Welcome Back to the Pathocracy
DC air tragedy reveal Trump's knee-jerk reflexes and talking points for the next 4 years.
Hi all,
Thanks for staying with me. Your support means a lot, and I hope my writing helps you a bit. May you find some ease and relief amidst the stress of watching this all unfold. I just wrote in a comment on Bandy Lee’s Substack:
To me the pathocracy is about a deep confusion, mistrust and paranoia about human relationships, and an attempt to dispel this complexity and nuance with a simple-minded schema, and then engage the only kind of battle this small mind is capable of, in a me vs. them battle. It’s only been successful so far because it also engages the deep algorithms of wealth enhancement, racism and misogyny. Apparently this underlying structure has been so hard to get through to the collective psyche that it all has to be made plain and raw. I think more people are awakening.
A horrible mid-air collision over the Potomac in DC apparently killed 67 people last night, January 29, 2025. There were 64 people on an American Airlines flight from Wichita, Kansas, and 3 service members on a Blackhawk Helicopter. Exactly one month prior, we had the catastrophic Jeju Air crash in South Korea which killed 179 people. And two days ago, an Air Busan plane in Korea caught fire on the tarmac, injuring 3. Investigations into the Korean incidents are apparently still ongoing - but Mr. Trump has it all figured out. He blamed the deadly DC crash on DEI and Biden, right out of the gate. (Side note - Korea is certainly quicker than America in rejecting autocracy. They’ve done in a month or so what it may take years for America to do.)
President Shrimp - the Wizard of Id, the Orange Toddler, the “dotard” - got solid pushback from multiple reporters, who fact-checked him in real time, noting that the particular DEI directives for the FAA date back to at least 2013, and never abrogated competency qualifications for air traffic control. Like - of course. Snopes has an article on this disinformation dating back to Jan. 15, 2024. Reporters also questioned Mr. Trump’s reasoning process. He said it was “common sense” to jump to conclusions that DEI had caused the plane crash. Well, I guess it’s the “problem” that he and the GOP fixated on, as they continue their culture war in a blitz of Executive Orders, including this one. They are attempting mind and social control. Stop thinking, stop all those crazy questions about identity and belonging. Submit to a “meritocracy” which denies reality.
DefSec Hegseth, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, and VP Vance wasted no time kissing Donald Trump’s butt on the podium today. The performance of flattery and submission were remarkable. Talk about a Cold Open to Stupid Night Live.
It was all so eerily reminiscent of those ridiculous COVID briefings, except long gone were people like Anthony Fauci and Deborah Birx to offer silent commentary in their downcast expressions.
This all is Trump’s knee-jerk reflex, based on a moronically simple-minded view of the world that attempts to scrunch all complexity into a self-exalting, other-devaluing talking point. His perseveration and reasoning capacity at this press conference should raise questions of cognitive issues, and possible dementia. Scholars and experts have been raising these questions for some time.
I’ve outlined his defense mechanisms before (in MOSF 19.20: Post-2024 Election: Preventing Psychopathy and Cruelty From Going Viral (Hate speech breaks brains, and can break society) and elsewhere.
In The Apprentice (2024), a perhaps fictionalized Roy Cohn mentors a young Donald Trump in his “winning” strategy in the 1970s and 80s:
Attack, attack, attack!
Admit nothing, deny everything
Never admit defeat
Play the man, not the ball (in other words, attack your opponent, as opposed to the issues. Every competition becomes personal, vindictive, manipulative, and cruel, even Machiavellian.)
We’ve had ample evidence for these strategies in Mr. Trump’s behavior since 2015 at the very least. Whether his followers consider these signs of personal strength, entertainment, or necessary tactics to tar, feather, scapegoat, and defeat opponents, they have become part of the Republican and far-right discourse, and amplified through a right-wing media echo chamber. As such, they do threaten to distort public dialogue and understanding of issues of substance, as well as dehumanize anyone who disagrees, thus creating a push towards conformity and obedience out of fear of being attacked.
This is all a variation of the sociopath’s defense mechanisms when accused of misdeed.
Assholes, sociopaths, and psychopaths share these defenses:
Admit nothing.
Deny everything.
Make counteraccusations.
Never apologize. Make it the other person’s fault, always.
Continue to do bad things.
This furthers the project of self-exaltation and other-contempt which marks the pathocracy. It defeats reason, compassion, and relationship, the building blocks of mental health and social well-being.
Ok, that’s it for now.
Please consider becoming a paid or founding member to allow me more time to help us connect the dots.
Warmly,
Ravi
I saw the Snopes article on Threads, and the fact-checks on the FAA policy hiring practices, the same since 2013. DJT’s blaming the tragedy last night on the recent DEI update in ‘24. But Snopes pointed out the policy has not been updated but exactly the same. If DJT didn’t agree with the DEI then, why didn’t he correct it then. As with every president, tragedies are blamed on the president at watch. So DJT blames the tragedy on Joe with falsehoods about the DEI, which he’s against. Joe quietly passed lots of legislation, fixing infrastructure, climate control, discounting senior medications from full list since GWB, collecting taxes, funding IRS, bringing our Chips technology back to the States for creating new jobs, the bipartisan immigration bill that all Republicans and Dems agreed on, but DJT asked the Republicans not to pass so he can complain about the Democrats during the ‘24 election.
Thank you. I am so worried for our country. We are on a train to the dark.