THREAD
1 - Before invading, Putin made assessments. One of them was that America was fractured, heavily divided. Of course, Putin intimately experienced four years of Trump. What a godsend for him! Without his assessment of America's division, this war would NOT be happening!
2 - Reconstructing the USSR? It's a talking point. Putin's real goals extend further. He's been unchecked for so long, they've morphed into obsessions. Putin's three major obsessions: America, democracy, and NATO. His goal? TO DIMINISH THEM. If he can, the rest falls into place.
3 - Putin saw the great arrogant America elect a moron. He's seen the GOP's unbridled lust to regain power. He's seen millions of Americans buy into false narratives and strongman propaganda. OF COURSE he saw potential for American democracy itself to be altered or compromised!
4 - What Putin saw in America is TrumpISM - a mirror of Trump's malignancies. Authoritarians are admired as manly and strong, winning is everything, an apparatus of enablers in Congress and amplifiers on RW media unified in a mission to attain power with Minority Rule at ANY cost
5 - Go back to the day of the invasion. Trump, the useful idiot himself, immediately spewed Putin-friendly fuel on the fire. So did Carlson! So did Pompeo! Russian media began playing Trump/Pompeo on endless video loops! This was what Putin expected, and he got exactly that.
6 - But Putin made other faulty assessments. He underestimated Zelensky's leadership, Ukrainians' bravery, their will to fight to survive. Mostly, he underestimated NATO's unity, due in no small part to Biden/Blinken and their ability to telegraph Putin's planned lies in advance.
7. Thank God for Biden. Because of the solidarity of NATO, and Zelensky, Putin stumbled. Political calculus by the power-crazed American GOP changed. Not for humanitarian reasons! They read the room, and knew their best alternative was to now flip to Ukraine and away from Putin.
8 - REMEMBER THIS: The GOP cares for NOTHING above power! Their oaths? Hah! They'd sell their own mothers out in a flash. And even though they act against Putin now, all Putin needs to do is wait this out with them, and they'll assuredly welcome his help with US midterm elections
9 - Whatever happens in Ukraine, America HAS to vanquish its TRUE foe. It's not Putin. And it's not Trump. It's PROPAGANDA. Authoritarianism can ONLY grow in an environment of DISINFORMATION. Disinformation and propaganda are everywhere now. It's constant. Relentless. Amplified.
10 - In 2022, American Democracy itself WILL be on the line. Democracy HAS to prevail! How? The truth. The truth is the only archenemy of the lie, and the truth is STRONGER than the lie. So, for Democracy to prevail, enough TRUTH has to prevail!
11 - In 2020, we spoke TRUTH about the aberrant psychopathology of Trump in our film #UNFIT. It also spoke to his autocratic aspirations which we still see daily. Our film was widely distributed; widely seen. It made a difference. It crossed over to moderates. There's still many!
12 - In 2022, before the midterms, we will release #UNTRUTH - the Psychology of TrumpISM and the War for Democracy. It will also make a difference. It will speak truth to ANYONE who watches it. (Almost everybody watches films, and when they watch, they're away from the noise.)
13 - #UNTRUTH must be a fiercely truthful and independent film (like #UNFIT). It's the only way films like these can be made. If enough truth prevails, democracy will prevail! The more we know about what Trumpism really is, the better chance we have.
14 - Here's a link. PLEASE - click it, watch the short trailer at the top, then scroll down and read the truth about Trumpism. It's behavioral psychology. And it's there. We hope you'll also consider supporting the effort, now or in the coming few days.
15 - We're all in this together. Democracy really IS on the line. It's the thing most worth fighting for. And we need to be all in.
Thanks for reading this thread.
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“Trump’s focus on flesh-eating predators and unsuspecting prey reveals something else about his psyche, said John Gartner, a psychologist and host of the podcast “Shrinking Trump.”
His father had impressed upon him that he needed to be a “killer” and a “king.” Trump imbibed the idea that being a victim was a fate to avoid. Becoming “the apex predator” was for Trump “the No. 1 objective,” helping explain his fascination with both sharks and Hannibal Lecter, Gartner said.
“In the mind of a predator, the worst thing that can happen is you can become prey,” he said. And so, in Trump’s mind, electrocution sounds preferable to dying in the clutches of a Great White.
1/7 "#UNTRUTH: The Psychology of Trumpism:"
Drs. Gartner and Segal interview director Dan Partland Does Trumpism prove the power of propaganda or is it a personality type?
Clips from the movie in this thread:
Watch show here: youtube.com/live/SzmX30qNN…
2/ “Our generation has really lived through two pandemics. COVID-19, and a psychiatric pandemic of mass delusion, and I would argue that actually the second one is more dangerous.”
3/ "Malignant normality is what happens when a malignantly narcissistic leader captures a society or a subset of society. His crazy destructive ideas become the new orthodoxy, the new conventional wisdom."
1/6 The Psy-Op against Trump is working. He's on defense, saying: "I'm not weird. He's weird."
Drs. Gartner and Segal talk to Dr. Ben Michaelis about new evidence of Trump's cognitive decline
2/ Trump demands the Lincoln Project stop beaming their ads into his clubs.
LP responds with a new ad:
"The Donald Trump for President campaign hit a bunch of people this afternoon with cease and desist letters because our ads were too mean for a little Donald."
3/ The Harris campaign has adopted the same strategy of ridiculing him in real time, most recently about his crowd size posting videos of his half empty stadiums and people leaving during his speeches. He can't not react, making him look rattled, defensive and weak.
1/ Trump is in a "mental health death spiral," and the Anti-psycho PAC is helping”
Dr. Gartner and Segal also speak with Hafiz Rashid of the New Republic about Trump’s signs of cognitive decline and the press’ new willingness to cover it
Watch here: youtube.com/live/oiorD6sQO…
2/ Gartner: I'm happy to announce that I’m working with George Conway's anti-psychopath PAC as a consulting psychologist. For transparency, I’m ethically required disclose that I'm wearing two hats, because we're going be reporting a lot on PAC.
3/ Segal: I'm only wearing one hat, but I give my emotional and intellectual support.
Gartner: You introduce every episode saying it’s our goal to educate the public about Trump's malignant narcissism and cognitive decline. That’s one aim of the PAC, too
The unpleasant act of comparing Donald Trump’s age and mental fitness with Joe Biden’s became moot on the Sunday afternoon when the 81-year-old president ended his reelection campaign. Now the 78-year-old Trump stands alone for examination on age and mental fitness, a specimen like no other in the history of American elections.
But before we go there again — and to Trump antagonist George Conway’s campaign to present the Republican former president as psychologically impaired — I must ask John Gartner about Biden.
1/ "Launching the Anti-Psychopath PAC"
On Shrinking Trump we talk with George Conway. View or read edited excerpts on this thread.
Click below to watch the whole show: youtube.com/live/q08V9OLer…
2/ Conway: "There were two groups who saw Trump for what he was. One were the historical minded, And the other were you guys, the mental health professionals, who had a peg on this guy from the very beginning. If you understand his personality disorder you understand Trump
3/ "The press normalized him. Nobody said, 'wait a minute, this guy, this is pathological. This is a type that psychiatrists and psychologists have seen a million times before and the list of qualities are in plain English. You can read them and you can count.