Yale psychiatrist: Trump endangers lives by waging war on reality, not the coronavirus

Dr. knows her shit. She wrote this about Trump's (and FOX's) ability to create and then direct "fury" on 2 April 2020.

As more people fall victim to the coronavirus, how will Trump's supporters respond to him?

This is the scary part. While dense cities like New York will be hit the hardest first, Trump-supporting regions will ultimately bear the biggest brunt. They were the most likely to emulate the president when he called the virus a Democratic "hoax," to listen when he touted a toxic antimalarial drug as "like a cure" — one man died and his wife ended up in the ICU — and to copy him when he appeared in crowds and went around shaking hands. Indeed, people went as far as to hold "coronavirus parties" to get infected. Many of them live paycheck to paycheck, and when there is widespread suffering and death because they cannot afford medical care, when the government check runs out and they have no more livelihood while we may be entering an economic collapse that will not recover in our lifetimes, fury will inevitably build.

We know that Donald Trump is masterful at harnessing this fury. Many believed this was smart strategy, but it is actually pathology. And if you believe suffering and seeing the deaths of loved ones will bring Trump supporters to their senses, you are mistaken. His insatiable drive leads him to seduce and hypnotize the masses, and as he places them in a more perilous condition, they will cling to him more, defensively idealizing him, since the psychological cost of admitting his errors would be even greater.

The growing fury from the suffering will hence never be directed against him, but he will be able to re-channel it against any target he chooses. And all the cultic programming through Fox News and others works hand-in-hand with the natural contagion of symptoms that comes with having a president who has gone untreated — delusions, for example, are far more infectious than simple misinformation. When it gets very bad, it may reach a state that Carl Jung called "possession."