wakingsleepinggiantThe sleeping giant has been awoken! It’s been nine days since the inauguration of the Ol’ Pussy Grabber, and we’ve had protests every day, and we have our first Constitutional crisis! Yippee! Skippy! Along with the lowest approval ratings of any new president, the Ol’ Pussy Grabber has set all kinda records: none of them good.

While I am deeply ashamed and insulted and angered by the Ol’ Pussy Grabber’s Muslim ban, but I am heartened and proud of the protests that have sprung up around the country. However, there is a lot of raw emotion running on the streets and through the internet. There are some very positive emotions, but also some very negative ones. People on both sides of the political divide are angry about the Ol’ Pussy Grabber’s Muslim ban and are at lager heads. For example, A mosque in Victoria, Texas was burned to the ground and six were shot and killed at a mosque in Quebec City in Quebec, Canada.

The Contagion of Violence

What is the likely effect of all of this emotion that is ricocheting about the country? Like Meryl Streep said — that seems like so long ago, don’t it? — disrespect invites disrespect! And, anger begets anger. Thank you mirror neurons! So, use your anger and disrespect carefully. It will only make the person receiving your ire more likely to be ireful towards you.

swinefluIn fact, violence behaves like a contagion. The CDC monitors the population to detect clusters of a particular disease or a contagious disease — measles, anti-vaccers? — and interrupt the spread.  With violence, friends do what friends do as if infected with violence by their friends so that clusters of violence form. The question is do these guys become friends because they are prone to violence and are attracted to each other because of it, or does the violence of one convince the other to commit violence?

This is a fairly strong effect: 6,000 interviews done in the 1990’s of middle and high school students were recently analyzed. If an interviewee had a friend who had pulled a weapon on someone, they were 140% more likely to pull a weapon, too. If an interviewee had a friend who had been in a serious fight, the interviewee was 48% more likely to be in a serious fight, too! For boys, the likelihood of seriously hurting someone rose by 82% with every friend they had who had seriously hurt someone. The more violent friends you had, the more likely you were to be violent. And, the contagion spread as far as four degrees of separation. Studies of violence strongly support the notion that violence spreads like bacterial and viral infections spread.

Prejudiced Norm Theory

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Hate Begets Hate

These findings match nicely with prejudiced norm theory which suggests that those who are prone to a behavior, like racial discrimination, are more likely to act in a discriminatory way after being exposed to racially discriminatory behavior. Even innocuous behavior like a racist joke can have a ripple effect and negatively impact those around them. So don’t tell those jokes, okay?

So, right now, we have “Nazis” being punched in the face on the street and good peaceful progressives believing it is okay to commit violence on a person in the street. The likelihood of such behavior spawning further behavior so that not only are progressives are punching known Nazis in the face, but progressives will be punching racists in the face. It will very likely lead to counter-violence so those on the right will be doing the same. No matter how justified you feel no matter how great you righteous indignation, don’t punch Nazis and other political opponents. Don’t do it.

It is very likely that violence spreads like a contagion from friend to friend, but, also from casual exposure through jokes, memes, and internet video. People who are prone to violence on both sides of the political divide will be emboldened to commit violence. We are dangerously close to spinning out of control into complete chaos.

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Can Trump Pass the Marshmallow Test?

We are less than two weeks into the Ol’ Pussy Grabber’s presidency, and we have seen turmoil and chaos since the inception of the transition. We are likely to continue in this way for some time until someone can put some limits on the Ol’ Pussy Grabber. It will be very difficult. Earlier in the campaign, I diagnosed the Ol’ Pussy Grabber as an ineffective narcissist, a narcissistic personality disorder with weak executive functioning.

The Leaks

leaksHis aides have leaked the following details — another dubious speed record set — to the Washington Post , Politico, and the New York Times about the conduct of the Ol’ Pussy Grabber:

  • After the interfaith prayer service on Saturday 21 January, he “grew increasingly and visibly enraged” while watching news coverage of the attendance at his inauguration.
  • He, then, ordered his press secretary, Sean Spicer, to literally shout at and chastise the WH press corps and dispute the numbers.
  • He thinks that the coverage of him and his administration has failed to reflect the “magnitude of his achievements” in his first two weeks in office. His. First. Two. Weeks.
  • He has been “demoralized” because he perceives that the public’s perception of his presidency does not match his own. Again, it has been less than two weeks.
  • His aides do not think he is likely to climb a flight of stairs to consult Kellyanne Conway his favorite.
  • He “gets bored and likes to watch TV.”
  • He lacks discipline.
  • He has been described as conspiracy-minded, easily distracted, TV-obsessed, a bully paranoid, having feelings of inadequacy, and being prone to flashes of blind, irrational anger.

Malignant Narcissism

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The Narcissism of Donald J. Trump

Wow. Sounds like a swell guy. Very capable, don’t you think? Let’s now compare that to a popular arm chair diagnosis known as malignant narcissism, which was the diagnosis given by John Gartner, psychiatrist at the Johns Hopkins University Medical School and published in the US News & World Report.The symptoms are as follows:

  • Narcissistic
  • Entitled
  • No conscience or “Super-ego lacunae” (Holes in conscience)
  • Sadistic
  • Egocentric
  • Regressed
  • Grandiose
  • Paranoid
  • Destructive
  • Manipulative
  • Use of projection (attributing one’s own untoward actions or qualities to another)
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The Gaslighting Gang of Posts

Doesn’t this sound like what we’ve seen out of the Ol’ Pussy Grabber throughout the campaign, the transition, and now the first nine days of his presidency? I hate to say, I told you so, but, Jesus fuck-me Christ, I told you so. And, it isn’t like lots o’ people didn’t agree with me just look at the number of times that gaslighting gets used in conjunction with the Ol’ Pussy Grabber.

Shame

It is oft said that emotions like shame, guilt, and remorse are necessary to limit our worst impulses and allow social groups to function. What we’ve seen so far is a complete lack of any shame, guilt, remorse, contrition, penance, humiliation, or any similar emotion from the Ol’ Pussy Grabber, anyone in his administration, or his supporters. It is very very troubling that we have reached a point in our political discourse that the people who voted for him cannot fess up to the colossal mistake that they made when it is so so painfully obvious that this man is not capable of discharging the duties of the presidency that our egos and pride are now more important than the country and the safeguarding of the world. We are, indeed, collectively, the United Fucking States of Fucking Stupid.