A different, non-Narcissistic, pathology of specialness

 

In future sessions, I may have the opportunity to try to “cure” some now-lame-duck Trump aficionados of their sense of uniquely entitled righteous indignation. “Why would you think the psychopath was robbed of the presidency? He simply lost.” “Why is your rage so superior, so right? Trump made you think he was God’s gift, didn’t he? He might have made you think you were God’s gift, I suspect. And yet he was just a blowhard.”

This is, or was, indeed a phenomenon: the extraordinary certainty of “God damn you, this is ours!” that Trump adherents owned and blasted into the nation’s cultural atmo­sphere. I don’t think I’ve seen this before. If in the past I lost a job oppor­tunity, I didn’t feel vicious rage. I knew no one who wanted to set fires and or who threatened murder when the election was stolen from Al Gore.

What has made these strange whites feel this way? Why is their anger so absent of reflec­tion, or even of regret, much less sad regret, or of a world view? I am certain the answer is childhood, where so much injustice was laid down in them day to day through abuse, disrespect, neglect, brutality, alcohol and drugs, coarseness, ugliness, fists to their face, watching mothers being choked. They never were helped, never allowed to cry. They became bruised and callused vessels filled to the brim with injustice. They became tiki torch marchers with their group self-soothing. They became the affable client whose marriage is improving but whose wife thinks he’s “kind of sociopathic,” who said that “I liked Trump because he has my mentality.” When he was fourteen, his father said “Have a nice life,” and set him free.

Almost all of us have an “inner child,” the unloved or neglected stages of our early lives that could not evolve. But those of the Trump cult, starved as they had been, could never move beyond their rage-pain. Thus their child was laid bare before us, yelling their tantrums of despondency and need, and their loss of an advocate, their echo.

Temporary manifesto: Election

 

If Trump has won, I will be seceding from the Union in my mind. This won’t be difficult, owing to my strong, though not comprehensive, insularity. I don’t follow any sport: If you mentioned any team name (with one local exception), I wouldn’t know if it was in the domain of football, baseball, basketball or ice hockey. I belong to no clubs, no social or professional organi­za­tions, no religion. My two friends are remote and fifty years away. I’ve long been reduced to dyadic affiliations: my wife; one client per hour. Where do I live? Not in the U.S.: an apartment in Henderson, NV.

The notion that Trump is “my” president won’t register. What good will it do me to try to muster some proud ardor for The Competitive States of America? What good will it do to know that while I work with one troubled person at a time, I can’t treat the millions whose spirits are soothed by a crude, deliberately misan­thropic socio­path? I can’t give them lessons that will reach them, that will soften the calluses on their burnt hearts.

I know it will be difficult to be at work tomorrow and during the purgatory of the lingering counts. There will still be the residue, the vibration in the air of those clients who filled in the little Trump circle on the ballot, who are pleased and feel victorious and affirmed. I might be inclined to banish my professional mores and say: “I’m sure you are a decent person in most ways, but you just elected a psychopath.” I’d convince myself this was a helpful inter­vention. Confron­tation of the conscience.

We’ll see. In a few days, my sick deadpan visage will re-warm to what matters: mar­riage, helping people who can be helped, writing, the night sky. The country on my perimeter can do what it wants. Strangers have always polluted the air. This will be no different.

Rachel Maddow will, sadly, have to miss my rapt presence.

Still, it’s distressing to see, yet again, that the weakest and most lost souls can cause the most damage.