Trump and the Coming Cultural Revolution
A few days ago I was speaking with a good friend, who is a Republican and who dislikes Hillary and Trump with equal measure. I found myself struggling to explain to him why Trump brings up a different level of disquiet in me, and why I am so concerned about the future of America with him as President. Sure, I could point to the well-written editorial by Dorothy Rabinowitz, a member of the editorial board of the normally pro-Republican Wall Street Journal, who warned against “the reign of the most unstable, proudly uninformed, psychologically unfit president ever to enter the White House.” Sadly, warnings of this type have had startlingly little effect, as the election result shows.
It shocked me that my intelligent and kind friend could not distinguish Trump’s words and actions from normal politicking. How could he not see that Trump’s lies are not just far more frequent but qualitatively different from other politicians’, that he actually believes in his lies, that he belittles his opponents and bullies the weak, that he is incapable of self-reflection, that he seems to take genuine delight in hurting other people if they dare to criticize him, and that he objectifies women and perhaps all people, and apparently does not feel remorse or compassion?
Any single one of these traits should have disqualified him from running for any type of office. One can be cynical about politicians, but Trump is more than an unscrupulous politician. He is something else.
As I struggled find a term to characterize Trump, one diagnosis of him by John Gartner, a psychotherapist affiliated with Johns Hopkins University, came to mind: malignant narcissism, a particularly severe and vicious form of narcissistic personality disorder. A person with this mental disorder would be, according to prominent Cornell psychoanalyst Otto Kernberg, antisocial (“age-inappropriate action that harm or lack consideration for the well-being of others”), paranoid, and egosyntonically aggressive (aggression that results from “excessively positive self regard, rejecting suggestions that challenge this viewpoint”). Though often charismatic, such a person is “pathologically grandiose, has a psychological need for power and admiration, and lacks conscience and behavior regulation with characteristic demonstration of joyful cruelty.” Lastly but not least, such a person may exhibit a fragile ego, “an inability to tolerate criticism, and a tendency to belittle others in an attempt to validate their own superiority.” (source: Wikepedia)
These descriptions overlap completely with what I find most objectionable about Trump.
My friend said that he would study this before we talk again, commenting that even if I am half-right, we are all royally screwed. I told him that the word “royally” is indeed key. The President of the United States not only decides policy but is expected to provide moral leadership. Whether he — or his tweets — stands for the compassionate side of human nature, or something darker, affects all of us in profound ways.
Policies can be changed or reversed, but cultural shifts are much longer lasting.
Unfortunately, just like in Star Wars, the Dark Side often has more immediate appeal, and when it comes into a position of power, a massive shift can occur and undo decades or even centuries of progress.
In a flash, I recall China’s Cultural Revolution (1966–1976). Most Westerners are scarcely aware of the event, but it has affected the Chinese culture and how every Chinese person relates to each other in ways that defy imagination. While there is no question that it destroyed the lives of tens of millions and devastated the country’s political and economical structure, even Chinese people themselves are only dimly aware of how deeply their attitudes and behaviors have been affected by the event.
I am concerned that the Trump presidency’s impact on our culture will be just as devastating and long lasting.
The active phase of the Cultural Revolution, from 1966–1971, lasted little more than one U.S. presidential term. At its height, Chairman Mao, who like Trump fits the description of a malignant narcissist, had been adored and worshipped like no other modern world leader before or since. I remember my parents telling me that they had to get up in the middle of the night to walk the streets, shouting slogans and singing songs that glorified Chairman Mao and Maoism. Every citizen carried the “little red book,” which contained selected statements from speeches and writings of Chairman Mao. If there had been Nielsen ratings, Mao’s ratings would have been off the charts, and Mao would have watched it zealously. Mao would be as obsessed about the size of the turnout at his speeches as Trump apparently is.
More insidiously, young, naive people were incited to defend and glorify Maoism, and to attack any institution, person, or tradition that stood in the way. Fervent about the communist ideal and fearing the return of the bourgeois ways and exploitation of the disenfranchised, those people formed “Red Guards” and stormed libraries and schools, Confucian and Buddhist temples, municipal governments, and even army barracks. Mao openly scorned intellectuals and mercilessly put down anyone who voiced even a timid disagreement. Violence escalated rapidly, when one of Mao’s cronies, the national police chief, said that it was “no big deal” if Red Guards were beating “bad people” to death. When I heard Trump’s fact-free attacks on judges and journalists, his airy reference to “second amendment people” taking matters into their own hands, or his admiration for Putin and downplaying of the dictator’s likely war crimes and killings, I felt a familiar chill.
Just like Trump, Mao was goaded on by a group of extreme radicals who had their own thirst for power and their own scores to settle. His “Steve Bannon” was Jiang Qing, a former B-list actress who became Mao’s wife, eventually gaining a seat on the politburo, the most powerful governing body of the country (Bannon’s ascent to the National Security Council, by comparison, was much faster). Supported by a group of like-minded extremists, she was the mastermind behind Mao’s cult of personality. Just as Bannon is the intellectual leader of the alt-right, Jiang Qing also controlled China’s arts and culture. To secure her position, she radicalized the Red Guards even further and turned them against the more moderate political leaders and government officials.
In another harbinger of things to come, “dazibao” (big character posters on walls), a pre-Internet version of Twitter and Facebook, became a crucial tool in Mao’s strategy. Even though he had complete control of the media, Mao wrote his own dazibao at Beijing University on August 5, 1966, calling on the people to “bombard the headquarters.” It is instructive to read the short post in its entirety. Is it far fetched to imagine Trump tweeting with a similar gestalt a year from now, when things do not go his way?
Dazibao was soon ubiquitous. People put them up on walls everywhere, spreading official propaganda, fake news, and vitriol against individuals who were not with the program. Like tweets, the big character posters were not suitable for thoughtful, nuanced debates, but rather appealed to sensationalism and emotions.
Fueled by a twisted sense of righteousness devoid of reason or compassion, the Red Guards spun out of control, torturing and publicly humiliating millions of people. In their revolutionary fervor, students denounced their teachers, and children denounced their parents. Colleagues and friends turned on one another and even made up stories about others’ disloyalty, so as to curry favor with their torturers. Husbands and wives were separated, told lies about their spouses’ confession, and forced to confess and betray others.
The effect of this all-encompassing “internecine struggle,” a favorite strategy of Mao’s, defies imagination. Tolerance and compassion had been replaced by distrust, cynicism, and fear. It touched everyone, in all walks of life. From political leader, to business tycoon, to taxi driver in Shanghai, everyone in China today carries the imprint of those few years. The imprint can be found through its absence in Taiwan, which has the same Chinese roots but did not go through the Cultural Revolutions. After visiting Taiwan, all of my Chinese friends commented on how incredibly warm, open and trusting people are. Two generations of Chinese people have forgotten that there is another way of being. I feel a profound sense of sadness as I write this. I hope that the same doesn’t happen in the U.S., and that my children will grow up in the same America that I have come to know and love.
I am no scholar of the Cultural Revolution, U.S. politics, or psychiatric diagnosis, but the more I researched them, the clearer the parallels became. One month into the Trump presidency, the air of cynicism, distrust, and fear is unmistakable. In the age of mass media and viral Internet media, the leader of the free world has incredible power to spread his neurosis. Furthermore, most alarmingly, from the beginning of his campaign, Trump has systematically targeted the built-in checks and balances of the American democracy — media, judiciary and intelligence — so that his views can propagate unchallenged.
Viewed through the lens of a malignant narcissist, Trump’s and Mao’s actions are not surprising. They are almost inevitable, as Trump’s and Mao’s fragile egos could not tolerate any criticism or dissent and built increasingly elaborate and vicious defense mechanisms. We will do well to study how the Cultural Revolutions unfolded step-by-step and how Mao and his coterie played their hands. This will hopefully help us predict how how the same story might play out in the era of modern media, and to do whatever we can to fortify the checks and balances of our democracy.
To those who dislike Trump as a person but who supported Trump as a candidate, I also advise them to study history, and to stop thinking of Trump as someone who will act in their or the country’s best interests, or someone who can be influenced, if only the right argument can be made or the right advisor can be hired. Trump often believes his own lies and lives his own lies, and when he feels threatened, he will attempt to discredit or even annihilate his critics if necessary, in order to protect his self-image. The worse he performs, the more defensive he will become. Ultimately, he will do whatever it takes to save his little world, reason or compassion be damned. If they think that this prediction is outlandish, I encourage Trump supporters to read up on pathological narcissism.
To those who feel the appeal of Trump’s rage or resonate with his version of fear, I would like to say that they cannot heal their hurt by hurting other people. I encourage them to reflect on whether Trump brings out the better or worse half of their nature. Rational discourse and compassionate understanding are the only way out, however inefficient they sometimes seem. There is no shortcut.
