Last night I was struck by Masha Gesson’s comments to Chris Hayes on his MSNBC show.
Masha Gessen, is a Russian and American journalist, author, translator, and activist who has been an outspoken critic of Vladimir Putin and President Donald Trump. Gessen, a lesbian, helped found the Pink Triangle Campaign and has written extensively on LGBT rights. Described as "Russia's leading LGBT rights activist," she has said that for many years she was "probably the only publicly out gay person out in the whole country.” Gessen writes primarily in English but also in her native Russian, and in addition to being the author of several nonfiction books, she has been a prolific contributor to at least a dozen major publications. She is also the Russian translator of the TV show The Americans. Wikipedia
In fact, when I heard her talk about how Trump’s words created a constant state of low level drift I wrote a brief story about it. (Correction, I ended up looking up what low level drive meant and got confused and thought I heard her say “low level frequency drift” which now carefully listening she didn’t say but I think she might have meant.) See what you think.
The entire interview is well worth watching:
Here are some choice quotes:
Gaslighting is probably one of the best terms for it and you no longer feel like you’re on solid ground.
…. and there’s another thing — and this is something we need to start waking up to — it creates this state that I think we’ve all been living in for the last week, this state of low level drift, and you can’t really function in that state — and you no longer feel you’re on solid ground.
Chris laughed at that saying “that’s such an accurate characterization.”
I looked up low level drift and realized she was talking not only about how listening to Trump made you feel, but also how is mind works.
If I understand this correctly, the low level drift those old enough to remember pre-digital (analog) radio, we occasionally heard low level frequency drift when there was a technical mishap at one station and their frequency shifted enough from the assigned one into the frequency of another station. Thus he is inflicting low level drift on us.
Trump’s mind seem to be in a constant fluctuation between the truth and lies. This is but one indication of the psychopathology that makes him but unfit to be president and dangerous. The later judgment finally is leading more mental health professionals to put the “duty to warn” (the Tarasoff rule) above the Goldwater Rule (forbidding distance diagnosis).
A few other psychotherapists besides myself (back in March) recognized this. But none got much publicity. That’s why it was a relief to read these stories:
Johns Hopkins’ Top Psychotherapist Releases Terrifying Diagnosis Of President Trump
and