I had what you might call ‘Trump Indifference Syndrome’ back then, years ago. But I write today to confess a gradual shift that has culminated this last week into at least ‘somewhat botherment syndrome’, a thoroughly British coding you might say, that reached a peak with the “whole civilization will die tonight” social media post.
Just like Donald himself, I don’t think I’m deranged, but I must concede that I have allowed him to live rent-free in my mind in recent weeks; weeks which have been coloured (and not beautifully) by fairly constant news media consumption, trying to understand the US President’s actions, motivations and next steps.
It’s not unfair to say I had become obsessed, excusing myself with notions of work-related research and a male instinct to watch and guard the perimeter. However, such justifications had to give way recently to a more transcendent realisation that my increasingly irritable attention was not functional or healthy.
At this point, I could go to some effort to make a political, moral or virtuous case for my suspicions that he is indeed the antichrist and a threat to all that is good and holy in our world. And to do that, I would have to join the back of a very long, and in my honest opinion, pointless queue, for reasons I will share with you today.
You know what’s said about opinions and their incredible likeness to that part of the human anatomy that is rarely blessed by sunshine, a truism I cannot fault. We all have them, and no one cares!
That’s not to say I don’t have strong opinions about the morally vacuous and narcissistically vain embarrassment who happens to be leader of the free world, currently leading it into either a controlled collapse or inadvertent transformation. But it’s not my opinions, or anyone else’s, that matter today, as I endeavour to share with you something much more important and lastingly impactful than emotionally-triggered judgements that will no doubt have their focus elsewhere, in time.
Beyond emotional triggering, in my view, is a reward far greater than the transient letting off of steam that polarising characters like Trump can attract, and even thrive on. Your, our, disdain for such lightning rod individuals in our conclusively polarised world, beyond the righteous reactions we experience, is based largely on what psycho-experts call ‘projection’.
Sure, the game appears to be virtuous outrage based on political taste, and we may understandably disapprove and detest, based on our moral positions and ideological assumptions. But what else is going on?
I contend that a subconscious and unconscious machinery rumbles deep beneath our overt and expressed political noise which, if understood, can offer freedom from the certain (and self-harming) resentment we feel. Yes, in what I am about to say, I am daring to suggest that our political outrage – though passionately felt – is beyond a certain point self-indulgence, self-defeating AND (if consciously managed) powerful access to self-growth and personal healing.
To make this personal, and to bring it back to man-of-the-moment and Triggerer-in-Chief, Trump, I became able to see that the blithering buffoon was an ‘inside job’, as much as he is a player on the world stage, inflicting death and destruction by virtue of his democratic election and unpredictable will. The latter I cannot affect greatly; the former I would be foolish not to get a grip of, thereby stopping my own buffoonery and suffering.
The awakening began many weeks ago, when ‘Mrs M’ suggested that my intolerance for Trump was based on his similarity to my father. Intellectually I could see this, with the same personality traits on show for all to see that most unreconstructed men of the 60s and 70s would be sporting: with basic views on women, a large capacity for self-obsession and a tendency to bully, bluff and bluster, AKA a man’s man with locker-room swagger and the emotional intelligence of a pet rock.
But the deeper profundity of the likeness took longer to emerge and required extended analysis of psychotherapeutic ‘Exhibit A’, as he attempted to have his way with Greenland, swept Venezuela off her feet, and then scorched Iran for not liking his advances.
Incredulity tag-teamed with animosity in my heart and mind in these last few weeks, as I saw how the US President looked at the world like my father used to: his way or the highway. Now, my father wasn’t all bad, few are. And this is not about summary judgements or character assassination. What this is about is understanding that it’s not really about Trump, my father, or how we victimise ourselves and others with politics. It’s about how we might free ourselves from the effects of others, when we’ve borrowed their loaded gun and pointed it at ourselves.
If Trump upsets and triggers you beyond a functional level, and lives in your mind rent-free too, you might be doing the same as I was doing. What was/is unresolved in me, to do with my father, was/is being stimulated by the insensitive uber-man’s-man, who once again causes feelings of fear and insecurity about which I feel I can do little. What looks like a grown man (me) watching the Trump-saturated news is actually the little boy me reeling at his unreasonableness, narcissistic rage and utter insensitivity.
Somehow, I gathered the presence of mind to see that this is what is happening. Trump is what he is, and not what I project upon him. Ultimately, and it has come as quite a shock to me, I assert that he – and all that we make him mean in our heads – is a test of our emotional and psychological resilience, as are all people and things that evoke strong reactions in our lives.
And the cure? For me, the cure is, as ever, to see and better understand the workings of my mind, as well as the results of my attention. A genuine willingness to be free of the TDS condition is also a profound key to freedom from the debilitating effects of this and any politically-motivated upset.
The alternative is endless inner turmoil, which, let’s face it, many of us humans would strangely prefer. This is the simple, but not easy, matter of taking responsibility for our mental health, rather than making our personal unhappiness someone else’s fault and problem.
It’s a choice. It’s the ballot box of personal happiness, you might say, which comes round – thankfully – much more often than the painful and drawn-out selection processes of the political world.
Read Carl Munson’s previous article: How well do you know Portugal?
