Soul Murder and Being Literally Scared Out of Your Mind

 

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From NextDraft, published after the Capitol Insurrection of January 6:

Even now, determined to hold the spotlight, Trump immediately released a statement explaining that while this "represents the end of the greatest first term in presidential history" and "Even though I totally disagree with the outcome of the election, and the facts bear me out, nevertheless there will be an orderly transition on January 20th.'" There won't be. He's not capable of it. We'll get to the story of America's devastating day and what could follow below, but first let's focus on an area far too often ignored when it comes to Trump. Psychology. Any decent psychoanalyst knows Trump is a narcissistic sociopath. He's following the exact pattern of someone with his illness. Burn it all down to avoid psychic death, which he fears more than physical death. Yesterday's behavior was predictable. So is today's and tomorrow's. He must go, now. First, because of the crime against America he committed on January 6. And second, because his symptoms present a clear danger. With some help from my friend Dr. Michael Levin, here's a way to think about what's happening psychoanalytically. Trump's entire life has been devoted to earning the regard of a monstrously tyrannical, sadistic, sociopathic father for whom the world was divided into predators and prey, 'killers' and suckers, winners and losers. We should imagine that, from his childhood perspective, sons that ‘win' or ‘kill' are accepted and valued; those that lose deserve what one well known psychoanalyst called "soul murder". He's now the most famous loser in the world. He is facing the fact that he's failed at the only task that has ever mattered to him, and he's about to be murdered, psychically, by his internal father (just like his older brother Freddy was, in his probable interpretation). Trump is literally scared out of his mind; that is, he is now delirious or psychotic, as has been leaked to the media by several insiders. He will do anything to restore his feeling of victory and save his own psychic life, internally. And he still has access to the world's largest megaphone, a cult of hypnotized followers, and the nuclear codes as external tools to pursue his internal objective. And he is being enabled. This is a truly dangerous situation. If he's not controlled, Wednesday could look like child's play—which it was in a deep way. We're at the whim of an absolutely terrified and enraged psychic child. I use that term 'child' structurally, not as an insult. The threat is severe. Don't mistake this for some show where Trump is callously pulling the levers of power for personal gain. That may have been part of the story in previous years, but he fully believes all this shit now. Yesterday, Trump banned Pence chief of staff Marc Short from the White House because he blames Short for convincing Pence not to install him as an unelected, authoritarian dictator. None of this would surprise a shrink. 

Here's an Atlantic article about Trump's narcissm.