Is Gaslighting The Country Into A State Of Dread An "Accomplishment?"

A new Washington Post/ABC News poll shows that registered voters say Kavanaugh’s confirmation makes them more apt to support Democratic rather than Republican candidates by a 6-point margin, 33-27 percent. Overall, confirming Kavanaugh was a net loss for the GOP. And a majority of voters thing Congress should do a real investigation of him next year. Ted Lieu, a member of the House Judiciary Committee was the first to call for such an investigation and now Jerry Nadler, the likely next chairman of the committee, has promised an investigation into sexual misconduct and perjury allegations against Kavanaugh if the Democrats take control of the House in the midterm elections.

Another poll, also released yesterday, this one by Harvard for Politico got into motivation driving voters, more proof that this wave is not a Blue Wave but an anti-Red (or anti-Trump) Wave. "Fear and anger over the GOP’s health policies are driving a majority of Democratic voters to the polls in an effort to flip control of the House and put the brakes on the Trump administration’s agenda... More than half of Democrats likely to vote in House races rank health care as “extremely important” in determining their vote." Republicans are more driven by their own paranoias about terrorism and guns.

“The parties are incredibly polarized in what they are voting on,” said Robert Blendon, a Harvard professor of health policy and political analysis, who designed the poll. “Health care is not really a major issue for Republicans. But it’s an overwhelming issue for Democrats.”

Beyond health care, Democrats list education, the Supreme Court and climate change among their top concerns heading into the November elections.

...More than two-thirds of Republicans say they’re somewhat motivated to vote in November to show support for President Donald Trump. Among Democrats, the president is playing an even bigger role in priming turnout: 72 percent say they’re voting in part to oppose his administration. ...For Democrats, the midterms are about protecting Obamacare and its benefits, and preventing the Trump administration from pursuing its own health care agenda. Republicans, reflecting Trump’s protectionist leanings, care deeply about issues like preserving gun rights and immigration restrictions.

Yesterday New York Magazine carried an essay by Andrew Sullivan on the dangers of Trump's accomplishments. "Trump’s record as a force of destruction is profound," he wrote, "whether it be the sabotage of Obamacare, the devastation of democratic norms, or the rattling of NATO. But as the months tick by, there’s a decent case that Trump’s proactive accomplishments are beginning to add up as well: a huge tax cut, two Supreme Court justices, wholesale deregulation, renegotiation of NAFTA, isolation of Iran, and a broader reboot of bilateral nationalism on the world stage. But I’m not talking merely about policy-- he has also shifted the entire polity more decisively toward the authoritarian style of government. In this respect, yes, the Trump administration has indeed accomplished much more than many of us want to believe."

But there's another essay from yesterday that's a must read, this one by John Harris and Sarah Zimmerman for Politico, Trump May Not Be Crazy, But The Rest Of Us Are Getting There Fast. Sullivan overlooked that accomplishment. "Psychologists' couches are filling up as Americans seek relief from Trump Anxiety Disorder." Her wrote about couples have problems because "the agitated state of American politics was causing strain in their marriage... Trump excites hot feelings in many quarters has cooled them considerably in bedrooms... During normal times, therapists say, their sessions deal with familiar themes: relationships, self-esteem, everyday coping. Current events don’t usually invade. But numerous counselors said Trump and his convulsive effect on America’s national conversation is giving politics a prominence on the psychologist’s couch not seen since the months after 9/11-- another moment in which events were frightening in a way that had widespread emotional consequences."

The American Psychiatric Association in a May survey found that 39 percent of people said their anxiety level had risen over the previous year-- and 56 percent were either “extremely anxious” or “somewhat anxious about “the impact of politics on daily life.” A 2017 study found two-thirds of Americans’ see the nation’s future as a “very or somewhat significant source of stress.”

These findings suggest the political-media community has things backwards when it comes to Trump and mental health.

For two years or more, commentators have been cross-referencing observations of presidential behavior with the official APA Diagnostic and Statistical Manual’s definition of narcissistic personality disorder. Journalists have compared contemporary video of Trump with interviews from the 1980s for signs of possible cognitive decline. And even some people on his own team, according to books and news reports, have been reading up on the process of presidential removal under the 25th Amendment of the Constitution-- fueled by suspicions that the president’s allegedly erratic and undeniably precedent-shattering approach to the Oval Office may prove eventually to be a case of non compos mentis.

A more plausible interpretation, in the view of some psychological experts, is that Trump has been cultivating, adapting and prospering from his distinctive brand of provocation, brinkmanship, and self-drama for the past 72 years. What we’re seeing is merely the president’s own definition of normal. It is only the audience who finds the performance disorienting. In other words: He’s not crazy, but the rest of us are getting there fast.

...A study from the market research firm Galileo also found that, in the first 100 days after Trump’s election, 40 percent of people said they “can no longer have open and honest conversations with some friends or family members.” Nearly a quarter of respondents said their political views have hurt their personal relationships.

“Authority figures represent the parent, [so] President Trump seats in the seat of parent for all Americans,” said Baum-Baicker. “So now, my ‘father figure’ is a bully, is an authoritarian who doesn’t believe in studying and doing homework... [Rather than reassurance] he creates uncertainty.”

Even Trump supporters are not insulated from this modern age of anxiety.

...Nearly every interview with psychologists returned to the theme of “gaslighting”-- the ability of manipulative people to make those around them question their mental grip.

Trump daily goes to war on behalf of his own factual universe, with what conservative commentator George F. Will this week called “breezy indifference to reality.”

Examples include false boasts on the size of his inauguration crowd; his denunciation of unfavorable stories as “fake news”; the assertion that an investigation into his campaign which has already produced multiple criminal convictions is “a hoax.” Some people can’t just roll their eyes at obvious bullshit-- they experience an assault on truth at a more profound psychic level.

“Gaslighting is essentially a tactic used by abusive personalities to make the abused person feel as though they’re not experiencing reality, or that it’s made up or false,” said Dominic Sisti, a behavioral health care expert at the University of Pennsylvania who penned an article with Baum-Baicker on Trump’s effect on stress. “The only reality one can trust is one that is defined by the abuser. Trump does this on a daily basis-- he lies, uses ambiguities, demonizes the press. It’s a macroscopic version of an abusive relationship.”

When people are frightened by erratic behavior and worry what’s coming next in any arena of life, said Panning, that creates an extraordinary amount of anxiety and often a feeling of dread.”

...[T]herapists say today’s political conditions are ripe to send people of all partisan, ideological and cultural stripes to the emotional edge.

“Human beings hate two things,” said Michael Dulchin, a New York psychiatrist who has seen Trump anxiety in his practice. One is “to look to the future and think you don’t have enough energy to succeed and live up to your expectations. The other is to not be able to predict the environment.”

Put these together, he said, and the psychological result is virtually inevitable: “Anxiety and depression.”