When faced with a public humiliation, he 1) broods; 2) scapegoats; 3) adopts a face-saving excuse; and 4) gets back on his feet.
He isn’t reaching #4.
2/
This is the most significant window into Trump’s psychology since the election.
He is so gravely wounded by his loss, even the usual protections a narcissist employs aren’t saving him.
1/
Trump is flying back from Mar-a-Lago today to the White House. He usually stays through the holiday. He will miss the New Year festivities at his precious club. The White House did not provide a reason for this early departure. So...watch out.
— David Corn (@DavidCornDC) December 31, 2020
When faced with a public humiliation, he 1) broods; 2) scapegoats; 3) adopts a face-saving excuse; and 4) gets back on his feet.
He isn’t reaching #4.
2/
He is so debilitated by the public humiliation of having lost, he can’t even function in the dysfunctional way he used to...
Normally, he’d be posturing about how his loss was actually somehow a win for him. He’d be claiming he benefitted.
3/
Instead, he is a month into a spiral he can’t pull himself out of where he is still trying to change the outcome.
4/
He’d be surrounded by people who looked at him adoringly and nodded at his nonsense with love and reverence.
He’d see that his facade of specialness was still intact *there at least*.
5/
There were fewer people. The NYE event had to be changed because of coronavirus.
And worst of all, Melania made renovations to their quarters.
6/
And all he got was an apartment reno that telegraphed “This is where you live now. You actually live at a place where other people just come to play tennis.”
7/
That was likely a bomb to his already wounded psyche.
8/
Trump is in very bad shape.
Alone, isolated, rendered helpless by the dysfunction of his narcissism, he is in a bad, bad spot.
9/
However, a narcissist who cannot escape a profound public fall from grace is in excruciating pain.
10/
More from The Hoarse Whisperer
I read up on the last several men the federal government rushed to put to death this past month.
Sister Helen is 100% right. None of the defendants would have come anywhere near a death penalty had they had money and privilege.
1/
Take the person executed last night: Dustin Higgs.
Higgs, another man and a woman were involved in the murder of two people. The trio had picked the victims up and taken them to a desolate area where they were shot.
2/
The reasons for the shooting were unclear. To make their case, prosecutors offered a deal to Higgs’ two associates: testify that Higgs had orchestrated the killing and they would be charged with lesser offenses.
So, the two did.
3/
The man testified that he had actually been the shooter and had murdered the two women - but had been told to do so by Higgs.
The actual murderer avoided the death penalty. The other associate got a lighter sentence.
4/
I entirely 1,000% believe that prosecutors would have never even pursued the death penalty had Higgs had intimidating counsel.
Epstein got a walk for a boatload of crimes, in part, because prosecutors were intimidated of the fight they’d face.
5/
Sister Helen is 100% right. None of the defendants would have come anywhere near a death penalty had they had money and privilege.
1/
The death penalty is fundamentally a poor person\u2019s issue. Over nearly 40 years of visiting death row facilities across the United States, I have never met a single person with money or resources. Capital punishment means \u201cthose without the capital get the punishment.\u201d
— Sister Helen Prejean (@helenprejean) January 16, 2021
Take the person executed last night: Dustin Higgs.
Higgs, another man and a woman were involved in the murder of two people. The trio had picked the victims up and taken them to a desolate area where they were shot.
2/
The reasons for the shooting were unclear. To make their case, prosecutors offered a deal to Higgs’ two associates: testify that Higgs had orchestrated the killing and they would be charged with lesser offenses.
So, the two did.
3/
The man testified that he had actually been the shooter and had murdered the two women - but had been told to do so by Higgs.
The actual murderer avoided the death penalty. The other associate got a lighter sentence.
4/
I entirely 1,000% believe that prosecutors would have never even pursued the death penalty had Higgs had intimidating counsel.
Epstein got a walk for a boatload of crimes, in part, because prosecutors were intimidated of the fight they’d face.
5/
I’m just going to lay this down now so it’s on record:
Trump’s campaign has used the exact same strategy it used in 2016: smear his opponent; attempt to demotivate their base; and actively attempt to prevent or obstruct them from voting.
It is a push-down strategy.
1/
In 2016, didn’t win because he made a winning case to a big enough population.
He won because his opponent’s turnout was pushed down by a full-court press that tapped everything from misogyny to poll tampering.
2/
He is trying to run the exact same playbook against Biden.
But it isn’t working because:
1) We now understand it
2) Many who were effectively suppressed last time have had four years to see what that cost
3) Biden isn’t susceptible to the same illegitimate biases
3/
And 4) Many people who first engaged with politics because of Bernie are now well past the “...or Bust” vibe of 2016 and are now solidly active progressive voters
The media, pundits and analysts never fully reckoned with the extent to which Hillary’s vote was just suppressed.
4/
Instead, they overestimated Trump’s strength.
Trump only won by smothering just enough of his opponent’s support.
Some of the voters who that succeeded with in 2016 are vehemently un-smotherable this time.
5/
Trump’s campaign has used the exact same strategy it used in 2016: smear his opponent; attempt to demotivate their base; and actively attempt to prevent or obstruct them from voting.
It is a push-down strategy.
1/
Striking finding from NYT/Siena: Biden has big leads among those who didn't vote in 2016. And they make up non-trivial portions of the electorate.
— Greg Sargent (@ThePlumLineGS) November 1, 2020
Here are Biden's leads, followed by their vote share:
WI +19 (11%)
FL +17 (18%)
PA +12 (18%)
AZ +7 (22%)
It's a new electorate.
In 2016, didn’t win because he made a winning case to a big enough population.
He won because his opponent’s turnout was pushed down by a full-court press that tapped everything from misogyny to poll tampering.
2/
He is trying to run the exact same playbook against Biden.
But it isn’t working because:
1) We now understand it
2) Many who were effectively suppressed last time have had four years to see what that cost
3) Biden isn’t susceptible to the same illegitimate biases
3/
And 4) Many people who first engaged with politics because of Bernie are now well past the “...or Bust” vibe of 2016 and are now solidly active progressive voters
The media, pundits and analysts never fully reckoned with the extent to which Hillary’s vote was just suppressed.
4/
Instead, they overestimated Trump’s strength.
Trump only won by smothering just enough of his opponent’s support.
Some of the voters who that succeeded with in 2016 are vehemently un-smotherable this time.
5/
So, in Trump’s narcissistic cycle, there is a predictable sequence of phases that play out whenever he is facing a public humiliation.
1) Double Down Donnie
2) Loco Lawn Sprinkler
3) Sad and Silent
4) Hunting for Scapegoats
5) Riding the Excuse Train
1/
Whenever Trump is facing a public embarrassment he sees coming, he first doubles down on all of the stupid shit that put him in that hole to begin with. He has no other tools.
Then he frantically spins like a lawn sprinkler desperately spraying unhinged nonsense.
2/
The worse the pending embarrassment, the more unhinged the nutbaggery out of his mouth.
See: the past week.
It has been just a firehose of industrial-grade batshit.
3/
Then, when the embarrassment arrives, he gets quiet and sullen like a chastised little boy and runs off to cocoon.
Listen to the clips from the thread in the first post. Talking about his presidency in a tired, dejected past tense.
No aggression. No real fight left.
4/
Trump entirely disregulates as the embarrassment train is bearing down. He seems out of control because he is. No control over himself. An overtired toddler x1,000.
Then the train passes the point of avoidance though and Trump shrinks into a sad ball (albeit briefly).
5/
1) Double Down Donnie
2) Loco Lawn Sprinkler
3) Sad and Silent
4) Hunting for Scapegoats
5) Riding the Excuse Train
1/
Trump will soon be joining Fox & Friends, only about 6 hours after his last Election Day-eve rally ended pic.twitter.com/EAhGEGO1m1
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) November 3, 2020
Whenever Trump is facing a public embarrassment he sees coming, he first doubles down on all of the stupid shit that put him in that hole to begin with. He has no other tools.
Then he frantically spins like a lawn sprinkler desperately spraying unhinged nonsense.
2/
The worse the pending embarrassment, the more unhinged the nutbaggery out of his mouth.
See: the past week.
It has been just a firehose of industrial-grade batshit.
3/
Then, when the embarrassment arrives, he gets quiet and sullen like a chastised little boy and runs off to cocoon.
Listen to the clips from the thread in the first post. Talking about his presidency in a tired, dejected past tense.
No aggression. No real fight left.
4/
Trump entirely disregulates as the embarrassment train is bearing down. He seems out of control because he is. No control over himself. An overtired toddler x1,000.
Then the train passes the point of avoidance though and Trump shrinks into a sad ball (albeit briefly).
5/
More from Politics
THREAD:
Good afternoon, followers of frivolous election litigation. There's a last-minute entry in the competition for dumbest pre-inauguration lawsuit - a totally loony effort to apparently leave the entire USA without a government.
We'll start with the complaint in a minute.
But first, I want to give you a quick explanation for why I'm going to keep talking about these cases even after the inauguration.
They're part of an ongoing effort - one that's not well-coordinated but is widespread - to discredit our fundamental system of government.
It's a direct descendent, in more ways than one, of birtherism. And here's the thing about birtherism. It might have been a joke to a lot of people, but it was extremely pernicious. It obviously validated the racist "not good enough to be President" crowd. But that wasn't all.
Don't get me wrong, that was bad enough. Validating racism helped put the kind of shitbird who would tweet this from an official government account into power. But it didn't stop
(Also, if you agree with Pompeo about multiculturalism - the legendary melting pot - not being what this country is all about, you need to stop following me now. And maybe go somewhere and think about your life choices and what made you such a tool.)
Good afternoon, followers of frivolous election litigation. There's a last-minute entry in the competition for dumbest pre-inauguration lawsuit - a totally loony effort to apparently leave the entire USA without a government.
We'll start with the complaint in a minute.
But first, I want to give you a quick explanation for why I'm going to keep talking about these cases even after the inauguration.
They're part of an ongoing effort - one that's not well-coordinated but is widespread - to discredit our fundamental system of government.
It's a direct descendent, in more ways than one, of birtherism. And here's the thing about birtherism. It might have been a joke to a lot of people, but it was extremely pernicious. It obviously validated the racist "not good enough to be President" crowd. But that wasn't all.
Don't get me wrong, that was bad enough. Validating racism helped put the kind of shitbird who would tweet this from an official government account into power. But it didn't stop
Woke-ism, multiculturalism, all the -isms \u2014 they're not who America is. They distort our glorious founding and what this country is all about. Our enemies stoke these divisions because they know they make us weaker. pic.twitter.com/Mu97xCgxfS
— Secretary Pompeo (@SecPompeo) January 19, 2021
(Also, if you agree with Pompeo about multiculturalism - the legendary melting pot - not being what this country is all about, you need to stop following me now. And maybe go somewhere and think about your life choices and what made you such a tool.)
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Tying Marvel’s stable of pulp-fiction heroes to a real place — New York — served a counterbalance to the sometimes gravity-challenged action and the improbability of the stories. That was just what Stan Lee wanted. https://t.co/rDosqzpP8i
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