The end of Trump's impunity: Kamala Harris goes directly after his strongest selling point

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The end of Trump's impunity: Kamala Harris goes directly after his strongest selling point
Trump's "brand is impunity," says psychologist Stephen Ducat. Harris prosecuting the case against Trump upends that

By Chauncey DeVega
Senior Writer
Published October 16, 2024 6:00AM (EDT)


(Salon) Donald Trump and his MAGA movement are currently at the epicenter of political violence in the United States. Trump has created a type of permission structure that encourages and incites violence against perceived enemies. This includes both individuals and targeted groups who are deemed to be the so-called other. Research shows that a significant percentage of Trump’s MAGA followers support political violence, up to and including an insurgency and a civil war, to put him back in power.

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In all, Donald Trump is more of a symbol than a man. The violent and other antisocial behavior he has encouraged and given permission for will, in all likelihood, continue well past the 2024 election, whatever the outcome is on Election Day.

Stephen Ducat is a political psychologist, psychoanalyst and former psychology professor in the School of Humanities at New College of California. His new book is “Hatreds We Love: The Psychology of Political Tribalism in Post-Truth America.” In this conversation, he explains how Trump’s seemingly unbreakable power over his MAGA followers and other “conservatives” reflects a type of shared pathology and antisocial behavior that is a type of societal emergency. Ducat highlights how social psychology can help us better understand our current democracy crisis and the role that social dominance behavior, attraction to violence, sexism, misogyny and disinformation play in support for Trumpism. At the end of this conversation, Ducat praises Kamala Harris’ approach to confronting Trump’s version of masculinity by taking his thug persona head on.

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How are you feeling at his point in the Age of Trump? How are you making sense of this crisis with less than a month until Election Day?

..... That said, the strategic intelligence of the Harris team, especially their departure from the messaging fecklessness of earlier Democratic Party campaigns, has given me hope. Especially notable has been their effectiveness at speaking to Gen Z, a cohort that has been hard for Biden to mobilize in recent years. That generation tends to be more open-minded and embracing of difference, like liberals more generally. They not only come bundled with an exploratory attitude that has characterized youth in every historical period, but they grew up in a world in which racial, religious and gender integration in all aspects of life has been the unquestioned norm. Trump repels them because he wants to go back to the dark ages of racial and gender apartheid. They are drawn to Kamala Harris not just because she embraces the values of diversity but because she is a literal expression of it. In addition, Harris represents a new generation of female leadership. Vice President Harris is also not burdened by being part of a political dynasty yoked to the past. While formally allied with Biden, she is on a fast track of individuation from him. ................(more)

https://www.salon.com/2024/10/16/the-end-of-impunity-kamala-harris-goes-directly-after-his-strongest-selling-point/