Yesterday I wrote about Trump’s self-defeating behavior.
Today I am going to write about his denial.
Any normal person in Trump’s position would have ranked today as a very, very, bad day.
Trump is in such deep denial that when asked if the obviously intimidating tweet — “Everywhere Marie Yovanovitch went turned bad. She started off in Somalia, how did that go? Then fast forward to Ukraine, where the new Ukrainian President spoke unfavorably about her in my second phone call with him. It is a U.S. President’s absolute right to appoint ambassadors.” -- he made might be seen as intimidating he said “no.”
We know it isn’t a river in Egypt, so what is psychological denial? The primary thing to understand is that it is not an entirely conscious phenomena. The best way to envision denial is to put it on a curve. The most extreme form of denial is delusion. Someone may actually believe the opposite of what is happening.
Next there is a total lack of awareness of the reality of the pending bad event. The fact remains totally out of consciousness that something bad is happening in one’s life. Then moving along the curve we have avoidance of thinking about it in various ways like thought blocking, distracting oneself, and making excuses. The more someone does the later the more dysfunctional they are, i.e. the more impaired their reality testing is.
The more unhealthy, the more extreme, the denial is the more likely a severe mental breakdown, even psychosis or major depression, will occur when there is no way the fact of the event can be denied short of lapsing into a delusional state.
The prospect of Trump being forced out of office would be an incredible blow to his self-image. It would be like dealing with being informed he was dying.
This is where looking at the Kübler-Ross model of the five stages of grief comes in. If we believe these stages would be accurate with Trump it is very troubling because of the process of moving from stage 1, denial, to stage 2, anger. (Research shows that not everyone goes through these stages, and they don’t always occur in this order.)
The following is considered normal. The stages, popularly known by the acronym DABDA, include:
- Denial – The first reaction is denial. In this stage Trump would think reports from usually trusted sources (Fox News, Mitch McConnell) was somehow mistaken, and he’d cling to a false, preferable reality.
- Anger – When Trump recognizes that denial cannot continue, he would become frustrated, especially at proximate individuals. Certain psychological responses of a person undergoing this phase would be: "Why me? It's not fair!"; "How can this happen to me?"; "Who is to blame?"; "Why would this happen?". This is the most dangerous phase (see below). If he and the country shrives this phase he’d move through stages 3-5/
- Bargaining – The third stage involves the hope that the he can avoid a cause of grief. Usually, the negotiation for a reprieve of some sort because he's reformed. He might seek compromise.
- Depression – "I'm so sad, why bother with anything?"; "I'm be removed from office soon, so what's the point?”
During the fourth stage, Trump would despair at the recognition of the the inevitability of his fate. In this state he may become silent, refuse visitors and spend much of the time mournful and sullen. He could become suicidal.
- Acceptance – This is the "it's going to be okay." phase. If he makes it this far Trump would rally his defenses and develop plans for his future. He’d think "I can't fight it; I may as well prepare for it."
In this last stage, Trump would embrace his inevitable future. Ideally he would achieve a calm, retrospective view of his perceived accomplishments and end up with a stable condition of emotions. With Trump there would be a lot of self-deception but he is adept at this. Adapted from Wikipedia
If Trump has to face the fact of losing his office because removal in a Senate trial looks inevitable because he has demonstrated time and time again his explosive personality and of course his malignant narcissism he might decide to take the country down with him.
The forms this could take range from bothersome, like pardoning Manafort and Stone and everyone else sent to prison by Mueller to chilling. Consider his tweet:
I am not saying he is going to start a nuclear war, however I can see him selling out our allies and giving Putin everything he wants. For example:
A cornered President Trump is likely to be very dangerous.