A great quote from Rick Wilson, NeverTrumper Republican strategist. He wrote this a propos of that wretched moment earlier this week when Trump tossed around the word “Treason” to avenge himself on the Democrats who failed to show enthusiasm for this abominable President as he delivered his State of the Union address:
“If it is treason you seek, look no further than a man who gladly allows Russia’s continued attacks on our democracy, our Republic, and our institutions. Putin’s implacable hostility, aggression, and desire to divide and disrupt this nation are not in question by anyone except Trump and his most slavish sycophants. Putin’s desire to weaken our standing, diminish our power, and to harm our interests in the world is stated Russian policy, not speculations in the fevered minds of Never Trumpers.”
Amazing how often Trump accuses others of his own crimes. (Think “Fake News.”)
But in this Trump is only doing more blatantly what the Republicans have been doing for years. At least since W’s time. (Think how the Bushites brandished “patriotism” as they degraded our nation’s political culture and deceived that nation into a war”)
And so it goes pretty much wherever the fascist-minded politicians or parties have gained power over the past century.
Such a fundamentally dishonest maneuver represents two major forms of brokenness. It’s part hypocrisy– as if Trump, likely having his strings pulled by the Russian dictator, gives a fig for his country, as if the Republicans give a damn for fiscal responsibility, as if Bush really had foremost in his mind protecting the United States against terrorism.
And it is part projection– that abundant psychological mechanism that reflects a psyche that refuses to confront some of what is inside. Projection is the way to attach that denied part of oneself to others, and attack it in them.
(Like the fixation of the white Southerner on rape — by a black man — coming out of a history in which white slave-owners routinely raped the black women they insisted they owned. This rape of black women by white men happened often enough for African-American to be on average much lighter-skinned than those back in Africa who never had to submit to white Southern slave-owners. But in the broken culture that fostered white projection, it was the idea of the black man raping the white woman that got all the frenzied attention.)
Projection is a root component of “paranoia,” that form of psychological brokenness that makes peace impossible. Paranoia is all about enemies, and that’s how the lack of integration within the broken psyche gets transmuted into that other basic form of brokenness: a world in conflict, driven by those for whom war feels naturally at the center of life.
Hypocrisy and paranoia. How much of the evil in the world operates through those!
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