The Sadistic Fool — Do Not Confuse Cunning with Foolishness
As a survivor of a sadist, I offer my insight not to frighten, but to empower and propel the betterment of humanity through awareness.
Humor, buffoonery, and jokes are often used by pedophiles to attract children. The same approach is being harnessed to disable awareness there’s a sadist in the White House. A sadist the public has kept safe, fed, and housed for nearly four years and at no small expense. A sadist who’s trying to overstay his election.
Donald J. Trump is a sadist. I don’t declare this lightly. I declare it with the experience of surviving a sadist and over four years of venal behavior the outgoing president has unleashed upon private citizens, civil servants, and foreign leaders. Donald J. Trump has been a sadist at least as long as he’s been in public life and perhaps even earlier, based on familial events cited by his niece Mary Trump in her recent memoir Too Much and Never Enough — How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man.
Sadists relish both the power they seize and the pain they inflict on others. Which sounds pretty grim. From that description, a sadist should look and perform in a Jabba the Hutt manner; a Star Wars character so loathsome his physical appearance of an ungainly slug. As with other predators (such as rapists and abusers), most sadists intentionally appear unthreatening. At least in the beginning. Consider it the theatrical act of tenderizing before pouncing. Human predators of all forms use humor, buffoonery, and jokes with the same objective as pedophiles, luring in prey by tenderizing primal threat receptors.
The brain will disable the reptilian-survival center if the experience of laughter is felt, even directly after a trauma. While laughing, neurons immediately begin cleansing activated fight or flight responses, washing away adrenaline and panic so the body may commence with recovery. The faster recovery begins, the sooner an elevated heart rate normalizes, digestion resumes, and “letting it go” engages. The body thrives on normalcy, needs normalcy. Which is why a sadist intuitively uses humor to desensitize nervous systems into thinking it is safe. Fear makes a person’s survival center hyper-alert to danger and the opposite of fear and danger is safety and laughter.
“Safe” to a sadist means freedom to carry out and repeat despicable actions. “Safe” allows a presidential candidate to say horrendous things as shocking jokes, pretend buffoonery for social media likes, and lure the public into thinking “he’s an idiot” therefore, “not dangerous.”
Humor, buffoonery, and jokes are often used by pedophiles to attract children.
Home Alone was a 1990 movie franchise, centered on a child accidentally left behind to deal with criminals that were intent on breaking into his family home. Remove any knowledge of the film and the description seems the opposite of a comedy. A child. Left home alone. Criminals breaking in. A real-world version would have a high probability of being a violent, trauma-inducing event. Instead, the product is a humorous and unrealistic take on a precocious child managing to best buffoonish criminals. The brain enjoys horrible situations turning into comedy. Fear is cauterized, laughter used to switch off the fight or flight response.
In America’s two-century-plus democracy, an authoritarian figure would need to sweep away fear of and democratic resistance to tyranny. And in that effort, Trump was moderately-to-mostly successful. He scurried around our quaintly important social and institutional norms with humor, buffoonery, and jokes — name calling, bullying with a grin, denigrating by pointing out weaknesses as a school boy would on the playground. Perpetuating the myth, he is a fool.
Never confuse cunning with foolishness.
How easily this country’s nervous system was trained into believing four years isn’t long enough to destroy democracy. How easily sadism was normalized as Trump meticulously crafted a throne for himself in our still-young and often ridiculously innocent nation.
The media, both democratic and republican officials, and our citizenry mislabeled Trump’s behavior as “toddler-tantrums” and “rookie mistakes.” Lies were “accidental falsehoods.” Brutish aggressiveness dismissed as “temper.” Mean and treacherous actions redefined as “doesn’t like to lose.” National shock faded ever-more quickly as grievous and despicable behaviors lapped one after another, mounting and confusing the importance of accountability. As Trump broke established and critical norms and demolished much of the perception and functionality of good, humane governance, his authoritarian shadow grew in short and long bursts. Never retreating, always looming.
Now, after a violent coup attempt, as the country desperately wants to return the national heart rate to normal, there’s yet another calculated thrust at derealization. Social media is filled with humorous memes of a shaman appropriator demanding he be given organic food in jail for religious reasons and laughter-generating videos of an insurrectionist with a bullhorn guiding terrorists through the Capitol building. On January 6th, 2021, both those individuals were human hunters tasked with finding and harming those attempting to abide by a sworn oath to certify democratically-attained election results. When congressional members refused to wear masks while sheltering in place during a pandemic and siege upon the Capitol, they were discussed in childish behavior terms instead of the term for what it actually is — bio terrorism. Three congressional members sequestered with these anti-maskers have since tested positive for Covid-19, one of them a septuagenarian recovering from cancer.
There’s nothing funny, childish or inconsequential about terrorism.
This national family is in the midst of a sadistic, intentionally-created crisis. It has been a four-year lengthy drain on our national heart and mind and the need to de-realize the horror of the present situation is enormous. Of course, there’s a need to make it all go away. Enablers of Trump are teasing, cajoling, and shaming the public into minimizing national trauma in a self-protective rush to have us “move on,” “get over it,” “let it go,” and “unify.”
Even as the nation is being abused by its own citizenry, there’s a need to imagine this is not who we are.
Humor, buffoonery, laughter, and avoidance of the truth have enabled this president — a wanna-be dictator. These tactics have been active since Trump announced his candidacy. Tactics which were functionally helpful in coalescing a fractured terrorist group and those rejecting an inclusive society into the force that mobbed our Capitol. And here we are. The same methods utilized in an attempt to manipulate the national nervous system into craving “unity” with a sadist still in power.
Do not imagine this nightmare ended after the failed coup. Even twice-impeached and exiting the dais of the United States presidency on January 20th, Donald J. Trump is not done. Every word out of his mouth attests to the craving he has for power and adoration at any cost. Having traumatized the national body and mind, what he and his trumpist faction want is everything else we hold dear. What they want is the destruction of democracy. What they want is the eradication of possibility and hope that comes with democracy. What they want is this country’s very soul.
Well, they can’t have it.
