Here’s another essay based on the understanding of psychology from my training, from being a psychotherapist for over 40 years, and ongoing reading in the field.
--------
It occurred to me that if the Democrats win the House, whether or not it’s Nancy Pelosi, whoever is the Speaker of the House would be third in line for presidential succession.
.
I have no strong opinions about whether she should stay on in this incredibly powerful role aside from the glorious gut punch it would be to Trump if she became Speaker. He would hate, hate, hate it and not merely because of her ability to thwart his political agenda. He would abhor the fact that she would be on the news all of the time, far more often than the current Speaker, Paul Ryan has been. We know how important it is to Trump that he dominate the news cycle.
.
Here’s a fanciful piece of hypothetical psychology based on what people dream about.
.
Fox News reported that migrants would bring these diseases into the United States if they were allowed entry to the country. Trump is a master of fear mongering and also prone to believing outlandish conspiracy theories. At his rallies Trump is accusing Mexicans of being responsible for “tremendous infectious disease … pouring across the border”. Of course he consciously does not believe that migrants are really going to start epidemics of dangerous infectious diseases in the United States. There is no doubt that even though Trump knows that migrants aren’t really going to cause a spike in diseases just as he knows they will not cause a rise in the rate of serious crime, he does have this in his mind because he says the words and the crowds cheer, thus reinforcing the idea.
.
What is in his unconscious is another matter. It is important to note that the unconscious has it’s own rules and they are not logical. What is in any person’s conscious mind filters down into their unconscious even if they logically know something is not true. My earliest nightmare came after I saw the original “King Solomon’s Mines” and woke in terror after dreaming elephants were stampeding into my second floor bedroom.
.
Dreams originate in the unconscious mind. They often fall into sometimes overlapping categories. The simplest dreams are about what we are anticipating, planning, or about something we did during the day. We also dream about what we wish for, what we worry about, or what we fear. The later dreams can sometimes become nightmares so frightening people sometime wake their bed partners with their screams.
.
I can imagine this unconscious or barely conscious fear of being seriously sick leaking through into a nightmare where both he and Mike Pence are side-by-side in on life support intensive care watching Nancy Pelosi on Fox News as she says ever so sincerely that she is praying for their speedy recovery.
.
Everyone in the Trump administration would also be praying. After all they would know that if the offices of president and vice president were vacant, Nancy Pelosi or any Democrat who is Speaker of the House and became president could immediately prevail on all of the Obama White House officials to temporarily return to assume their old jobs. John Kerry would be Secretary of State, and we’d have Attorney General Loretta Lynch, HUD Secretary Julián Castro, Secretary of Energy Ernest Monez, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, Secretary of Labor Tom Perez, UN Ambassador Samantha Power, and others who are less well known.
.
Of course we will have to endure Trump, Pence, and the malevolent clown show of the Trump cabinet for another two years.