I'm starting to think some Trump supporters are mentally ill
And I emphasize here again SOME, not all, but definitely enough where its a noticeable issue and pathology.
And I dont even mean that as an insult. I mean that in the sense where I genuinely feel sorry for them and wonder if some of them have an undiagnosed mental illness that borders on Schizophrenia, hallucinations etc. I've spent a good chunk of my life and forever avoiding politics and never watching the news, but I regularly when bored check out posts and comments from Trump supporters either on FB, news articles, Youtube comments, miscellaneous social media, or even on forums like this interacting with them. And honestly after a crazy interaction with one online where I was flamed and sent DEATH threats just for making a regular post on FB saying Trump's comments on women are sexist, I'm starting to actually believe some, not all but a large large large number, of his followers actually have traits that correlate with mental illness
I'm referring to traits of literal delusion (where you can show someone a clip of something Trump said or did and then they'll deny it even when its caught on clip), severe paranoia (it's one thing to have a healthy dose of skepticism and entertain conspiracy theories when well researched. It's another thing to automatically believe everything on earth that makes team Trump look bad or another point of view even semi tolerable, to carte blanch label all of that as fake news and call everything ipso facto a conspiracy is really far fetched), psychotic symptoms (getting death threats for casually stating that Trump's comments about women were sexist isn't even the tip of the iceberg), major cognitive dissonance (even though I genuinely believe the Capitol Hill riot had elements of it that are fishy, many Trump supporters think it happened and support it, and many of the same people who a moment ago were vociferously chanting "Blue Lives Matter" and always character assassinated every black person shot by the police for "not following the law" all of a sudden denounced the police who shot that woman who was trespassing on federal property and even were asking for the address of that cop to kill him) as well as a blind delusion of saint worship for a man whose personal character is one of a sleazy, philandering, narcissistic, and greedy racist.
Let me clarify something off the bat. Anyone who knows me knows I HATE Hillary and Biden way more than Trump. By a lot. However, while I hate Hillary and Biden I recognize that the average Hillary and Biden supporter seems a lot less crazy, unhinged, mentally unstable and flat out cancerous to talk to compared to the average Trump supporter. By miles. Like, no contest
The reason I made this post was because of 2 incidents. The 1st happened on FB where a deranged Trump supporter sent me death threats for casually commenting on a Facebook group that Trump's comments towards women were sexist. The second incident that spurred me to write this was seeing a Trump supporter on this very forum turn a tragedy of a black church being burned down into a way to insert Trump persecution complex politics into an otherwise somber tragedy, which given the age of this user (40 years old) is completely inappropriate and puerile.
The cult worship of Trump literally is something I've never ever seen before for any other human, except for Jesus. Literally if Trump told his followers to commit suicide I wouldn't be surprised if many of them did.
What im trying to say is I'm not here to vilify Trump supporters and call them deplorable with the intention of mocking them. I honestly and genuinely speak from a place of concern when I say that the fanatical worship of Trump, the blind obedience to everything he says and complete denial of his many fallibilities, the veritable defense of his most indefensible and flagrantly egregious shortcomings and mistakes, the apotheosis and elevation on some holy pedestal with many actual Evangelical Christians and other religious leaders in America hailing him literally as the 2nd coming of Christ, or even saying his presidency was divinely approbated by God himself, and so much more is actually making me wonder if his supporters suffer from a mental illness
I've seen the crazy Hillary supporters and radical feminists who support Hilary, but nothing from them even comes close to the Hitleresque character worship of Trump that I've seen from his supporters. I really mean it when I say nothing comes close. Even the most rabid Hillary supporter isn't anywhere near as fanatical about Hillary as some of Trump's followers are about Trump.
I dont mean this to offend all or even most Trump supporters. I know there are many hardworking and decent Trump supporters who support him because they want a president who is tough on China, champions America 1st, and isn't an elite political insider. This post isn't for those Trump supporters.
This is for the Trump supporters who without realizing worship the man. The ones who compare him literally to Jesus like this:
I'm sorry but looking at images like this makes me cringe so hard
And for the record this post isn't about Trump as a politician or whether he's good or not. I dont know enough or care to know enough about politics to give a damn either way. However Even if Trump is the greatest president America has ever had, don't the Trump supporters who are Christian have no shame worshipping a man when you're instructed to worship only God? Don't these people have any shame deifying a man above God?
In my honest and humblest opinion anyone who puts a man, especially a man as flawed as Trump, to such a pedestal to border on worship needs to actually get themselves checked mentally. I'm a huge huge HUGE fan of Malcolm X yet I understood the man was flawed and admitted that he's said things I dont agree with at all. I know he wasn't perfect and was a fallible human. Why can't the rabid Trump supporters do the same?
Why cant his crazy followers support him for the things that resonate with their own ideologies while at the same time recognize that like all flawed humans he isn't perfect and can make mistakes. Something so simple seems so impossible when I see how as soon as someone even hints something imperfect about Trump his rabid followers attack like attack dogs waiting to devour their prey.
It's cringe and makes me feel sorry for some of these people
Even on WP, a website full of Autistic people who I thought would be more rational and smart, if I were to be honest I cant help but recognize that the least objective, most biased and even most obsessive people on this forum are those who happen to blindly support Trump. Sure members here can have a pro-Liberal bias that I have called out on, but its not to the same level of the bias for trump that borders on actual hero worship that is frankly unhealthy and disturbing if I were to be honest. I've never ever seen Fnord or auntblabby or any of the more liberal members on WP ever inject random liberal politics into an otherwise tragic thread that was somber, yet today a Trump supporter did just that inappropriately for a church being burned down even when that comment was very inappropriate and uncalled for.
On another thread about the Suez Canal crisis a few weeks ago, an issue that had nothing to do with Trump or American politics, somehow one of the Trump supporters on that thread found a way to make some out of place and tonally inappropriate quip invoking Trump persecution complex, and all im thinking is "really?? is this really the time for this".
Even though im open to believing Trump is a better president than his predecessors since even though I dont watch the news I know he didnt start useless foreign wars like Obama and Bush, I cant help but feel that his supporter base support him too fanatically and it borders on actual mental illness imo
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Last edited by Cornflake on 18 Apr 2021, 10:16 am, edited 1 time in total.: Replaced image with same one from a non-paywalled source
Death threats are totally out of line, that is for sure.
Whoever did that needs to be prosecuted.
I don't know about his crazy followers but we do have some enthusiastic ones in our local creative writers group (wait a minute, a bunch of writers and retired literature professors may not be the best group for a sample of sane humanity, but, oh well, anyway ...) and at least as far as I've seen they have done both of those.
I haven't followed the news close enough to fully evaluate recent news but I gotta wonder something based on past experiences with news, and TV news in particular - could the size of the cadre of crazy supporters be a bit overemphasized by news coverage in order to get views, meaning that while there really some who really are that crazy there aren't overly many of them after all?
Sensationalism in news coverage is a known thing.
For instance, https://medium.com/the-cynical-report/t ... a7582205cc
Section 1: News media has one goal: to be addictive
I’m sure that at some point in your life you’ve watched the news on channels such as CNN, MSNBC, FOX, or elsewhere. You’ve probably noticed that they usually do catch your attention — regardless of how much you actually learned. You may not realize it, but that’s exactly what the networks want. While they do give some information and opinions/analysis so that you think they’re providing value — which motivates you to come back — news networks are more focused on getting you to tune in than providing quality information.
Now that may sound like a bold claim."
Excerpt from another reference, http://www2.latech.edu/~jroberts/275sensationalism.html
Technology has changed news production in a process of many decisions within a news organization.
The choice of published stories is sometimes decided before an event occurs, and the crucial choices are often made by the executives of a news organization and not by the journalists.
Many scholars feel that news is the by-product of three factors: events, the journalist’s perceptions of them, and the basics of the news organizations. Taking this into consideration, one realizes news is not what is happening but what others perceive to be happening.
Let’s move now to sensationalism of the 1990s and today.
Celebrities are a capitalistic commodity, and the study of celebrities is a growing industry. Ordinary people are transformed into something which is seen as extraordinary by the media and public. Celebrity status develops quickly and decays even faster, depending on the revenue the celebrity exhibits.
...
Celebrities are not the only media darlings assaulted with scandal. Political figureheads, from the village mayor to the president of the United States, are being becoming sensationalized, over-hyped media fodder – which may or may not be beneficial to the state of the country.
Due to the series of high-profile abuses of power in the 1990s, many researchers have started to believe that the coverage of political figures has begun to slip into a spiral of sensationalism. When you mention political figures in your writing, whether news or columns, you need to watch this.
Third and final reference to the concept, https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/1 ... 3117739947
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funeralxempire
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Some like 5% or some like 55%?
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Apparently you've forgotten everything said about Trump by liberals when he was in office. Remember the picture of the comedienne holding a picture of what appeared to be Trump's severed head? And I can't tell you how many liberals called for his assassination out loud, in public. Yet you want to say Trump supporters are mentally ill?
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funeralxempire
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How many of them peddle QAnon nonsense or replacement theory?
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Watching liberals try to solve societal problems without a systemic critique/class consciousness is like watching someone in the dark try to flip on the light switch, but they keep turning on the garbage disposal instead.
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Almost every Trump supporter I've met has a very obvious disconnect between their ideas and reality, and just allows themselves to get spoon fed BS by their also Trump supporting family members and friends. They usually believe in at least a couple conspiracies, like they're anti-vax or think the "Demorats" want to eat babies, which doesn't help me believe they're not GD insane. And like you said, everything they get involved in becomes about politics and Trump.
I don't feel bad for thinking that Trump supporters are crazy, either. There's still Republicans who don't support Trump, so it's not like I'm bashing the right as a whole, which is what Trump worshippers insist you're doing whenever you give them any actual criticism.
funeralxempire
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Expanding, not rebutting;
Liz Cheney might be highly disagreeable but you can feel fairly confident she doesn't believe her opponents are all addicted to adrenochrome harvested from murdered babies. She doesn't peddle tales of her opponents being involved in human trafficking of children while her colleague Matt Gaetz is actually involved in trafficking minors for sex.
Reasonable people don't resurrect antisemitic blood libel tropes to invent brand new idiotic conspiracies. People who resort to such tactics can't be considered reasonable and are likely mentally ill.
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Watching liberals try to solve societal problems without a systemic critique/class consciousness is like watching someone in the dark try to flip on the light switch, but they keep turning on the garbage disposal instead.
戦争ではなく戦争と戦う
I never said all Trump supporters, something I mentioned emphatically if you read my post carefully instead of just knee jerk reacting to the title. And while it's crazy what some liberal comedians have said, that doesn't compare to the actual terroristic threats and attempts made by Trump supporters on the lives of innocent people. The New Zealand shooter who shot up a Mosque in Christchurch and slaughtered 51 innocent people including a 3 year old infant? The guy explicitly endorsed President Donald Trump in his manifesto which I read twice. TWICE. The heartless monster butchered 51 innocent people praying peacefully in a mosque and wrote a Manifesto claiming that Donald Trump is the symbol of white supremacist resistance.
War criminals from the Serbian government explicitly endorsed president Donald Trump; we're talking people behind the deadliest genocide in European history since the Holocaust endorsing president Trump.
The KKK? Also endorsed Trump.
The El Paso shooter? A huge Trump supporter.
The police union chief who destroyed Minneapolis policing and created the bad policing that gave us the George Floyd incident? A huge Trump supporter.
And many right wing terror groups, as in the kinds of groups that shoot up mosques and plan race wars of annihilation, are Trump supporters.
Please don't ever compare the crazy liberals to the crazy Trump supporters. The craziest liberals want to get rid of the police and create a failed socialist/anarchist state. The craziest Trump supporters want Hitler back and want to annihilate all non-Aryans. There is a worlds difference between the craziest supporters of both groups, and while both are crazy you'd be lying if you think the crazy leftists are as crazy as some of the crazier people on the right
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Too bad. I'd be interested to know the number.
In court records of people arrested in the wake of the Jan. 6 coup attempt on the Capital building in Washington D.C., 68% reported they had received mental health diagnoses (i.e., addictions, anxiety, bipolar disorders, depression, Munchausen syndrome by proxy, paranoid schizophrenia, post-traumatic stress disorder, et cetera).
Source: This Marketwatch Article .
It would seem that our former Narcissist-In-Chief is not the only one who is "Reality-Challenged"!
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74 million people voted for him, millions more support him.
Maybe .. possibly .. there is 1 mentally ill individual in that group.
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I don't like Trump. At all.
Mental illness isn't something to accuse people of for political reasons.
YES some Trump fans are mentally ill just like some have brown eyes.
This is something that is often levied at political opponents back and forth and has been for decades. Dressing it up as 'mentally ill' rather than 'crazy' doesn't make it not an insult.
It's insulting to mentally ill people to link bad politics with them/us.
Yes, politics can affect mental illness & vice versa but that's true across the spectrum, esp in the more extreme fringes of both. It's a fear of 'them', 'the other', and it doesn't always make sense.
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funeralxempire
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~50 million I'd reckon based on the study Fnord references.
I'm not making any judgment, after all a substantial number of people on this board have mental health diagnoses, including myself.
That said, most people don't base their political ideology around their paranoid delusions. If you're making your decisions on the basis of 'well, he might be terrible but at least he'll crack down on the Satanic pedophiles who are high on drenchrome and working to replace the white man' you're not just mentally ill, you're no longer connected to reality.
The view of Trump as a messiah is an obvious delusion to most but to some of his supporters it's both a fact and an obsession. It's difficult to have worthwhile dialogue with people who are suffering delusions.
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Watching liberals try to solve societal problems without a systemic critique/class consciousness is like watching someone in the dark try to flip on the light switch, but they keep turning on the garbage disposal instead.
戦争ではなく戦争と戦う
When more that two-thirds of the people involved in the January 6th coup attempt to overturn the results of a fair and legal election and keep Trump in the White House confess to some form of mental illness, that tells me that there is no valid reason for me to even consider the opinions of any Trump supporter as valid.
68% of 74,000,000 is 50,320,000, by the way...
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His devotees will likely go ape-shirt with prophesies regarding his alleged return.
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funeralxempire
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68% of 74,000,000 is 50,320,000, by the way...
To be fair, the ones who actually showed up might be nuttier than the average supporter, to play Satan's barrister.
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Watching liberals try to solve societal problems without a systemic critique/class consciousness is like watching someone in the dark try to flip on the light switch, but they keep turning on the garbage disposal instead.
戦争ではなく戦争と戦う
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