The 2024 presidential election is proving to be a unique moment in American history.
You would think it’s unique because for the first since the 22nd Amendment was ratified in 1951 a former president is seeking a non-consecutive term, and that for the first time that former president is a convicted felon.
Under normal circumstances, that would qualify as an utterly unique moment for our country, but that is not actually why it is.
Instead, what makes this year so unique is that for the first time in our history one of the two major political parties is suffering from an acute case of the psychological defense mechanism called projection.
It’s a condition wherein you attribute something negative and/or critical about someone else that you unconsciously feel is true about yourself.
In other words, every criticism Republicans are making against President Biden and the Democrats is exactly and precisely what they are doing, have done, or want to do themselves.
And they are at it big time.
Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton says Donald Trump is an innocent man who didn’t do anything wrong and that the Justice Department is prosecuting Democratic Senator Robert Menendez and Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar of Texas because they criticized President Biden’s foreign relations and immigration policy.
Republican Senator Mike Lee says he will try to get other Republicans to join him in shutting down the government because of the terrible thing a New York jury did to Trump by finding him guilty of 34 separate counts of fraud.
Marco Rubio, the Republican Senator from Florida, described the Trump verdict as “a complete travesty that makes a mockery of our system of justice.”
Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina said our justice system “hunts Republicans while protecting Democrats”
House Speaker Mike Johnson said Trump’s convictions were “a shameful day in American history,” adding, “This was a purely political exercise, not a legal one.” He also said he was sure the Supreme Court justices who are friends of his will overturn Trump’s conviction.
New York Rep. Elise Stefanik, called Trump’s convictions a sign of “a corrupt and rigged” justice system.
Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Green says we’re living in a banana Republic, as did Fix News host Laura Ingram, both in defense of Donald Trump as an innocent man.
Now put those comments alongside these facts.
Trump’s Attorney General, Bill Barr, pre-empted the release of the Mueller Report detailing how the Trump campaign colluding with the Russians in the 2016 election with the false public statement that it exonerated Trump, forcing Mueller to hold a news conference denying that the report said any such thing.
Bill Barr also appointed Special Counsel John Durham to investigate the investigators of the Trump campaign’s complicity with the Russian interference in the 2016 election that continued into the Biden presidency, but ended in a complete bust.
Trump fired his Attorney General Jeff Sessions for appointing Robert Mueller in the first place.
After losing the election, Trump tried to remove then-acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen and install low level justice department attorney Jeff Clark who told Trump he was willing to use his position as acting Attorney General to help him overturn the 2016 election results.
On top of all of those past actions, Trump himself keeps talking about seeking revenge on his political opponents if he is elected again by getting the Justice Department to prosecute them.
There seems to be no limit to Republicans defending Donald Trump by accusing Joe Biden of everything Trump did, tried to do, or says he will do if given a chance.
What we seeing is a case of projection on steroids.
But, of course, this is an unconscious psychological defense mechanism that prevents the person from seeing what he or she is doing. Collectively, then, Republicans don’t see what they’re doing and, thus, will never admit they have a problem.
If what they’re doing wasn’t so dangerous, you’d almost feel sorry for them.
They’ve got to be a miserable group of people, what with supporting a whiny baby like Trump who complains about how persecuted he is, how unfair he is being treated, and why he will be justified in exacting revenge on his enemies.
It all adds up to the fact that there’s simply no chance Republicans will see the damage they are doing and stop. They’ll they bring down the whole system before that happens.
But there’s a better alternative.
They can be so resoundingly defeated in November that it won’t matter whether they change or not.
Maybe that won’t happen. Perhaps a majority of Americans are suffering from an epidemic of the logical fallacies I mentioned last time and will put Trump back in the White House.
But my experience as a pastor and a teacher tells me that while most people have sympathy for someone who suffers from psychological and/or emotional problems, they don’t like it when they act like children, constantly complain about how bad they’re being treated, or blame someone else for their failures.
So I have a hard time believing that since we’ve been there and done that already, they will want to suffer through another four years of the same stuff, especially since this time around it will be so much worse.
linnposts.com 
Might be interesting to read what a democrat said about the Trump trial. A democrat who has voted against Trump twice and plans to vote against him again. Alan Dershowitz, Harvard law professor emeritus and respected legal scholar had this to say about the trial, “From one to 10, it was below 20. It’s the worst legal verdict I’ve seen in 60 years of practicing, writing, litigating cases. I still don’t know what he was convicted of”.
Maybe you could tell us what, precisely Trump was convicted of?
Everyone should read the Biden interview that appeared in ‘Time’ magazine. You will understand why the audio of the Hur-Biden interview will not be released. There is ample evidence that Biden is not the man, cognitively speaking, that he was even three years ago
Biden’s cognitive impairments are what you want to be there so they are. He speaks like a man 81 years old who who hesitates because of a stutter. His ability to think is just fine. Trump, on the other hand, rambles on incoherently because os his age and the fact that he is dumb. One of this business school teachers once said that Trump was the dumbest student he ever had, only he used expletives I will leave out. Alan Dershowitz also defended O. J.
Jan, I want to take this opportunity to thank you for all your efforts the last few years to expose the serious dilemma that we have been facing as a country. And you bring a level of perspective and literary excellence that helps all of us understand this dilemma better.
I am encouraged that mainstream media, particularly MSNBC and CNN now “get it” and have been putting their best experts to work to help educate the American public about our serious dilemma. And I tend to rely now on the notion that “good people in America” will rally at the polls and save our future from the Neo-fascist, right-wing, Republican Party that intends to bring us to our knees.
But I spent much of my weekend watching the Smithsonian Channel’s presentation of the eightieth anniversary of D-Day. And at age 81 at this juncture, I was deeply moved and reminded that D-Day was the beginning of the end of a war that “The World” could not afford to lose. And the good people of their time did whatever they had to do to “Win That War’. Yes, they were led by two giants in their trade, Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt who had the courage, intelligence and fortitude, and the influence to succeed – which they did at significant costs to humankind.
But I have now reached the point in my mind that we Americans, and yes good people in the rest of the world, are in a similar “War” that we cannot afford to lose. And we are “losing that war” at this period in time. Unfortunately we have not taken the threat to American Democracy serious enough to win this war. And our “enemy” has penetrated our society with tactics so despicable to our very nature, that many Americans today are “giving up” and concluding that our demise is a fait accompli.
Yes, black leaders will rally their constituency to the polls in November.
Yes, Latino American women will rally more of their men to the polls in November.
Yes, some additional American women will respond to the Supreme Court’s denial of Roe vs. Wade and will rally more to the polls in November.
Yes, far left progressives will tone down their rhetoric and return to the polls in November.
Yes, some Reagan moderates, like my brother, will come to their senses and vote for Biden in November.
Yes, some current “Independents” will do the same.
But I have now concluded that this will not be enough to “Win This War”. We need a more unified, courageous, intelligent, influential “Movement” of good people in America to “Win This War”. And we have now have only 5 months to do it.
Yesterday, longtime Democratic strategist James Carville took to the airways and announced: “I Am Really Scared”. He pointed to his concern that “young voters aren’t enthused with the presumptive major party nominees ahead of the 2024 presidential election in November’. He continued, “That’s my greatest fear for the United States, … is that young people are disengaging.”
One-third of U.S. voters under the age of 40 would support President Joe Biden when asked who they would back if the election were held today, according to an NPR report on a recent GenForward survey at the University of Chicago. The president also lost support among young Black, Latino and Asian American voters in the age group, as well, according to the survey.
Jan, it is my observation that the bottom line this November will be a “fight to the death” between: 1. a group of despicables that support an autocratic, un-democratic, white, male, religious, fascist, nationalism” to promote their individual and selfish needs of power and control; and 2. a group of good people that believe in the concept that “All Are Welcome At This Table”!
It has become obvious that we cannot continue the experiment of American Democracy, with each group sharing equal power.
Thank you, John. I worry as you do about younger voters. What I don’t understand is that they have everything to lose with Trump and everything to gain with Biden. Talk about cognitive dissonance. They make my head hurt.
I think the real problem is simply the fact that Joe Biden is not a very good president & many voters see that. Most democrats just attack Trump with little in the way of citing anything good Biden has done. Their campaign is Jan 6th & abortion, or like Carville said, “ the Biden campaign just throws spaghetti against the wall and hopes something sticks “
Thank you are reading my blog. It’s one way I try to contribute to a better world. Actually, I think Biden has been the best president we’ve had in my life-time. He’s just not charismatic, and in this entertainment environment that makes it more difficult for him to get the credit he deserves. The level of misinformation about the economy and our standing in the world now is louder than his accomplishments. I just hope enough people will finally see the choice is between democracy and an incompetent and morally debased autocratic man.
spot on Jan, what we are witnessing with republican defenders of an habitual criminal, is as you say projection, but we can also see what happens when you have lost the ability to be embarrassed. To the respondent who said Biden is not a good President, I suggest he check out Biden’s record.