Gabor Mate and a Nation Primed for Demagoguery

After World War II, studies were made and books written to explore whether customs of child rearing could have made some nations more easily succumb to authoritarian rule. Now that our nation has elected yet again a leader who thrives on demagoguery, the question arises here at home.

When I told a friend about speculation that Donald Trump was profoundly affected by undiagnosed learning disabilities in his youth, she suggested checking out Gabor Mate. She mentioned a study of facial expressions at Trump rallies that documented a nonverbal communication between Trump and many of his followers. The premise: victims of childhood trauma reveal that trauma through subtle facial cues picked up on by others who have also experienced trauma.

I looked up Gabor Mate, and though the study didn't come up, a colleague of his, Stephen Porges, said something similar in a conversation between the two:

Instantaneously, our body responds to another who has suffered trauma, not just in seeing them, but in feeling their facial expression and feeling their voices. Our nervous system evolved to detect those features.

What I found in Mate's online writings is the connection he makes between the childhood trauma that Trump likely experienced, and the widespread trauma that causes many people to follow him. In a short essay from 2016, "Trump, Clinton, and Trauma," in which Mate explores the potential impact of childhood trauma on Trump, and also Hilary Clinton to a lesser extent, he explains the compensations that can play out in adulthood in those traumatized in childhood.

“What we perceive as the adult personality often reflects compensations a helpless child unwittingly adopted in order to survive. Such adaptations can become wired into the brain, persisting into adulthood. Underneath all psychiatric categories, Trump manifests childhood trauma…. Narcissistic obsession with the self then compensates for a lack of nurturing care. Grandiosity covers a deeply negative sense of self-worth. Bullying hides an unconscious conviction of weakness. Lying becomes a mode of survival in a harsh environment. Misogyny is a son’s outwardly projected revenge on a mother who was unable to protect him.”

While many of us see Trump as a dangerous demagogue, Mate explains how others can see him very differently:

We need not be perplexed that a Donald Trump can vie for the presidency of the most powerful nation on Earth. We live in a culture where many people are hurt and, like the leaders they idolize, insulated against reality. Trauma is so commonplace that its manifestations have become the norm.

People who are anxious, fearful and aggrieved may be unable to recognize the flaws in those seeking power. They mistake desperate ambition for determination, see grandiosity as authority, paranoia as security, seductiveness as charm, dogmatism as decisiveness, selfishness as economic wisdom, manipulation as political savvy, lack of principles as flexibility. Trauma-induced defenses such as venal dishonesty and aggressive self-promotion often lead to success.

The flaws of our leaders perfectly mirror the emotional underdevelopment of the society that elevates them to power.

Dramatically different interpretations of the Harris-Trump debate can be viewed through the prism of Mate's insights. 

Can a nation be artificially traumatized through propaganda?

Playing a big role in preparing a population for a demagogue, in my view, is the ever expanding reach of rightwing news media. The dystopian America that Trump depicts in his speeches, the fabrication of dark forces and enemies in our midst, of evil immigrants eating people's pets, would be traumatizing for anyone who believes it. Any real trauma people have experienced in their own lives is then augmented by the artificial, vicarious trauma of dark and looming threats conjured by Trump, then amplified by the very news media that should properly be exposing its fallacies. Pervasive propaganda, once it takes hold and becomes dominant, can, to paraphrase Mate, insulate people against reality and stir in them anxiety, fear, and grievance. False propaganda and real trauma, then, can be seen as working in tandem to prime a nation for demagoguery.

Thoughts On Election Day, 2024

Going about this day, Tuesday, November 5, with equal parts hope and trepidation. Though it is one of many very uncomfortable days leading up to the election, I am savoring these hours when I can still believe that America remains the America I grew up in, where truth matters and there are consequences for misbehavior. If Kamala Harris wins, there will still be vast challenges. But if she loses, the election will represent a seismic shift for a country already shaken and paralyzed by artificial political polarization, disunited by deepening income disparities, and increasingly battered by climate change. 

If trump wins decisively, many of us will be eating irony paradoxide. That is to say, it would be ironic if, after so much concern about a violent revolution if Trump were to lose or the results were not definitive, it turns out to be the Democrats who must acknowledge clear defeat and cede power peacefully, respecting democracy while yielding to someone determined to undermine it. 

Evidence that Trump could in fact win by a substantial margin are opinion pieces like the NY Times' deputy opinion editor, Patrick Healy, who reported on the opinions voiced over three years by focus groups of voters. Inflation looms large for many. The Time's chief political analyst, Nate Cohn, points to evidence of a rightward shift that's been underway for some time. In this view, if Trump loses, it will reflect less an embrace of progressive values than the failure of conservatives to field a candidate with fewer liabilities. 

What is left unmentioned in these formidable opinions is the extraordinary power of propaganda being generated by Fox News and many other outlets that has made many in the country unresponsive to evidence. While Trump is free to think and say essentially anything and everything without apparent consequence, he has muzzled his followers and forced the Republican Part to strictly conform, to either parrot his words or face eviction. 

Along with the increasing isolation from and imperviousness to differing views, there is the cathartic power of "throw the bums out", in which voters are so busy directing their discontent at those in office that they forget to consider what sorts of bums they will be throwing in. Constantly fueling disgust towards his enemies, Trump's talent for harnessing this cathartic power is matched only by his capacity to stir disgust towards himself. If he wins in 2024, he will be thrown back in by some of the same cathartic energy that threw him out in 2020.

Also unmentioned in other analyses is how Republicans have a built-in advantage, not only due to the electoral system and the skewing of the Senate due to sparsely populated conservative states. The Republican Party lets voters off the hook, offering tax cuts while increasing government debt, and pretending climate change isn't real. Running from tough issues is a sign of weakness, and yet Republicans still claim to be strong protectors. This abdication of responsible governance has shut down productive debate and left the government paralyzed as these core threats grow ever larger. 

Even if Kamala Harris were to win, there will still be propaganda, a constant stirring of artificial political polarization through lies, and a political party that claims to protect the nation while ignoring looming threats.

What is heartening on this day of profound uncertainty is the Democratic Party's nominee. I was not expecting to like Kamala Harris after her campaign in 2020, but she has grown significantly in ways that fit this moment in history. She has the requisite experience, embodies compassion and caring, has found the joy, and there is widespread acknowledgement that she demolished Trump the one time he dared to debate her. She has the aura of a winner, while Trump stumbles to the end, showing his true colors, muddled, angry and extreme. Four years of unbearable and debilitating chaos await if he wins.

When Trump narrowly survived an assassination attempt, my take on divine intervention was that God saved Trump so that he could be roundly defeated in the election. For him, that would be a fate worse than death. If he does lose, again, it will not deepen my belief in God, but will deepen my belief in the prospects for this beloved country.