Perverted Containment: Trumpism, Cult Creation, and the Rise of Destructive American Populism

ABSTRACT

Drawing on the contributions of psychoanalysts influenced by Bion as well as on sociopolitical historians, the author examines Trumpism and its destructive leadership through the lens of such concepts as alpha functioning, beta elements, second skin and beta-screen, projection, and containment. The article demonstrates that a vindictive, narcissistic, and toxic masculine leader such as ex-President Trump serves to “pervert” the containing function of healthy leadership to increase authoritarian rule. The author shows that when there is a fit between the group’s unconscious phantasies and malevolent, narcissistic leadership, the stage is set for the development of a malignant cult of personality. The cult of Trumpism fosters and exploits paranoia and allegiance to an all-powerful, charismatic figure, contributing to a social milieu at risk for the erosion of democratic principles and the rise of fascism. In contrast, to illustrate healthy containment that neutralizes potentially destructive psychotic anxieties and fantasies, the author closes with sensitive and inspirational leadership oratory from Abraham Lincoln and Robert F. Kennedy.

KEYWORDS:

• Perversion
• regressed groups
• destructive populism
• cultism
• fascism
• hypermasculinity

Acknowledgments

Portions of this article were presented in two lectures to the Confederation of Independent Psychoanalytic Societies (CIPS) following the 2020 national election: first (Fall 2020), “It Can Happen Here—And Did: Psychoanalytic Musings on Large-Group Regression, Populist Madness, Cultism, and American Authoritarianism”; second (Spring 2021), “Psychoanalytic Musings on Trumpism, Delusions, and Malignant Populism.” Some of this material also appeared and is further elaborated in Ruptures in The American Psyche: Containing Destructive Populism in Perilous Times (Diamond, 2022).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

¹ As Wieland (2015) states, “Fascism, in the mind and in society, with its totalitarian tenets of a homogenized society, has the quality of a beta-screen able to glue the fragments of a disintegrating personality/community/nation together and evoke strong emotions to [sic] the participants” (p. 162).

² As I’ve noted, such beneficial containment will be illustrated later in this paper via quotations from speeches by two preeminent American leaders, Abraham Lincoln and Robert F. Kennedy. Their inspiring words, spoken during unduly turbulent times, helped quell primitive anxieties and violent impulses.

³ Manifest destiny, a theme prominent in US history and reflective of the American sense of mission, encompasses both benign and aggressive ideals and actions (Hofstadter, 1965).

⁴ Forensic psychiatrist Lee (2020) pulls no punches in challenging the American Psychiatric Association’s controversial “Goldwater Rule” to warn of the serious dangers posed by Trump’s sociopathy and pathological narcissism.

⁵ It is noteworthy that Trump, despite using fascist tactics, is a demagogue undeserving of the term fascist inasmuch as he lacks an ideological purpose. Nonetheless, as more recent and violent methods evinced in the January 6, 2021 insurgency suggest, and as his authoritarianism and accompanying propaganda demonstrate, Trump epitomizes extremely dangerous proto-fascist leanings (Bollas, 2020; Loewenstein, 2023; Wieland, 2023).

⁶ The Washington Post reported that over the course of Trump’s four years in office, he made more than 30,000 false and misleading claims (Kessler, 2021).

⁷ Though beyond the scope of this article, I have elsewhere suggested ways to reestablish a sufficiently containing institutional frame to attenuate the potency of the destructive, psychotic elements in the body politic while strengthening its nonpathological elements (Diamond, 2022).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Michael J. Diamond

Michael J. Diamond, Ph.D., FIPA, is a Training and Supervising Analyst, Los Angeles Institute and Society for Psychoanalytic Studies. He has authored numerous articles, chapters, and five books, including his two most recent books, Ruptures in the American Psyche: Containing Destructive Populism in Perilous Times (Phoenix Publishing House, 2022) and Masculinity and Its Discontents: The Male Psyche and the Inherent Tensions of Maturing Manhood (Routledge, 2021).