The Real Lesson of January 6th – How Fascism Works

 

Yesterday was the third anniversary of the Insurrection at the Capitol.  This event remains prominent in the news due to ongoing civil and criminal litigation and the overall meaning to culture and politics in the United States.  At the level of accountability there are striking discrepancies between those who were physically at the Capitol and many who orchestrated the event. The most striking discrepancy and controversy is former President Trump. He has currently been removed from the ballots in 2 states pending what will likely be Supreme Court decisions.  The Supreme Court is clearly stacked in his favor and one of his attorneys stated an explicit quid pro quo this week as in “this President appointed you - better get him back on the ballot.”  There have also been threats that Republicans would remove Biden from the ballot to compensate for Trump being removed from ballots as a 14^th Amendment insurrectionist.

There is striking video footage of Republican legislators calling the initial event an insurrection and clearly stating that Trump was responsible – but years later walking all of that back and saying the Insurrection was just a protest – nothing to see here.

Former President Trump continues to promote The Big Lie whenever he has access to an open microphone despite overwhelming evidence being frequently recited that it is a lie. He continues to portray himself as a victim of politics even when partisans from his own party and administration recite why it is a good idea that he never be elected again. Since I ascribe to the Goldwater Rule, I will avoid any psychiatric speculation.  At an overt level, it is obvious he can keep going and continue to attack and alienate people even when it is not in his best interest. Many of his interviewed followers describe this as his best trait.

I happened to be watching a popular television show the other night and they put up a recent poll about the Insurrection and whether it was initiated by the FBI. Quite surprisingly 25% of the respondents were convinced the FBI initiated it and 26% were unsure or did not comment. So even though at this point 1200 people have been charged and 890 convicted of federal crimes associated with the Insurrection – over half of Americans are either certain that this was an FBI conspiracy or uncertain that it was not.  What is happening here?

Although much of politics is an irrational appeal to emotion – it is clearly at an all time high in the United States.  A recent Foreign Affairs article describes this trend as coinciding with the US now being a major exporter of white supremacist terrorism. Most Americans probably do not know that President Grant created the Department of Justice to counter white supremacist terrorism by the Ku Klux Klan in 1870.  A group who spread recruiting literature across Twin Cities suburbs in 2022 also promoted antisemitism.  Just the act of dispersing that literature is a clear sign that something in the US has gone horribly wrong.  What is the problem?

Listening to many of the supporters of these processes it is easy to attribute the support for autocracy, the Insurrection, and the MAGA movement to ignorance.  They see the former President as a strong man who speaks his mind and that is all that they are interested in. They do not care about the book length criticisms of people with worked closely with him during his Presidency.  Many of those criticisms have been severe – questioning his depth of knowledge and decision-making ability. They don’t care about public remarks he has made that were basically false or dog whistles.  They say they care about the economy but the Biden economy is clearly superior to the Trump economy and easily exceeded any warnings Trump had about not re-electing him.  They don't care about the fact that Trump does not campaign on relevant domestic or foreign policy issues.  

The lack of a rational basis for supporting Trump and MAGA suggest that other factors are at play. First and foremost is partisan politics.  Practically all the Republicans that were skeptical or critical of Trump have fallen in behind him – not wanting to provoke the ire of his MAGA loyalists.  Their affiliation is with a seriously compromised Republican party rather than the republic itself.  Better to have a good career and government job and let the Insurrection cards fall where they may.  The Republicans walking away rather than make that compromise are a small minority and deserve our gratitude.

Nihilism is a significant factor.  Nihilism is a vague term, I am using the existential meaning.  In other words, meaninglessness is pervasive both in terms of the truth being relative rather than absolute and the same is true for institutions. This is a large part of what Trump does on almost a daily basis.   Using a shotgun approach he has attacked just about every aspect of the government, military, public health, educational, and judicial systems and continues to do so.  Many of the attacks have been personal and directed at people who have distinguished government service. These attacks are unprecedented by any American president and unquestionably erode the authority of these agencies – not just with his followers but in general.  Some have endangered the people attacked and their families.  Many of his supporters clearly want to burn “the system” down and not replace it. Nihilism also reinforces many right-wing conspiracy theories like the secret Deep State or the FBI orchestrating the Insurrection.

The symbols of nihilism were prominent at the January 6 Insurrection and included a Confederate flag, a gallows and a noose, militia gear and paramilitary tactics.  Since then, at least one Republican candidate offered support for Lost Cause rhetoric that revises history to suggest that aggressive northern states fought the Civil War to suppress states’ rights in the south rather than end slavery. The idea of a rebellion is also suggested rather than an insurrection and an attack on the legitimate government of the United States.  The Civil War was really a war between the Confederacy and the United States rather than the North versus the South. All that rhetoric is designed to render the real history of the Civil War meaningless.  It was no accident that the Confederate flag appeared in the Capitol carried by insurrectionists.  There is nothing more nihilistic than vigilante law as evidenced by the threat of hanging rationalized as “so the traitors know the stakes” initially and then a site where insurrectionists chanted to “Hang Mike Pence!” while searching for him in the Capitol Building.

“Nihilistic hooliganism” or “striving to create the atmosphere of a street battle or barroom brawl” was a tactic used by Goebbels in the Nazi propaganda paper Der Angriff because at the time he knew it appealed to supporters (2). It seems obvious that several individuals and factions in the Republican party are intent creating this kind of atmosphere.  Late in 2023 it extended into Congress with threat of physical violence against a witness in a hearing and alleged physical contact between Republican members of Congress in the hallways.

In the vacuum of nihilism, the right does not hesitate to dictate how people should think on culture war or hot button issues like guns, abortion, LGBT issues, separation of church and state, control over education, climate change denial, and pandemic denial.   They cast attempts to remove overt misinformation as censorship and a return to rational gun control as a denial of Second Amendment rights.  In many cases there is a “doubling down” on any political gains made in these areas.  This level of cynicism and disingenuousness keeps the threat of gun violence very real for most Americans and has had a clear negative impact on women’s health where abortion access is considered essential health care by experts. This doubling down to the point of criminalization is characteristic of autocracies that consider winning cultural issues crucial for the survival of their ideology.

Trump and his supporters are using very well-known propaganda techniques.  The first is to establish Trump as a cult of personality. He has certainly done this himself by marketing himself as a superhero. Any search on superhero Trump merchandise brings up pages of this stuff.  He also markets himself as being a genius and being tough and ruthless if necessary. Practically all the drama surrounding the current court cases, including sustained attacks on court officials is all part of that image. An average citizen watching this unfold can only wonder why he can get away with behavior that would cause anyone else to get contempt charges and incarceration. Since this is also unprecedented behavior it is reminiscent of other negatively charismatic leaders like Hitler who cultivated mythical images:

“Hard, ruthless, resolute, uncompromising, and radical, he would destroy the old privilege - and class-ridden society and bring about a new beginning, uniting the people in an ethnically pure and socially harmonious 'national community'.” (1)

The entire MAGA movement and its associated “drain the swamp” mottos are consistent with Trump’s cultivated image that has successfully obliterated the fact that he has had far more privilege than practically any other person in the MAGA movement.

As in the case of Hitler, it takes more than a self-cultivated mythical image to establish a following that will ignore obvious deficits and vote for you no matter what. In the case of Republican politicians – self-interest is the obvious motivation.  If any other candidate has a chance in the national elections, they would not all be in lock step behind Trump. The fall out from that process has been astounding including continuing to support the Big Lie strategies and making the original January 6^th Insurrection out to be a picnic.

A pillar of the autocrat playbook is to attack everything in the existing government and suggest all these problems will be solved when the superior human being is elected.  That involves significant distortion at three levels.  First – it devalues clear accomplishments of the existing government.  Most serious students of government would describe the Biden administration as one of the most successful in modern history.  Some of that success depended on correcting the damage done by the last Trump administration.  Second - direct attacks on the opposition, unfounded accusations, and name calling.   Third – it depends on a distortion of the abilities of their ideal candidate.  In the case of Trump there is a long list of deficiencies provided by members of his own party and people who were in his own cabinet. Many of them are clear that he should never be re-elected.  That stands in sharp contrast to the hyperbole candidate Trump and his dedicated followers.   

The real lesson of January 6, 2021 is that American democracy is under attack from one of the major parties and a former President who is combative to the point of alienating members of his own party, never admits he is wrong, is hypersensitive to criticism, and is not honest with the American people.  A significant part of the electorate finds that attractive even though it is not clear what would happen if their candidate is reelected.  His stated first order of business is to get revenge on those who he feels have slighted him. That image should give any rational voter pause.  The only thing scarier is what happens when autocrats implode (and they all do).  It is typically as a colossal failure – negatively impacting the entire country for years.  In the United States there is a good chance that fall will be far greater than any other country.

That is why the lessons of January 6 at the Capitol should never be forgotten.

 

George Dawson, MD, DFAPA

 

Supplementary 1:  How the FBI started the Insurrection Conspiracy Theory got started was discovered and debunked in January 2022.  An Arizona man named Ray Epps was filming the insurrection and apparently encouraging people to enter the Capitol.  Assuming he was an FBI agent provided the basis for the conspiracy theory.  When he was questioned by the January 6 Committee – Epps stated he was not working for law enforcement or a member of the FBI.  As the linked article states prominent Republicans including Sen. Ted Cruz promoted this theory. 

The actual story:

".....Fox News Channel and other right-wing media outlets amplified conspiracy theories that Epps, 62, was an undercover government agent who helped incite the Capitol attack to entrap Trump supporters. Epps filed a defamation lawsuit against Fox News last year, saying the network was to blame for spreading baseless claims about him...."

Kunzelman M.   Ray Epps, a target of Jan. 6 conspiracy theories, gets a year of probation for his Capitol riot role.  Associated Press January 9, 2024.  https://www.yahoo.com/news/ray-epps-target-jan-6-164800399.html

References:

1:  Kershaw I.  The Hitler Myth.  History Today. 1985; 35(11): 23-29.  https://www.historytoday.com/archive/hitler-myth

2:  Lemmons R.  Goebbels and Der Angriff.  1994.  University of Kentucky Press. Lexington, Kentucky. p. 128-131.

 

Graphics Credit:

1:  Main Graphic is: DC Capitol Storming by TapTheForwardAssist, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons. 

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:DC_Capitol_Storming_IMG_7947.jpg

Note the original was altered by me with the superimposed transparency.

2:  Transparency is:  WWII, Europe, Germany, "Nazi Hierarchy, Hitler, Goering, Goebbels, Hess", The Desperate Years p143 – NARA by National Archives and Records Administration, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WWII,_Europe,_Germany,_%22Nazi_Hierarchy,_Hitler,_Goering,_Goebbels,_Hess%22,_The_Desperate_Years_p143_-_NARA_-_196509.jpg

 

 

 

No Way To Run A Democracy.....

 

 

CBS news came out with an analysis this morning that most Republican mid-term election candidates are election deniers.  That is 308 out of 597 total.  They agree with former President Trump that he actually won the 2020 election, despite the fact that there is absolutely no evidence to support that claim.  The evidence is lacking even when analyzed by Republicans and judges and attorneys who are Republican appointees. When that claim is reported in the news these days it is characterized as a lie. Even apart from the news media, the January 6^th Committee has presented direct evidence that this claim was inaccurate and had no supporting evidence and that it also formed the basis for the coordinated attack on the Capitol and an attempt by former President Trump and his associates to overthrow the newly elected government of the United States.

What should be most concerning for any citizen of the United States is that attempted insurrection. There is a good chance that if the current crop of Republican candidates – most of whom are overt election deniers become the majority in the House that former President Trump and his associates will not be held accountable for this action. That is unprecedented in any democracy and it flaunts the rule of law and political convention of the United States. If the insurrection had succeeded – the United States as we know it would cease to exist. Democracy instead would be replaced by a Republican party of moral and gun extremists.

Instead of focusing on preserving the Republic – voters seem focused on the economy and inflation – as though any group of politicians has a more favorable history in that area. Over the course of my lifetime, we have had worse inflation, much worse unemployment, 10 recessions, 2 economic crises that nearly collapsed the world economy, and 30 yr fixed mortgage rates at least twice as high as they are now.  The people who saved the economy were professional economists from the Federal Reserve who are appointed and not elected officials. Elected officials consistently have the opportunity to pass legislation to reduce financial market risk due to speculation, but they seem to lose interest every time one of these crises has passed.  In this case both inflation and the possible recession can be explained by historical events (pandemic, Russian invasion of Ukraine) affecting the supply side and driving up prices. Rising interest rates to decrease demand and reduce inflation have made increased the cost of borrowing and that comes following a long period of artificially low interest rates that included low interest rates for savings accounts. In some cases, money market and bond funds were paying negative interest.  

I present the following graph as economic evidence. It is not exhaustive but it illustrates my point. I thought about adding a timeline of Federal Reserve Chairs but ran out of time. The national debt increases substantially under all presidents. The recessions are the shaded areas. Major crises in the economy occurred with the Savings and Loan Crisis (1982-1989), Long Term Capital Management liquidation (1998) and the Subprime Mortgage Crisis of 2007-2010.  The graph extends to August of 2022 with unemployment at 3.5% and Sticky Price Consumer Price Index of 6.39%.   Republican politicians are saying this is the highest inflation rate in 40 years.  What they are not saying is that it is also the highest rate of corporate profits in 70 years and the Federal Reserve has made interest rate increases that are already taking effect in the housing market. (click to enlarge)

I say that the voters seem focused on the economy because it is hard to get valid news about voter preferences from major networks focused on either balancing one party against the other (when no such symmetry exists) or acting essentially like the public relations department of the Republican party. Viewers used to be able to turn on the news and watch reliable journalists deliver the facts, but now they have a choice to listen to a broadcaster who parrots their political ideology. The facts take a distant second place.  There is no clearer example than election denial and all of its ugly correlates like voter suppression and political violence. 

There is only one party that has multiple members endorsing both of those options.  To listen to some of those candidates today – they make it seem like the opposition party has similar problems. There were no Democrats advocating for the violent overthrow of the US government.  There were no Democrats addressing violent groups and suggesting that they “stand by”.  There were no Democrats writing and passing permitless carry gun laws at a time when gun homicides and suicides are high and school shootings continue unabated.  There were no Democrats passing laws that allow heavily armed men wearing body armor and carrying assault weapons to gather in proximity to a legislative body and intimidate them. There is no symmetry between parties on the issue of political violence, gun violence, and the orderly transitions between elections. 

I could continue but realize that this scarcely read blog and the lateness of this post will probably not change much. I will end by posting what I consider the top issues to be in order of importance. I have posted before that I am a long time small “i” independent but in the current Constitutional Crisis I don’t have much of a choice and I have already voted. The vote I cast last week required 2 forms of ID, my address had to be confirmed in an electronic database and I had to sign a registry and one of the two envelopes containing my paper ballot.  That sealed paperwork was directly observed and signed off by an election worker.  This is what I voted on:

1:  Preservation of American Democracy. No insurrection against the government can stand and none of the conspirators should go unpunished.  Any party claiming to be the Law and Order party should understand this.  That party is trying to make crime an issue and it is hard to say if the media or the GOP is the reason for this focus - but the reality is that there has not been an increase in violent crime and there has been a 30 year trend in a positive direction. 

2:  Voter Rights. The Big Lie about the 2020 election was a variation of the big lie about election problems in the United States.  That lie is used to restrict access to voters and make it more difficult for citizens to cast their ballot. Lower income Americans are disproportionately affected.  A variation on that theme is intimidating voters and election officials. That is an ongoing process and it is encouraged by politicians spreading the Big Lie about both the election process and the integrity of the voting process. There is no evidence that either has been compromised. 

3:  Civil Rights.  The unprecedented attack on Roe at the level of the Supreme Court is really the culmination of Republican activism dating back to the Carter administration. At the time a Republican activist convinced fundamental Christians that they should be politically interested in the abortion issue and it was used to attempt to protect school segregation. They created one of the most divisive issues in American politics to advance their interests and made it seem like it was a religious issue.  This is a doubling down of moral extremism.  In other words moral superiority to cover an essentially immoral act.  There are not many positions that are more cynical.

4: Gun Regulation. Gun carnage continues unabated and the GOP and their justices in the Supreme Court have no reservations about allowing it to continue.  Republicans everywhere are rationalizing it as a problem with mental illness, when the prevalence of mental illness is the same across all countries and only the United States has mass shooters shooting children on a regular basis, gun homicide as a leading cause of death in children and young black men, and extremely high levels of gun homicides and suicides.  There are currently 25 states that allow permitless concealed carry of firearms.  All of this from a politicized reading of the archaic language of the Second Amendment. That alone would probably not be enough.  It also takes the fear tactic that the "government", "liberals", etc are "coming for your guns."  The reality is that there are so many weapons in the country - finding them and rounding them up would be an impossible task for anyone. And of course - nobody is interested in doing that. 

5:  Strengthening NATO.  The Biden administration has handled the crisis in Europe and rebuilding the NATO alliance expertly and they are not getting nearly enough credit. A secondary goal should be containing terrorism with our allies that comes in all forms including state terrorism that we are witnessing from Russia, North Korea, and Iran. It is likely there would be a much different outcome under a Trump administration.

5:  Nuclear non-proliferation: Every possible effort must be made to ensure that nuclear weapons are not used again.  There is too much loose talk about how limited tactical nuclear weapons would release less radiation and that a small local nuclear war would be "winnable" by somebody. Climate change should be a wake up call illustrating that even small changes in the environment can lead to catastrophic global changes. The detonation of nuclear weapons will not determine winners and losers. Mankind will lose and civilization will end.  

6:  Climate Activism:  As climate change gets more and more obvious the party that denied it was happening clearly has no solutions.  The infrastructure bill passed by the Biden administration was a major step in the right direction but even that is not enough. More changes need to follow to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and remove permanent environmental contaminants from the environment.

7:  Social programs.  There are Republican legislators who want to cancel Social Security and Medicare or euphemistically review it every 5 years and decide whether or not to cancel it.  Every person who has paid into those programs needs to be assured that they will get the agreed upon benefits.  Republicans use socialist rhetoric to impress upon their followers that the “socialists” want to take over the government and restrict their freedom.  In fact, social democracies are some of the fairest systems in the world and the United States has had social programs for a long time. Social programs in a democratic republic have nothing to so with a socialist government.

8:  Public health Initiatives: COVID-19 denialism was a major factor in unnecessary mortality and morbidity from that pandemic and there is no doubt who the most significant players in that denialism were. As the climate deteriorates and mankind is in closer proximity to millions of novel viruses in the wild – we need to infrastructure to assess those threats and either contain them or treat the outbreaks. We need people who understand science as a process and what needs to happen in this area.  Instead we have Republican politicians bragging about ignoring public health measures.

9:  A Coherent Immigration Policy:  Building walls and playing games with the lives of undocumented immigrants is not a coherent policy. It will take more comprehensive planning and aid to countries in Central and South America.  In addition the United States has a lower percentage of foreign born citizens than many European countries and Canada as well as a labor shortage so that increasing the number of legal immigrants each year can potentially decrease the number of people seeking political asylum. 

10:  Simplified Tax Policy:  Taxes are always a political football. Promise of no new taxes and tax cuts are not realistic, especially considering the current national debt.  A better plan is to make taxes more transparent and easier to complete. Business taxes should not be eliminated and should be consistent year-to-year and not a disincentive to doing business in the United States.

That is what I voted on.  It does not come down to a single issue for me.  It does not come down to voting for myths rather than reality.

But it does come down to a single party.

 

George Dawson, MD, DFAPA

Extremely relevant late breaking stories relevant to the above post:

1: Election deniers in Minnesota are training some election judges. Link - there are widespread efforts with various levels of organization by election deniers to interfere with the election process. This is a story from 2 days ago.

2:  What Fortune 500 Companies Said After Jan. 6 vs. What They Did.  Link - major US corporations said they would suspend political donations to election deniers and insurrectionists following January 6 - but those donations have resumed to the tune of $13 million.

3:  A message from Billie Eilish on the importance of voting. She describes the top issues highlighted above and I hope her followers and fans are able to follow through with her advice:  https://www.instagram.com/p/Ckj-ihtLw3G/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

4:  Charles Blow.  Dancing Near the Edge of a Lost Democracy.  New York Times November 6, 2022   https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/06/opinion/midterms-democracy.html

"America is one bad election away from being a memory."

5:  Putin ally Yevgeny Prigozhin admits interfering in US elections.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/nov/07/putin-ally-yevgeny-prigozhin-admits-interfering-in-us-elections

They are obviously not interfering in the direction of more democracy.

6:  Bill Maher's analysis on the even of the election. Certainly hope he is wrong but if he isn't these are a few more reasons:

Democracy's Deathbed | Real Time with Bill Maher (HBO)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKVBvooZ2c8

7:  Office of Intelligence and Analysis Operations in Portland April 20, 2021

https://www.wyden.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/I&A%20and%20OGC%20Portland%20Reports.pdf

Remember all of the reports about Antifa - the secret left wing terrorist organization that was supposed to be fighting the police and causing general unrest in the riots following George Floyd's death.  At the time is was pretty clear it was a myth to rationalize right wing militias showing up heavily armed to maintain law and order.  This mildly redacted report shows how US intelligence failed to show that any such organization existed.

8:  Democratic upset in U.S. midterms could roil markets, options mavens say

https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/democratic-upset-u-midterms-could-060916343.html

Nothing like last minute pro-GOP economic propaganda.  Three things:

1.  The current polls are based on the 1% of people using land lines who agree to take the poll.  With that level of sampling don't be too surprised if polls are wrong as they have been in the past.  There is no "upset" in that context only inaccurate polls.

2.  Why would the average voter be remotely interested in what "options mavens" have to say. Anyone who has followed financial news knows that it is often created to move markets in a favorable way and not to favor the casual investor or little guy. 

3.  See more objective data from the St. Louis FRED below.

9:  The Recent Rise of U.S. National Wealth

https://research.stlouisfed.org/publications/economic-synopses/2022/10/19/the-recent-rise-of-u-s-national-wealth?

Written by professional economists and not politicians.  Was this expansion due to another tech bubble?

"If this rise is driven by another asset bubble instead of the reasons mentioned above, then this trend is likely to cause another recession. Unfortunately, it is difficult to identify an asset bubble until after it has burst."

The current state of economics.

10:  Election workers brace for a torrent of threats: ‘I KNOW WHERE YOU SLEEP’:

https://www.yahoo.com/news/election-workers-brace-threats-know-155038219.html

And let's be honest - these threats are the direct result of the Big Lie, The Insurrection, and the fueling continued political violence by the GOP.  There are no Democrats threatening election workers.

11:  Voting Machine Problems in Arizona Fuel Right-Wing Fraud Claims

https://www.yahoo.com/news/voting-machine-problems-arizona-fuel-195213577.html

Trump spreads voter fraud claims on this election day, despite Republican official stating that there is no problem.

12:  John Oliver on Election Subversion:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0LA7Ff2hgs

13:  The gasoline price gambit:

Here is a link to a graph I just made on 12/6/2022 on crude oil prices per barrel versus gasoline prices per gallon.   The explanation of price volatility is in this post.  Don't let any politician from either party use these prices swings to suggest that somebody other than oil speculators and production companies are responsible.

https://gdpsychtech.blogspot.com/2022/12/graphs-from-fred.html

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The Insurrection

This has been an historic week in the United States. On January 6, 2021, President Donald Trump and several of his supporters incited a large group to attack and invade the Capitol Building as Congress was in the process of certifying the electoral college vote – the last official but routine step for Joe Biden to become the duly elected President of the United States.  During the riot, Capitol police were assaulted and one of them was killed. A rioter was shot and killed.  Three people died of medical emergencies due to poor access at the scene. There were scores of people injured, many serious.

Police and the National Guard eventually regained control and Congress was able to reconvene and certify the electoral college vote.  The challenges to the votes in several states were overwhelmingly rejected.  The President had also suggested that the Vice President Mike Pence could decide to not accept the votes and nullify the election, but the Vice President was very explicit about his Constitutional duties and knew that was outside of his scope of power. He kept the process going and brought it to appropriate closure declaring that Biden-Harris were the winners.

The aftermath of this event has produced a little certainty but not much.  As I write this late on a Saturday night, all that we know for sure is that Joe Biden is the certified winner of the election and that he will be inaugurated on January 20^th.  President Trump’s supporters from the recertification debacle are in disarray.  Press reports quote them as lashing out at the expected fall out from their efforts and the insurrection at the Capitol. At least one has lost a book deal and in other cases constituents are calling for their resignation.  Since the official vote was preceded by the insurrection and violence, some of the people who were expected to object to the certifications from specific states did not. Other Republicans were outspoken against the process from the outset since it was clear that the President had repeatedly lied about the election being stolen and there was no factual basis for any objections. Republicans adopting those positions were subjected to derision and threats from Republicans who supported Trump.

On the night of the insurrection, there were rumors that Trump’s cabinet may be considering invoking the 25^th Amendment and removing the President from power based on his incapacity to do the job. Inciting an insurrection against the government and Constitution that he was sworn to uphold would seem like a sure way to get anyone fired.  The other logical question is, if a person can make such a drastic error in judgment – does it imply that they will continue to make further drastic errors?  In other words is their judgment compromised even beyond the crisis they have created?  I am not talking about a diagnosis of mental illness. I am an adherent of the Goldwater Rule and don’t believe that psychiatrists should speculate about the mental health of a public figure without doing a thorough personal assessment and then disclosing the result of that assessment only with the consent of that individual.

That does not mean that professional organizations should abdicate their roles in advocating for science, social justice and correcting disparities related issues, and most of all advocating for a practice environment that allows physicians to provide high quality health care to our patients who need it the most. Health care professional organizations have not done a very good job on these issues largely because they have been completely ineffective against the business takeover of health care. 

With the recent events the American Psychiatric Association came out with a statement on January 7, 2021 entitled: APA Statement on Yesterday’s Violence in Washington.  It seemed to be overly reactive to me and it carried the usual generic conclusions – if you are having problems see someone. It would have more authority if there had been statements at every stage of the President’s escalating rhetoric.  Where was the APA for example when the President attacked science, the CDC and its scientists, and Dr. Fauci?  Where was the APA when the President attacked Black Lives Matter and showed support for white supremacists? Where was the APA when the President trivialized the COVID-19 epidemic, politicized the treatment and endangered lives, and spread misinformation about the origins of the virus and how it spreads. There is no authority when you sweep in at the very end when conditions are dire and seek to correct what you did not comment on in the previous 10 months. Real time commentary on political action that is detrimental to the social fabric of the country is necessary from professional organizations, especially one whose members assess the impact of that social fabric on every patient they see.

But there is more blame to go around – especially when it comes to social media companies.  Facebook, Twitter, and Google all seem to be very confused about how they are used for propaganda purposes. Misinformation is a euphemism for propaganda these days and there has never been a more powerful amplifier of propaganda than American social media. To be clear, propaganda is an intentional lie that is repeated over and over again until a certain segment believes it to be true and starts to react emotionally to it. This behavior was clearly visible from people at the Trump rally and people who invaded the Capitol building. People clearly agitated about the election being “stolen”, socialists taking over, the country turning to socialism, personal freedoms being impinged upon.  Image after image of people in the media who were obvious Trump supporters who were agitated about what are essentially non-issues. The clearest non-issue was the election being stolen.  Trump himself keeps repeating this despite the clear facts that the elections are much more well run that when Al Gore was defeated by hanging cardboard chads in the 2000 election that was decided by a Supreme Court decision and a 271 to 267 electoral college vote. In fact, the score card about election fraud shows that there is a complete lack of evidence of significant “fraud” or stolen elections.  The major social media players finally came around and banned Trump and his accounts, but even as I type this he is vowing to get more media access and continue his divisive propaganda campaign.

In the big picture, the Trump propaganda is much more than a curiosity at this point.  In addition to the insurrection at the Capitol, Trump followers have threatened violence against the families of both Democrat and Republican elected officials largely as a way to support Trump.  These coercive tactics have no place in a functional democracy and at the individual level should be considered terroristic threats by local police. The insurrection has provided a blueprint for both foreign and domestic enemies of the United States who seek to disrupt the functions of our government and the security of our citizens. The disruptive effect that the Trump administration has had on our military, intelligence community, allies and leadership role in the world adds greatly to the insecurity of the republic. President Trump and his administration should be considered a case study of incompetent leadership and suggest pathways to competency that future leaders should be assessed by.

I started to write this with some suggestions about what needs to happen over the next 10 days to get the country back on track and correct some of the current glaring deficits:

1:  President Trump: the people on the ground specifically his Cabinet and leaders in Congress need to make an assessment acutely about whether he lacks the current capacity to function in his role as President. The insurrection is strong evidence.  His lack of commentary of a major Russian government hack that has been occurring for months (the extent of which is not currently known) is another.  There is speculation that some of his cabinet members are contemplating this but there have been resignations and temporary appointments.  There is a question about how fragmented the Cabinet is and whether that would hinder the process.  Members of Congress are apparently considering impeachment, but that is a long process.  There are platitudes about how impeachment would not “heal the divisiveness” that are more than a little ironic considering the people making these statements. I have heard that two impeachments of any President rules out any future candidacy and if that is true – it is a very good reason for proceeding with impeachment.

There are still some mental health professionals out there who think a psychiatric emergency is a better response. I routinely did psychiatric emergencies for 22 years and I can say without a doubt that there is no court judge that I know of who would detain President Trump on an emergency basis for hearing or schedule a hearing for guardianship or conservatorship on the basis of a mental illness. Media reports are full armchair diagnoses of narcissistic personality disorder or malignant narcissism (not an actual diagnosis) and even if these diagnoses were accurate – they are not diagnoses that result in court action.  Those diagnoses are typically statutorily defined severe mental illness.  The legal criteria in the 25th Amendment is much clearer: unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office. The only problem is that it is interpreted by lawyers and politicians and not everyone will agree with that interpretation.

Another feature of the legal versus psychiatric intervention is that the decisions can be made right now, by people who have been working with the President in some cases for 4 years.  That constitutes a larger amount of information and a much shorter timeline for action than is possible in any psychiatric scenario. 

2:  The security issue:  The Capitol and any place there are elected officials doing the work of the US Government needs to be very secure. That means there needs to be an adequate force and clear rules of engagement.  Right now there are people threatening the inauguration process and there must be very thorough plans to prevent that from happening.  The FBI is apparently trying to identify as many people as possible from the original insurrection and the message is out there that they will be prosecuted.

The larger security issue is starting to counteract the propaganda about stolen elections, fake pandemics, fake news, and freedom being under attack. I am confident that clearer messaging from the White House and members of Congress will be useful as well as integration back into the international community.

3:  The potential for Civil War:  Not my idea.  About 3-4 months ago I was contacted by people who knew that I was a bit of a survivalist.  Their concerns ranged from civil unrest disrupting the food and power supply as well as access to medical treatment to outright armed conflict between warring factions  Their specific questions were about what they should acquire now to protect themselves and their family if the Trump induced negative reverberations through society continue and worsen.  I am not a historian and wonder if an attempted coup by an autocrat who refuses to accept or even acknowledge 200 years of democracy qualifies as a civil war?  The autocracies in my lifetime including Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, Pol Pot and many others extending right up to modern times do not seem to be the products of civil war.  Many occurred as the result of internal political turmoil often fomented by propaganda.  Many of these propaganda techniques were codified by the Nazis such as the Big Lie propaganda technique.  

The transition from ordered to disordered society is never clear. No American anticipated the rise of a disruptive autocrat and the impact that he could have on ordinary citizens.  In many ways it reminds me of Robert J. Lifton's interviews in The Nazi Doctors and how the transition to state sanctioned medical killing occurred during the Holocaust.  On page 13 he quotes a French speaking eastern European physician on whether what happened can be understood from a psychology viewpoint:

"The professor would like to understand what is not understandable. We ourselves who were there, and who have always asked ourselves the question and will ask it to the end of our lives , we will never understand it because it cannot be understood."    

I think there may be some insights from the anthropology of warfare.  Keeley gathered anthropological evidence of ancient conflicts between tribes, towns, and eventually cities.  He concluded that there were no peaceful primitive people. The settlement of disputes between neighboring tribes or city states have always been violent with a significant toll on the losing population.  That theme is obviously extended to current times where there is an uneasy peace based on nuclear deterrence but a quarter million people lose their lives each year due to small arms fire.  Peace does not seem to be the interest of many nations even though there are clear cut advantages.  The human propensity for violent dispute resolution is not reassuring in a heavily armed nation and an angry faction who show up on government property holding assault rifles.  Interestingly one of the features of society that Keeley considered protective against war was an active trading and economic relationship with rivals.  That is another area where President Trump has not done well. 

4:  The propaganda at the individual level:  Many people ask me why so many people buy into obvious propaganda like the stolen election lie.  It turns out this recipe for influencing large groups of people politically has been around for decades.  The general message is to keep repeating the lie and at some point people start to emotionally react to it and that reinforces it.  From a neuroscience perspective there have been some imaging studies that claim to be able to detect Democrats from Republicans but I question those results.  Some suggest the problem is a lack of critical thinking, but I know a lot of professionals who have accepted Trump’s stolen election lie as a fact and their critical reasoning capabilities in all other areas seem to be intact.  One of my colleagues proposed an evolutionary social theory that seems to have some plausibility – as humans we are socialized to follow charismatic leaders whether they are right or wrong.  There seems to be a lot of historical data to back that up.

I would suggest a complementary hypothesis and that is the emotional inputs for day-today decision making.  Some time ago on this blog I discussed some of the groundbreaking work of Antoine Bechara, MD, PhD and his work on why emotional input is critical for human decision making. He demonstrated that without it – subjects with normal intelligence is unable to function.  We also know that an excess of emotion can adversely affect decision making and lead to errors both acutely and on an ongoing basis.

Propaganda has both a cognitive component (the lie) and a strong associated emotional component.  Supporters of the stolen election lie are clearly angry about getting a raw deal, about their rights being impinged up, about needing to take the law into their own hands, about someone treating them (or their candidate) unfairly, the list is quite lengthy but the emotion is always anger.

I don’t claim to know how to reverse that process.  I did take a course in how to deprogram cult members at one point and the main intervention was to get them away from the people influencing them.  Removing the continuous inaccurate social media messaging may be useful in that regard. An improvement in the general tone of the media may also be helpful.  Since the insurrection, the mainstream media seems a lot more willing to make determinations of what is accurate and what is a lie.  One lesson appears to be that even if the propaganda lie is labeled as misinformation that is probably not enough.  It will still be altered in a positive way and propagated for propaganda use.  Propaganda needs to be eliminated when there is obvious overwhelming evidence against it.

There also have to be organizations that are willing to step up and make a stand for accuracy to correct political misinformation.  Both Science and Nature the major general scientific publications have been doing that on an increasing basis.

And finally, there is the appeal to the individual. In some of my earlier writing on this blog about firearm violence I suggested that people self-monitor for violent or aggressive thinking and seek out help if they noticed this. My thoughts related this insurrection are no different.  Nobody should be thinking that American elections are rigged or that they need to take the country back from someone.  We all know how this democracy works and it has been working well for 200+ years.  It works well because of the concept of peaceful transfer of power and the associated traditions. In other words, it is about what is good for the country and its people and not an individual official.  The President is the President for all of the people and not half of the people and he or she serves at the will of the majority.

Let that sink in……

 

 George Dawson, MD, DFAPA

Supplementary 1:  A poster on Twitter pointed out the rationale for the suspension of Trump's account.  The rationale is listed in this blog post.  Pay particular attention to the last 5 bullet points, especially bullet point 5:

"Plans for future armed protests have already begun proliferating on and off-Twitter, including a proposed secondary attack on the US Capitol and state capitol buildings on January 17, 2021."

I am hoping that there will be more than a few hundred National Guard troops present at the Inauguration and that Governors take these threats seriously, especially in states where gun advocates have succeeded in getting laws passed to carry firearms on state government property. I would suggest going as far as a temporary order to suspend firearms in proximity to the state capitols in addition to an adequate show of force to deter further antigovernment activity. 

Supplementary 2:  For anyone confused about what happened at the Capitol building it comes down to this:

References:

1:  Lawrence H. Keeley.  War Before Civilization. Oxford University Press, New York 1996.

2:  Robert Jay Lifton.  The Nazi Doctors. Basic Books, New York 1986: p 13.

Image Credit:  This is an image from the Capitol Building on Jan 6, 2021 from Shutterstock per their standard agreement.