Speaker 1: Good morning, peeps, and welcome to ook F Daily with
Speaker 1: Meet your Girl Danielle Moody. Pre recording from the Home Bunker. Folks,
Speaker 1: it is our holiday week here at wok F Daily,
Speaker 1: and as we wind down our seven year run on
Speaker 1: this podcast, I want to revisit some of the most
Speaker 1: thoughtful conversations that we've had on the incoming regime, and
Speaker 1: I do I think that it's important sometimes to go
Speaker 1: backwards in order to see where we are going to
Speaker 1: be moving forwards. And so in this episode, I sat
Speaker 1: down with clinical psychologist doctor Susan Lachman to help us
Speaker 1: understand Trump cult, help understand the mindset of Maga, which
Speaker 1: you know, at the time of this recording way back
Speaker 1: in September of twenty twenty three, I thought that it
Speaker 1: was a fraction of the population. I honestly, I genuinely
Speaker 1: thought that, you know, it was about thirty percent of
Speaker 1: the population were caught up in the Maga cult. Color
Speaker 1: me wrong, because what the election on November fifth showed
Speaker 1: us is that no, actually, it's nearly fifty percent of
Speaker 1: the population that see nothing wrong with a man that
Speaker 1: has been accused of rape of sexual harassment, sees nothing
Speaker 1: wrong with any of the words that have come out
Speaker 1: of Donald Trump's own mouth about being able to grab
Speaker 1: women by the genitals, being able to kill somebody in
Speaker 1: the middle of Fifth Avenue, calling Mexican's rapists and murders.
Speaker 1: None of those things mattered except for the price of
Speaker 1: eggs that he now says. Guess what, he can't actually
Speaker 1: bring down grocery prices. You know, it's too hard. And
Speaker 1: as we sit, by the time that you listen to this,
Speaker 1: the government could have maybe shut down, not even because
Speaker 1: of Donald Trump, but because of the real president elect,
Speaker 1: Elon Musk. So we are in it, folks, and in
Speaker 1: order to really understand how in it we are, we
Speaker 1: do need to get a sense of what's going on
Speaker 1: inside of these people's minds. And so that conversation with
Speaker 1: Suzanne Lachman is coming up next, folks. I am very
Speaker 1: happy to welcome to OKAF Daily for the very first time,
Speaker 1: Doctor Suzanne Lachman a celebrated clinical psychologist and an unparalleled
Speaker 1: voice in the realm of self esteem, relationships and breakups,
Speaker 1: and as one of the three most read writers at
Speaker 1: Psychology Today, and also has been featured in the critically
Speaker 1: acclaimed documentary unfit the psychology of Donald Trump. Doctor Lockman,
Speaker 1: you know, there's so much, there is so much that
Speaker 1: I want to dig into with you, because I think
Speaker 1: that the moment, the years that we've been living inside
Speaker 1: of for the last seven years, since since Donald Trump
Speaker 1: came down that escalator, since our political norms were turned
Speaker 1: on their head, and what many of us believed to
Speaker 1: be true about America, about democracy have been the challenged
Speaker 1: is not even the world have been pushed to their
Speaker 1: breaking point, and for many of us, watching this country
Speaker 1: be degraded and contorted into a shell of itself is traumatizing, right,
Speaker 1: And I just think about you know, let's harken back
Speaker 1: to the images on January twenty one of watching our
Speaker 1: Capitol building that did not even manage to get to
Speaker 1: be put under siege in the Civil War, watch plumes
Speaker 1: of smoke and people climb over buildings, and just the
Speaker 1: visual of what we saw is trauma. So I just
Speaker 1: want you to, you know, give us your thoughts on
Speaker 1: where you see this moment as as psychologists looking at
Speaker 1: what we've been facing and dealing with as a society
Speaker 1: for almost a decade at this point.
Speaker 2: Yes, lots of good points in there, lots of good questions,
Speaker 2: so many tentacles. So I think given that it is
Speaker 2: a given that trauma has infiltrated the lives of really
Speaker 2: any sane per who pays attention to the political landscape
Speaker 2: who notices the uh horrendous directions that our country has taken,
Speaker 2: the division, and the hatred. So there are a number
Speaker 2: One of the ways I think that it is helpful
Speaker 2: to address trauma is to try to understand the people
Speaker 2: who are causing it or the people who have gotten
Speaker 2: swept up in it. So I've spent a good amount
Speaker 2: of time trying to make sense of what I think
Speaker 2: are a bunch of types of people that remain to
Speaker 2: this day Trump supporters, despite all the evidence to the contrary,
Speaker 2: want there. So I think there's some character traits, and
Speaker 2: I don't think anyone would disagree. That's pretty obvious, but
Speaker 2: but they so one of them. The first one is
Speaker 2: in many you can tell that there is a profound
Speaker 2: difficulty admitting that they're wrong apologizing There is uh. There
Speaker 2: are a lot of people out there who see admitting
Speaker 2: they're wrong or apologizing as a form of weakness right
Speaker 2: and of reflecting not just the event but their entire character.
Speaker 2: So to admit they're wrong, to say they're sorry, means
Speaker 2: that they're weak.
Speaker 1: So I'm we're just just you know, as I'm thinking
Speaker 1: about that, right, because obviously the first person that comes
Speaker 1: to mind is Donald Trump, right, his inability to be
Speaker 1: able to acknowledge wrongdoing at all, which, frankly, as a
Speaker 1: elected official, you want the characteristic to be able to
Speaker 1: own up to your mistakes, right when you think about
Speaker 1: what the president signified for it prior to Donald Trump
Speaker 1: was in many ways a moral leader as well, right,
Speaker 1: not just a not ideally not just a political leader,
Speaker 1: but a moral leader, somebody that can provide example, right
Speaker 1: of compromise, of diplomacy, of all of these things. And
Speaker 1: so when you see these characteristics, is it that because
Speaker 1: they have been modeled doctor Lackman for so many years
Speaker 1: in such a bad way that people then have begun
Speaker 1: to mimic or was this Laten's it always there?
Speaker 2: There are when oftentimes when traumatized, it's because aspects of
Speaker 2: earlier unresolved trauma is brought up again. And there are
Speaker 2: many people through time, if you think back about it,
Speaker 2: who should have apologized, who should have acknowledged they were wrong,
Speaker 2: about something and just didn't and remained righteous and to
Speaker 2: the end whatever that was. So I really think it's
Speaker 2: an embedded characteristic in a lot of people. Does it.
Speaker 2: Is it nature and nurture? Probably that would probably take
Speaker 2: away too much time for us to parse out right,
Speaker 2: But you kind of you're helping me springboard into another area,
Speaker 2: which is Donald Trump appeals to people who have no
Speaker 2: impulse control or who are barely able to maintain their impulses.
Speaker 2: Now he is idealized, idolized, deified, et cetera, because he's
Speaker 2: been walking around exercising his impulses everywhere and not getting
Speaker 2: There's been no ramifications for his actions. Nothing has caught
Speaker 2: up to him. Whereas the common everyday person, they have
Speaker 2: to if they did any of the things grab somebody
Speaker 2: by the pussy, or any of the things that we
Speaker 2: know Trump has done, they get in trouble for it. Right, So,
Speaker 2: here's this guy who's able to do all of these
Speaker 2: things that they're not able to to do, that they're
Speaker 2: barely containing themselves from doing. So they get to live
Speaker 2: vicariously through him in a way, and it makes him
Speaker 2: rise above. There's no consequences, or there have been no consequences,
Speaker 2: and he's continuing to find ways to make it appear
Speaker 2: to those people who are very willing to believe because
Speaker 2: they don't want to be wrong or they don't know
Speaker 2: how to be wrong. I mean, there's so many people
Speaker 2: in Congress that applies to you know, Matt Gates comes
Speaker 2: willing to as somebody who, in your wildest dreams, would
Speaker 2: never admit he was wrong, even Kevin McCarthy. They'll just
Speaker 2: talk over themselves instead. Yeah, and it's maddening. So there's
Speaker 2: these these two sub groups that are intertwined as well,
Speaker 2: but we can also sort of see them differently. Then
Speaker 2: there are people who have a much higher threshold for
Speaker 2: abusive talk, for being insulted, for dishing out insult, for
Speaker 2: being bullies, for calling somebody crooked whatever, or name call,
Speaker 2: the kind of name calling, that kind of childish. It
Speaker 2: comes along with impulsivity. Way that we've seen him conduct
Speaker 2: himself to them, that's sort of like, oh, that's familiar
Speaker 2: to me. There's something comforting about that he's normalizing what
Speaker 2: I didn't always I thought was bad or people told
Speaker 2: me was bad. But look at this, I can get
Speaker 2: on board with this.
Speaker 1: This is how I talk the way that I have
Speaker 1: talked about it on this show and others is almost
Speaker 1: this perpetual adolescence where Donald Trump, right and his followers
Speaker 1: have never had to grow up. Right. It is they've
Speaker 1: never had to grow up because they've never had to tap.
Speaker 1: Because part of adulthood is taking responsibility, right, and when
Speaker 1: you have never been forced to take responsibility for any
Speaker 1: of your actions, or or you're not able, so tell
Speaker 1: me the difference. Tell me the difference of not being
Speaker 1: able to take responsibility for your actions and choosing not
Speaker 1: to take responsibility for your actions.
Speaker 2: Good question. People who are choosing not to take responsibility
Speaker 2: of their actions are aware that there are sinking shift.
Speaker 2: I mean if we if we make it specific to Trump,
Speaker 2: but at this point they don't think that there's any
Speaker 2: other recourse. They may. I think Kevin McCarthy is a
Speaker 2: good example of this, because I think that he knows
Speaker 2: that he's this is a clusterfuck that he's gotten himself into.
Speaker 2: But will he ever admit it? No, So do I
Speaker 2: think there are I think there are people out there
Speaker 2: who follow Trump who are aware that in order to
Speaker 2: continue to follow him, they have to shirk their responsibilities.
Speaker 2: They have to decide that they're not going to be
Speaker 2: accountable to anyone. They're going to put themselves first. And
Speaker 2: there are others who intellectually may not or definitely don't
Speaker 2: have the capacity to even understand that. They haven't grown up,
Speaker 2: whether it be. We see a lot of people like
Speaker 2: that that still go to the rallies. There they have
Speaker 2: no clue what's going on in the world, they have
Speaker 2: no answers to questions, yet there they follow Trump. It's
Speaker 2: an and you know, probably I would imagine a lot
Speaker 2: of them have been in trouble with the law at
Speaker 2: some point, or barely escaped being in trouble with the law,
Speaker 2: or perpetually on the edge. So I don't know if
Speaker 2: I'm answering your question, but I do think there are
Speaker 2: people out there that kind of consciously know that, no
Speaker 2: matter who's following him, you have to be shirking your responsibilities.
Speaker 2: You cannot be a conscious person with UH, with a
Speaker 2: moral and ethical middle UH or time out it's a
Speaker 2: better word for that, like internal compass. Yeah, with UH,
Speaker 2: a moral compass, who wouldn't recognize that there's something seriously
Speaker 2: wrong here?
Speaker 1: So then what is that? What does that say? Though? Then,
Speaker 1: because we're looking right when we're when we're thinking about
Speaker 1: this because I've I I've interviewed experts on cults right
Speaker 1: as as also a way to understand, uh, this moment
Speaker 1: that we're in, this this this this rapture that we
Speaker 1: that we find ourselves in with Donald Trump, where these
Speaker 1: people are so enamored that they will give up their
Speaker 1: own sense of right and wrong law quote unquote and
Speaker 1: order a moral compass right values in order to follow
Speaker 1: this character. And I it's but it's it's thirty percent
Speaker 1: of the population, doctor Lackman. So I'm like, is there
Speaker 1: are we all just banging our heads against the wall
Speaker 1: then trying to have this thirty percent try and wake
Speaker 1: up to reality? What? Yes, yeah, go ahead?
Speaker 2: We there. I mean I often think about the Titanic
Speaker 2: when it comes to Trump. And there were people who jumped,
Speaker 2: and I'd say anyone who maybe voted for him first
Speaker 2: term but has turned against him. And there are certainly
Speaker 2: many Republican groups that are anti Trump. They jumped, and
Speaker 2: others who are just gonna go down with the ship.
Speaker 2: They know it's heading for the iceberg, but they're just
Speaker 2: gonna that's that's what they'll do. They don't really know
Speaker 2: any other way, and because to hint to them, to
Speaker 2: many of them, he's he's magical, and he's managed to
Speaker 2: get out of circumstances so often himself. I mean, think
Speaker 2: about how many people went into the Capitol with the
Speaker 2: promise that they would be pardoned right that, and especially
Speaker 2: if if he is still the president and or becomes
Speaker 2: the president or somehow is both. There's also many, many
Speaker 2: mentally ill people in that contingent, in that thirty percent.
Speaker 2: Not to say that there there aren't mentally ill people
Speaker 2: in the other seventy, but there's less when with with
Speaker 2: with COVID, it certainly heightened and kind of pressurized a
Speaker 2: lot of mental illness that may have been more latent exactly,
Speaker 2: and venom and hatred and all these other emotions. And
Speaker 2: since a good portion of those groups that we're describing
Speaker 2: don't have impulse control, I mean, even if we think
Speaker 2: about how many Republicans in particular are are found to
Speaker 2: be pedophiles are it's it's it's insane, the lack of
Speaker 2: impulse control, and it's it's it's really that that kind
Speaker 2: of in many ways separates them from the rest of us. Uh,
Speaker 2: even if they know, they're not controlling their impulses. Again,
Speaker 2: he's giving them an excuse.
Speaker 1: Right, He's giving he's giving them carte blanche.
Speaker 2: You know, he's normalizing it, right, uh right? Yeah, So
Speaker 2: that that's those are big issues among Trump's supporters. And
Speaker 2: and this other one that I'm describing to just a
Speaker 2: threshold for abuse, the way he speaks to other people,
Speaker 2: the way that uh he speaks down to women, objectifies them.
Speaker 2: There's a Trump there's a lot of people out there
Speaker 2: like that, and unfortunately a lot of women who are
Speaker 2: used to being treated that way.
Speaker 1: I mean, there were there were women that wore t
Speaker 1: shirts to his rally that said you can grab me anytime,
Speaker 1: like it, and and and watching that and saying what Right,
Speaker 1: when you see the fan art of Donald Trump, their
Speaker 1: image of him is that of of you know, eighties
Speaker 1: Rocky Balboa. Right. They draw him and they paint him
Speaker 1: as this muscular feure and I'm just like, what are
Speaker 1: you actually looking at? Because it's so distorted from reality.
Speaker 1: And I you know, I understand, I guess that it
Speaker 1: is important to understand the psychology of the people that
Speaker 1: follow Trump, Yes, but I also find myself and with
Speaker 1: a couple of minutes that we have left. I want
Speaker 1: you to be able to weigh in on the trauma
Speaker 1: that is being inflicted on the rest of us and
Speaker 1: how we are to manage and move and move through that,
Speaker 1: because again, I don't think that we have paused long
Speaker 1: enough to reflect the damage that has been done emotionally, spiritually,
Speaker 1: physically over the last seven years.
Speaker 2: The same can be said for the Holocaust, the same
Speaker 2: can be said for slavery. When you're in something, you're
Speaker 2: just in it. There's really no way or no time
Speaker 2: to no ability to reflect while you're in it. What
Speaker 2: we're looking for is a way out of it. And
Speaker 2: I mean, at the if it's thirty percent, so be it.
Speaker 2: It's not fifty.
Speaker 1: You said that it's really difficult for people to reflect
Speaker 1: on what they're currently in, right, and yet I think
Speaker 1: that in order to manage our way through this, we
Speaker 1: have to both be actively looking for the exit while
Speaker 1: trying to, you know, deal with the trauma and the
Speaker 1: wounds so that we can have the strength to make
Speaker 1: it to the exit.
Speaker 2: Yeah, do you know? So?
Speaker 1: I'm like, so, how how are we how how do
Speaker 1: we manage to do both?
Speaker 2: And podcasts? Social media? Uh? For as much as of
Speaker 2: the craziness that's out there. Uh, it's pretty easy. And
Speaker 2: if you some of the news stations and other places
Speaker 2: as well, there's a lot of validation for the fact
Speaker 2: that this is a crazy time and everything about this
Speaker 2: Trump era is wrong. Uh and and really all you
Speaker 2: I know that that's significantly harder in Red States. I
Speaker 2: know what I was going to say. I was going
Speaker 2: to say that just like little kids when they get
Speaker 2: really crazy and destructive, it's like it's like they're crying
Speaker 2: out for someone to contain them. That's what is happening
Speaker 2: right now. That's what the Republicans are doing with the
Speaker 2: book banning and the not not chastising people who are
Speaker 2: neo Nazi and racially motivated and all of that. There,
Speaker 2: they are literally crying out, whether they know it or not,
Speaker 2: they are crying out because they cannot handle the control
Speaker 2: that they have. Wow, that's why it's so crazy out there,
Speaker 2: and we as sane adults, are going there's nothing that's
Speaker 2: going to stop us from getting to the polls. And thankfully,
Speaker 2: I think because of the extent to that, the lengths
Speaker 2: the Republicans have gone to with with taking away women's
Speaker 2: rights and messing with civil rights and education, et cetera.
Speaker 2: It's going to get a lot of other people out
Speaker 2: there too who might not have otherwise been involved, because
Speaker 2: this touches losing Roe v. Wade, as evidenced by some
Speaker 2: of the other some of the elections that we've seen
Speaker 2: that are if there any indication of what's to come,
Speaker 2: even in the most conservative states, it's they're they're a
Speaker 2: cruising for us to take over, and we will, we will,
Speaker 2: that's our job.
Speaker 1: Well let's let's hope that is the case, because I
Speaker 1: will say, you know that the word unprecedented is so overused,
Speaker 1: and the word consequential is so overused. But the fact
Speaker 1: is that we have been an are at our break
Speaker 1: at our breaking point, and I think that the next
Speaker 1: you know, twelve months, you know, or so are really
Speaker 1: going to be a pressure cooker whether America survives. And
Speaker 1: I don't even you know, And I guess the last
Speaker 1: question for you, I'll say, I'll ask is this is,
Speaker 1: even if democracy comes out the other side of this,
Speaker 1: does America, how we've understood it, come out the other
Speaker 1: side of this or are we in a I don't know,
Speaker 1: a burned down moment. Phoenix rising moment regardless, because so
Speaker 1: much has been to worched.
Speaker 2: It's safe to say that that's been the case through
Speaker 2: the years, whether it was a fake war in Iraq
Speaker 2: after nine to eleven, we can go way back with
Speaker 2: our history. This is not history repeats itself, and democracy
Speaker 2: is a journey, it's not a destination, and it's got
Speaker 2: to change and it's got a shape shift to incorporate
Speaker 2: the people who are in it. The founding fathers really
Speaker 2: did not have an appreciation for the level of differences
Speaker 2: amongst people and what it would mean to incorporate all
Speaker 2: as equal. And so hopefully there are more and more
Speaker 2: amendments that are past, but what we are seeing is
Speaker 2: that there is legal recourse. And so this kind of
Speaker 2: anger that you're describing, or people being at their wits end,
Speaker 2: it's there's two types of anger, in my opinion. There's
Speaker 2: the blamey kind, which you can only get stuck in, like, oh,
Speaker 2: I can't believe you know that, I can't believe that
Speaker 2: all these people are still into him, like you know,
Speaker 2: the stuff that you can't do anything about. And then
Speaker 2: there's the I am so sick of being sick of
Speaker 2: this that that I'm not going to crawl under a rock.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna vote, and I'm gonna get as many other
Speaker 2: people out there as I can to vote, because the
Speaker 2: system has not failed us. There We've have called constitutional
Speaker 2: crises a couple of times, but here we are and
Speaker 2: there's ninety one counts against him. Proud boys are being
Speaker 2: thrown in jail. The problem is the wheels of justice
Speaker 2: grind slowly, so it's a matter of being patient. But
Speaker 2: the more patient you are, the more relief you will find.
Speaker 2: It certainly will not detract from all the pain and
Speaker 2: suffering that people have gone through, but to feel be
Speaker 2: able to feel safer in our homes, in our neighborhoods,
Speaker 2: in our own skin, that's that's the goal. So yeah,
Speaker 2: that's what we all have to move towards. Don't get mad,
Speaker 2: get even.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Doctor Lachman, I appreciate you so much for making
Speaker 1: the time to join Woke app a lot to reflect
Speaker 1: on and to and to think about, but definitely figuring
Speaker 1: out a way to best channel rage and grief in
Speaker 1: this time is definitely what I spend a lot of
Speaker 1: time talking about on this show. So I appreciate you.
Speaker 1: That is it for me to day dear friends on
Speaker 1: woke f as always, Power to the people and to
Speaker 1: all the people. Power, get woke and stay woke as fuck.