Speaker 1: Good morning, peeps, and welcome to Boo k F Daily
Speaker 1: with Me Your Girl, Daniel Moody recording from the Home Bunker.
Speaker 2: Folks. Latest news on Donald Trump is that Tish James's
Speaker 2: civil case, civil suit that she brought against him and
Speaker 2: his sycophantic sons in New.
Speaker 1: York City with regard to offering fraudulent inflated assets in
Speaker 1: order to secure loans and do business well, a judge
Speaker 1: found that, indeed, surprise surprise, the Trump organization and their
Speaker 1: business entities operated fraudulently, lying and inflating as Tish James
Speaker 1: had suggested, up to in some cases three billion dollars
Speaker 1: of net worth that wasn't actually there. And so you know,
Speaker 1: this case is going to go to trial, and I
Speaker 1: think that currently there are sanctions that are being put
Speaker 1: on the business operations that are in Donald Trump's name.
Speaker 1: And I just, you know, folks, the fact that the
Speaker 1: Republican front runner, and I know that this is said,
Speaker 1: and I know that it's stated over and over again,
Speaker 1: but it's just like, what the fuck is it going
Speaker 1: to really seep in that the front runner for the
Speaker 1: Republican Party has been found guilty of sexual assault, has
Speaker 1: been found guilty of defamation, has been found guilty now
Speaker 1: of fraud, has had his university shut down, is having
Speaker 1: his organizations shut down because he is a lying, serial,
Speaker 1: fucking criminal, on top of which he is facing four
Speaker 1: indictments ninety one charges. And this is the stand by
Speaker 1: their man candidate. What the fuck does that say about
Speaker 1: you and your values and your morals? By contrast, the
Speaker 1: only thing that the Republican Party has been able to
Speaker 1: find over five years of investigation, mind you, because I
Speaker 1: want folks to understand the timeline here. These investigations around
Speaker 1: Donald Trump have been going on for roughly two years,
Speaker 1: and this is the type of hot shit that it
Speaker 1: is produced. In five years. What we have against Hunter Biden,
Speaker 1: a man that has never run for political office, is
Speaker 1: not elected by anyone, has been battled his own demons,
Speaker 1: and just happens to bear the last name Biden, is
Speaker 1: some lying on a form to get it done because
Speaker 1: he had a drug addiction problem. That's it. And all
Speaker 1: of their investigations right into Hillary Clinton, what did they
Speaker 1: come up with, zero investigations for years into Joe Biden?
Speaker 1: What did Republicans come up with zero two years worth
Speaker 1: of investigations into Donald Trump, you got four indictments, ninety
Speaker 1: one charges and counting. It's absolutely fucking batshit crazy. And
Speaker 1: it is for that reason, dear friends, that I am
Speaker 1: chatting today with doctor Suzanne Lachman on her diagnoses, her
Speaker 1: thoughts that she is shared in documentaries and in articles
Speaker 1: on unpacking support for Donald Trump. The psychology behind the movement,
Speaker 1: the socio psychological dynamics at play behind Trump's enduring popularity
Speaker 1: is what doctor Lackman and I will discuss today. Now,
Speaker 1: for me, this is different than the ways that cable
Speaker 1: news roll up into these white ass towns and sit
Speaker 1: down and want to understand why white rural Americans are
Speaker 1: just so upset right and why they need to be coddled. No, no,
Speaker 1: that's not this conversation. This conversation is essentially and I
Speaker 1: am not a doctor, so I am at liberty to
Speaker 1: say what it is that I think this is the
Speaker 1: psychology of how with all the information in front of
Speaker 1: that is factual, How with everything that we have known
Speaker 1: and discovered and are continuing to find out about Donald
Speaker 1: Trump and all of his criminal ass associates, whether you
Speaker 1: are looking at Cassidy Hutchinson's new book Enough and more
Speaker 1: of the crazies and Looney Tunes characters that were in
Speaker 1: and out of the Oval Office doing their best to
Speaker 1: undermine the Constitution. Who had the ear of the President
Speaker 1: of the United States, who retired, General Mark Millie has
Speaker 1: in an interview basically said, is unstable and incapable of
Speaker 1: doing the job. How is it that you have tens
Speaker 1: of millions of Americans that are willing to lay down
Speaker 1: and die for this man that gave up liberty and
Speaker 1: freedom because he told them to go take their country back.
Speaker 1: So this conversation is to really unpack, essentially the inner
Speaker 1: workings and inner doings and thinkings of a cult. What
Speaker 1: would make people write in Jonestown and other places, line
Speaker 1: up behind some leader and take their own lives, separate
Speaker 1: themselves from their families, from everything that they know, to
Speaker 1: follow a person. Because that's where we are, and the
Speaker 1: mainstream media, corporate media continues to do America a disservice
Speaker 1: by showcasing and platforming this extraordinarily dangerous call leader. What
Speaker 1: we need is disruption to the fantasy that Donald Trump
Speaker 1: is created around himself and that this Republican Party has
Speaker 1: created around white grievance. So coming up next, my conversation
Speaker 1: with doctor Lockman. Folks, I am very happy to welcome
Speaker 1: to OKF Daily for the very first time. Doctor Suzanne
Speaker 1: Lachman a celebrated clinical psychologist and an unparalleled voice in
Speaker 1: the realm of self esteem, relationships, and breakups, and is
Speaker 1: one of the three most read writers at Psychology Today
Speaker 1: and also has been featured in the critically acclaimed documentary
Speaker 1: Unfit The Psychology of Donald Trump. Doctor Lockman, you know,
Speaker 1: there's so much. There is so much that I want
Speaker 1: to dig into with you, because I think that the moment,
Speaker 1: the years that we've been living inside of for the
Speaker 1: last seven years, since Donald Trump came down that escalator,
Speaker 1: since our political norms were turned on their head, and
Speaker 1: what many of us believed to be true about America,
Speaker 1: about democracy have been the challenged is not even the
Speaker 1: world have been pushed to their breaking point, and for
Speaker 1: many of us, watching this country be degraded and contorted
Speaker 1: into a shell of itself is traumatizing, right, And I
Speaker 1: just think about you know, let's harken back to the
Speaker 1: images on January sixth, twenty 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 3: Yes, lots of good points in there, lots of good questions,
Speaker 3: so many tentacles. So I think given that it is
Speaker 3: a given that trauma has infiltrated the lives of really
Speaker 3: any sane person who pays attention to the political landscape
Speaker 3: who noted the uh horrendous directions that our country has taken,
Speaker 3: the division, and the hatred. So there are a number
Speaker 3: One of the ways I think that it is helpful
Speaker 3: to address trauma is to try to understand the people
Speaker 3: who are causing it or the people who have gotten
Speaker 3: swept up in it. So I've spent a good amount
Speaker 3: of time trying to make sense of what I think
Speaker 3: are a bunch of types of people that remain to
Speaker 3: this day Trump supporters, despite all the evidence to the contrary,
Speaker 3: want there. So I think there's some character traits and
Speaker 3: I don't think anyone would disagree. That's pretty obvious. But
Speaker 3: but they so one of them. The first one is
Speaker 3: in many you can tell that there is a profound
Speaker 3: difficulty admitting that they're wrong apologizing there is there are
Speaker 3: a lot of people out there who see admitting they're
Speaker 3: wrong or apologizing as a form of weakness, right, and
Speaker 3: of reflecting not just the event, but their entire character.
Speaker 3: So to admit they're wrong, to say they're sorry, means
Speaker 3: 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 prior to Donald Trump was in
Speaker 1: many ways a moral leader as well, right, not just
Speaker 1: a not ideally not just a political leader, but a
Speaker 1: moral leader, somebody that can provide example, right of compromise,
Speaker 1: of diplomacy, of all of these things. And so when
Speaker 1: you see these characteristics, is it that because they have
Speaker 1: been modeled Doctor Lackman for so many years in such
Speaker 1: a bad way that people then have have begun to
Speaker 1: mimic or was this latent? Was it always there?
Speaker 3: There are when oftentimes when traumatize, it's because aspects of
Speaker 3: earlier unresolved trauma is brought up again. And there are
Speaker 3: many people through time, if you think back about it,
Speaker 3: who should have apologized, who should have acknowledged they were
Speaker 3: wrong about something and just didn't and remained righteous and
Speaker 3: to the end whatever that was. So I really think
Speaker 3: it's an embedded characteristic in a lot of people. Does it.
Speaker 3: Is it nature and nurture? Probably that would probably take
Speaker 3: way too much time for us to parse out right,
Speaker 3: But you kind of you're helping me springboard into another area,
Speaker 3: which is Donald Trump appeals to people who have no
Speaker 3: impulse control or who are barely able to maintain their impulses.
Speaker 3: Now he is idealized, idolized, deified, et cetera, because he's
Speaker 3: been walking around exercising his impulses everywhere and not getting
Speaker 3: There's been no ramifications for his actions, nothing has caught
Speaker 3: up to him. Whereas the common everyday person, they have
Speaker 3: to if they did any of the things grab somebody
Speaker 3: by the pussy, or any of the things that we
Speaker 3: know Trump has done, they get in trouble for it. Right,
Speaker 3: So here's this guy who's able to do all of
Speaker 3: these things that they are not able to do, that
Speaker 3: they're barely containing themselves from doing. So they get to
Speaker 3: live vicariously through him in a way, and it makes
Speaker 3: him rise above. There's no consequences, or there have been
Speaker 3: no consequences, and he's continuing to find ways to make
Speaker 3: it appear to those people who are very willing to
Speaker 3: believe because they don't want to be wrong or they
Speaker 3: don't know how to be wrong. I mean, there's so
Speaker 3: many people in Congress that applies to you know, Matt
Speaker 3: Gates comes willing to as somebody who, in your wildest
Speaker 3: dreams would never admit he was wrong, even Kevin McCarthy.
Speaker 3: They'll just talk over themselves instead. Uh yeah, And it's maddening.
Speaker 3: So there's these these two subgroups that are intertwined as well,
Speaker 3: but we can also sort of see them differently. Then
Speaker 3: there are people who have a much higher threshold for
Speaker 3: a use of talk, for being insulted, for dishing out insult,
Speaker 3: for being bullies, for calling somebody crooked whatever, or name
Speaker 3: call the kind of name calling, that kind of childish
Speaker 3: It comes along with impulsivity way that we've seen him
Speaker 3: conduct himself to them, that's sort of like, oh, that's
Speaker 3: familiar to me. There's something comforting about that he's normalizing
Speaker 3: what I didn't always I thought was bad or people
Speaker 3: told me was bad. But look at this, I can
Speaker 3: get 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, tell me the difference of
Speaker 1: not being able to take responsibility for your actions and
Speaker 1: choosing not to take responsibility for your actions.
Speaker 3: Good question. People who are choosing not to take responsibility
Speaker 3: of their actions are aware that they're on a sinking shift.
Speaker 3: I mean, if we if we make it specific to Trump,
Speaker 3: but at this point they don't think that there's any
Speaker 3: other recourse they may. I think Kevin McCarthy is a
Speaker 3: good example of this, because I think that he knows
Speaker 3: that he's this is a clusterfuck that he's gotten himself into,
Speaker 3: But will he ever admit it. No, So do I
Speaker 3: think there are I think there are people out there.
Speaker 4: Who follow Trump who are aware that in order to
Speaker 4: continue to follow him, they have to shirk their responsibilities.
Speaker 4: They have to decide that they're not going to be
Speaker 4: accountable to anyone, They're going to put themselves first.
Speaker 3: And there are others who intellectually may not or definitely
Speaker 3: don't have the capacity to even understand that they haven't
Speaker 3: grown up, whether it be. We see a lot of
Speaker 3: people like that that still go to the rallies. There
Speaker 3: they have no clue what's going on in the world,
Speaker 3: they have no answers to questions, yet there they follow Trump.
Speaker 3: It's an and you know, probably I would imagine a
Speaker 3: lot of them have been in trouble with the law
Speaker 3: at some point, or barely escaped being in trouble with
Speaker 3: the law, or perpetually on the edge. So I don't
Speaker 3: know if I'm answering your question, but I do think
Speaker 3: there are people out there that kind of consciously know
Speaker 3: that no matter who's following him, you have to be
Speaker 3: shirking your responsibilities. You cannot be a conscious person with
Speaker 3: with a with a moral and ethical middle uh or
Speaker 3: time out, it's a better word for that, like internal compass,
Speaker 3: with uh a moral compass. Who wouldn't recognize that there's
Speaker 3: something seriously wrong here?
Speaker 1: So now 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 are moral compass, right value in order to follow
Speaker 1: this character? And I I it's but it's it's thirty
Speaker 1: percent of the population, doctor Lackman. So I'm like, it
Speaker 1: is there are we all just banging our heads against
Speaker 1: the wall then trying to have this thirty percent try
Speaker 1: and wake up to reality?
Speaker 3: What?
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, go ahead.
Speaker 3: We there. I mean I often think about the Titanic
Speaker 3: when it comes to Trump, and there were people who jumped,
Speaker 3: and I'd say anyone who maybe voted for him first
Speaker 3: term but has turned against him. And there are certainly
Speaker 3: many Republican groups that are anti Trump. They jumped, and
Speaker 3: others who are just gonna go down with the ship.
Speaker 3: They know it's heading for the iceberg, but they're just
Speaker 3: gonna that's that's what they'll do. They don't really know
Speaker 3: any other way, And because to hint to them, to
Speaker 3: many of them, he's he's magical and he's managed to
Speaker 3: get out of circumstances so often himself. I mean, think
Speaker 3: about how many people went into the Capitol with the
Speaker 3: promise that they would be pardoned right that and especially
Speaker 3: if he if he is still the president and or
Speaker 3: becomes the president or somehow is both. There's also many
Speaker 3: many mentally ill people in that contingent, in that thirty percent.
Speaker 3: Not to say that there there aren't mentally ill people
Speaker 3: in the other seventy, but there's less When with with
Speaker 3: with COVID, it certainly heightened and kind of pressurized a
Speaker 3: lot of mental illness that may have been more latent exactly,
Speaker 3: and venom and hatred and all these other emotions, and
Speaker 3: since a good portion of those groups that we're describing
Speaker 3: don't have impulse control. I mean, even if we think
Speaker 3: about how many Republicans in particular are are found to
Speaker 3: be pedophiles, are it's it's it's insane, the lack of
Speaker 3: impulse control, and it's it's it's really that that kind
Speaker 3: of in many ways separates them from the rest of us. Uh,
Speaker 3: even if they know they're not controlling their impulses. Again,
Speaker 3: he's giving them an excuse.
Speaker 1: Right, He's giving he's giving them carte blanche.
Speaker 3: You know, he's normalizing it, right, Uh right, Yeah, So
Speaker 3: that that's those are big issues among Trump supporters. And
Speaker 3: and this other one that I'm describing to just threshold
Speaker 3: for abuse, the way he speaks to other people, the
Speaker 3: way that uh, he speaks down to women, objectifies them.
Speaker 3: There's a Trump there's a lot of people out there
Speaker 3: like that, and unfortunately a lot of women who are
Speaker 3: 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
Speaker 1: right when you see the fan art of Donald Trump,
Speaker 1: their image of him is is is that of of
Speaker 1: of you know, eighties Rock Belboa, Right, They draw him
Speaker 1: and they paint him as this muscular figure and I'm
Speaker 1: just like, what are you actually looking at? Because it's
Speaker 1: so distorted from reality. And I you know, I understand.
Speaker 1: I guess that it is important to understand the psychology
Speaker 1: of the people that follow Trump, Yes, but I also
Speaker 1: find myself and with a couple of minutes that we
Speaker 1: have left, I want you to be able to weigh
Speaker 1: in on the trauma that is being inflicted on the
Speaker 1: rest of us and how we are to manage and
Speaker 1: move and move through that, because again, I don't think
Speaker 1: that we have paused long enough to reflect on the
Speaker 1: damage that has been done emotionally, spiritually, basically over the
Speaker 1: last seven years.
Speaker 3: The same can be said for the Holocaust, the same
Speaker 3: can be said for slavery. When you're in something, you're
Speaker 3: just in it. There's really no way or no time
Speaker 3: to no ability to reflect while you're in it. What
Speaker 3: we're looking for is a way out of it. And
Speaker 3: I mean, at the if it's thirty percent, so be it.
Speaker 3: 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 trial and the
Speaker 1: wounds so that we can have the strength to make
Speaker 1: it to the exit.
Speaker 3: Yeah, do you know?
Speaker 2: So?
Speaker 1: I'm like, so, how how are we How how do
Speaker 1: we manage to do both?
Speaker 3: And podcasts, social media? For as much as of the
Speaker 3: craziness that's out there, Uh, it's pretty easy. And if
Speaker 3: you some of the news stations and other places as well,
Speaker 3: there's a lot of validation for the fact that this
Speaker 3: is a crazy time and everything about this Trump eerr
Speaker 3: is wrong.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 3: And and really all you I know that that's significantly
Speaker 3: harder in Red States. I know what I was going
Speaker 3: to say. I was going to say that just like
Speaker 3: little kids when they get really crazy and destructive, it's
Speaker 3: like it's like they're crying out for someone to contain them.
Speaker 3: That's what is happening right now. That's what the Republicans
Speaker 3: are doing with the book banning and the not not
Speaker 3: chastising people who are neo Nazi and racially motivated and
Speaker 3: all of that. They are literally crying out. Whether they
Speaker 3: know it or not, they are crying out because they
Speaker 3: cannot handle the control that they have. Wow, that's why
Speaker 3: it's so crazy out there, and we as sane adults,
Speaker 3: are going there's nothing that's going to stop us from
Speaker 3: getting to the polls. And thankfully, I think because of
Speaker 3: the extent to the lengths the Republicans have gone to
Speaker 3: with with taking away women's rights and messing with civil
Speaker 3: rights and education, et cetera, it's going to get a
Speaker 3: lot of other people out there too who might not
Speaker 3: have otherwise been involved because this touches losing Roe v. Wade,
Speaker 3: as evidenced by some of the other some of the
Speaker 3: elections that we've seen that are there any indication of
Speaker 3: what's to come, Even in the most conservative states, it's
Speaker 3: they're they're a cruising for us to take over and
Speaker 3: we will, we will, 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 the
Speaker 1: fact is that we have been an are at our
Speaker 1: break at our breaking point, and I think that the
Speaker 1: next you know, twelve months, you know, or so are
Speaker 1: really going to be a pressure cooker whether America survives
Speaker 1: And I don't even you know, And I guess the
Speaker 1: last 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 torched.
Speaker 3: It's safe to say that that's been the case through
Speaker 3: the years, whether it was a fake war in Iraq
Speaker 3: after nine to eleven, we can go way back with
Speaker 3: our history. This is not history repeats itself, and democracy
Speaker 3: is a journey. It's not a destination, and it's got
Speaker 3: to change and it's got a shape shift to incorporate
Speaker 3: the people who are in it. The founding fathers really
Speaker 3: did not have an appreciation for the level of differences
Speaker 3: amongst people and what it would mean to incorporate all
Speaker 3: as equal. And so hopefully there are more and more
Speaker 3: amendments that are past. But what we are seeing is
Speaker 3: that there is legal recourse and so this kind of
Speaker 3: anger that you're describing, or people being at their wits
Speaker 3: end it's there's two types of anger, in my opinion.
Speaker 3: There's the blamey kind, which you can only get stuck in, like, oh,
Speaker 3: I can't believe you know that, I can't believe that
Speaker 3: all these people are still into him, like you know,
Speaker 3: the stuff that you can't do anything about. And then
Speaker 3: there's the I am so sick of being sick of
Speaker 3: this that that I'm not going to crawl under a rock.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna vote, and I'm gonna get as many other
Speaker 3: people out there as I can to vote because the
Speaker 3: system has not failed us. There. We've called constitutional crises
Speaker 3: a couple of times, but here we are, and there's
Speaker 3: ninety one counts against him. Proud boys are being thrown
Speaker 3: in jail. The problem is the wheels of justice grind slowly,
Speaker 3: so it's a matter of being patient. But the more
Speaker 3: patient you are, the more relief you will find. It
Speaker 3: certainly will not detract from all the pain and suffering
Speaker 3: that people have gone through, but to feel be able
Speaker 3: to feel safer in our homes, in our neighborhoods, in
Speaker 3: our own skin, that's that's the goal. So yeah, that's
Speaker 3: what we all have to move towards. Don't get mad
Speaker 3: 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 on,
Speaker 1: UH 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 today, dear friends on Woke
Speaker 1: a f as always power to the people and to
Speaker 1: all the people. Power, get woke and stay woke as
Speaker 1: fun