What America Needs Psychologically From the trump Trials

"How the News is Psychologically Broken, and How to Fix It" series

Author’s Note: I have always refused to give trump the respect of capitalization unless I am forced to in a title or we are talking about Mary. Thanks to CNI community support, this is the first time I have felt comfortable enough to break the title capitalization rule as well.

What America Needs Psychologically From the trump Trials

If you read How the News is Psychologically Broken and How to Fix It, you know what was always a primary CNI goal gained a clarifying one-word name description and mantra from a member of the community, “Solutional.”

This piece was not meant to be part of that series but it is at least a step in a positive direction by providing some focus and answers to what we need out of trump trials and what we do not. We definitely need our best journalists and other experts to keep providing our in-boxes with deep insights, but they must realize they too must increasingly keep pushing and moving in positive and solutional directions, for the survival of our own democracy, and humankind’s freedom preservation itself.  

If you follow political news as closely as I do, your in-box has been flooded for weeks with what seems like a million angles about trump’s various indictments and a vast array of other possibilities. Finally, the most serious so far just came down from special prosecutor Jack Smith of the Justice Department, essentially charging trump and the other low-hanging fruit nuts with conspiracy against the United States of America and “We the people.”

Frankly, I have found myself deleting almost all these emails because whatever the details of each new indictment says beyond the basics, it all seems like mostly old news and almost irrelevant, since we have seen this movie before. So far, it always ends in a whimper for various reasons, so why believe this time is any different? It certainly feels different but as the old saying goes, “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice (or 30,000+ times), shame on me.” What is interesting is this saying is normally a warning, but here we see where a seed of our cynicism is planted.   

One of the biggest accelerants of our cynicism is a well earned perception that the once mighty and highly respected U.S. “Rule of Law” never seems to hold rich, arrogant, greedy men accountable for repeatedly breaking it, no matter how much they act above the law or commit treason in attempts to fulfill their own selfish cravings.

When you throw in their seemingly authoritarian oriented, orchestrated and owned Supreme Court, most of America no longer believes, “and justice for all” is still true, no matter how much Supreme Court “Justices” John Roberts, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito whine about being held to basic ethical standards, or about being accused of being shills for far-right oligarchs, when their voting record always seems to find in favor of those oligarchs who lavish them or their families with money and gifts they forget to report.

In other words, the Supreme Court’s ethical standards are a joke and they have finally surrendered their status as a legitimate body with the overturning of Roe vs. Wade, and will continue to take away American rights if we let them. Need proof? The merits of the case are almost irrelevant. 

What matters is most if not all of the six Republican appointed judges said during their confirmation hearings that Roe vs. Wade was “settled law.” Indeed their overturning proves they lied under oath, because when they had the chance, they dishonestly unsettled it, and took women’s rights away, so any promises they have made in the past towards preserving American legal rights can no longer be trusted. On the bright side, women are out in greater political force than ever to get their rights back, and not lose any other rights narcissist misogynists are after, so they can feel like big men. 

In 2017, Putin legalized wife and child beating to suck up to Russian machismo at the expense of Russian women, children and national trauma. Aka “Alphas” rule and everyone else obeys. This is what trump, the Republicans and a lot of anti-woke men want America to be.

Continuing on the dark side, this is why a big part of what America needs psychologically from trump’s trials are for him, his co-conspirators and trump cult members of Congress to not just be found guilty, but to be fully exposed and fully punished by spending most if not all of their lives in prison for what was so clearly treason (despite any parsing of the definition). 

This is not political retribution. This is personal accountability for being part of a conspiracy to overthrow the freely and fairly elected government of the United States of America, in an attempt to install a vengeful and toxic trump-led Putin-esque criminal enterprise, if not a Putin puppet-mastered dictatorship.

If seeing really bad people being held accountable for doing really bad things like a conspiracy against the American people’s rights, freedoms and stopping an evil foreign mass-murdering dictator from helping right and left-wing looney toons from destroying our democracy isn’t enough to get the Justice Department to really stand up and defend America’s freedom and democracy with “Rule of Law,” I don’t know what is?

When it comes to trump, today’s Republican Party, bullies, narcissists, and spoiled-brat children (but I repeat myself), the only thing that stops them from trying to grab everything they can all the time are firm barriers and harsh consequences for breaking fair rules or the law. Otherwise, they will never stop acting out and will have no regard for who they hurt, as long as they get what they want. 

One example is when Republicans threaten economic devastation by not raising the debt ceiling to pay off the debt for the money they already spent, unless they get further benefits for their owners. This is not political negotiation. This type of irresponsible hostage taking tantrum to get what they want but don’t deserve is completely financially childish, and thus more conclusive proof the GOP is a lost cause American law can no longer afford to dance around, because they are now a daily national and economic security threat.

In fact, financial ratings agency Fitch just downgraded the US government's top credit rating from AAA to AA+, which affects the interest rates America gets to borrow money at. Fitch cited increasing government polarization and the January 6 insurrection as key factors in the credit rating cut. Essentially, Republican tantrums about not getting their way all the time or getting to rule America is costing the people billions, if not trillions. Is it not ironic that Republicans for decades would attack Dems anytime they mentioned something negative as “hurting the economy,” when now all they do is selfishly bad-mouth any part of the economy not benefitting them directly.

Thankfully, time has revealed the truth that GOP “fiscal responsibility” was a lie all along, because they have shown repeatedly that they only care about a tight budget when the Dems hold the pursestrings, and yet just like trump, there is nothing Republicans like doing more than spending and wasting other people’s money on themselves and to help themselves, while blaming everyone else for every economic problem of their making.

Indeed, experience and basic observation has taught us trump’s entire life and presidency has been a crime spree of spending and stealing other people’s money. It is right there for all to see if they choose to see it, and yet he has rarely if ever faced any true consequences for his pathologically disordered patterns of always doing what is best for trump, at everyone else’s expense. This seems to happen mostly due to a grandiose charisma that poor robotic DeSantis can only dream of. trump has been fooling people over and over his entire life, and yet now many of those he fooled seem to accept him for the con man he is, as if they are in a cult, they are narcissistically likeminded and/or are riding him like a Remora sucker fish hangs onto a sharks and other larger creatures for protection and to eat something too disgusting to mention (see Lindsey Graham with trump).

So until trump and the vast majority of his accomplices are frog-marched off to prison where many should spend the rest of their lives, Americans will continue to have reasonable psychological doubt and lost faith in the American Justice system. Until people like trump, his criminal accomplices and enablers are really held accountable for even half their crimes, and the corrupt rot is cleared out of the Supreme Court, our justice system will be considered severely broken. 

It is difficult to see how a Supreme Court Justice who was essentially appointed by a traitor who plotted to overthrow the government can ethically or morally remain on the court, but they were chosen in part for their lack of ethics and morals, so I might be satisfied if the psychopathic Thomas and Alito resign in exchange for not being charged with taking bribes or corruption, and quietly remove themselves from public life, because at least trump’s nominees appear to have human emotions and lack as many decades of purely narcissistic entitlement as Thomas and Alito. 

We are in the put up or shut up phase of American democracy’s continued decline or our new fresh start, by rising from the ashes of the country’s political, legal and democratic system that trump, right-wing billionaires and the Republicans have been far too eager to burn to the ground, to “be king of the ashes.” The goals are the same old selfish cravings that have existed throughout history. All they ever want is all the power, government money, no taxes, no consequences for elite crime-ing, and to trick the millions of imbecilic, selfish, greedy, criminal, power-mad and/or other types of similarly psychologically damaged people, that they, the far-right billionaires are the true rulers of America, who will lead them to the promised land of a narcissistic dystopia, where they can boss everyone around as stormtroopers. Of course they will all be betrayed in the end, like almost everyone who was ever associated with trump, a Sith Lord, or any other malignant narcissist.

The kind of childish and psychologically disordered incitement that trump did on January 6th is pretty much the same thing fascists have always done in every country they try to take over. They promise people willing to fight for them power and glory, because that is a Machiavellian way to use and gain power. It is all about acquiring and keeping power no matter how one gets it or how you have to lie, cheat and steal to get it, or as the Republicans and trump’s lawyers try to call it, “Free (Political) Speech.”

Fred trump, taught his son to “be a killer, be a king,” and those two things seem to sum up trump’s entire thought process, and many other far-right billionaires as well, so we are presented with a choice. We can let them follow their narcissistic compulsions to try to take over and rule America, or we can send them directly to jail for trying to steal our free country. One thing for sure is once again, the only things that stop narcissists, sociopaths and psychopaths are firm barriers such as, I don’t know, something like if you financially reward Supreme Court Justices who rule over cases that greatly benefits you and the “judge” never reports it, you should both go to jail for corruption. This should be normal, not radical thinking if one wants to claim the honor of being called a “legitimate businessman” or a “public servant.”

What America really needs psychologically is catharsis, an exorcism, a mafia cleaner to get rid of every trace of corruption trump and the GOP have tainted our government with. The truth is American politics became a crime scene when Republicans opened the door to virtually unlimited billionaire money to buy our politics with Citizens United, and they have been arguing for more unlimited political money as “free speech” for narcissistic politics ever since.

Simply put, we psychologically need to have several of these treasonous villains face severe justice so we can start believing American justice and rule of law are on the mend. We also need trump and his people to be held fully accountable so we can break some of his cultish ties that bind. If his fans can see him for the psychologically damaged man that he really is and not the messiah/martyr they want to make him out to be, that may break some of their unrealistic right-wing fever dreams.

Is that what we will get?

Wouldn’t that be something if Jack Smith actually held virtually everyone accountable, including every one of these millionaire and billionaire narcissist “above the law” criminals who have been trying to buy up American power to rule us, by justice coming at them with a vengeance. I suppose in Texas they can get away with pleading “affluenza.” “Your honor, my client didn’t know it was wrong to try to overthrow the United States of America because he is just a spoiled businessman whose parents didn’t teach him the difference between right and wrong, or democracy and authoritarianism. With his billions, he just saw it as another merger and acquisition. Another trophy to put on the mantle. Never mind that he never did anything not self-serving or kind for anyone his entire life.”

Since firm barriers like strict prison time are the only things that will stop narcissists, sociopaths and psychopaths from endlessly trying to take over America until they succeed, because their disorders compulsively demand it, we need to make a lot of examples so every other pathological narcissist knows it is not in their self-interest to follow trump or his enablers footsteps, if they want to avoid prison.

Wanting authoritarian power is exactly why Ron Desantis knew as a teen he wanted to be President. Too much? Hasn’t DeSantis been one of the most authoritarian governors in U.S. history, and promises to do the same things for America? It is always his pathological craving for power talking. America is a story of good people overcoming obstacles and bad and greedy people creating them. It is time to redeem yourself, Justice Department, by bringing back “Rule of Law” and “truth and justice for all,” or the loss of American democracy is on you. The American people and history are watching. Can you hear us now, Merrick Garland?

Whether natural or conditioned, once people are at the pathological stage of narcissism, almost all behaviors are compulsively selfish and self-serving as is them believing they are the hero and innocent victim of every story, which is why only things like jail or loss of power will give them pause for their worst instincts. However, as we have seen with trump, he, like so many ridiculously entitled elites, believe they will never be severely punished because they never have been, as adults.

In trump’s case, his grandiose narcissism of believing he can talk himself out of any crime overpowers any fear of jail, and thus trump has blazed the path for every other shameless narcissist to believe the same. These disorders have no respect for boundaries unless there is a cost, so many disordered people actually psychologically need us to make examples of trump and others, so they learn there is a cost they do not want to pay, and thus keeps them from following in corrupt footsteps and ending up in prison. See Ron DeSantis, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Matt Gaetz, George Santos etc.

Indeed narcissists are having one hell of a run in politics, In fact, the GOP now seems to have a party platform of narcissism, even though they try to blame it on trump. As spelled out in trumpism is Narcissism, trump is not the cause, he is the Republican Party’s inevitable conclusion. Thank goodness and America’s consistently lucky stars the GOP establishment’s plan to swap out DeSantis for trump seems to have failed spectacularly, because their narcissism blocked them from seeing he never had to develop a human personality to be a successful Republican politician in Florida, or to be regularly featured on Fox News.

Again, these people are pathological which means they will never stop going after what they crave like zombies for brains, unless we stop them. It’s just their nature, like the fable of the frog and the scorpion, so the sooner America and the world learns that there are many more psychologically disordered human scorpions than is known, who will always try to take over or will kill us all, the better. When we have a critical mass, then we can really start to reverse the damage and right many of the selfish, greedy and evil wrongs pathological narcissists like trump have inflicted on billions of innocent people around the world just trying to live good honest lives.

What will not help us get there is having so many of our brilliant minds spending days, weeks, months and years analyzing and parsing every single aspect of what should be trump’s open and shut case. Therefore, we at CNI implore all the top political experts who fill our in-boxes to put a bunch of their brain power towards being more solutional, since two things America definitely needs to get us out of this mess are fewer solution-less emails and more wise and workable solutions.

It seems as the trump trials go on, further issues will arise and further clues will be revealed about what reasonable America needs psychologically from these trials, so there will likely be a need for a few follow-ups, but personally I would find a better use of my time than going over all the details daily. trump is a malignant narcissist who can’t help himself, and surrounds himself with other narcissistic flying monkeys. He’s guilty, he did it, he did everything. We have known all of this for years. Bill Barr knew and buried it. That is why this particular psychological monitoring endeavor of the trump trials seems worthwhile, because we must build on and support whatever will psychologically fortify the forces of democracy, and to understand the often predictable and dangerous psychological patterns of the forces of greed, selfishness and darkness. If you agree, please like, share and support the Counter-Narcissist Intelligence cause and mission.

You may also like the next piece in the series.