As a psychologist practicing in a liberal town filled with affluent and well educated people, I found myself in an unusual position the day after the election. Typically, my patients talk with me about their everyday concerns. The day after the election was different. Not only were all of my patients traumatized and anxious, so was I.
How could this have happened? How did Donald Trump, a narcissist, felon, racist and sex offender win the popular vote? This was the line of questioning I heard session after session on that day.
It is understandable why my patients were feeling so stressed out. However, I knew with time they would all calm down and be fine. Not only are they fortunate to live in a blue state, it so happened that while they were fretting over the election, their stock portfolios hit all-time highs, making their lives even more comfortable and privileged than before.
What is not understandable, at least from a logical perspective, is why would the working class, minorities and even the disenfranchised vote for Trump? On the surface, it doesn’t make sense. Wouldn’t his economic, social and environmental policies hurt them the most?
What if the outcome of this election was not rational, but emotional? Can it be that people are so angry they identify with his rage? They lived through a deadly pandemic, are struggling to make ends meet, feel discriminated against and are living amongst violent criminals and drug addicts. What if Trump’s popularity was not based upon reason, but rather an identification with his anger, his aggression, his role as the bully?
This would not be the first time people chose to follow the irrational wrath of such a leader. As historians quickly warn us, there are parallels between the current mood of the country and the political climate in pre-Nazi Germany. During the 1930s, the German people were experiencing economic distress due to hyperinflation, the devastating consequences of a world war and the humiliation from defeat, as well as a deadly pandemic. Like today, the German people were enraged; creating the perfect opening for an authoritarian dictator to step in and promise retribution and radical change.
If these historians are right, rather than reinvent the wheel, maybe it would make sense to turn to the psychologists of the pre-Nazi era for insight and understanding. Maybe they can help us better grasp why the majority of voters in this election cycle favored a candidate who promised dictatorship on day one and speaks with such venom.
In 1936, Anna Freud, Sigmund Freud’s daughter, wrote about a psychological syndrome that she witnessed during the war, the “identification with the aggressor.” She observed that victims of aggression or abuse unconsciously adopted the characteristics, behaviors and attitudes of their aggressor as a means of gaining a sense of control and mastery.
By imitating or aligning with the power of the aggressor, the individual symbolically attempts to reverse their role as a victim, and avoids facing their own feelings of helplessness, anxiety and despair. This syndrome not only occurred with individuals, but on macro levels as well, in social contexts where marginalized groups adopt the norms or values of oppressors to survive within oppressive systems. Freud referred to the rise of the Third Reich in Germany as an example of this social phenomena.
Victor Frankl, a contemporary of Freud, who spent years as a prisoner in a concentration camp, also witnessed the playing out of this psychological syndrome. In the camps, he observed fellow prisoners aligning themselves with their captors by volunteering to be in charge of torturing their fellow prisoners, sometimes being even more brutal than their oppressors. This role not only allowed them a degree of emotional safety, avoiding inner weakness and gaining power and control, but also gave them more of a chance to come out of the camps alive.
While both Freud and Frankl believed defense mechanisms such as identification with the aggressor served a purpose by helping people survive difficult, even traumatic situations, these defenses easily become highly maladaptive. Identifying with the aggressor, in this case a self-serving, vindictive bully, can cause one to lack empathy, and even behave in cruel ways. It encourages people to divide the world into good and bad, them and us, and prevents individuals and groups from seeing others as whole human beings with both strengths and weaknesses. If we see only the projections of our own fears and anger, we lose our compassion to see others as worthy, valuable and humane. As Jean-Paul Sartre, the existential philosopher who also lived through World War II, teaches us about the ramifications of living in bad faith: when a lion is chasing you, fainting is at best a temporary solution.
Martin H. Klein, PhD. is a clinical psychologist who practices in Westport.
