Performative sadisim: Cruelty in the closet doesn't count. It's just no fun. By Hal M. Brown, MSW

 

This is a sequel to yesterday's Substact:

Trump and MAGA cohorts don't lack empathy. As sadists, they have perverse empathy.

I wrote this in part as a reaction to the following:

'Cruel': Ex-GOP lawmaker slams Trump's border czar for Dr. Phil stunt: RawStory

Needless to say, Phil McGraw is an embarrasment to me and any self-respecting member of the mental health profession. Here's an example of his empathetic interview technique:

He was filmed taking to a Thai national detained in Chicago by authorities over an alleged history of sex crime charges.

"Have you been deported before?" McGraw asked him. "What have you been charged with? Are you a citizen?" The detainee, in handcuffs, said he wanted to speak to his lawyer.

This is how Adam Parkhomenko and Sam Youngma put it on their Substack in Dr. Phil did what?

Oh what the effing fuck? How gross is this damn country?! It’s like we hit rock bottom of scuminess and then someone remembered to add a reality TV component. Were the Kardashians not available? Is Dr. Oz too busy sucking somewhere else? At what point do we disown Oprah for introducing us to these assholes? And how is it possible that we fucking miss Omarosa already?

I didn't know that a requirement to be a psychotherapist was to enjoy making frightened people uncomfortable, let alone ask to have their lawyer present.

The sadistic Stephen Miller, who has yet to make a guest appearance at a deportation festival, and Tom Homan, are both happy thugs delighted by the power they have been given, so I suppose there's another criterion to apply to their job description. 

Dr. Phil holds a doctorate in clinical psychology, albeit from North Texas State University (rated 220 in national universities). He ceased renewing his license to practice psychology in 2006. I would hope that by now his license would have been revoked. A deportation performance like his would merit a review by any licensed mental health professional  licensing board.

This is how Robert Hubbell put it in his Substack today:

As is often said of the Trump administration, “The cruelty is the point.” Dr. Phil has elevated that rubric to the next level, “The cruelty is entertainment.”

Hubbell went on:

Oprah created Dr. Phil’s celebrity. Her voice is needed to condemn his actions as a PR agent for Trump's deportations. Per the Chicago Sun-Times, “Dr. Phil’s TV channel, MeritTV, was given special access to the operation on Sunday.” 

I saw this photo posted in a comment on the RawStory article.

I couldn't believe it was real so I checked it out. Bizarre doesn't begin to describe a therapist with a gun obsession. Some shrinks publish in journals - he made House Beautiful. 

Obviously, all this is a cruel and sadistic performance meant to be shared in the media.

Trump and his sadist cohorts and followers get a rush out of this. You can bet this is must see TV for Trump, Miller, and the members of his cult. Is it sick? See below:

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For those who want to delve more deeply into what is so very wrong with people like this, I suggest reading the Wikipedia entry about sadistic personality here. You can look at the traits and characteristics and consider which of them apply to Trump and his henchmen, and to those who enjoy watching the deportations.

I post my Substacks (formerly blogs) on several platforms. They are on Substack where, if you want to submit your email, you can be notified of all new blog posts. They are on HalBrown.org. They are also on Stressline.org I also post them on Medium because this enables them to be easily found on internet searches.

 

Trump and MAGA cohorts don't lack empathy. As sadists, they have perverse empathy, by Hal M. Brown, MSW

 

I wasn't sure which word to use in the title of this Substack to describe the unique kind of empathy Trump and his MAGA cohorts have. The other terms I considered were obscene, meaing offensive to moral principles, and repugnant. I settled on "perverse" because it was less judgmental.  It decribes a person or their actions showing a deliberate and obstinate desire to behave in a way that is unreasonable or unacceptable.

People who understand, and care about, emotions know that empathy is a deeper human experience than sympathy. It means that one can temporarily put themselves inside of another person's experiential world and get a profound sense of what they are feeling. It is as if they are feeling another's feelings themselves. When someone is empathizing, their feelings can be said to be resonating with the other person's feelings. These individuals are called empathetic (sometimes empathic, meaning the same thing).

Trump has been called a malignant narcissist. He fits the definition on Wikipedia and on many other websites. 

All of the definitions address the lack of empathy. This is from Wikipedia:

Because traits of antisocial personality disorder are present in malignant narcissism, the "malignant narcissist" has a more pervasive lack of empathy than someone with NPD (narcissstic personality disorder) alone and will lack feelings of guilt or remorse for the damage they cause.

Definitions also include a sadist element:

Psychologist Keith Campbell has defined malignant narcissism specifically as the rare but dangerous combination of narcissism and sadism.

In thinking about Trump and some of the people he is relying on to advance his agenda like Stephen Miller, I've concluded that they have a unique kind of empathy. I am calling it perverse empathy. Because they are sadists they enjoy being able to make their enemies suffer. They want them to be scared. They take pleasure in knowing that they can make millions of migrants, even children, frightened about being deported. They want trans people to be miserable. They want DEI hires to worry themselves sick about where their next paycheck is coming from. They want political enemies to be anxious about their personal safety. They want people like us to be worried sick about the country becoming a dictatorship. As Trump and his minions find more groups to demonize and terrorize the list will grow.

I've been posting the illustration above on my Substacks about Trump lately, but on the bottom of the page. Today it is the main illustration. This is because unless Trump sees the cruelty he unleashes he doesn't enjoy it. He not only wants to know how much he is hurting people, he wants as many other people to know this as possible. For example, he wants immigrant roundups, like the one happening today in Chicago, to get as much publicity as possible.

Here's why I suggest that Trump and his ilk have a particular kind of empathy. 

To really enjoy hurting someone a person has to be able to have a good sense of how they, the victims, are feeling. Here's where sympathy and empathy diverge. They actually get into that person's skin and are able to get a glimpse of how they feel, of their fear or terror. 

Bishop Budde said directly to Trump that she hoped he would show mercy, as if he was capable of this.

People like Trump take pleasure in inflicting pain. They certainly don't sympathize with their victims. Asking Trump to show mercy is like asking the same of Hannibal Lector. 

An empathetic therapist empathizes with their client during a session and often when thinking about them. They learn to pull back emotionally lest they become overwhelmed with what is referred to as caregiver fatigue or burnout. People in all healthcare professions have to learn what is referred to as controlled emotional involvement. 

The perversely empathetic person empathizes with their victims because it enhances their own pleasure. Obviously, it never bothers them so they certainly don't need to learn controlled emotional involvement. They really want to know how much the people they injure are suffering. 

Trump is on a crusade of cruelty. In this respect he is like Hitler. I expect we will see editorial cartoons about Trump similar to these about Hitler:

Cartoon by British artist David Low.

How much Hitler personally enjoyed the pain he inflicted is, as far as I can tell, unknown. He was a psychopath and may or may not have been a sadist. We don't know if he enjoyed thinking about what was happening in the death camps. Of course, he didn't care about how many people he had killed. Killing was a means to achieve an ends.

Trump has many traits of being a psychopathic personality. While not killing people, he is on a path to hurting millions of people, and he is enjoying this.

Using Trump and "having empathy" in the same sentence may seem like an oxymoron. My premise it that he does have empathy, but it is a unique loathsome kind of empathy.

Addendum:

Practical Examples of Empathy (Reference)

To further illustrate the practical use of these terms, consider the following examples:

• Everyday Language: “His empathetic nature made him a great friend, always knowing how to console others in times of need.”
• Clinical Setting: “The therapist used an empathic approach to build trust and understanding with her patients.”
• Literary Context: “The novel’s protagonist had an empathic connection with animals, sensing their emotions as if they were her own.”
• Social Interaction: “Being empathetic towards others can significantly improve your relationships and social connections.”

I post my Substacks (formerly blogs) on several platforms. They are on Substack where, if you want to submit your email, you can be notified of all new blog posts. They are on HalBrown.org. They are also on Stressline.org I also post them on Medium because this enables them to be easily found on internet searches.

Rachel Maddow, there's nothing remotely amusing about Trump. By Hal M. Brown

 

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I intended to write about my negative reaction to some of the hosts and guests on MSNBC laughing or expressing any kind of amusement when they talk about Trump or his minions. I don't want to pick on Rachel Maddow in particular, but she seems to be the worst offender. Others like Lawrence O'Donnell, Michelle Wallace, and Ali Velshi report on Trump and what he is doing with gravity. But Rachel seem to have a kind of nervous reaction sometimes, not all of the time, when she laughs or chuckles when reporting on Trump and his cadre.

Then I saw this on BlueSky.

I skimmed the article in The Independent (here), and made this reply on BlueSky:

There is nothing remotely amusing about Trump and about what he is doing. He is hell-bent on turning the country into a ruthless dictatorship as soon as possible.  Nobody on MSNBC should crack a smile when they talk about him even if they are reporting on some of his faux pas. 

Trump just admitted he watches Rachel Maddow and that what she says it getting to him.

I am open to considering that Rachel's approach is acceptable just because however she comes across get under Trump's thin skin. I measure this possiblity against how it effects her audience. I think of the impact Walter Chronkite had when he came out against the VietNam War.  

It is time for Rachel to say she isn't going to crack so much as a hint of a smile until the menace of MAGA is gone.

I think the peril of Trump will begin to sink in. It may take more reporting on children cowering in fear and crying when ICE agents manhandle their parents who are in chains when they are loaded onto airplanes.

Trump hates not to be taken seriously. I am not suggesting he shouldn't be mocked, at least not yet.  However, this should be left to late night comics, but I anticpate a time when even they will realize there is nothing left about him to make fun of. 

Cartoonists often mock their subjects but before long I will see them drawing images like this published featuring Hitler.

People need relief from their worries about what is happening to our country. They need to find things to distract them from their anxiety. This  is healthy. But they also should learn to accept that their way of life, their very freedom not to live in fear of the government, is in dire jeopardy. It is counter-productive if they see people on MSNBC ,and perhaps CNN, trying to make light of what Trump and his minions are doing.

Previous Substacks

or read on HalBrown.org

Get ready for Tsar Trump the Terrible, by Hal M. Brown

Sabrina Haake's Substack "Haake Take" today A king pardons his army: J6 was a rehearsal. By pardoning the most violent among them, Trump has begun recruitment for the real event prompted me to make a comment.Then I realized this would be a good topic for my own Substack. I added a bit to it and added an illustration.

Okay, I'll "go there" (none of us are are inhibited by Godwin's Law thanks to Trump) and suggest the following.

If Hitler, during the mid-thirties, announced to the world that he planned to invade and subjugate Europe, Endland, and Russian as part of his 1000 Year Reich and initiate the Holocaust to wipe out Jewery, I'd like believe the world would have taken him more seriously than it did. Maybe FDR wouldn't have kept the United States out of the war because of isolationist sentiment until Pearl Harbor and millions of lives would have been spared.

While Trump denied that he knew anything about Project 2025, his actions show that he aspires to be a ruthless dictator. King is too kind a word, unless you want to liken him to Henry VIII or the less known kings, Leopold II of Belgium and Æthelred the Unready.

If Trump lacked empathy it would be bad enough. He gets off on inflicting pain on others. This is sadism.

We know what he has in his mind. In 2017 he told police not to be careful not to injure suspects when they put them into the back of their car.

While addressing a crowd of law enforcement officers in July 2017, Trump did advise police not to be "too nice" with people in custody and encouraged officers to stop protecting peoples' heads when they're handcuffed and ducking to get into squad cars. Snopes

He's asked about shooting migrants trying to cross the Rio Grande below the waist. Of course with assualt rifles these wounds would often be lethal and wondered about putting alligators in the river.

This is kind of brutality that is in Trump's mind.

Listen up, Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, when you shoot at the police wearing body armor, this is where to aim. (As an aside, police will be shooting back and if they try this Trump can't pardon them if they break state laws - at least not yet.)

Rather than saying Trump aspires to be king, among the other actual titles for rulers to use besides this, are emperor and tsar (or czar). I like the latter because of the Russian connection. I'm thinking of Ivan the Terrible, the first man to rule all of Russia as tsar. If we start to say Trump wants to be a tsar we can begin to call him Tsar Trump the Terrible.

Here's a little about Tsar Ivan:

He created a vicious private army and spent the rest of his life merrily murdering people, ransacking churches, and terrifying Russians everywhere. He attacked one of his own cities, Novgorod, slaughtering its citizens and ransacking everything, killing an estimated 12,000 innocent people. He also launched several ill-advised military campaigns that crippled Russia's treasury and reputation. When Ivan died of a stroke in 1584, Russia was mostly relieved. Reference.

Unfortunately Zsar Trump the Terrible is not a three word alliteration because of the soft T sound in tsar, but it does have a menacing ring to it.

I post my Substacks (formerly blogs) on several platforms. They are on Substack where, if you want to submit your email, you can be notified of all new blog posts. They are on HalBrown.org. They are also on Stressline.org I also post them on Medium because this enables them to be easily found on internet searches.

How Trump's grandiose narcissism can help turn around the dark days of democracy's death, by Hal M. Brown

 

As we enter the dark days of democracy's death there are several positive things I can think about Trump's grandiose narcissism that can derail his quest to establish his ruthlessly cruel dictatorship. The obvious one is that some of his plans will fail so egregiously that some of his supporters in Congress will turn against him. Then, by the next election the Democrats may win control of one or both houses of Congress.

There's something else that can happen much more rapidly.

This is that he will frequently make himself available to be questioned in person by members of the Washington press corps. 

In his feverish juggernaut to undo everything Biden did he's already withdrawn from The World Health Organization and the Paris Climate Accords. He eliminated Biden's cap on some prescription drug prices.

These are all things that even some of his supporters don't support. They need to see how he justifies these actions and others.  This is where his willingness, even his eagerness, to face reporters comes in.

He's a narcissistic showboater. He loves to be on TV and thinks he so much smarter than anyone that he doesn't think it's possible for a reporter from what he calls "the fake press" to ask a gotcha question that he can't come up with a convincing answer to.

Consider, though, his feeble response to a question from NBC's Peter Alexander:

Alexander asked, “You would agree that it’s never acceptable to assault a police officer?“

Trump answered ”sure."

Alexander followed up: “Among those you pardoned was D.J. Rodriguez. He drove a stun gun into the neck of an officer who was abducted by the mob that day. He later confessed on video to the FBI and pleaded guilty for his crimes. Why does he deserve a pardon?”

Trump said: “Well, I don’t know. Was it a pardon? Because we are looking at commutations and we’re looking at pardons.”

Alexander said that it was a pardon.

Trump responded “OK, well we’ll take a look at everything,” 

Then Trump then went off-topic, falsely claiming that murderers in some cities “aren’t charged. But I can say this: Murderers today are not even charged. You have murderers that aren’t charged, all over. You take a look at what’s gone on in Philadelphia. You take a look at what’s gone off in L.A., where people murder people and they don’t get charged.”

Alexander's question was well-crafted because it set Trump up to contradict his vice president. He was also able to say that Rodriguez was pardoned and didn't recieve clemency.

The next time Trump goes before the press hopefully he will be asked how he justifies actions like being one of the few nations not signing the climate accords, which even China  and Russia signed along with 194 countries and the EU are a part of.  He should be asked how he explains pulling out of WHO, which also has 194 members. He should be asked to summarize what WHO has done and what its role is in public health.

On the subject of health, he should be asked that now that he's undone Biden's prescription cost cutting what he'd say to the millions of seniors that now have to choose between life saving medication and paying the rent.

On deportation, I'd like to see him asked what he would say to young children children terrifed and confused because they, and their parents who are in chains, are being led onto an airplane or vehicles to be deported (below).

What would Trump say if he was asked whether he'd authorize the military using lethal force to stop people trying to cross the border who posed no threat to them? Consider:

Frustrated with a record number of people seeking asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border this spring, President Donald Trump at one point asked in a private meeting with close aides whether the U.S. could shoot migrants below the waist to slow them down. Reference.

If he offered this as an answer the reporter should be prepared to explain that bullets from assault rifles are so powerful that even shots in the legs, let along to the abdomen, are often lethal.

If Trump is still threatening military action against Greenland and Panama reporters can ask how far Trump would go authorizing the military to use their massive firepower against our allies. Both countries have a right to self-defense and the United States would be an aggressor. Trump should be reminded of this if this subject is brought up.

The hits keep coming. 

Yesterday Trump pardoned the creator of a Dark Web website serving for charges which included selling narcotics. Trump needs to be asked how he justifies this and what message it sends to other criminals trafficking in narcotics.

Trump realizing that he looks inept with his defensive and ridiculous answers to reporters questions wouldn't be in his nature. This aspect of his narcissism would be good for us. The more he goes before reporters who won't be intimidated by him the better.

Of c0urse it is possible that Trump will revoke the press conference privileges of anyone who poses difficult questions. This is where all the objective media have to act as one. If any of them are denied press privileges they should all engage in a well-publicized boycott. This would leave only a few reporters from Trump-world media in a near-empty room. They would pose softball questions and viewership would go way down.

As long as Trump, who loves conflict with adversaries as long as he convinces himself he always is the winner, the public will have a chance to hear how he rationalizes, justifies, avoids, and goes off on irrelevant tangents, to make his transgressions, some of which go beyond stupid to being downright cruel, look not just great, but glorious. For Trump, it's just no fun unless everyone sees his cruelty.

I post my Substacks (formerly blogs) on several platforms.  They are on Substack where, if you want to submit your email, you can be notified of all new blog posts. They are on HalBrown.org. They are also on Stressline.org  I also post them on Medium because this enables them to be easily found on internet searches.