Extremism in America
A Death Knell for Democracy and Individual Rights
The backbone of narcissistic abuse is authoritarianism. With its control freakery, the victim is silenced and squelched over time, having substituted the narcissist for the victim's voice. More broadly, it is in the petri dish of narcissism on a societal scale that authoritarianism proliferates and subsumes individuals and their rights.
In terms of narcissism, recognizing the individual becomes impossible when the merger-fusion of self and other prevails in a narcissistic society that is unable to see the other (a failure of othering). Our current narcissistic society with its authoritarian collectivism, i.e., victimhood identity politics, runs roughshod over the Renaissance (and less so the Enlightenment) holdover ideal of the individual. Individuals possess the capacity to be non-conformists, an incompatibility and threat for narcissistic collectives.
Of the crossroads we find ourselves, public intellectual Prof. Sam Vaknin states in my YouTube interview with him on our dark return to the Renaissance in our narcissistic post-Enlightenment world, “The reason we are undermining democracy, the reason we are electing autocrats to power and so on and so forth, and we have been doing it for well over a hundred years now, is because we feel abused and exploited by collectives, and we want to undo these collectives.
An autocracy is a Renaissance choice. The Renaissance debuted personality cults. When we used to say the left, we were largely talking about Enlightenment values. When you say the right, you're talking about the Renaissance. That's good framing.”
Lacking object (people) relations, narcissists view people as cardboard cutouts or avatars in a simulation. As such, in the failure of othering, the narcissist is incapable of seeing that other people have their own wishes, wants, desires, and priorities. Other people are introjects (internal objects, sometimes defined as voices) in the narcissist’s mind.
Extrapolated out, a culture of narcissism is a danger to society. A functional society depends on cohesiveness with some elbow room. A dysfunctional society is characterized by division and overcompensating control. It’s controlling to delusionally believe that other people are mere playthings and play actors in one's mind with no real-life consequences.
Opportunistic narcissism as a psychic phenomenon creates division through control freakery, zero-sum games, us vs. them mentality, black-and-white thinking (splitting), etc., while simultaneously attempting to offer a balm to the same wounds with a whipsaw of strait-laced, rigid mechanisms of control charged with expediency, i.e., authoritarianism.
Prof. Sam Vaknin, an expert in narcissism and professor of psychology, weighs in on extremism: “Feminism has a terrible name nowadays. The trans movement has a terrible name nowadays. What is this, what have these people done? What have they accomplished except sidelining their constituencies by becoming radical and extremists?
What did Muslim fundamentalists accomplish except create a stereotype of the Muslim as a crazed terrorist? What's the big accomplishment? They ended up with no territory. Millions of Muslims have been killed.
What did Muslim fundamentalism accomplish except tarnish the image and name of Islam, their alleged constituencies? All these victimhood movements are self-defeating. It's destructive because they're narcissistic.
All narcissists, no matter how accomplished in the short term, end in devastation. A narcissist ends badly. He could be the greatest billionaire, the most amazing president, and so on, and then he will destroy it somehow. He will end in a calamity. These victimhood movements all end in calamities, in a calamitous way, and their constituents will pay the price. And we're beginning to see this — the regression in women’s rights, abortion — we're beginning to see the backlash.
We are escalating, we are radicalizing all the time and we think implicitly that this process has an end. “It's okay, we'll escalate up to here, radicalize up to here. No, this is self-healing.” It's a feedback loop. It's self-enhancing, self-reinforcing. There's no end to extremism and radicalism.”
The Renaissance Man or the strongman of today, propounded by the populist right, seemingly offers an antidote to the narcissistic collectives characterizing our post-Enlightenment, postmodern age. But instead, in this Faustian bargain, populations are left with a regressive autocrat. The problems of a narcissistic age are bludgeoned with a sledgehammer and metastasize as a result.
Autocracies are characterized by extremism and authoritarianism and yet still do not solve for the perils of systemic narcissism any more than the post-Enlightenment era and arguably far less so.
Below are six categories of extremism in America, all vehicles for autocratic will, which exact disastrous, illiberal effects on human rights and human dignity. These extremist, authoritarian, and thus narcissistic categories include 1) Project 2025, 2) Destroying the Separation of Church and State through Christian Nationalism and New Apostolic Reformation (NAR), 3) the GOP's Affection for Putin, 4) Conspiracy Theories (2020 Election Denialism, Dr. Fauci), 5) Unitary Executive Theory and 6) (Trump's) Fetishizing Hitler.
Project 2025
It's in this narcissistically authoritarian climate that Project 2025 has taken root and promises to radically make over American society, top to bottom.
Project 2025, a brainchild of a conservative think tank, the Heritage Foundation, and approximately 80 other conservative satellite organizations, is funded largely by Charles Koch of Koch Brothers infamy, or more specifically, the 14th wealthiest man in the world.
This Christian Nationalist manifesto, Project 2025, plans to overturn America’s democracy and institutionalize Trumpism. It is a 920-page blueprint for Christian dominion and retribution, not only in the United States but around the world. Disavowing democracy, autocrats in the far right, including the Heritage Foundation, drive home the point by vociferously opposing aid packages to the democracy of Ukraine.
The massive tome is the latest iteration of a four-decade-long process of crafting right-wing policies to dismantle the federal government, deregulate industry, and eliminate consumer protections and public health measures while installing a regime controlled by fossil fuel interests and the Religious Right.
—Project 2025: The Latest Plot Against America by Anne Nelson
Project 2025 targets as the “administrative state,” agencies that enact regulations that keep the air and water clean and food, drugs, and consumer products safe but that cut into business profits.
Destroying Separation of Church and State
Christian Nationalists erroneously claim that the founding fathers created America as a Christian country when the opposite is true. The founding fathers intentionally separated church and state.
The promulgation of the merger and fusion of Christianity with government into a theocracy has its origins in a singular evangelical, David Barton, who has provided the “philosophical underpinnings for Republicans’ effort to bring God back into the public square,” Sam Brownback, U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom asserts in Katherine Stewart's The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism:
Barton espouses a myth of the Golden Age — the idea that America was once a single nation with a single God. This myth describes a fall and a cause for grievance as the righteous lose their hold thanks to the actions of secular liberals. The story of the past thus leads inexorably to a political prescription for the future, which involves retaking the court system and the rest of government and turning it over to Bible believers.
Many abuses of power can be perpetrated on the scaffolding of mistruth and gaslighting, such as this Golden Age myth or that America was founded as a Christian Nation. For example, these rickety foundations prop up anti-choice laws, as most anything pernicious can be justified under the banner of heaven.
The latest insult to the framers’ intention to separate church and state is Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito’s flying not one but two flags at his residences— one upside-down American flag of distress, sympathizing with the “Stop the Steal” insurrectionists and the other flag, “An Appeal to Heaven” for Christian Nationalists. These flags thumb their nose at the concept of an independent judiciary and further erode societal trust in the Supreme Court as an institution of laws rather than partisanship and corruption.
The New Apostolic Reformation (NAR), is a charismatic Christian movement, a kind of Christianity called Neo-Charismatic Pentecostalism, which played a role in instigating the insurrection on January 6th, 2021. NAR is a more radical form of Christian Nationalism. NAR members believe Jesus cannot return until they transform the earth into the Kingdom of God by hook or by crook.
The phrase “New Apostolic Reformation” was coined in the 1990s by the late C. Peter Wagner, an expert on church growth and a professor at Fuller Theological Seminary. Wagner observed that churches outside denominational structures were the fastest growing in the US and worldwide, including in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. In them, he saw an emerging new paradigm that he and his close associates eventually sought to shape, organize, and lead.
Their vision of the New Apostolic Reformation featured more than just networks of independent or nondenominational churches. It introduced historic changes to church governance, featuring the restoration of modern-day apostles and prophets and what’s called the “five-fold ministry,” comprised of apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers.
NAR adherents want to do away with democracy. They envision the entire world where their version of Christianity and their interpretation of the Bible exert total dominion and control.
What could Christian Nationalism and/or the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR) mean for you?
You or your loved ones could be forced to live by the rules of Christianity, even if you adhere to another faith or don’t currently practice faith.
You or someone you love could be compelled to live in a world where there is no meaningful medical research, no contraception, no divorce, forced marriage, and no women working outside the home.
If you’re female, you could lose the right to vote, own property, have your own passport apart from your husband or other male authority, have a bank account, or access credit. (If you become a true female apostle, you could see some of those privileges restored, provided Christian Nationalist men agree.)
If you fall on hard times, your only choice for welfare assistance could be a government-mandated religious congregation that will force you to live pretty well by their rules in exchange for food, clothing, shelter, and more.
If you identify as LGBTQIA+ or transgender, you will not be able to live openly as yourself without fear of criminal charges.
If you have an abortion (or a miscarriage), you could be charged with a felony and be given the death penalty. (Such laws have already been proposed in several red states.)
Pornography and sexual immorality will be anything that prevents God’s kingdom on earth. Penalties for engaging in any behavior an NAR member considers pornographic or sexually immoral could lead to felony charges and jail time.
GOP's Affection for Putin
Dubbed “Russian hillbillies,” Tim Alicie and Richard Birchfield captured national headlines after a photo of them emerged wearing traitorous t-shirts stating “I’d Rather Be A Russian Than A Democrat” at a rally for President Trump in Lewis Center, Ohio in 2018. After a failed attempt to trademark and set up an online store to sell “authentic” versions of their infamous t-shirt, Alicie said, “We're handicapped bad because with Birchfield's flip phone and mine and no computer, we can't keep track of what's going on.” #Sad!
Even though both still have flip phones and rarely use computers, they haven't been able to ignore the hate mail and phone calls that have come in, both to their houses and to members of their family.
Not everyone was critical. Members of the Ku Klux Klan invited the two to speak at a meeting in Columbus, OH. Alicie said they turned down the KKK's invitation. “I surely don't agree with any of their views,” he said.
So, Russia and Putin= good? Democrats and KKK= bad? Where to draw the line…
More than half of Republicans think that Russian President Vladimir Putin is a better president than Joe Biden.
This being said, Republican House Foreign Affairs Chairman Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX) has warned that Russian propaganda has "infected" a portion of the GOP base.
Also, Republican Rep. Michael R. Turner (R-OH) of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence said, “Oh, it is absolutely true,” Turner said of McCaul’s comments. “We see directly coming from Russia attempts to mask communications that are anti-Ukraine and pro-Russia messages, some of which we even hear being uttered on the House floor.”
The Putin wing of the Republican party advocates reneging on defending NATO allies from Moscow.
“Donald Trump told a NATO ally that he would encourage Putin to do whatever he needed to do,” Former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) told CNN anchor Jake Tapper. This statement by Trump in February of this year makes it clear that under a Trump administration, the United States is unlikely to keep its NATO commitments. This message is sending shock waves of massive anxiety across Europe.
The website, D.C. Weekly, a propaganda arm of Russia that is not based in Washington D.C. created a false narrative that the president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, took money that the U.S. sent him for weapons, siphoned it off, and bought two luxury yachts.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) did Putin's bidding by spreading this propaganda. This bogus narrative held up crucial aid in Congress for seven months. In that time, Ukraine suffered tremendous battlefield losses. Ukrainians have died because Republican members of Congress are parroting fake news from Moscow, a win for Putin.
The Republicans and the Christian Nationalists’ affection for Mr. Putin and all things Russian goes much deeper than a tactical alliance aimed at saving souls. At the core of the attraction lies a shared political vision. America’s Christian Nationalists have not overlooked Putin’s authoritarian style of government; they have embraced it as an ideal. During the 2016 presidential campaign Mike Pence hailed Mr. Putin as “a stronger leader in his country than Barack Obama has been in this country.”
The Christian Nationalists haven’t shied away from the fusion of church and state that characterizes Putin’s regime. On the contrary, it appears they want to emulate it. They love Russia, it seems, because they hate America and its form of secular, constitutional democracy.
— Katherine Stewart, author of The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism
Katherine Stewart concludes her book, The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism with a crescendo of a closer:
“When Russians undertook a direct attack on American democracy in 2016 with the clear aims of electing Donald Trump as president and undermining Americans’ trust in their system of government, Christian Nationalist leaders did more than join Trump in the spurious cries of “No collusion.” They joined him in denying that there ever was an attack. They cheered him on as he obstructed efforts to investigate the attack.
And then they joined him in attacking Democrats, the FBI, the “fake media,” the “deep state,” and everyone else who suggested that investigating and countering an attack on America was a good idea. It seems sadly fitting that so many of the self-anointed patriots of America’s Christian Nationalist movement should have found themselves working with foreign powers intent on undermining our national security, our social fabric, the integrity of our elections, and the future of American democracy. This is a movement that never accepted the promise of America. It never believed that a republic could be founded on a universal ideal of equality, not on a particular creed, or that it might seek out reasoned answers to humanity’s challenges rather than enforce old dogmas. It never subscribed to the nation’s original unofficial motto, E Pluribus Unum, that out of many, we could become one. From the beginning, its aim was to redeem the nation by crushing the pluralistic heart of our country. The day when it will have the power to do so is fast approaching.”
Conspiracy Theories
Kevin D. Roberts, president of the conservative Heritage Foundation, says he doesn't believe that Biden won the 2020 election, though he claims he is not a conspiracy theorist (click here for my piece where I was interviewed on the psychology of conspiracy theorists in America).
Jason Van Tatenhove, former National Media Director and Associate Editor for the Oath Keepers militia and author of Perils of Extremism: How I Left the Oath Keepers and Why We Should be Concerned About a Future Civil War, writes in his book that the paramilitary group was ever radicalizing and hitched its wagon to the alt-right, a phrase coined by white supremacist Richard Spencer in 2016 who organized the neo-Nazi protest in Charlottesville in 2017. The straw that broke the camel's back for Van Tatenhove’s affiliation with the Oath Keepers was their conspiracy laden Holocaust denialism.
Van Tatenhove asserts that many in the far right militia ecosystem, including the Proud Boys and Three Percenters (aka III Percenters), deny that Biden rightfully won the election in 2020, which has helped to sow discord and mayhem in the electorate.
Stemming from the top (Trump) and percolating to the bottom (militias), it could be numbers as high as half the nation who believes that, in effect, Americans are already living under an occupied country, an autocracy, because their votes didn't count in 2020, according to author, Stuart Stevens of The Conspiracy to End America: Five Ways My Old Party Is Driving Our Democracy to Autocracy.
In addition to conspiracism around the 2020 election, far-right conspiracy theorists perpetrate the lie that scapegoats Dr. Anthony Fauci, world renown infectious disease specialist who worked as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) as having intentionally created Covid-19 in a lab in Wuhan, China for his own personal enrichment through the sale of vaccines.
Subject to a congressional hearing about the origins of Covid-19 on the Monday (June 3rd) following Thursday’s (May 30th) verdict convicting Donald Trump of 34 felonies, Dr. Fauci was grilled by vindictive Republicans during a contentious three-hour session, where they put the screws to him around his financial gains per the vaccine which have been zero.
During the hearing, Congressman Jamie Raskin (D-MD) apologized to Dr. Fauci for the fact that “some of our colleagues in the United States House of Representatives seem to want to drag your name through the mud. They’re treating you, Dr. Fauci, like a convicted felon.”
Alluding to convicted felon Donald Trump, Raskin continued, “Actually you probably wish they were treating you like a convicted felon. They treat convicted felons with love and admiration. Some of them blindly worship convicted felons.”
Unitary Executive Theory
The unitary executive theory is a reading of constitutional law that holds that the president has the authority to control the entire executive branch, including agencies that currently operate with more independence, like the Department of Justice.
Project 2025’s legal underpinning is a maximalist version of the unitary executive theory.
The legal theory rejects the idea that the government is composed of three separate branches with overlapping powers to check and balance each other. Instead, the theory’s adherents argue that Article 2 of the Constitution gives the president complete control of the executive branch, so Congress cannot empower agency heads to make decisions or restrict the president’s ability to fire them. Reagan’s administration lawyers developed the theory as they sought to advance a deregulatory agenda.
Fetishizing Hitler
Putting to the side for a moment Trump’s saying that cannibal, “late, great” Hannibal Lecter (of the movie, Silence of the Lambs infamy) was a “wonderful man,” his bigger bro-mance crush is clearly on Adolf Hitler.
What follows here is a stream of consciousness encapsulation of the Hitlerian utterings and associations of Donald J. Trump: Unified Reich…“the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country”…“immigrants are poisoning the blood”…detention/concentration camps…Ivana says that Trump kept a copy of Hitler's speeches on his bedside table…white supremacist Nick Fuentes lunch…General Kelly telling Trump you can't say nice things about Hitler, “Well, but Hitler did some good things,”…Charlottesville “Very fine people on both sides.”
Conclusion:
Republicans purport to be the party of both freedom and Law and Order. None of the extremism outlined above suggests freedom, just the opposite, a straitjacket of narcissistic oppressive authoritarianism, where one autocratic dictator or church official decrees from on high that they know what's best for you because of God-state fanaticism.
Maintaining a pluralistic democratic society in the face of narcissistic headwinds is a challenge to be sure, but it's got nothing on autocracy and dictatorship. What a fool's errand it has been and will be to entertain and tease out an authoritarian society which will only engender a boiling point of civil war to reset power dynamics, an outcome that could be entirely avoided were we to take seriously the lessons of history and psychology.
Resources:
TRUMP'S ROCKET FUEL: How Extremism, Protests, and Fads Will Lead to a Trump Victory | The Warning with Steve Schmidt
21,370 views May 4, 2024 — The Warning Podcast
The protests on college campuses are a political disaster. The rhetoric around it will serve as "rocket fuel" for the Trump campaign heading into November. Steve Schmidt explains why extremism on both sides - and the elimination of a centrist America - will lead Trump to victory. It's especially chilling after the Time Magazine article laying out Trump's plans for a second term. It's a recipe for dictatorship.
Narcissistic Victimhood in World Affairs (Prof. Sam Vaknin with Conor Ryan)
How Project 2025 Will Ruin YOUR Life — Substack by Andra Watkins
Abortion, Every Day — Substack by Jessica Valenti, a comprehensive daily newsletter dedicated to abortion rights.
Resisting Christian Nationalism: Christians against Christian Nationalism @Faithful America.org
America's Second Civil War and the Demise of Multiculturalism by Sam Vaknin, Ph.D.
United States: Dictatorship or Civil War by Sam Vaknin, Brussels Morning
New Netflix docuseries: Hitler and the Nazis: Evil on Trial
The Zone of Interest movie (re: Nazi, Germany and the banality of evil) The commandant of Auschwitz, Rudolf Höss, and his wife Hedwig, strive to build a dream life for their family in a house next to the camp.)
Very well done Ginger! So much ground covered & while the subjects are heavy, it is also very nice to see narcissist psychology is leading us to almost all the same conclusions on these subjects.