Thread by @OurShallowState on Thread Reader App (2024)

THREAD
(1/6) Excuse me while I climb onto a soapbox and scream this FOR THE TEN THOUSANDTH TIME! The mainstream media NEEDS to interview and enlist opinions (if not diagnoses) of mental health professionals. NOW! Is anything more relevant? (A rhetorical question; there isn't.)

(2/6) One key reason Trump is so dangerous, so untrustworthy, is his inability to see past himself. He is pure id. And this is PURE PATHOLOGY! Every global autocrat knows they can woo him with praise. Every wealthy leader knows they can entice him with money. (Right, Jared?)

(3/6) Trump is a useful idiot. He is an easy mark. He runs on an extremely disordered, but extremely simplistic program: Give me adulation and legitimize me. Give me money and insulate me. Make me more powerful and further above the law. In other words: FEED MY GRANDIOSITY.

(1/4) Many psychologists increasingly use Addiction Theory to explain the cult of Trump. The premise: Trump supporters engage compulsively, pursue rewarding stimuli, ignore adverse consequence. Like addicts. Explains why they adopt arguments that work against their own interests.

(2/4) One example of Trump supporters adopting an argument or action that works against their interests was not getting vaccinated. Another is sending him $. The former is defiant. The latter is compulsive. MAGA are addicted. The reward is "owning the libs." The drug is dopamine.

(3/4) Dopamine is an excitatory neurotransmitter, aka a "feel good" hormone - released when we eat a great meal, have sex, or indulge in other pleasures. There are studies where rodents choose dopamine over survival. Release of dopamine explains their appetitive fixations.

(1/3) A good day to speak about MALIGNANT NORMALITY. Psychologist Robert Lifton coined the phrase: a degenerative societal phenomenon where mass numbers of people view reality thru a skewed lens of a "leader", adopting his traits. When Trumpers act like Trump, THAT'S WHAT IT IS.

(2/3) "Cult" is a simpler word, easier to process. But "malignant normality" is more accurate. Trump is a narcissist AND sociopath. His supporters, by and large, are not. But they ARE imitative. They tell themselves it's about policies but it's really about dopamine addiction.

(3/3) Trump also has enablers - they're not cult members - they're opportunists. Grifters. Seeking fame/fortune from the malignantly normal base. When they show no shame, it's because Trump shows no shame. They're speaking to him, AND to those dopamine addicts imitative of him.

THREAD
(1/7) Malignant narcissists live in fear. They are insecure; crave respect and legitimacy. Trump can't command that. Obama could (which explains Trump's fixation on Obama, and all the Freudian slips.) So, he compensates for insecurity with bluster, bravado, and blame.

(2/7) To a malignant narcissist, humiliation means something different than what it means to you and me. It means exposure. Revelation of secret and lies. Destruction of false constructs. An attack on grandiosity. Eventually, it means a toppling of their House of Cards.

(3/7) I'm not saying Trump doesn't fear conviction and/or prison, but he feels there are many stages, appeals, and he can delay that indefinitely to the election. He is transactional -- he's more prone to fear what's here and now. This is the civil cases and the GOP nomination.

No to start your day off with negative truth, but I think you know this. As Trump gets the nomination, and he's razor close, the GOP effectively becomes - instantly - a party of narcissistic sociopathy. To be clear, when they enable him, they enable his pathology.
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Trump's pathology is same as 2016, but his circ*mstance is far more desperate and dire. This brings his malignancy to the forefront. We've often said that there's nothing Trump wouldn't do to "win", and that will be tested now.
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McConnell's seeming acquiescence not to push the border bill is a start. Jamie Dimon's recent interview shows that many corporate titans will sit the conflict out, at least for now. And that leaves the mainstream media, the courts, and us.
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THREAD
Today's word: NORMALIZATION
Shallow State's definition: Normalization is amplifying or coping with an aberrant person or false reality, without qualifying its aberrance or falsity. Those who normalize, supply oxygen. This aids the aberrance and whitewashes its misdeeds.

I'll use it in a sentence: When the Trump era finally comes to an end, people will reflect back to gaslighting, a culture of grievance, enablers, GOP complicity, treachery, and gross ineptitude, but the TRUE disaster will have been the broad and public normalization OF A MADMAN.

Our mainstream media not only normalizes Trump, they've actually made it a priority! When he stands there sweating and sniffling with giant pupils, no conjecture that he's medicated. When he gaffes, slurs, and forgets where he is, not a syllable about him losing it - until now.