Tag Archives: blame

Trump Inauguration is Upon Us!

The inauguration of Trump this week, and the multitude of problems that are already attending his presence on the stage has me really alarmed.  And the greatest concern I have is his supporters who have chosen to be oblivious to his mental instability and lament re people like myself, “Why don’t you just stop being “sour grapes” and get behind our new President”.  Some of them even have the audacity to then describe him as “elected fair and square,” completely disregarding the overt chicanery that went into getting him elected.  Ordinarily, “sour grapes” would be a legitimate complaint and I always do feel it myself when my “pony in the race” loses.  But his supporters have overlooked their own recent contempt of Trump and recognition of his mental instabiliand expect the rest of the country…and world…to do the same.  Now all of us are “conflicted” as in having a few “bats in the belfry” and that is certainly true for myself.  But Donald Trump has given us so much insight into his flawed psyche that it is apparent to anyone willing to be honest with himself that he is seriously mentally ill.

Last weekend Saturday Night Live skewered Trump on life television again.  It sunk in on me that they are humiliating him as are most of the other comedians and that is so easy to do as he is such an humiliation to my country and to the world.  We are being laughed at and should be.  But what I realized as I watched the comedy sketch is that the ridicule only exacerbates the problem as his supporters who even catch a glimpse of the ridicule will then feel ridiculed and humiliated themselves making it even more unlikely that they will lessen their support for him.  For, when facing ridicule and humiliation, it is human nature to defend himself rigorously, staunchly defending what to others is his lunacy as the pain of humiliation, of being “wrong” is more than the ego can bear.  Yes, have been there, done that!  Trump’s absurd refusal to acknowledge that he has made a mistake, to utter the words “I was wrong” reflects why he is the choice of so many people in the country who, I allege, cannot acknowledge themselves being wrong in critical dimensions of their life.  And, it is no accident that early in the campaign Trump, even as he vied for evangelical Christian creds, admitted that he had never felt the need to ask God for forgiveness.  His shame base is so intense that on that note he flunked the “Christian test” as he has consistently done…though evangelical leaders have continued to fawn over him and evangelical Christians have lined up behind him religiously.

I’m not for sure what ridicule accomplishes other than exacerbating the cultural divide that is now so apparent.  It makes people like me appear contemptuous and arrogant.  And anyone with my latent insecurity certainly is not free of those qualities.  But what can one do?  Write a meaningless blog post like this and “piss into the wind.”?  Well, that is better than reasoning with Trump or his supporters as “reason” has nothing to do with this matter and at least tossing this blather into the cyber void gets it somewhat off my chest.  Why in the hell can’t people just set down and be reasonable like myself?  Chuckle, chuckle!  Once again, this is not about reason.  Perhaps that is something we could realize from this mess, that there is a dimension of human experience that is beyond the grasp of mere reason.  However, those who most need to learn this are the least likely to know and experience it.  It would be too scary to experience and it is easier for them to scream their platitudes and certainties a little louder and blame Obama or “them” a little more.

(Here is the link to an hilarious spoof of Trump’s inauguration.  https://qz.com/885900/saturday-night-live-the-last-snl-before-trumps-inauguration-of-course-featured-alec-baldwin-in-the-cold-open/)

The GOP, Tom Cotton, and Blame Games

The U.S. Congress recently sent a letter to Iran which warned them that any deal with President Obama (and other world leaders involved with him) could readily be discarded with election of a new President in 2016. Even Republicans are viewing this intrusion as being beyond the pale, and a usurpation of Presidential prerogative.

But with the heat that these 47 Senators are now facing, their response is, “It is the fault of Obama.” They argue that Obama’s heavy-handedness has forced them to take this extraordinary unusual step. But any decision that we make occurs in a context and is influenced by elements in that context. But those of us who have matured enough to use our forebrain, know that we must accept responsibility for our actions and cannot “blame” them on others. If we do so, we are in the mindset of Isis and other extremist organizations which refuse to own their decisions and blame the United States for all of their woes. Being a mental health counselor and having worked mostly with adolescents, one of the basic problems I often had to deal with was teaching a client that at some point he/she had to accept responsibility for his/her decisions and stop blaming “momma and daddy.”

Blaming is away of avoiding the work of having deep convictions (or feelings) and being incapable of articulating them so that the resulting discussion with others can facilitate resolution of the pain theretofore unconscious.  By merely blaming, one can avoid the anguish of wrestling with the terror that is lurking beneath the surface in our life, a classic example being to blame God or the Devil.

T.S. Eliot understood the duplicity now apparent with the GOP, declaring, “Oh the shame of motives later revealed, and the awareness of things ill done, which once we took for exercise of virtue.”