We seem finally to have gotten a handle on the Republican technique of aggressive projection, as pioneered by “grotesque pathetic thug” Newt Gingrich, now full-blown in the ravings of Trump. I see journalists call it out on a regular basis. But it’s a weird & complicated phenomenon. Projection was first identified by Freud, after all, as a sign that something is amiss, psychologically, yet it seems to pay off when used as a tool in debate. An interview in Salon with Bandy X. Lee, the forensic psychiatrist who edited “The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump,” sheds some scary light. For example:
Q Trump tweeted, “The Dems are obstructing justice and will not get anything done. A big, fat, fishing expedition desperately in search of a crime, when in fact the real crime is what the Dems are doing, and have done!” He calls it “PRESIDENTIAL HARASSMENT.” What do you make of his words?
A In mental disease, a useful clue is the level to which the person denies any possibility that something could be wrong with oneself. If one denies it vehemently, then that is already a clue. After a certain point, you start using the formula of taking the opposite of what the person is saying to be true, and taking all assertions to be projection—and by now I have more high-quality data on Mr. Trump than any patient I have ever treated. So what he’s really saying is “I will obstruct justice, since it looks like they are getting a lot done. I’m on a big, fat fishing expedition in search of a way out of this, since I know the real crime is what I am doing, and have done.”
There’s lots more there, eg a forecast of what he’s likely to do next based on his accusations against “the dems,” & an interesting discussion of how the fact that something “works” as a short-term strategy does not negate its essential pathology; a successfully functioning cancer cell, for instance, is not a sign of health.
Well worth a read.