Yesterday, one of Trump’s top congressional allies, Marjorie Traitor Greene, was doing what she’s best known for— complaining on Twitter and advocating for a 'national divorce." Her target: Curb Your Enthusiasm, whining that this week’s episode “was a glaring reminder of why most Georgian’s resent Republicans in our state for inviting the nasty commies from California, the Hollywood elites, into our state by dishing out Hollywood tax credits.”
This week’s episode lied and painted GA conservatives and Trump supporters as racists and red necks and made fun of our good new law that stops the Stacey Abrams vote pandering machine and prevents voter fraud.
We in Georgia are fed up with disgusting Hollywood and their disgusting values and elite judgement in our state that is trying to turn GA blue!
And we expect our Republican controlled state leaders to protect GA from the radical left not continually legislate a way in for them which is slowly handing GA over to the Democrats.
This is along the same lines of handing billions of Georgian’s hard earned tax dollars to the failing electric vehicle company Rivian, of which George Soros has been a major shareholder, and trying to turn our beloved Georgia into the battery belt instead of the Bible Belt.
Following the Democrat’s climate deranged electric vehicle and Green New Deal disaster agenda is the worst move for my home state of Georgia.
The electric vehicle industry is FAILING. Ask any car dealer, they will tell you they can’t sell electric vehicles and move them off their lots. And no it’s not because there aren’t enough battery charging stations, and tax payers shouldn’t be forced to pay for and build them.
People should have the free choice to buy whatever car or truck they want and not be forced or mandated to buy EV’s AND should not be forced to pay to switch over to a failing industry.
It’s madness and the agenda of the left!
Take it from me, as I fight against Democrats in Washington and their radical, evil, and America last policies I can tell you first hand that we in Georgia need to step and do more to PROTECT GEORGIA!!
I guess this is what Traitor Greene found so offensive. I wonder why.
It’s funny that just as Traitor Greene was bitching about being portrayed as a racist, the NY Times used her photo in a new article Annie Karni, On Capitol Hill, Republicans Use Bigoted Attacks Against Political Foes. And Karni began the narrative with… Traitor Greene recounting a month old story about “her proposal to censure the only Somali-born member of Congress, she said she was seeking punishment for ‘Representative Ilhan Omar of Somalia— I mean Minnesota.’”
Traitor Greene’s racism, going all the way back to high school is well-documented. But virtually all the MAGAt Republicans are racists; it’s part of MAGAism. “Earlier that same week,” wrote Karni, “Representative Troy Nehls, Republican of Texas, called the Black husband of another Democratic woman of color, Representative Cori Bush of Missouri, a ‘thug.’ He then said Bush, who is also Black, had received so many death threats because she was ‘so loud all the time.’ At a hearing across the Capitol, Senator Tom Cotton, Republican of Arkansas, grilled the chief executive of TikTok, Shou Chew, about his nation of origin. Cotton repeatedly demanded to know whether Chew, who is from Singapore, was Chinese, held a Chinese passport or was a member of the Chinese Communist Party. ‘No, senator— again, I’m Singaporean,’ Chew responded with agitation after saying several times that he was not Chinese. Around the same time, House Republicans released their report on impeachment charges against Alejandro Mayorkas, the Cuban-born homeland security secretary who is the first Latino to lead his department. Using unusually loaded language for a committee report, the panel described its action as ‘deporting Secretary Mayorkas from his position.’In private, the language was uglier. During a closed-door meeting of House Republicans, Representative Mark Green, Republican of Tennessee and the panel’s chairman, referred to Mayorkas as a ‘reptile’ because of his refusal to resign from his post, according to Politico. A White House official condemned the statement, noting that Mayorkas is Jewish and that the comment echoed an antisemitic trope.”
The racist discourse by Republican members of Congress, both in casual comments and in official statements, has become so commonplace that it now often slips by without any real condemnation from the GOP. Democrats frequently call for apologies but no longer expect any response, and those futile denunciations quickly disappear into a morass of polarized content on social media.
The pattern is playing out as the Republican Party once again coalesces behind Trump, who routinely made bigoted statements during his first campaign for the White House and his presidency. His approach has encouraged some Republicans to freely use rhetoric that denigrates people based on ethnicity, religion or nationality.
…The Republican Party, which for decades has relied primarily on white voters, has long exploited fear and prejudice to energize its base, whether it was Barry Goldwater vocally opposing the Civil Rights Act of 1964 or George H.W. Bush’s use of the Black convict Willie Horton in a 1988 presidential ad.
Trump supercharged that strategy, entering the national political conversation by pushing the racist lie that President Barack Obama, the nation’s first Black president, was not born in the United States.
As president, Trump routinely made racist remarks that transcended the dog whistle, calling African nations “shithole countries,” saying there were “very fine people on both sides” of a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va., and telling the four Democratic congresswomen of color known as “the Squad” to “go back” to where they came from. (Of the four, only Omar was born outside the United States.)
Trump recently referred to Nikki Haley, a rival for the Republican nomination who is the daughter of Indian immigrants, as “Nimrada,” misspelling her first name, Nimarata. He also amplified social media posts falsely claiming that she was not born in the United States.
… The race-baiting comments resonate with Trump’s political coalition, which is 85 percent white in a country that is 59 percent white and becoming less so every day. Republicans in Congress have also sought to capitalize on the grievances of their base.
[Traitor] Greene has been fund-raising off her proposed censure of Omar, which was written relying on a mistranslation of her remarks in Somali that spread virally on right-wing social media, and she has fed the loop by amplifying the hate and misinformation online.
“Ilhan Omar embodies the biggest threat America faces: Migrant hordes invading our country with no real desire to assimilate or embrace what it means to be an American,” Ms. Greene wrote in a fund-raising appeal to small donors. That language embraces the core tenets of a conspiracy theory known as replacement theory, which explains demographic changes as a plot by Western elites, including Jews, to replace and disempower white people.
Stuart Stevens, a former Republican strategist who has described the GOP as “a white grievance party,” pinned the recent spate of racist language directly on Trump.
“You don’t have to argue that Trump made people more racist, but I don’t think you can argue against the fact that he did give people permission to express their racist views,” Stevens said in an interview.
“You have someone who is running for the Republican nomination for president, who is mocking the ethnic heritage of his opponent,” he said, referring to Trump’s misuse of Haley’s first name. “There is no element of the Republican Party that punishes this.”
Condemnations by Democrats appear to have only emboldened Republicans.
In her censure resolution, [Traitor] Greene accused Omar of making “treasonous statements” and acting as a foreign agent of the Somalian government. She was reacting to a video of Omar speaking in Somali, which circulated on right-wing social media accounts that misquoted her as saying she was “Somalian first” and would dictate U.S. policy toward Somalia.
That translation has since been debunked by multiple independent news outlets. In fact, Omar’s comments were in line with the administration’s official position on Somalia.
“As long as I’m in Congress, no one will take Somalia’s sea,” she said. “And the United States will not support other people to rob us.”
But that did nothing to stop [Traitor] Greene from continuing to forge ahead with her measure, which quotes the mistranslation. While some Republicans said they were unlikely to support it, [Traitor] Greene insisted that she was “not rescinding it, not backing off.”
Her actions prompted a denunciation from Representative Jim McGovern, Democrat of Massachusetts, which set off a social media feud. After [Traitor] Greene mocked McGovern’s bathroom habits, he responded, “Aren’t you late for a klan meeting?”
Democrats, meanwhile, said the “reptile” comment about Mayorkas was proof that the impeachment process itself was motivated by racism.
“Chair Green’s comments are plain bigotry,” said Representative Delia Ramirez, Democrat of Illinois. “This whole impeachment process has been a bigoted, prejudiced spectacle.”
Republicans have not provided any proof of high crimes and misdemeanors as they try to impeach a cabinet secretary for the first time since 1876. Instead, they have accused Mayorkas of deliberately encouraging an “invasion” of immigrants and plan to hold a second vote on his impeachment on Tuesday, after their first attempt failed.
The AAPI Victory Fund, a political action committee supporting Asian American candidates, condemned Cotton’s questioning of Chew as “disgraceful, blatantly racist and deeply dangerous.” But the senator defended it in an interview with Fox News.
“It’s entirely reasonable to pursue a line of questioning about whether he himself, like his company, is subject to the influence of the Chinese Communist Party,” Cotton said.
Representative Hakeem Jeffries, Democrat of New York and the minority leader, said Nehls’s “thug” comment was “shameful” and “clearly peddled in racially inflammatory language.” He demanded an apology.
None came.
A couple of years ago, right after the insurrection, Tanya Lewis wrote about the shared psychosis of Trump and his MAGAts. She noted that “the rioters’ actions— and Trump’s own role in, and response to, them— come as little surprise to many, particularly those who have been studying the president’s mental fitness and the psychology of his most ardent followers since he took office. One such person is Bandy X. Lee, a forensic psychiatrist and president of the World Mental Health Coalition. Lee led a group of psychiatrists, psychologists and other specialists who questioned Trump’s mental fitness for office in a book that she edited called The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 27 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President. In doing so, Lee and her colleagues strongly rejected the American Psychiatric Association’s modification of a 1970s-era guideline, known as the Goldwater rule, that discouraged psychiatrists from giving a professional opinion about public figures who they have not examined in person. ‘Whenever the Goldwater rule is mentioned, we should refer back to the Declaration of Geneva, which mandates that physicians speak up against destructive governments,’ Lee says. ‘This declaration was created in response to the experience of Nazism.’”
Scientific American asked Lee to comment on the psychology behind Trump’s destructive behavior, what drives some of his followers— and how to free people from his grip when this damaging presidency ends.
What attracts people to Trump? What is their animus or driving force?
The reasons are multiple and varied, but in my recent public-service book, Profile of a Nation, I have outlined two major emotional drives: narcissistic symbiosis and shared psychosis. Narcissistic symbiosis refers to the developmental wounds that make the leader-follower relationship magnetically attractive. The leader, hungry for adulation to compensate for an inner lack of self-worth, projects grandiose omnipotence— while the followers, rendered needy by societal stress or developmental injury, yearn for a parental figure. When such wounded individuals are given positions of power, they arouse similar pathology in the population that creates a “lock and key” relationship.
“Shared psychosis”— which is also called “folie à millions” [“madness for millions”] when occurring at the national level or “induced delusions”— refers to the infectiousness of severe symptoms that goes beyond ordinary group psychology. When a highly symptomatic individual is placed in an influential position, the person’s symptoms can spread through the population through emotional bonds, heightening existing pathologies and inducing delusions, paranoia and propensity for violence— even in previously healthy individuals. The treatment is removal of exposure.
Why does Trump himself seem to gravitate toward violence and destruction?
Destructiveness is a core characteristic of mental pathology, whether directed toward the self or others. First, I wish to clarify that those with mental illness are, as a group, no more dangerous than those without mental illness. When mental pathology is accompanied by criminal-mindedness, however, the combination can make individuals far more dangerous than either alone.
In my textbook on violence, I emphasize the symbolic nature of violence and how it is a life impulse gone awry. Briefly, if one cannot have love, one resorts to respect. And when respect is unavailable, one resorts to fear. Trump is now living through an intolerable loss of respect: rejection by a nation in his election defeat. Violence helps compensate for feelings of powerlessness, inadequacy and lack of real productivity.
Do you think Trump is truly exhibiting delusional or psychotic behavior? Or is he simply behaving like an autocrat making a bald-faced attempt to hold onto his power?
I believe it is both. He is certainly of an autocratic disposition because his extreme narcissism does not allow for equality with other human beings, as democracy requires. Psychiatrists generally assess delusions through personal examination, but there is other evidence of their likelihood. First, delusions are more infectious than strategic lies, and so we see, from their sheer spread, that Trump likely truly believes them. Second, his emotional fragility, manifested in extreme intolerance of realities that do not fit his wishful view of the world, predispose him to psychotic spirals. Third, his public record includes numerous hours of interviews and interactions with other people— such as the hour-long one with the Georgia secretary of state— that very nearly confirm delusion, as my colleague and I discovered in a systematic analysis.
Where does the hatred some of his supporters display come from? And what can we do to promote healing?
In Profile of a Nation, I outline the many causes that create his followership. But there is important psychological injury that arises from relative— not absolute— socioeconomic deprivation. Yes, there is great injury, anger and redirectable energy for hatred, which Trump harnessed and stoked for his manipulation and use. The emotional bonds he has created facilitate shared psychosis at a massive scale. It is a natural consequence of the conditions we have set up. For healing, I usually recommend three steps: (1) Removal of the offending agent (the influential person with severe symptoms). (2) Dismantling systems of thought control—common in advertising but now also heavily adopted by politics. And (3) fixing the socioeconomic conditions that give rise to poor collective mental health in the first place.
What do you predict he will do after his presidency?
I again emphasize in Profile of a Nation that we should consider the president, his followers and the nation as an ecology, not in isolation. Hence, what he does after this presidency depends a great deal on us. This is the reason I frantically wrote the book over the summer: we require active intervention to stop him from achieving any number of destructive outcomes for the nation, including the establishment of a shadow presidency. He will have no limit, which is why I have actively advocated for removal and accountability, including prosecution. We need to remember that he is more a follower than a leader, and we need to place constraints from the outside when he cannot place them from within.
What do you think will happen to his supporters?
If we handle the situation appropriately, there will be a lot of disillusionment and trauma. And this is all right— they are healthy reactions to an abnormal situation. We must provide emotional support for healing, and this includes societal support, such as sources of belonging and dignity. Cult members and victims of abuse are often emotionally bonded to the relationship, unable to see the harm that is being done to them. After a while, the magnitude of the deception conspires with their own psychological protections against pain and disappointment. This causes them to avoid seeing the truth. And the situation with Trump supporters is very similar. The danger is that another pathological figure will come around and entice them with a false “solution” that is really a harnessing of this resistance.
How can we avert future insurrection attempts or acts of violence?
Violence is the end product of a long process, so prevention is key. Structural violence, or inequality, is the most potent stimulant of behavioral violence. And reducing inequality in all forms— economic, racial and gender— will help toward preventing violence. For prevention to be effective, knowledge and in-depth understanding cannot be overlooked— so we can anticipate what is coming, much like the pandemic. The silencing of mental health professionals during the Trump era, mainly through a politically driven distortion of an ethical guideline, was catastrophic, in my view, in the nation’s failure to understand, predict and prevent the dangers of this presidency.
Do you have any advice for people who do not support Trump but have supporters of him or “mini-Trumps” in their lives?
This is often very difficult because the relationship between Trump and his supporters is an abusive one, as an author of the 2017 book I edited, The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump, presciently pointed out. When the mind is hijacked for the benefit of the abuser, it becomes no longer a matter of presenting facts or appealing to logic. Removing Trump from power and influence will be healing in itself. But, I advise, first, not to confront [his supporters’] beliefs, for it will only rouse resistance. Second, persuasion should not be the goal but change of the circumstance that led to their faulty beliefs. Third, one should maintain one’s own bearing and mental health, because people who harbor delusional narratives tend to bulldoze over reality in their attempt to deny that their own narrative is false. As for mini-Trumps, it is important, above all, to set firm boundaries, to limit contact or even to leave the relationship, if possible. Because I specialize in treating violent individuals, I always believe there is something that can be done to treat them, but they seldom present for treatment unless forced.
truth hurts, don't it?