Donald Trump and Friends Part 2

As a result of his personality development, and that man is not a rational thinking individual, his aloneness and powerlessness propels him to identify and admire the famous or powerful; a political party; religion; country or some institution in order to defend against being isolated, alone. As history repeats itself, an individual like celebrity billionaire Donald Trump has tremendous appeal because he’s going to a make America great again. And if America becomes great again-powerful, defeating enemies; creating great jobs; building walls; restricting the “others” from coming to this country; negotiating better trade deals, etc., then on a conscious level, the individual buys what Trump is “selling.” However, because man is driven unconsciously, he is easily fooled by rhetoric. This worship-identification phenomenon happens over and over again. We have been unable to learn to change the reality of this factor because of our unconscious, primitive emotional and faulty thinking structure. Donald Trump expresses much insincerity as his so-called positions or ideology frequently change or flip-flop. The middle class in America was doing well in the 50s and people were thinking among many things especially living in that dream home. That has changed as the middle class is shrinking along with the exportation of many jobs. Mr. Trump talks about making America great by restricting Muslims and Mexicans from entering the United States; defeating Isis; unleashing America’s military weapons; negotiating better trade deals-and tearing up The Affordable Care Act, trade agreements and the recent Iranian nuclear agreement. I have heard little from Donald Trump neither about education, improving or creating technology, nor bringing in worldwide educational talent. In this case, he’s missing the boat as far as our diminished ranking in the educational world. College is much too expensive and we need more than Trump University if we are to improve social mobility and status for the younger generations. Our educational system in the past has allowed individuals of all races to significantly improve their socioeconomic status and has been the benchmark and envy for all to copy. Make yourself heard for 2016.

Donald Trump and Friends

Among some, Donald Trump is the current great White Hope. He has arrived on the political scene in a country that faces many significant issues. Some of these significant issues in no particular order are as follows: 1. The middle class status has shrunk. 2. There has been loss of manufacturing jobs, coupled with stagnant wages 3. The top 1% continues do exceptionally well economically 4. A few at the top contribute much political money with super PACs to keep safe their economic interests 5. Savings and other investments have been hit hard and contribute to the economic woes of many. Some of the social values, in our country, have changed also: 1. Abortion 2. Same-sex marriage 3. Rising cost of college. 4. Loss of parental wealth, being unable to provide financial support to children. 5. Children, with their inflated self-esteem, advocate they know more and rely less on parental knowledge and advice. 6. Election of a black president and current female front runner in the presidential race 7. Our country being at war since 2001, with radical Islamic terrorists. 8. Rising influx and political influence of people of color. How have these socio economic conditions affected our citizenry? It can be postulated that man is born with anxiety, need, or drive structure, separate and alone within a family complex that affect his early personality and character development. And, because of rapidly changing culture conditions within a capitalistic economy, along with a chaotic world, common man has become more increasingly insignificant, powerlessness, isolated, anxious, fearful coupled with hatred as far as his feelings are concerned. His resentfulness are for a number of reasons. Some include: 1. Creditors, and being unable to get out of debt. 2. Loss of social prestige 3. Loss of “superiority” toward other groups 4 Less political influence. 4. Being a nobody, irrelevant and unable to make a difference. To Be Continued

Donald Trump and His Supporters Part 3

Briefly, Donald Trump presents a person that is powerful per his billions. Trump also says that he says no to the super PACs for the elections and that has no difficulty being politically incorrect. He is saying that he is bigger than the traditional Republican establishment. He offers simple solutions such as building a wall and having someone else pay for it. He also projects his anger and taps into the anger of others by vilifying that he wants to keep out the Syrian refuges” until we figure it out,” “make better trade deals” etc. In his speeches, he likes generalizations like “amazing,” “ love,” making America great,” “unbelievable”, “fantastic, and talks incessantly about his lead in the polls.” He also has no difficulty putting down his opposition in one sentence, and then later rationalizes saying how much he likes them, and how great they are. Don’t forget about his use of an inordinate amount of angry rhetoric, there will be riots at the convention if he’s not the nominee; wanting to punch somebody in the nose etc. He not only takes no responsibility for his inflammatory speech, he and his puppets denies the implications of his messages. Trump blames others employing scapegoating techniques saying they are stupid, negotiating bad deals, causing trouble and are the blame for the violence at his rallies etc. He seeks attention and is in the news daily. His personality characteristics are most certainly authoritarian and narcissistically based. Further, his supporters, many of which have authoritarian traits with excessive amounts of passive aggressiveness, and have identified with his hollow boisterous self-serving rhetoric. Either he is psychologically unaware of his blind spots in his use of defense mechanisms or he is just a master manipulator and knowledgeable regarding playing to anxiety and fears. A few words about narcissism follow. Briefly, the myth portrays a young, handsome lad, after seeing his reflection in a pool, falls in love with himself. The theory states that a narcissistic individual is more concerned with himself than with others. This means that his person, his body, his needs, his feelings, his thoughts, his property, or everything that pertains to him, his experiences are simply perceived by him as his own reality. Psychologically speaking, his unconscious sense of security is achieved by his “perfection -I’ll be the greatest president,” “his superiority over others-I’m the best negotiator, everyone else is stupid,” “his extraordinary qualities or achievement-I’ve made billions.” One’s identity and self-image are based on these illusions. If slighted or if criticized, the individual’s usual response is anger. However, the individual may or may not be aware of it. Does this description remind you of anybody? Now ask yourself, even though you might be dissatisfied and disillusioned with the local and Washington political establishment, are ready to follow this man? And, can you, for a moment, sever your identification with that political party? If this was a rational decision, and man was a rational animal, the decision and act would be easier to accomplish. However, because of our emotions, underlying dynamics, our drives and needs, the decision-making, thinking and change of behavior can be and is very conflictual. Likely, even reading this material is more than likely uncomfortable.

Donald Trump and His Supporters Part 2

Lippitt and White’s studies attempted to develop techniques for describing the social atmosphere within children clubs. They showed how group leadership atmosphere affected individual behavior within the groups. They compared an authoritarian, democratic and a laissez-faire led group. Their findings on the individual boys in the authoritarian or autocracy led groups were that boys exhibited: 1. Much more hostility 2. More demands for attention. 3. More destruction of property 4. More scapegoating 5. A significant discontent that did not appear on the surface-a repression that was eventually released 6. More dependence and less individuality. More recently, there are attempts to understand the Donald Trump phenomena in today’s politics or run for the White House. Professor Jonathan Weiler, a co-author has written about today’s political shenanigans. He wrote about the authoritarian personality and their need for social order in today’s world around them; not liking others who are different; and they exhibited a desire for clear simplistic solutions to today’s problems. He quoted research in which four questions were asked that measured their attitude toward parenting styles and the attributes that they wanted children to incorporate and be like. The four research asked were: 1. Independence or respecting elders. 2. Obedience or self-reliance. 3 Curiosity or good manners. 4. Considerate or well behaved. The findings of this data were that the more the authoritarian attitude and that this variable was simply the best predictor of adult support for Trump. This predictor was more powerful and more accurate than gender, income, education, etc. in other words, an unemployed worker low on the authoritarian scale was not a Trump supporter .This finding does not mean that there are no other significant or other variables to consider. The college educated adult high on the authoritarian scale was a Trump supporter. These findings do not mean that there are no other significant or other variables to consider. To Be Contnued

Donald Trump and His Supporters

There has been much written about how and why Hitler was able to assume dictatorial control in Germany of its people after World War I. Neo-Freudian Erich Fromm, one among many, wrote extensively about this phenomenon. Some of the things he wrote about fall within the context of the Versailles Treaty; loss of jobs, massive unemployment; shame in losing World War I; authoritarian upbringing; loss of confidence in the political hierarchy including the following characteristics of the population: 1. Fromm believed there was a tendency for these individuals to give up their independence or their own individual self in an attempt to identify with somebody or something outside of self. They did this unconsciously in an attempt to procure the strength which the individual self is lacking. Freud would’ve called this phenomena part of the task of one’s Ego ideal. 2. Fromm also believed that within the personality of these individuals existed a sadomasochistic character structure with a striving for submission and domination. 3. This sadomasochistic personality component addresses itself in different forms. For example, within masochistic strivings are feelings of inferiority, powerlessness, and individual insignificance. 4. These tendencies result in unsatisfactory attempts to deal with phenomena of aloneness. Additional research led to the study of authoritarian reared children and the effects on their development. Preschool children from authoritarian reared homes were found to be quiet, well behaved and were socially non aggressive. These children tended to be rewarded for obedience to parents, and for conformity with parental standards. With older children, Else Frankel-Brunswick employed about 1500 California boys and girls between the ages of 11 and 16 for her study. Some of her findings included that children’s ethnic prejudices were related to their personality structure and that the prejudiced adults tended to be rigid, authoritarian, highly conforming and overly moralistic. Her findings were that prejudiced attitudes of children included the rejection of all that is weak or different; rigid conceptions of appropriate sex roles; boys had an intolerance of passive or feminine behavior in boy’s as well as masculine exhibited behavior in girls; admiration of the strong, tough and powerful. And the boys fear of weakness in themselves. Also, she found rigid conformity to social values and moralistic thinking along with a condemnation of others different. These children had feelings of helplessness in a world that they believed to be chaotic and destructive. These same children complained of submission to stern harsh punitive treatment. Further, they had significantly poor self-concepts and less satisfaction with their own mental abilities and had impaired social relations with members of the same sex, along with greater dissatisfaction toward parents and teachers. To be continued

What Does Your Brain Have To Do With It? Part 3

Another idea to consider would be screening then applying intellectual or IQ testing information for the appropriate education of our youth. Traditionally, the high schools have a college preparatory curriculum and a non-college preparatory curriculum for our high school students. We also have the problem of underachieving students and a high dropout rate in urban school districts. Perhaps, we might design a curriculum and graduation requirements that plays to the strength of those students that are strong in the right hemisphere of cognitive functioning. Yes, it would take creative thinking, utilizing both right and left hemispheres in order to design a curriculum that enables these students to flourish. In that creative curriculum, we could develop an abundance of classes and subjects that utilize right hemisphere functioning. Classes in fine and graphic arts; computers and programming; fixing, making, welding, carpentry, plumbing; athletics, etc. For example, for those individuals hoping to attend college, on a football or sports scholarship, a science curriculum could be developed in dealing with such topics as the nature sport injuries, rehabilitation, stretching, conditioning, nutrition, and physiology of muscle and muscle groups where these injuries likely occur. These classes could then satisfy a graduation science requirement. Don’t lose sight that the community college system has remedial classes necessary for entrance into a four-year college. It seems to me having one graduation degree requirement to fit all students seems erroneous. Why not take advantage of the cognitive strengths of the many individuals and design graduation requirements that correlate. In years prior, we had vocational programs that took care of some of that need. If those right brain students wanted to take traditional courses, which would be okay as well. For those students that have handicaps in the verbal area of intelligence testing, a number of creative ways can be implemented to help them. Smaller class size, individual tutoring, student mentoring and class projects designed with enthusiastic and passionate teachers to help these special students problem solve, work together and make learning in high school more fun.