Hal Brown, MSW
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You can see a shift already occurring if you follow such stories. More is being written about the psychology of Trump’s more ardent followers, about his cult if you will, than about Trump’s dangerous psychopathology. With Trump out of office he can’t trigger an international crisis. He can't start a war with another nation. He already set off a coup attempt but cockeyed optimists may be thankful he didn’t order a nuclear strike against Iran. He can however, foment an ongoing war within our nation. This remains his real danger in the near future. In the more distant future, he could end up winning a second term in 2024.
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Trump’s last words before leaving Washington today are ominous. He said “have a good life, see you soon”.
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At this point I don't see much sense for many of those who have published about Trump's psychopathology to persist in doing so unless they can begin to focus on the danger he can or likely will pose while out of office.
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The Duty to Warn group, or the another group of therapists who sees their duty in a similar way (the first if they associate themselves with the group John Gartner started as I do, or in a descriptive way as Bandy Lee has done) tried their damnedest to deal with Trump in a way that it would do some good. In retrospect I think these groups informed a lot of open minded people but never achieved their goal of removing Trump from office before the end of their term. John Gartner’s group wanted him removed under the 25th Amendment and Bandy Lee’s group wanted him to be forced to have a psychiatric assessment: to-may-to or to-mah-to.
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It is difficult to say how much they influenced his supporters both inside and outside of government. I want to believe that there was some significant effect helping such people understand that they were backing the decisions of a psychiatrically impaired president.
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The power he has now is if he manages to stay on as a cult leader. We don't need to understand and inform the public about his psychopathology to stop this. If he is able to do this we know that as a malignant narcissist it is in his nature to try to do it. The warning that must be sounded is about the danger of Trump's cult.
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I don't think it makes sense for mental health professionals who made names for themselves with their focus on writing about Trump as an individual to use their celebrity to write about subjects where they can't legitimately claim they are top experts. Sure, most clinicians can write about group psychology and subjects like shared psychosis, but they aren't usually the most qualified to do so.
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I think it is time for those without credentials that make them the very most qualified to write about how to deprogram members of the Trump cult to weigh in and for the others whose expertise is in individual psychopathology to retire. They deserve our appreciation for a making noble effort to effect change and they definitely made amateur experts in abnormal psychology of numerous people illuminating the why's and wherefores of Trump’s previously unfathomable behavior.
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There are people who have devoted their careers to the study of destructive mass movements and we need to hear more from them.
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For example, people like Sophia A. McClennen (read recent article). She is Professor of International Affairs and Comparative Literature at the Pennsylvania State University. She writes on the intersections between culture, politics, and society. Her latest book, co-authored with Remy M. Maisel, is on satire and society.
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There are many such experts including Jason Stanley, author of How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them. See comment for interview with him.
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I want to read what historians who are experts on fascism, government, and autocratic regimes have to say. In social psychology as opposed to clinical psychology I want to hear from more social psychologists, sociologists, political scientists, and cult experts.
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Here’s a small sample articles to illustrate what I mean:
Jason Stanley, author of How Fascism Works: see “The Politics of Us and Them. Interview with him interview on NPR”.
Sylvia Taschka, Senior Lecturer of History, Wayne State University, writes “How can America heal from the Trump era? Lessons from Germany’s transformation into a prosperous democracy after Nazi rule”.
Thomas Weber is Professor of History and International Affairs at the University of Aberdeen as well as the Director of the Centre for Global Security and Governance. He wrote: “The Resurgence of ‘Strongmen’ Like Trump Threatens Our Liberal World Order”.
Robert O. Paxton is a professor emeritus of social sciences at Columbia University and the author of many books, including the widely translated The Anatomy of Fascism (2004) and highly influential Vichy France (1972, 2001). I've Hesitated to Call Donald Trump a Fascist. Until Now.
Mabel BerezinMabel Berezin is a sociology professor at Cornell University and the author of Making the Fascist Self: The Political Culture of Interwar Italy and Illiberal Politics in Neoliberal Times: Culture, Society and Populism in the New Europe. Political Ineptitude Tempered Trump’s Fascist Behavior
Louie Dean Valencia-García is Assistant Professor of Digital History at Texas State University, a Senior Fellow at Centre for the Analysis of the Radical Right and co-chair of the Critical European Studies Research Network for the Council for European Studies at Columbia University. He has taught at Harvard University and is the author of Antiauthoritarian Youth Culture in Francoist Spain: Clashing with Fascism. This is American Fascisim.
Vanessa Williamson, Senior Fellow - Governance Studies Senior Fellow - Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center: Confronting the enduring appeal of fascism.
Mikael Nilsson is an historian based in Stockholm, Sweden, specializing in Hitler and National Socialism. His latest book is "Hitler Redux: The Incredible History of Hitler’s So-Called Table Talks: ‘But Trump Isn't Hitler': Unraveling the Reluctance to Define Trumpism as Fascism, and Why It Matters.
Richard J Evans is regius professor emeritus of history at Cambridge University, and the author of The Third Reich in History and Memory. Why Trump Isn’t A Fascist.
An expert in cults who while a mental health counselor isn’t trained in a discipline related to cults or fascism is Steve Hassan. He was once a cult member himself and has since made himself into an expert. See for example: Cult expert Steven Hassan: Trump's "mind control cult" now faces an existential crisis.
Here’s an article that includes interviews with Hassan and two other cult experts, Ben Zeller, a professor at Lake Forest University who focuses on new religions and Daniel Shaw, a New York-based psychoanalyst who has helped counsel people who have left cult religions: Cult Experts Warn That Trumpism Is Starting to Look Awfully Familiar.
The list can go on but I'd be remiss in not mentioning Martha Gesson who is from Russia and author of Surviving Autocracy, who has been a frequent guest on MSNBC. While not a historian, as a writer and journalist she has made a career of study autocratic regimes. 'I never thought I'd say it, but Trump is worse than Putin'.
There are many more names of people who have written articles or been interviewed. This is just a sample.
I feel that my own work is done. I did my small bit writing about Trump’s psychopathology most on Daily Kos, but for a time on Capitol Hill Blue. I am frankly tired of trying to find some new wrinkle to write about. I can’t think of anything to write about that I haven’t addressed before.
I am an inveterate writer so I will find other things to write about, and I don’t swear to eschew ever writing about Trump’s psychopathology. Depending on what he does I may be sorely tempted to do so.
If you glance at a sample of my 1335 Kos stories you’ll see that they cover a wide range of subjects besides psychology.
To paraphrase Trump, you haven’t heard the last from me, or as isn the phrase Arnold Schwarzenegger’s.Terminator made famous, I’ll be back.
Afterword:
Trump was distracted by shiny objects during the last day of his presidency as I hoped he would. He did some damage but not nearly as much as he could have.