boyfriend? Was he in it? Cult members do not go on living with others out of their cult, getting along peacefully. Maybe she just liked the QANON as an idea and had some belief in it?

Come on America, this is not the the time for this.

[SGOS]

You don't get brainwashed to a degree that you don't know what happened in the country for the last 4-5 years, have some breakdown -physical reaction level- when your leader loses, who by the way admittedly the only person you would believe for anything going on...

I wondered the same thing; Just how brainwashed was this woman? In fact there are degrees of behavior and belief (and brainwashing).  And there are other mechanisms like just going along with the crowd (or not going along with the crowd).  Humans react in illogical ways and believe illogical things for a variety of motivations.  Maybe she was just playing an attention getting role by believing conspiracy theories, and then suddenly saw more potential attention by having the great epiphany and coming back to reality.

Think Christian fundamentalists "sinning" up a storm, and then coming back to church to confess having dirty sex with strangers.  The congregation shudders at the vileness of it all, and applauds when the sinner is born again.  And then the next guy has to top the story before him with some sin even more hideous.  It's a role that people play to meet the expectations of others, and gain approval or get attention, and along the way to fulfill some personal needs.

I think in all these situations, there's a level of awareness about what they are doing, so switching back and forth is easy for some.  But this is only one explanation.  Humans are not rational by default.

[drunkenshoe]

I wondered the same thing; Just how brainwashed was this woman? In fact there are degrees of behavior and belief (and brainwashing).  And there are other mechanisms like just going along with the crowd (or not going along with the crowd).  Humans react in illogical ways and believe illogical things for a variety of motivations.  Maybe she was just playing an attention getting role by believing conspiracy theories, and then suddenly saw more potential attention by having the great epiphany and coming back to reality.

Think Christian fundamentalists "sinning" up a storm, and then coming back to church to confess having dirty sex with strangers.  The congregation shudders at the vileness of it all, and applauds when the sinner is born again.  And then the next guy has to top the story before him with some sin even more hideous.  It's a role that people play to meet the expectations of others, and gain approval or get attention, and along the way to fulfill some personal needs.

I think in all these situations, there's a level of awareness about what they are doing, so switching back and forth is easy for some.  But this is only one explanation. 

That is good. I haven't thought of that kind of dynamic with people; anotherbenefit. I have just thought of financial incentive considering the health crisis world is in. You are probably right about the religous connection too.

Cult members are a serious threat when they stop seeing other people as human beings I guess. That's when they are able to kill with no remorse for some 'good' in their heads. After all they are different than serial killers in that sense.

Humans are not rational by default.

Human species wouldn't have been able to survive, if they had been rational by default.

[Blackleaf]

[Gerard]