Mirror Mirror
Another contribution from Nick Carraway.
“When I got my masters in school counseling I took a few psychology classes. I know enough to be dangerous. I know all about Freud’s defense mechanisms and how many have attributed projection to the president. It makes perfect sense from a clinical standpoint, but I don’t necessarily buy it.
There is something else going on. Most people exist in shades of gray. We cut some corners here and hold fast to some rules there. So, most of us have some conception of people that behave with sinister intent and some that behave with pure intent. We therefore collect evidence and use that evidence to determine which is which.
Occasionally, you run into someone that is almost cartoonish in their level of evil or goodness. Therefore, they see the world through that prism. We’ve seen the president react that way to soldiers giving the ultimate sacrifice or others that give of themselves without expecting anything in return. It literally is a foreign concept to him.
It’s not projection. He literally cannot fathom someone doing anything on the up and up. So, anything that happens to him must be done by someone with equal malintent. That’s why the election has been stolen. That’s also why he has to sell anything that isn’t bolted down. He sells pardons. He sells favor. He sells access. Nothing can be done for its own sake. Heck, even his charity was just a piggy bank for himself.
So, when I heard about him selling pardons it just seemed so perfect. Why not? The church used to sell indulgences and you could make a half-hearted claim that the funds from those went to a good cause. Here is just more transactional greed. That’s why he connects so well with dictators. Every day I’m convinced more and more that this guy needs to go to jail.”
Nick
