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ABSTRACT
A delusional psychotic process: It would be much easier for the public to identify with and understand Trump if he suddenly declared that Martian spaceships are planning a landing or that the people on the TV are talking to him – he would just be seen as obviously psychotic. However, the underpinning of his character is an invisible delusional psychotic process.
Individuals seek to melt into the body of a powerful nation--as symbolized by a grandiose leader: Kohut: "At certain historical moments shame propensity and readiness for rage are ubiquitous. Individuals seek to melt into the body of a powerful nation (as symbolized by the grandiose leader) to cure their shame and provide them with a feeling of enormous strength, to which they react with relief and triumph.
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“So the final lesson of 1918 (The Great Influenza Pandemic): Those in authority must retain the public’s trust. The way to do that is to distort nothing, to put the best face on nothing, to try to manipulate no one. Lincoln said that first, and best.” (The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History, John M. Barry, Penguin Books, p. 465)
In this essay we revisit our earlier thoughts on Donald Trump and his relationship with his followers through the lens of the concept of “Gaslighting.” By gaslighting we mean the relational experience by which one person gains control over another, through the induction and manipulation of false beliefs, which take on a delusional character, a world of alternative facts.
As a result of this psychological abuse, the victim begins to doubt his or her sanity, eventually submitting fully to the lies of the perpetrator. We will show how Donald Trump has made use of this powerful psychological tool to achieve his political goals. In particular we extend our discussion to the President’s use of gaslighting in the Covid-19 Pandemic.
In our exploration of Trump’s use of gaslighting, we are focusing our attention on a core group of Trump supporters, which we will refer to as his “base”. These people are part of the core of Trump’s followers over whom he secures control through gaslighting, as he repeatedly instructs them to disregard the evidence of their own senses in lieu of blatant denials and repeated lies (“What you are reading and seeing, is not what’s happening.”)
In addition to the fanatical base, there is a larger group of potential Trump supporters (not as yet identified as part of his base) who, after a long and protracted presidential campaign, may lose their initial tie to their own reality, and succumb to Trump’s. They may not do so with the same fervor of the base supporters; but it is the relentless assault on truth and sustained distortion of reality that will undermine their sanity just enough to draw them in. In addition to these, there are other groups of Trump supporters who do not question their reality testing or sanity and are not as vulnerable to gaslighting.
For a variety of reasons these people do not care what he says or the lies he tells (“All politicians lie” They will explain by way of an excuse for his mendacity.). We are not talking about them. Nor are we directing our attention to those who are single issue champions of Trump, such as religious groups who advocate for abortion, Israel, or the stock market. However, come the election, it is the combination of these various groups of supporters that Trump will exploit in his attempt to secure his second term, and to a degree, all may be susceptible to gaslighting.
But it is the fanatical base, the target of Trump’s gaslighting and mental coercion, on which he most depends – this is the group we will be focusing on in this essay. We will demonstrate that there is an intersubjective dialogue between Trump and this base that both fuels Trump’s grandiosity and lifts the vulnerable and disenfranchised core of his supporters. It is the gaslighting at the heart of this relationship, which we believe explains the strange distortions of reality which Trump indulges in, the extreme nature of his politics, and ultimately explains his perversion of presidential leadership.
Let us start with a brief overview of the dynamics of the narcissistic/intersubjective bond between Trump and these followers, which we have referred to as “the grandiose bond,” the relational foundation of gaslighting. At the heart of this relationship is of course Donald Trump, or more specifically Trump’s belief that he is truly special, possessing exceptional knowledge, foresight, and entitlement to success and power. On January 6, 2018, he stated, “Like, I’m really smart, a very stable genius.” Inherent in this message is palpable, incontrovertible narcissism. What is much less apparent however, is the invisible delusional underpinnings of such a belief system.
It would be much easier for the public to identify with and understand Trump if he suddenly declared that Martian spaceships are planning a landing or that the people on the TV are talking to him – he would just be seen as obviously psychotic. However, the underpinning of his character is an invisible delusional psychotic process that we have defined as cryptopsychotic. This is not a DSM 5 or ICD-10 diagnostic code but a descriptive label that explains a thinking process and communicative style. Language and communication is transactional for Trump.
That is, even though he knows that what he is saying is a lie or distortion, he puts aside the truth for the immediate transactional demands. In other words, he uses words to solve problems, and if a “lie” is needed, so be it. For this type of narcissism, the creation and promotion of a system of false beliefs and assertions is a crucial part of protecting self-esteem and self-organization more generally.
Heinz Kohut differentiated the “cryptopsychotic character” from a narcissistic personality disorder, primarily due to the centrality of delusional thinking in the former and an inability to truly empathize with another.
Trump seeks a mirror for his delusional beliefs in the enthrallment of his base, and craves the experience of confirmation of his grandiosity in their adoration and mutual absorption of delusional claims. His bond with his followers is beyond the scope of a simple and straightforward narcissistic personality disorder, it includes an extraordinary resonance between Trump and his base by addressing their unremitting vulnerability to shame. The resulting bond is powerful and sets the conditions for gaslighting.
Kohut wrote about the dynamics of such a bond:
At certain historical moments there exists a widespread painful awareness of narcissistic imbalance in large sections of the population. Shame propensity and readiness for rage are ubiquitous. Individuals seek to melt into the body of a powerful nation (as symbolized by the grandiose leader) to cure their shame and provide them with a feeling of enormous strength, to which they react with relief and triumph.
Old fantasies of omnipotence seem suddenly to have become reality; all are proclaiming the invincible strength of the nation, and he who dares to question the omnipotence of the group, and the omniscience of its leader, is an outcast, an enemy, a traitor. (Kohut, 1985, p. 57)
In this way, these people seek a collective state of merger which wipes away shame and is replaced with a sense of power and triumphant vindication. However, on the other hand, Trump’s experience of the bond with his followers actually has nothing collective about it. His cheering, adoring crowds are anonymous to him. There is no empathy in this connection. The bond of grandiosity interferes with Trump’s ability to see them as individuals, “as independent centers of initiative.”
In other words, Trump denies the agency of his followers, and as he orchestrates and manipulates at his rallies, he revels at his power to control and arouse adulation. At this time, he is merged with the mass of his followers in a fantasy which serves to assuage vulnerability and feed his archaic grandiose self. “He melts them into his personality so to speak and brings them and their actions under his control as if they were his limbs, his thoughts and his actions” (Kohut, 1985, pp. 54).
His grandiosity dominates his psychology and he may give his followers a voice only through his arrogance. Though his followers believe they have found someone who hears and understands them, this is a false expectation and a false sense of empathy because the only thing Trump cares about is his need to win and need for revenge. Again, though momentary shame may be alleviated in some followers, this is a temporary respite, because the conditions of their lives have not changed.
His rallies are an echo chamber in which the tremendous personality of the entertainer, now dictator, is mirrored back at him confirming his greatness. For Trump and his followers there is no greater good at stake here. The intersubjective is composed of Trump’s hyper-grandiosity which temporarily alleviates the crowds gnawing sense of shame and Trump’s shame propensity, which he finds intolerable and which must be eradicated immediately. The frenetic crowd is his antidote. The experience of the echo chambers’ grandiosity is its own end.
But does this grandiose bond have any real benefits for its participants? Does Trump’s follower’s identification with him produce collective resilience? No, It produces a response like a mob, expressing only fear, rage and hostility; there is no building up of any shared values or vision which might help to lift them out of their frustration and rage.
Their shame must continually be assuaged, and their rage fed with further grievance and targets. We also believe that there is a group within his supporters whose tie to him is one of archaic twinship characterized by cryptopsychotic fantasies of hyper-grandiosity. By means of this twinship bond, Trump’s followers fantasize that they will be transformed from the aggrieved and disenfranchised into triumphant winners.
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