Political Projection – Maverick Philosopher

Trump versus Prevost: Crudity versus Blather

Donald J. Trump issued a disgusting tweet on Easter Sunday morning. I commented on it in Political Polarization in the Age of Trump. But I fail to see the value of Pope Leo’s pious performative Easter Sunday response.

The pope continued with words directed at the current conflict in the Middle East: “The peace that Jesus gives us is not merely the silence of weapons, but the peace that touches and transforms the heart of each one of us!… Let those who have weapons lay them down!

If you threw down your weapons before Hitler, he would not be moved to do likewise, but kill you on the spot on the ground that you had thereby demonstrated your physiological decadence and unfitness for life in the only world there is. Something very similar holds for the Muslim thugs of Iran. It is utter folly to project into others one’s own values and attitudes, as if we are all the same ‘deep down’ or all ‘really want the same things.’ Bellicosity is hard-wired into some. Thugs, whether born that way or socialized into it, have no regard for your tender-hearted love of humanity.

The Islamo-theocrats have vowed to destroy Judeo-Christian civilization, and have proven their intent through countless horrific acts over many years. They cannot be reached by Prevostian pieties. And there is no small hypocrisy in Leo’s decidedly unleonine mouthings. Would he not call upon the armed might of the Italian state to crush any jihadis who descended on Vatican City to destroy its people and its treasures? Would he allow their slaughter and its destruction?

I discuss the problem in detail in Morality Private and Public. The essay concludes with some penetrating observations of Hannah Arendt from “Truth and Politics” in Between Past and Future, Penguin 1968, p. 245:

The disastrous consequences for any community that began in all earnest to follow ethical precepts derived from man in the singular — be they Socratic or Platonic or Christian — have been frequently pointed out. Long before Machiavelli recommended protecting the political realm against the undiluted principles of the Christian faith (those who refuse to resist evil permit the wicked “to do as much evil as they please”), Aristotle warned against giving philosophers any say in political matters. (Men who for professional reasons must be so unconcerned with “what is good for themselves” cannot very well be trusted with what is good for others, and least of all with the “common good,” the down-to-earth interests of the community.) [Arendt cites Nicomachean Ethics, Book VI, and in particular 1140b9 and 1141b4.]

There is a tension between man qua philosopher or Christian and man qua citizen. As a philosopher and a Christian, I am concerned with my soul, with its integrity, purity, salvation. I take very seriously indeed the Socratic “Better to suffer wrong than to do it” and the Christian “Resist not the evildoer.” But as a citizen I must be concerned not only with my own well-being but also with the public welfare. This is true a fortiori of public officials and people in a position to influence public opinion. So, as Arendt points out, the Socratic and Christian admonitions are not applicable in the public sphere.

What is applicable to me in the singular, as this existing individual concerned with the welfare of his immortal soul over that of his perishable body, is not applicable to me as a citizen. As a citizen, I cannot unrestrictedly “welcome the stranger” as the New Testament enjoins, the stranger who violates the laws of my country, a stranger who may be a terrorist or a drug smuggler or a human trafficker or a carrier of a deadly disease or a person who has no respect for the traditions of the country he invades; I must not aid and abet his law-breaking. I must be concerned with public order and the very conditions that make the philosophical and Christian life possible in the first place. If I were to aid and abet the stranger’s lawbreaking, I would not be “rendering unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s.”

Indeed, the Caesar verse provides a scriptural basis for Church-State separation and indirectly exposes the fallacy of the Catholic bishops and others who seek to inject a particular personal morality into the public sphere.

The Psychology of the Pollyanna . . .

. . . and the political ponerology of Leftism.

A Substack article from exactly one year ago.

Dumb Dems and the Hitler Card

Having been dealt a stinging rebuke on 5 November 2024, you might think the Democrats would learn something, for example, that playing the 'Hitler card,' like playing the 'race card,' will henceforth give them a losing hand. But no! The knuckleheads double down!

Elon Musk is an exuberant fellow at the top of his game. And he is, like all sane people, very happy with the outcome of the November election. His heart goes out to all who brought the Orange Man to a second term. And so he jumps around and cuts loose with idiosyncratic arm-hand gestures. He puts his hand on his heart and then extends his arm. A neutral observer might call it a 'heart-felt thank-you' salute. See here for a video of his antics.

But of course the Musk gesture is a Nazi salute to our political enemies. Out comes the 'Hitler card'! Typical.

And then they amalgamate this piece of scurrilous stupidity with a display of their penchant for double standards. (An old saying has it that if you strip a leftist of his double standards he will be left with no standards at all.) After all, "Tampon Tim" (Tim Walz) and "Fauxcahontas" (Elizabeth Warren) have been known to engage in similar arm extensions. Are they too Nazis?

What these fools don't understand is that they will continue to lose as long as they continue to slander we us the people.

Should people this stupid be let anywhere near the levers of power?

That is a rhetorical question, as is the one that preceded it.

Addendum (1/26)

A commenter points out that Elon's gesture was the Bellamy salute.

Should Trump Use the DOJ Against his Enemies?

Would it be 'revenge' or would it be a wholly justifiable upholding of the rule of law? Would success be 'revenge' enough, as Trump has suggested? His enemies accused him of violating 'norms' when they themselves violated the norms that matter, those rooted in the rule of law and the Constitution. Doing so, they engaged once again in their trademark psychological projection. The 'norms' Trump violated were merely those of conventional civility.

Here:

Over the last four years, regime lawyers and government officials have repeatedly ignored the constitution, stretched the meaning of federal and state statutes, and shredded legal norms. They have investigated, prosecuted, and persecuted their political opponents. They did this to suppress those who challenged their rule and to send a message to would-be challengers.

With Donald Trump’s election and pending inauguration (assuming no shenanigans between now and then), unpleasant things will have to be done to hold these people to account. The regime’s aggressive lawlessness will require a response.

The response must balance the immediate need for accountability with the ultimate need for reconciliation. On the one hand, we must hold responsible those whose criminal conduct subverted our constitutional order. On the other, we must prepare to reconcile with the millions of Americans who erred grievously in supporting the regime’s lawlessness — at least with those people who are humble enough to acknowledge their error.

Equal justice under the law, an essential feature of the rule of law, means enforcing the law in an even-handed manner. Violators must be held responsible for their actions. This is not “retribution,” any more than arresting a thief or murderer constitutes retribution. All citizens are expected to obey the law. No one is above the law.

Auschwitz Survivor: Trump’s not Hitler, but a Mensch

Here:

Jerry Wartski, a 94-year-old Holocaust survivor, says that Kamala Harris comparing Donald Trump to Adolf Hitler is "the worst thing I have ever heard in 75 years living in the United States."

"I know President Trump and he would never say this, and Kamala Harris knows this," he told the New York Post.

“Adolf Hitler invaded Poland when I was 9 years old. He murdered my parents and most of my family," he said. "I know more about Hitler than Kamala will ever know in a thousand lifetimes."

"She owes my parents and everybody else who was murdered by Hitler an apology for repeating this lie."

"He's a mensch," he said about Trump.

Kamala Harris is a contemptible, truth-hating know-nothing, and anyone who would vote for her is a contemptible, truth-hating know-nothing. I hope we can all agree on that.

For more on this delightful, heart-warming topic, see J. D. Vance's response to CNN's Jake Tapper.

UPDATE 10/28

Sasha Stone, Meet the Real Fascists

Moral Community and Civil War

Substack latest.

An exchange with Malcolm Pollack.

The Projection of ‘Weird’ . . .

. . . is a weird projection.

Unwilling to acknowledge her own intellectual and moral deviancy, Kamala Harris projects her abnormalcy into the likes of J. D. Vance. She is followed in this by her sycophants in the mainstream media. This is psychological projection so extreme that it takes the breath away. "The flamboyantly incompetent imbecile Harris," to borrow an apt appellation from our friend Malcolm Pollack, is the weirdest cackling gasbag of vacuity to come along in a long time. I don't have time at the moment to rehearse the litany of inanity on this sick specimen of flip-flopping mendacity, but in the run-up to November I will not hesitate to do so.

The mountain bike beckons so I'll hand off to Tucker.

Michael Anton on “Celebration Parallax”

Here:

More tellingly, this charge is an example of something I call the “celebration parallax,” which is explained here. In brief, the celebration parallax holds that the same fact pattern is either true and glorious or false and scurrilous depending on who states it and, crucially, the perceived intent of the speaker.

So if someone says that the U.S. is experiencing levels of immigration that are unprecedented in human history, if it’s presumed or suspected that he might have doubts, then he is an evil racist. But when Bill Clinton or Joe Biden makes exactly the same point, well, that is A-OK! Because they are “good guys” who welcome “an unrelenting stream of immigration, nonstop, nonstop” (Joe Biden’s words). By the way, I leave to readers to intuit the difference between “unrelenting” (Joe’s word) and “ceaseless” (my word) and the reasons why the former is A-OK but the latter is somehow “racist.”

Political Perceptions

Only a leftard could come up with this knee-slappingly risible explanation why 'No Labels' didn't stick:

The other problem with the No Labels operation is that there already is a moderate, bipartisanship-minded political faction in the United States. It is called the Democratic Party. For better or for worse, that party continues to be the home of nearly all of the remaining “institutionalists” in U.S. politics, and party leadership has repeatedly, over the past decade, passed up opportunities to engage in retaliatory procedural maneuvering in response to GOP constitutional hardball, preferring instead to stand up for a long-vanished consensus politics that has virtually no support on the other side of the aisle.

President Joe Biden not only leads that institutionalist party, but he is also its most vocal and successful backer of bipartisanship as a governing and political philosophy.

Another Reason to Pity Leftists

Leftists lack self-awareness. (That is what is called a generic statement.) They claim, against the evidence of his first term, that Donald J. Trump is a 'fascist,' a dictator, etc. This is pure projection. Projection is a psychological defense mechanism. Not willing to admit their own totalitarian tendencies, lefties block them from view by projecting them into Trump, thereby displaying a remarkable lack of psychological self-transparency. A member of the MavPhil commentariat nails it:

Memo to the Left:

DJT will be a dictator? You don't say !

Maybe Donald Trump will: forbid me to use tungsten light bulbs, take away my gas stove, force me to drive an electric car, outlaw my propane-fired forced air house heater, and make me rewire my house for electric heat, to the tune of thousands of dollars, and force me to use [invented] "pronouns," and thus unwillingly participate in another's mental illness ! [As when a confused teenage girl, under peer-group pressure, lacking critical-thinking skills, allows herself to be surgically mutilated so as to change her 'gender.']

You mean Trump will be a dictator like that?

Really ?

Further question: should we pity leftist fools or hate them? Hate has its uses. It energizes and inspires ameliorative action in a way that pity does not. Is there not such a thing as righteous anger? That's a rhetorical question, a declarative in the guise of an interrogative. It declares: there is such a thing as righteous anger!

Pity or hate? If they are projecting, then perhaps pity is the appropriate response. But many if not most of these bastards are lying. Truth, we know, is not a leftist value. Ergo, etc.

Liz Cheney: Profile in Political Projection

Projection is a psychological defense mechanism whereby one attributes one's own unacknowledged feelings, desires, intentions, attitudes, etc. to others. Extending the notion into the political sphere, the political projector accuses the other side of doing what he and his ilk are doing but will not own up to doing. I happened across a very clear example on CBS this morning. It severely tested my ataraxia.

Projection is standardly understood as the offloading of the negative onto the other, but it is also often a mistake to project positive feelings, values, and attitudes into the other. Such projection may get your irenic self killed, as I argue in a Substack article, aptly entitled Beware of Projecting . . . your values and attitudes into others.

Radical Islam’s Threat to the Left

Substack latest.

Why don't leftists — who obviously do not share the characteristic values and beliefs of Islamists — grant what is spectacularly obvious to everyone else, namely, that radical Islam poses a grave threat to what we in the West cherish as civilization, which includes commitments to free speech, open inquiry, separation of church and state, freedom of religion, freedom to reject religion, universal suffrage, the emancipation of women, opposition to cruel and unusual penal practices, and so on? In particular, why don't leftists recognize the grave threat radical Islam poses to them? Why do leftists either deny the threat or downplay its gravity? Given their atheism and pronounced libertine ‘wobble,’ they would be among the first to lose their heads under Islamic law (Sharia).

Here is a quickly-composed list of twelve related reasons based on my own thinking and reading and on discussions with friends.

Beware of Projecting . . .

. . . your attitudes and values into others.

Leader of the Stack. Excerpts:

We are not all the same 'deep down,' and we don't all want the same things. You say you value peace and social harmony? So do I. But some are bellicose right out of the box. They love war and thrive on conflict, and not just verbally.

It is dangerous to assume that others are like we are. (I am thinking right now of a very loving and lovable female neighbor who makes that dangerous assumption: she has a 'Coexist' sticker affixed to her bumper.)

Liberal 'projectionism' — to give it a name— can get your irenic self killed.