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In reply to the discussion: Two female Trump voters in a row yesterday! [View all]dawg day
(7,947 posts)It's so often some twisted, distorted, dark motivation, whether it's that Trump gives permission to surface hidden racism and hatred, or that he stokes their resentment of "the elite", or that he makes them feel unworthy, or that his abusiveness feels like what they're used to from their fathers, or...
It's almost never straightforward, and they can never really explain it. But it always connects to his pleasure in being angry and harmful somehow.
They get something out of that. But their approval of Trump-- even they sort of realize it-- is like the presenting symptom of some disease, whether it's racism or previous trauma or a deep sense of inferiority.
I have an acquaintance very like your first patient-- beautiful, well-traveled, with a marital history I suspect included abuse- and I tried not to argue with her. I just said that I'm looking forward to a time when we won't be so consumed with this one man's personality, that we can focus again on our children and grandchildren, and not worry about what strange scandal or dispute is going to happen next. I said it would be like waking up after a night of thunderstorms and see the peaceful dawn.
She was struck by this for a moment-- I could see that there was some longing for peace-- but then she shook her head and laughed harshly and said, "Admit it. You'd miss the excitement."
Yeah, right, the excitement of anticipating whether we'll have 300,000 or 400,000 deaths before New Years.
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