Trump Fear Stoking Playbook

Edgar Towers:

I think as long as Trump plays to their fears and racial grievances they will stand by him. Play any of his speeches, any at all and if you distill them to their basic messages it would go as follows:

  1. Trump is the greatest
  2. Anything bad that happens to him is always someone else’s fault and there is always someone out to get him
  3. They (white Americans) are the “real” Americans
  4. “Real” Americans are the real victims of a government and liberal left that wants to punish them for being conservative/ christian/ white
  5. They (minorities and non white immigrants) are mostly criminals who want to take the America you know and change it forever into something worse
  6. Only Trump can protect the “real” Americans and keep the “others” at bay

That is basically every Trump speech ever in a nutshell. He knows his target audience well and plays on their grievances and fears constantly. Trump knows he doesn’t need to control the whole Republican base but just enough to play kingmaker in the primaries and he has control of the party.

Why Texas Republicans Fear the Green New Deal

Small government is no match for a crisis born of the state’s twin addictions to market fixes and fossil fuels.

Since the power went out in Texas, the state’s most prominent Republicans have tried to pin the blame for the crisis on, of all things, a sweeping progressive mobilization to fight poverty, inequality and climate change. “This shows how the Green New Deal would be a deadly deal,” Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas said Wednesday on Fox News. Pointing to snow-covered solar panels, Rick Perry, a former governor who was later an energy secretary for the Trump administration, declared in a tweet “that if we humans want to keep surviving frigid winters, we are going to have to keep burning natural gas — and lots of it — for decades to come.”

The claims are outlandish. The Green New Deal is, among other things, a plan to tightly regulate and upgrade the energy system so the United States gets 100 percent of its electricity from renewables in a decade. Texas, of course, still gets the majority of its energy from gas and coal; much of that industry’s poorly insulated infrastructure froze up last week when it collided with wild weather that prompted a huge surge in demand. (Despite the claims of many conservatives, renewable energy was not to blame.) It was the very sort of freakish weather system now increasingly common, thanks to the unearthing and burning of fossil fuels like coal and gas. While the link between global warming and rare cold fronts like the one that just slammed Texas remains an area of active research, Katharine Hayhoe, a climate scientist at Texas Tech University, says the increasing frequency of such events should be “a wake up call.”

But weather alone did not cause this crisis. Texans are living through the collapse of a 40-year experiment in free-market fundamentalism, one that has also stood in the way of effective climate action. Fortunately, there’s a way out — and that’s precisely what Republican politicians in the state most fear.

A fateful series of decisions were made in the late-’90s, when the now-defunct, scandal-plagued energy company Enron led a successful push to radically deregulate Texas’s electricity sector. As a result, decisions about the generation and distribution of power were stripped from regulators and, in effect, handed over to private energy companies. Unsurprisingly, these companies prioritized short-term profit over costly investments to maintain the grid and build in redundancies for extreme weather.

Today, Texans are at the mercy of regulation-allergic politicians who failed to require that energy companies plan for shocks or weatherize their infrastructure (renewables and fossil fuel alike). In a recent appearance on NBC’s “Today” show, Austin’s mayor, Steve Adler, summed it up: “We have a deregulated power system in the state and it does not work, because it does not build in the incentives in order to protect people.”

This energy-market free-for-all means that as the snow finally melts, many Texans are discovering that they owe their private electricity providers thousands of dollars — a consequence of leaving pricing to the whims of the market. The $200,000 energy bills some people received, the photos of which went viral online, were, it seems, a mistake. But some bills approaching $10,000 are the result of simple supply and demand in a radically underregulated market. “The last thing an awful lot of people need right now is a higher electric bill,” said Matt Schulz, chief industry analyst with LendingTree. “And that’s unfortunately something a lot of people will get stuck with.” This is bad news for those customers, but great news for shale gas companies like Comstock Resources Inc. On an earnings call last Wednesday, its chief financial officer said, “This week is like hitting the jackpot with some of these incredible prices.”

Put bluntly, Texas is about as far from having a Green New Deal as any place on earth. So why have Republicans seized it as their scapegoat of choice?

Blame right-wing panic. For decades, the Republicans have met every disaster with a credo I have described as “the shock doctrine.” When disaster strikes, people are frightened and dislocated. They focus on handling the emergencies of daily life, like boiling snow for drinking water. They have less time to engage in politics and a reduced capacity to protect their rights. They often regress, deferring to strong and decisive leaders — think of New York’s ill-fated love affairs with then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani after the 9/11 attacks and Gov. Andrew Cuomo in the early months of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Large-scale shocks — natural disasters, economic collapse, terrorist attacks — become ideal moments to smuggle in unpopular free-market policies that tend to enrich elites at everyone else’s expense. Crucially, the shock doctrine is not about solving underlying drivers of crises: It’s about exploiting those crises to ram through your wish list even if it exacerbates the crisis.

To explain this phenomenon, I often quote a guru of the free market revolution, the late economist Milton Friedman. In 1982, he wrote about what he saw as the mission of right-wing economists like him: “Only a crisis — actual or perceived — produces real change. When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around. That, I believe, is our basic function: to develop alternatives to existing policies, to keep them alive and available until the politically impossible becomes politically inevitable.”

Republicans have effectively deployed this tactic even after crises like the 2008 market collapse, created by financial deregulation and made deadlier by decades of austerity. Democrats have, largely, been willing partners. This seems counterintuitive, but it all comes back to Friedman’s credo: The change doesn’t depend on the reasons for the crisis, only on who has the ideas “lying around” — a kind of intellectual disaster preparedness. And for a long time, it was only the right, bolstered by a network of free-market think tanks linked to both major parties, that had its ideas at the ready.

When Hurricane Katrina broke through New Orleans’s long-neglected levees in 2005, there was, briefly, some hope that the catastrophe might serve as a kind of wake-up call. Witnessing the abandonment of thousands of residents on their rooftops and in the Superdome, small-government fetishists suddenly lost their religion. “When a city is sinking into the sea and rioting runs rampant, government probably should saddle-up,” Jonah Goldberg, a prominent right-wing commentator, wrote at the time. In environmental circles, there was also discussion that the disaster could spur climate action. Some dared to predict that the collapsed levees would be for the small-government, free-market legacy of Reaganism what the fall of the Berlin Wall was for Soviet Communism.

None of it happened. Instead, New Orleans became a laboratory for the shock doctrine. Public schools were shut down en masse, replaced by charter schools. Public housing was demolished, and costly townhouses sprang up, preventing thousands of the city’s poorest residents, the majority of them Black, from ever returning. The reconstruction of the city became a feeding ground for private contractors. Republicans used the cover of crisis to call for expanded oil and gas exploration and new refinery capacity, much as Mr. Perry is doing right now in Texas with his calls for doubling down on gas.

Many tried to stop them. Teachers’ unions, despite having their members scattered throughout the country, did their best to fight the privatizations. Residents of public housing and their supporters faced tear gas to try to stop the demolition of their homes. But there were no readily available, alternate ideas lying around for how New Orleans could be rebuilt to make it both greener and fairer for all of its residents.

Even if there had been, there was no political muscle to turn such ideas into reality. Though the environmental justice movement has deep roots in Louisiana’s “cancer alley,” the climate justice movement was only just emerging at the time Katrina struck. There was no Sunrise Movement, the youth-led organization that occupied Nancy Pelosi’s office after the 2018 midterms to demand “good jobs, and a livable planet.” There was no “squad,” the ad hoc alliance of congressional progressives whose most visible member, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, sent shock waves through Washington by joining the Sunrisers in their occupation. There had not yet been two Bernie Sanders presidential campaigns to show Americans how popular these ideas really are. And there was certainly no national movement for a Green New Deal.

The difference between then and now goes a very long way toward explaining why Mr. Abbott is railing against a policy plan that, as of now, exists primarily on paper. In a crisis, ideas matter — he knows this. He also knows that the Green New Deal, which promises to create millions of union jobs building out shock-resilient green energy infrastructure, transit and affordable housing, is extremely appealing. This is especially true now, as so many Texans suffer under the overlapping crises of

  • unemployment,
  • houselessness,
  • racial injustice,
  • crumbling public services and
  • extreme weather.

All that Texas’s Republicans have to offer, in contrast, is continued oil and gas dependence — driving more climate disruption — alongside more privatizations and cuts to public services to pay for their state’s mess, which we can expect them to push in the weeks and months ahead.

Will it work? Unlike when the Republican Party began deploying the shock doctrine, its free-market playbook is no longer novel. It has been tried and repeatedly tested: by the pandemic, by spiraling hunger and joblessness, by extreme weather. And it is failing all of those tests — so much so that even the most ardent cheerleaders of deregulation now point to Texas’s energy grid as a cautionary tale. A recent article in the Wall Street Journal, for instance, called the deregulation of Texas’s energy system “a fundamental flaw.”

In short, Republican ideas are no longer lying around — they are lying in ruin. Small government is simply no match for this era of big, interlocking problems. Moreover, for the first time since Margaret Thatcher, Britain’s former prime minister, declared that “there is no alternative” to leaving our fates to the market, progressives are ready with a host of problem-solving plans. The big question is whether the Democrats who hold power in Washington will have the courage to implement them.

The horrors currently unfolding in Texas expose both the reality of the climate crisis and the extreme vulnerability of fossil fuel infrastructure in the face of that crisis. So of course the Green New Deal finds itself under fierce attack. Because for the first time in a long time, Republicans face the very thing that they claim to revere but never actually wanted: competition — in the battle of ideas.

Mr. Rogers on Scapegoating: Psychological Displacement

01:39
So many people have asked me, “do you ever get mad?”
01:43
And of course I answer well, yes!
01:46
Everyone gets mad sometimes.
01:48
The important thing is what we do with the mad that we feel in life.
01:53
A few weeks ago on my way home from a
01:56
particularly tough day at work
01:59
I stopped to see my two grandsons.
02:02
Their mom and dad weren’t there
02:04
but the boys were there with the babysitter
02:06
in the backyard squirting water with hoses.
02:10
I could see that they were really having fun
02:14
but I felt I needed to let them know that
02:16
I didn’t want to be squirted. So, I told them so and little by little
02:22
I could feel that the older boy, Alexander, was testing the limit
02:28
until finally, his hose was squirting very close to where I was standing.
02:34
I said to him in my harshest voice,
02:37
“Okay, that’s it! Alexander turn off the water. You’ve had it!”
02:42
He did as I told him, said he was sorry and looked very sad.
02:48
The more I thought about it, the sadder I got.
02:53
I realized that Alexander had not squirted me
02:57
and that I had stepped into his and his brother’s play
03:02
with a lot of feelings left over from work.
03:06
So when I got home, I just called Alexander on the phone.
03:12
I told him I felt awful about my visit with him
03:15
and the more I thought about it, the more
03:18
I realized that I was taking out my anger, from work, on him.
03:25
I told him I was really sorry.
03:28
Do you know how he answered me?
03:31
He said, “Oh Bubba?” He calls me Bubba.
03:35
“Oh Bubba, everybody makes mistakes sometimes.”
03:41
I nearly cried. I was so touched by his naturally generous heart
03:47
and I realized that if I hadn’t called him,
03:51
I might not have ever received that wonderful
03:54
gift of Alexander’s sweet forgiveness.
03:57
(Video fades to white background with text)
03:59
Forgive others while you can.
04:04
Forgive others because life is too short to stay angry. Share this video.
04:11
Stay Inspired.

Overcoming the Role of Scapegoat

Here’s a very good video about scapegoating within Family Systems

This video, combined with other information I’ve heard, made me more sympathetic to Donald Trump.

  • From what I’ve heard, Donald Trump’s father Fred was a sociopath, and his brother, Fred Jr was being groomed to be the Golden Boy who would assume the leadership of the family business.
  • Fred Jr didn’t fit the role of CEO.  Instead, he became an airline pilot and alcoholic.  Fred Jr died while his daughter Mary Trump (author of the new Trump book) was young.
  • When Donald was 2 years old, his mother had a near-death experience with the birth of Donald’s brother.  Donald would have felt abandoned by his mother and unable to understand the reason for her absence.

    • Leonard Cruz is a psychiatrist in Asheville, North Carolina, and one of the editors of a recently published collection of essays, A Clear and Present Danger: Narcissism in the Era of President Trump. “From a child’s perspective,” he told me, “they’ve experienced the withdrawal of a mothering figure. It might evoke ways of acting that are increasingly bombastic and attention-seeking. The child becomes almost exaggerated in the ways they try to court attention.”

  • Donald was the problem child who bullied his classmates and his father couldn’t manage.  Fred Sr was so exasperated that he gave up on Donald and sent him off to a military academy themed high school, which reinforced his ideas about dominance and toxic masculinity.
  • Donald Trump’s father taught him that there are only two types of people: killers and losers.
  • Donald Trump’s other mentor was Roy Cohn, who taught him never to admit fault but instead launch a counter-offensive.

 

Transcript

00:01
hey hi everybody
00:03
my name is jerry wise and i’m a life and
00:06
relationship
00:06
coach and i’ve been helping people for
00:10
over 40
00:11
close to probably 45 years now
00:14
and i have been helping them to learn to
00:17
self-differentiate
00:19
using a family systems approach i help
00:23
people advance their recovery
00:26
from codependency their recovery from
00:29
narcissistic abuse their recovery from
00:31
being adult children of narcissists
00:34
and adult children of alcoholics and i
00:38
work with a lot of
00:40
families couples individuals and
00:44
using this deep well of bowen family
00:47
systems theory
00:50
and i’d like you to join my youtube
00:52
channel you can see the subscribe
00:54
channel
00:55
there’s also a bell that you can click
00:57
on also which means you’ll get
00:59
notifications
01:01
when there are new videos that come out
01:04
in fact i’ve just done a video with lisa
01:07
a romano
01:09
who’s a coach and she deals with
01:11
codependency and narcissistic abuse
01:14
i’d like you to take a look at that on
01:15
my youtube channel
01:18
we had a great time together and this
01:21
program is entitled
01:23
overcoming the role of scapegoat
01:27
i think scapegoating is a very big topic
01:30
because it is a common experience
01:33
for many many people now why do i think
01:37
there’s so many
01:38
scapegoats
01:42
well because whenever you have a
01:44
dysfunctional family
01:46
whenever you have a dysfunctional
01:49
department at the workplace
01:50
whenever you have a dysfunctional church
01:53
whenever
01:54
you have a dysfunctional marriage then
01:56
oftentimes
01:57
people will project on to other people
02:00
the problems they don’t want to look at
02:03
the problems they don’t want to see and
02:06
they will
02:06
pick someone as a scapegoat for those
02:09
difficulties
02:11
well that can include an awful lot of
02:13
people
02:14
because i’ve been scapegoated at a
02:16
workplace
02:18
uh and i understand scapegoating even
02:21
beyond family of origin issues
02:24
so it can happen for a lot of people
02:28
of course the word scapegoat comes from
02:31
like the leviticus 16 that old testament
02:35
account of when the
02:41
levites chose two kid goats
02:44
one was to be sacrificed and one was to
02:47
take all the sins of the israelites and
02:50
then be sent out into the desert
02:52
and then i think william tyndall was one
02:55
of the earlier
02:56
people who coined the word scapegoat and
02:59
then it’s been used many times
03:01
thereafter
03:02
in the more modern era in psychology
03:05
and in family systems work
03:10
scapegoating is the glue that holds the
03:12
family together
03:14
that holds the church together that
03:16
holds the uh
03:18
workplace together that holds the pta
03:21
together
03:22
scapegoating is the um
03:26
the important thing that holds it
03:28
together because the scapegoat is the
03:31
person
03:32
that takes all the bad away
03:35
so that that system can function but
03:38
sadly
03:39
it then ends up there being a scapegoat
03:42
they have a distorted view of themselves
03:45
the department the workplace the family
03:47
the narcissist the narcissistic family
03:50
all have a distorted view of themselves
03:53
and so we end up with lots of
03:57
difficulties as a result of scapegoating
03:59
so on the one hand it provides a
04:01
solution
04:02
on the other hand it endorses and
04:06
supports
04:06
all the problems that are
04:10
a part of the dysfunctional system
04:16
when we’re the scapegoat growing up in a
04:18
family
04:19
and we’re a child who is a scapegoat
04:22
we’re not a person we’re not a child
04:25
but we then end up being the extensions
04:28
of our family and the extensions
04:30
of our parents we’re not us
04:34
we’re the extensions of them because
04:36
they need somewhere
04:37
for the bad to go and they can’t deal
04:41
with the bad
04:42
the family can’t deal with the bad so we
04:45
project that onto a scapegoat and then
04:49
uh we have relief and i remember working
04:53
in
04:53
inpatient chemical dependency treatment
04:55
as the family counselor
04:57
and we dealt with all these family roles
05:00
of lost child
05:01
mascot scapegoat golden child
05:05
codependent or enabler and we would use
05:08
all of those and in fact
05:10
i would do a whole family psycho drama
05:13
with all the families i’d work with so
05:15
they could see the different roles
05:18
that people played and scapegoating was
05:21
a very common one
05:22
when the alcoholic for example doesn’t
05:24
want to deal with the alcoholism
05:27
let’s say the dad could be the mother
05:29
just as easily but the dad
05:31
and then the mom is focused on the dad
05:34
and nobody and everyone’s in denial
05:37
there are lots of problems lots of
05:39
issues
05:40
then we’ve got to have a child to focus
05:42
all of this negative onto
05:45
so we don’t have to deal with the
05:46
negative and then a child starts to act
05:49
out
05:50
and starts to act out the role of the
05:52
scapegoat
05:54
the bad one and then that
05:57
solves the problem for the family and
06:00
they feel much better
06:02
the scapegoat doesn’t but the family
06:04
does
06:05
they feel much more relief
06:09
scapegoating is a role which is painful
06:13
confusing and maddening
06:16
it’s a very difficult role to play in
06:19
the family particularly as a child
06:21
and then it becomes complicated as an
06:23
adult too because we’ll carry it on into
06:26
our adult life
06:27
and sometimes we’ll wonder why don’t our
06:29
lives work
06:30
well we’ve been a scapegoat since we’ve
06:32
been a child scapegoats
06:34
scapegoat lives are not supposed to work
06:38
same is true when we become an adult
06:41
the payoffs for the scapegoat
06:45
is they receive attention and not
06:47
neglect however an albeit
06:49
it’s negative attention some have said
06:52
negative attention is better than no
06:53
attention at all
06:54
at all though i’m not sure that’s always
06:56
true because the negative attention the
06:58
scapegoat gets is very painful very
07:00
confusing and very maddening
07:04
the family payoff is it takes the
07:07
attention away from the problems
07:09
and away from where the real problem or
07:12
root problem exists
07:14
and so this calms the family down
07:17
while they send out the scapegoat with
07:20
all the sins problems and projection
07:22
that’s done on to them
07:24
and it maintains the homeostasis or the
07:26
equilibrium
07:28
or the everybody can be stabilized
07:31
with the family dysfunction
07:35
because when you have an alcoholic dad
07:38
or an alcoholic mom it’s a lot easier to
07:41
deal with the kids bad grades
07:44
and punish them and talk to the school
07:46
and go through all that drama
07:49
and then to focus on why they might be
07:52
having bad grades
07:54
why they might be having difficulty it
07:56
keeps the focus away from the root cause
08:00
that’s what scapegoatism does it keeps
08:03
the focus away from the root cause
08:07
the scapegoat as i believe is the least
08:10
powerful
08:11
member of this system whether work
08:13
family home church
08:14
synagogue wherever wherever there are
08:16
organizations
08:18
the scapegoat is the least powerful and
08:21
the most powerful
08:23
in the family and you go oh no no no i
08:25
was a scapegoat and i never had any
08:27
power
08:28
hold on let me explain that just a
08:30
minute it’s
08:32
uh they have the least power because
08:35
they are blamed
08:36
criticized negativized
08:40
belittled abused and so that’s where we
08:43
have the least power
08:45
but the most power were very powerful
08:49
because by being the one who were the
08:52
one
08:53
being we are the one who is able to
08:56
cause the most
08:57
anxiety or upset in the family
09:00
now it’s a hellish life as a scapegoat
09:04
but we have the power to trigger
09:06
everybody
09:08
and i’ve as i’ve worked with scapegoats
09:10
over the many decades
09:11
i find they have all this power to
09:13
trigger these families
09:15
and trigger families as a scapegoat
09:18
because they do it all the time which
09:21
then they get repercussions
09:23
more negative comes their way
09:26
and they become entrenched in that
09:28
scapegoat role
09:30
but they do have a large power they can
09:32
trigger everybody in the
09:34
in the family system and that’s a lot of
09:37
power
09:38
the family in its dysfunction gives too
09:41
much power to the
09:43
scapegoat they also give too much power
09:46
to the golden child
09:48
because favoritism and scapegoatism
09:52
are two sides of the same coin it’s a
09:55
projection of the good
09:57
on one and projection of the bad on the
09:59
other
10:00
any projection can hurt kids
10:04
so i’ve worked with golden children and
10:07
they have all kinds of problems because
10:09
they were projected as the favorite one
10:11
now i understand they didn’t have maybe
10:13
all of the negatives the scapegoat had
10:16
but they have difficulties knowing who
10:18
they are what they want in life what
10:20
they want to do
10:21
because they have they have lots of
10:23
guilt they have lots of performance
10:25
anxiety
10:26
conditional love they’ve been used to
10:29
and so they have problems and then of
10:31
course the scapegoat has
10:32
problems with all the negative attention
10:35
that they got
10:36
the negativism so why are there so many
10:39
scapegoats
10:41
well there’s so many scapegoats because
10:43
there are so many dysfunctional families
10:45
out there
10:47
i’m sure there’s a few normal ones maybe
10:49
i’ll run into some sometime
10:51
but there’s so many dysfunctional
10:53
families and whenever you have a
10:55
system that is in pain
11:00
and they don’t deal with it there’s
11:02
going to be a scapegoat
11:04
well how many families do you know that
11:06
have a system in which they have pain
11:08
difficulty struggles and don’t deal with
11:11
it
11:12
generally there’s going to be a
11:14
scapegoat that’s going to have to be
11:16
found
11:17
and this would be alcoholic homes drug
11:19
addicted homes narcissistic homes
11:22
abusive homes toxic and unhealthy homes
11:26
uh whenever there’s problems not being
11:29
dealt with
11:30
then they must be projected somewhere
11:32
else
11:33
because we’re not handling that we’re
11:35
not dealing with it
11:37
even if it’s as simple as simple as
11:40
someone as clinically depressed
11:42
in the family and that can be a
11:43
biological disease
11:45
as well excuse me as well as a
11:46
psychological disease
11:49
this biological disease affects the
11:51
family
11:52
but let’s say the father doesn’t get
11:55
help
11:56
for his depression well then
11:59
somebody’s going to have to pay for that
12:02
under functioning some that’s going to
12:05
show
12:05
up somewhere else it has to
12:09
and then generally there’s a scapegoat
12:11
well you don’t love your father you
12:12
don’t understand your father
12:14
your father’s going through a hard time
12:16
he’s very stressed and he has to do this
12:18
and why can’t you be good and then we
12:21
have all of this scapegoating going on
12:23
and blaming
12:24
when really dad isn’t getting help for
12:26
the depression that he needs
12:28
he needs that help and he’s not getting
12:31
it so it’s got to show up in other ways
12:35
these families need to project onto the
12:38
scapegoat
12:38
to stabilize the family
12:43
so people ask me well why am i chosen to
12:45
be the scapegoat why couldn’t it have
12:47
been betty mary steve why couldn’t have
12:49
been one of my other siblings why did i
12:51
get chosen to be a scapegoat
12:53
well that may be a big mystery i don’t
12:56
know and maybe it’s beyond my pay grade
12:59
but i would guess that it has to do with
13:01
vulnerability
13:03
you are more vulnerable to that you may
13:06
have had some problems growing up
13:08
as kids will have but in more healthy
13:11
families
13:12
those problems don’t disrupt the family
13:15
nor are they a way for the parents to
13:18
project
13:18
on to the child who has some problems
13:22
so we may have problems we may have some
13:24
weaknesses
13:26
the child may have characteristics that
13:29
the parents
13:30
have but they cannot accept them or see
13:34
them in themselves
13:35
so they’ll project onto the parents
13:38
here’s an example
13:39
maybe the child looks like an ex-wife
13:43
they had
13:44
maybe the child acts like a mother they
13:48
didn’t like
13:49
and so we get chosen not because we
13:52
are the mother that wasn’t liked but we
13:54
somehow are projected onto
13:57
and are seen as the mother uh they
13:59
didn’t like
14:00
and then we get to be the scapegoat
14:03
often the child may be the parent the
14:06
child that the parent cannot handle
14:08
well that if the parent’s ability to
14:11
parent is limited
14:13
then whoever they’re having the most
14:15
trouble with
14:16
is gonna get to be probably the
14:18
scapegoat and maybe the child is just
14:21
going through their normal child life
14:23
and maybe they you
14:24
need a different parenting but the
14:27
parents aren’t flexible enough
14:28
knowledgeable enough healthy enough to
14:31
be able to
14:32
uh parent them in a healthy way because
14:36
of their own dysfunction or narcissism
14:38
or
14:38
what they grew up when they in their
14:41
family of origin
14:42
was a problem
14:46
also a scapegoat could be someone who
14:49
questions the family patterns
14:52
and the dynamics you know mommy why does
14:55
dad drink so much
14:56
why does he come home and is drunk on
14:58
the floor
15:00
you know daddy why does mom scream all
15:02
the time at me
15:04
and put me down and
15:07
well those are undiscussables
15:10
you’ve now just lifted the skirt of the
15:13
family
15:14
and then they’re more likely to be a
15:16
scapegoat
15:18
because you’re a talker you’re the one
15:20
that is a true teller
15:22
that could be a real problem in a
15:24
dysfunctional home or even as an adult
15:27
in a family that you have now it can be
15:29
a problem
15:30
i was dealing with clients recently in
15:32
which
15:33
one person was realizing how much
15:38
a family uh her family was
15:42
alcoholic and she had never seen it that
15:44
severe
15:45
well now she’s uncomfortable with that
15:48
because she’s seeing more before she was
15:50
just tolerating hey that’s just the way
15:52
the family is but it was
15:54
really inappropriate and really wrong
15:57
and
15:57
hard to have the grandkids be around
15:59
those but we always just do it because
16:02
that’s what we do you just tolerate
16:04
families
16:05
well no most of the family’s in denial
16:07
because many of them are alcoholic and
16:09
and they don’t see anything wrong with
16:11
what they’re doing
16:12
and then they’ll tell my client well you
16:14
just need to be tolerant
16:15
you just need to be tolerant of your
16:17
family you just need to accept this is
16:19
just the way families are
16:21
yeah but i don’t know that i want to be
16:23
around somebody
16:24
who is inappropriate or doing lap
16:27
dances on their boyfriend in front of
16:29
the young grandchildren i
16:31
i just don’t you know that’s not okay
16:36
and so if you start seeing things in a
16:39
way that’s not okay
16:40
then again that reinforces the scapegoat
16:44
role and she was in a scapegoat role for
16:47
sure
16:48
growing up the scapegoats as i mentioned
16:51
can be whistleblower children
16:54
we may remind parents of someone they
16:56
were hurt by or hated or rejected
17:00
and certainly whenever you have
17:02
narcissistic parents
17:04
there must be someone they can shame
17:06
shed
17:07
onto they must find
17:10
someone who they can shame and so we
17:14
have to find a scapegoat
17:16
who they can do that with if not all
17:18
their children
17:19
at least someone who’s acutely the
17:21
scapegoat child
17:26
also when we are the scapegoat and when
17:29
we are have problems the parent
17:33
feels in control and powerful and so for
17:36
narcissistic homes
17:38
we provide that supply for them
17:41
the narcissistic supply as a scapegoat
17:47
why do i did i get chosen of us as a
17:49
scapegoat
17:50
we’re the easiest target for the
17:52
manipulation
17:53
the self-righteousness or the aggression
17:56
we’re just the easiest target the
17:59
scapegoat child is the opposite side of
18:02
the same coin as the golden child
18:04
favoritism versus scapegoatism as i
18:07
mentioned
18:09
we are the easiest often to gaslight
18:12
though we may have trouble with it and
18:14
again if you have trouble with the gas
18:15
lighting you’re going to get in trouble
18:17
you better go along with the program of
18:19
the gas lighting
18:22
we bring out the parents imperfect
18:24
parenting
18:25
which cannot be tolerated and if you’re
18:29
the difficult
18:30
child then you’re bringing out the
18:32
parents inadequacy as a parent
18:35
or the or the the uh difficult baby the
18:39
unhappy
18:40
infant that you were and again we’re not
18:43
just an
18:44
infant we’re the unhappy infant we’re
18:47
not just a child
18:48
we’re the difficult child and
18:51
and that becomes a problem and we start
18:53
getting scapegoated as the
18:55
bad kid in the class or the bad kid in
18:58
the family
18:59
or the bad kid at work and so many times
19:03
those of us who have been scapegoated we
19:05
will go to jobs
19:06
where we end up getting scapegoated in
19:09
the job
19:11
because what’s in us will also be
19:13
projected
19:14
and and will find that in a work
19:16
environment
19:18
and i’ve helped a lot of people out of
19:19
those kinds of environments
19:21
and also to change their roles as
19:24
scapegoats at work
19:26
in their families with marriages with
19:30
church organizations which business
19:32
organizations
19:36
scapegoats live in the family trance
19:41
the family brainwash the family
19:44
programming and we have been
19:47
programmed to see ourselves as the
19:50
problem
19:52
and that’s one of the most insidious
19:54
lies
19:55
and one of the most difficult lies there
19:57
are
19:59
and it’s what everybody believes is what
20:01
you’re supposed to believe
20:06
let me talk about scapegoat children and
20:08
scapegoat adults
20:10
often they carry the family pain inside
20:13
of them
20:14
the negative traits that get projected
20:16
on them
20:17
the self-hate the anger the denial is
20:20
all projected onto them
20:23
uh just like my client had just
20:24
mentioned everybody’s going well why
20:26
can’t you just tolerate what’s going on
20:28
why can’t you just accept that
20:29
everybody’s drunk and acting
20:31
like a 14 year old why can’t you do that
20:36
because i don’t want to and it seems
20:39
immature
20:40
and irresponsible and especially since
20:43
there’s so much alcoholism in the family
20:45
do i why do i want to do that
20:48
and they will go why are you just being
20:50
so difficult
20:52
what is wrong with you if we buy into
20:56
that
20:57
from our brainwashing and our cult-like
21:00
existence growing up then that will
21:02
become painful and we will be stuck
21:04
that’s where we need help or to borrow
21:07
others objectivity
21:08
to see that wait a minute that’s not
21:10
okay the family is not right about that
21:17
many times parents traumas get
21:20
projected onto us hurts get projected
21:24
onto us as a scapegoat
21:26
and again everybody’s normal but the
21:30
scapegoat
21:31
everybody’s seeing the same everybody’s
21:33
doing the same thing
21:35
thinks the same way has the same
21:38
cult-like brainwashing
21:39
but the scapegoat and we
21:43
then get in trouble for that and also
21:45
find ourselves rejected or exiled or
21:48
sent out into the desert uh
21:51
because we can’t be accepted oh well you
21:54
know
21:55
uh billy’s coming this year you know oh
21:58
i hope
21:58
you know i hope he’s not a pain in the
22:00
butt this year meaning
22:02
telling the truth or being uncomfortable
22:05
with how mom and dad are so narcissistic
22:07
or
22:08
those kinds of things
22:11
scapegoats are objectified and
22:13
dehumanized
22:16
we end up not being a person we end up
22:18
being a liar
22:20
crazy too sensitive dramatic
22:23
the difficult baby as i mentioned
22:26
defective
22:27
unloving cold and all those things are
22:30
projected onto us
22:31
when maybe none of them are true
22:34
maybe we have our own imperfections
22:37
which i’m sure we do
22:38
all of us do but we end up being seen
22:42
through those lenses
22:43
not as a person and so what happens is
22:47
what i call it is a unipolar view of us
22:51
rather than a bipolar view of us and i’m
22:53
not talking about the mental illness
22:55
i’m talking about when i view someone i
22:58
want to see them as good
23:00
and bad i hope people will see me as
23:03
good
23:03
and bad because i’m imperfect i’m also
23:06
good um
23:08
and but in the family the scapegoat is
23:11
only seen as bad
23:13
and not good so it just has unipolar
23:16
just has one pole and when we have that
23:19
one pole
23:20
then we’re immature we must see others
23:23
as with good
23:24
and bad now it’s a whole different thing
23:26
when you start adding narcissism but i’m
23:28
saying in general we want to see people
23:30
as both good and bad because all of us
23:33
are
23:34
good and bad the scapegoat is only bad
23:38
and the golden child is only good
23:42
both are distortion and a lie
23:46
scapegoats are also made to totally
23:50
and solely take responsibility
23:53
for the relationship relationships
23:56
this is the one of the cult-like traits
23:58
in the family
24:00
it’s your fault we’re not getting along
24:03
it’s your fault you’re causing these
24:05
troubles it’s
24:07
all your fault i’m not doing anything
24:10
wrong
24:13
the scapegoat will always feel as though
24:16
they’re navigating a minefield
24:19
when am i going to step on an explosion
24:22
when am i going to do the wrong thing
24:24
because the scapegoatism
24:28
and the projection and the negativity
24:31
is not done out of rational
24:35
i want to say a rational thinking
24:38
process it just blows up
24:41
in different ways it just blows up like
24:44
standing on a mind
24:45
you thought everything was okay and then
24:47
all of a sudden you’re bad
24:48
and you’re going what did i do what what
24:50
went on
24:51
because the family just needs that
24:53
scapegoat it’s not about reality
24:56
it’s about what we need and we need a
24:58
scapegoat right now so you’re going to
24:59
get punished
25:00
you’re going to be seen as negative i
25:02
can’t deal with my anger
25:04
so i’m going to deal with it on you
25:10
there are many examples i think one of
25:11
the classic ones which was not
25:13
necessarily
25:14
a narcissistic home but i remember one
25:16
early on when i was doing
25:18
uh pastoral counseling social work
25:20
chemical dependency work
25:22
uh with clients that the
25:25
marriage and family work the uh a couple
25:28
brought their daughter to me and she was
25:30
like 12-ish
25:32
something like that and she had done
25:34
some shoplifting
25:37
and they said jerry we need you to fix
25:40
her
25:40
she’s not doing right it was wrong what
25:43
she did and we can’t have her doing this
25:45
well of course we don’t want her to
25:47
shoplift we don’t want her to get in
25:48
trouble
25:49
i understand that but guess what
25:52
they dropped her off to me to fix
25:55
while they went on home i’m well i
25:58
thought we might
25:59
all talk together or and so then i
26:02
interviewed the
26:03
the couple and and actually interviewed
26:06
the girl first
26:07
finding out they’re married their
26:09
parents marriage was horrible
26:11
though they acted like they were okay
26:13
when they talked to me but it was
26:14
horrible
26:15
they’ve been talking about divorce
26:16
they’ve been yelling and screaming
26:18
they’ve been
26:19
you know it was just a mess and then
26:22
she out of the need to fulfill the role
26:26
of a scapegoat
26:28
to calm down mom and dad so they will
26:31
feel better
26:32
she’ll go get in trouble and then all of
26:34
the bad traits go out with her
26:37
and now they don’t have to look at their
26:39
marriage their
26:40
pain their feelings their anger their
26:43
unhappiness
26:44
now they can focus on the daughter as
26:46
the one with the problem
26:48
and that’s a scapegoating within the
26:50
family come to find
26:52
out you start helping the couple get
26:54
better
26:56
isn’t it amazing this the the
26:59
shoplifting ends she starts doing better
27:02
in school
27:03
she the parents needed to deal with
27:06
their stuff
27:08
so it wouldn’t get shifted over to her
27:12
and there are many examples i could give
27:14
of narcissistic families
27:22
not only can we be scapegoated by family
27:24
members
27:25
or growing up we can be scapegoated by
27:27
friends
27:28
the pto the pta partners
27:32
spouses especially if they’re
27:34
narcissists
27:36
and if they’re not we can still get
27:38
scapegoated i’ve talked to many people
27:40
in which
27:40
her her close grouping of friends
27:44
have been scapegoating her because they
27:47
can’t
27:48
deal with a couple of members in their
27:49
friends group
27:51
they can’t confront them so somebody’s
27:53
got to be the
27:55
the bad guy and she got selected
27:58
because she’s more empathetic she’s more
28:00
understanding
28:02
she’s more easily to be gaslit or
28:05
you know lied to or or believed to be
28:08
distorting what’s going on
28:10
when actually it’s the friend group that
28:12
they can’t stand up
28:13
for what they need to do so we can be
28:16
scapegoated
28:17
in a lot of different ways so let me ask
28:20
what can we do first of all we recognize
28:25
that we’re a scapegoat
28:29
and i like lisa romano’s phrase of it’s
28:31
not your fault
28:33
if you’re a scapegoat it’s never your
28:36
fault
28:37
that doesn’t mean we haven’t played the
28:40
role of a scapegoat
28:42
which then makes sense as to why we’re a
28:44
scapegoat
28:45
but that’s not the reason you’re a
28:47
scapegoat
28:48
you’re just acting out that role
28:51
much like in a dysfunctional family or
28:53
an alcoholic family
28:55
one of the kids ends up being the bad
28:58
kid
28:59
getting into trouble starting to use
29:01
drugs
29:02
starting to do these kinds of things and
29:05
then
29:06
then he starts feeling like i am a bad
29:09
guy
29:09
of course he’s already been projected on
29:11
as the scapegoat but now he’s living out
29:13
the scapegoat
29:15
uh life and so it even gets harder to
29:18
see that because
29:19
i am doing some bad things so maybe it’s
29:22
just me
29:23
it’s just me who’s doing this no it’s
29:26
not you who’s doing it the root of it is
29:28
having been scapegoated
29:31
deprogramming is very important
29:34
reading about family roles looking at
29:37
narcissistic literature about how people
29:40
are scapegoated by narcissists
29:44
deprogramming yourself in terms of
29:47
learning about codependency
29:50
can help tremendously in healing
29:54
how you see your family because when i
29:57
first talk to people who are
30:00
scapegoats they don’t have a
30:03
clear understanding of their family
30:06
because it’s
30:07
muddy it’s fuzzy it’s hazy
30:10
because they’re stuck in the family glue
30:14
they’re stuck in the family enmeshment
30:16
and it’s just hard to see
30:18
through that fog that we have and all
30:21
the programming that we’ve been
30:23
programmed with
30:24
and so it’s hard to see the family
30:26
clearly
30:27
get help getting to see your family
30:30
clearly
30:32
then stabilize how you see yourself
30:35
that wait a minute yeah i have
30:38
imperfections i have faults i have
30:42
sinned i’ve made mistakes i’ve done
30:44
every all those things
30:46
but i’m not really
30:49
deserving of being a scapegoat i’m
30:52
really not
30:53
and this was wrong and it wasn’t my
30:55
fault
30:56
and this is how i see me well you’re not
31:00
empathetic enough you don’t care enough
31:02
you don’t care enough betty you’re just
31:04
uh you know why can’t you just care
31:06
about other people once
31:08
no no betty’s very caring about other
31:11
people
31:12
it’s just they’re not she’s not caring
31:14
about them in the way
31:15
the dysfunctional family wants her to
31:17
care about them
31:18
and so she’s bad but actually she has
31:22
much more empathy than the family
31:25
give yourself permission to step away
31:28
we do need to get some objectivity
31:31
either step away by stepping into a
31:34
online coaching program or online
31:37
therapist office
31:38
step away by getting some objectivity
31:40
there
31:41
or step away by removing yourself
31:44
learning about going no contact or low
31:46
contact
31:48
so that you can get your head straight
31:55
refrain from any arguing or defending
31:58
it’s not going to do you any good for
32:00
the years of defending and arguing that
32:02
you have done with the family
32:04
or with others it won’t change their
32:06
view
32:07
even though we hope it might you know
32:10
well that’s not how i feel
32:11
that’s not what i think no no you’re
32:14
it’s not about the logic of it
32:16
it’s about what they need you to be it’s
32:19
not about
32:20
logical it’s delusional it’s unconscious
32:23
it’s it’s not about the truth they’re
32:26
not interested in the truth they’re
32:27
acting out the pain with you taking on
32:30
this role
32:31
and that helps them to deal with the
32:33
pain
32:35
so just talking them through that so
32:37
they’ll see it often doesn’t do much
32:39
good at all
32:40
it only makes you more of a scapegoat
32:44
refrain from trying to change them
32:47
you don’t want to try to change them
32:49
it’s it’s only going to frustrate you
32:52
and reinforce the scapegoat role
32:55
refrain from trying to change yourself
32:58
to change them that’s only going to
33:02
reinforce the
33:03
scapegoat role and you’re also going to
33:06
be
33:06
pretzeling and bending yourself so that
33:09
somehow
33:10
they will see you differently my hunches
33:12
their their seeing you will
33:14
shift with every pretzeling or every
33:17
change you try to make
33:19
they will counter it with still seeing
33:21
you as a scapegoat
33:24
we want to change for ourselves not
33:27
for them or to convince them that you’re
33:30
not the scapegoat or should
33:31
aren’t deserving of it get help
33:35
at seeing what your responsibility is
33:38
and their responsibility
33:39
and borrow good objectivity from other
33:42
people
33:43
we haven’t been perfect even dealing
33:45
with our imperfect family
33:47
we can take responsibility for what we
33:49
have done and we also know
33:51
where their responsibility is and we can
33:53
decide that for ourselves
33:56
and you need help to learn to decide
33:58
that
33:59
now as i mentioned go low contact or no
34:02
contact
34:03
if you’re being scapegoated so you can
34:05
get yourself straight
34:08
grieve the loss of the family you always
34:10
wanted
34:12
like the normal family you’ve always
34:14
wanted i wanna i’ve always wanted to
34:16
have a family in which i wasn’t the
34:17
scapegoat
34:19
well if you keep dreaming about that and
34:21
yearning and hoping for that
34:24
it’s only going to get dashed and dashed
34:26
and broken
34:27
and shoved down your throat and it’s
34:29
going to become more and more
34:30
problematic
34:32
so grieving that loss of having the
34:34
family that we want
34:35
can really or wanted can really help
34:39
free us inside go back
34:42
and confront and resolve the feelings
34:44
and events of the scapegoating
34:48
do journaling do feelings letter writing
34:51
where you write
34:52
your feelings to that person
34:56
work with a coach or therapist to help
34:58
you work through that
35:00
you will find a lot of freedom doing
35:02
that and deprogramming from this
35:05
cult-like trance that we’ve had in the
35:08
family
35:10
then also see scapegoating
35:13
behaviors if someone scapegoating you as
35:16
what i call
35:17
coca-cola of reality in other words when
35:20
they say
35:21
well you’re just so sensitive well you
35:24
you just never understood
35:26
you just i don’t know why you can’t be
35:27
more loving
35:29
that’s the scapegoating derision that
35:32
comes
35:33
and we begin to think of that as okay
35:35
they’re calling me a coca-cola
35:38
that doesn’t make any sense because i’m
35:40
not that
35:41
i am loving i do care
35:45
i am empathetic i do see some of the
35:47
truth
35:48
but they don’t want you to believe that
35:50
or feel that
35:52
so they’re going to say these delusional
35:54
things to you that are wrong
35:56
but think of them as them calling you a
35:58
coca-cola
36:00
and how silly it is
36:04
resist scapegoat behavior of
36:06
under-functioning
36:08
or over-functioning addictions
36:12
anger depression hurt all of these can
36:15
enhance the role
36:17
of the scapegoat people have become
36:20
mentally ill to fulfill their role as a
36:24
scapegoat i know that may sound crazy
36:27
but it
36:28
very much can be and so we want to
36:31
help ourselves get help for ourselves
36:34
and not just
36:35
settle for the negative things that we
36:38
do
36:38
or feel but get help so that we don’t
36:41
continue to fulfill that scapegoat role
36:45
lean on a circle of support
36:49
do the essential work of recovery and
36:52
self-differentiation
36:54
and this provides you with a new or
36:56
genuine self
36:57
to move forward with rather than the
36:59
scapegoat itself
37:02
uh we certainly want to let go of the
37:04
need for validation
37:06
for sure because we’re always yearning
37:08
for that validation
37:10
let go of the need for it that hey i can
37:12
let that go
37:13
i may feel abandoned i’ll have to deal
37:15
with my abandonment
37:17
but i don’t need them to validate me
37:19
because i’ve got if i’m going to wait
37:21
for that you’re gonna wait for
37:22
decades and decades and probably forever
37:25
before that would happen
37:26
because they too much need you to be the
37:29
scapegoat
37:30
they can’t validate you that would mess
37:33
up the whole
37:34
jenga game or whatever they call where
37:36
it would all come tumbling down
37:38
change figure what it’s called uh
37:41
there’s some good books you know by
37:43
jenny brown growing yourself up
37:45
margelous fieldsted fjelst
37:50
but i and john bradshaw healing the
37:53
shame that binds you
37:55
i think that’s good for scapegoat folks
37:57
because we have a lot of shame
37:59
about being scapegoated the shame all
38:02
came to us
38:04
and the problems all came to us he has a
38:06
great book on shame
38:08
there are many others you can write to
38:10
me at my youtube
38:13
at my email address also to my website
38:19
jerrywiserelationshipsystems.com
38:21
i hope you’ll click and subscribe to my
38:24
youtube channel
38:27
and i hope you’ll join me on facebook
38:28
instagram
38:30
i put up quotes on facebook quite often
38:32
that are challenging and controversial
38:34
but also
38:36
to help you think about these things
38:39
that’s what i want to do
38:41
to uh challenge people to think
38:44
about how relationships work
38:48
i appreciate you watching today i hope
38:51
you have a great day
38:53
and be wise

Overcoming the Role of Scapegoat

Are you the family scapegoat? Do you feel like you don’t belong in your family, your marriage, your workplace? Jerry Wise describes the difficult life of a scapegoat and ways we can recover and heal from years of being scapegoated. Jerry Wise Life and Relationship Coach for 40+ years is known for helping his clients and viewers respond in difficult situations with liberating responses using a family systems approach. Jerry was a pastor, priest, Bishop for several years. He also has a Masters degree in pastoral psychology. If you would like to learn how to recover from your role as a Scapegoat…contact Jerry Wise and his team.

Peter Thiel: Social Contract vs Scapegoating

if you go to the anthropological
myth of the Enlightenment it’s the myth
of the social contract so what happens
when everybody is that everybody’s
else’s throat what the Enlightenment
says is everybody in the middle of the
crisis sits down and has a nice legal
chat and draws up a social contract and
that’s maybe maybe that’s the founding
myth the central lie of the
Enlightenment if you will and what
Girard says something very different
must have happened and when everybody’s
at everybody’s throat the violence
doesn’t just resolve itself and maybe it
gets channeled against a a specific
scapegoat where the war of all against
all becomes a war can of all against one
and then somehow gets resolved but in a
in a very violent way and so I think you
know what what Girard and Schmidt or
Machiavelli or you know the
judeo-christian inspiration all have in
common is this idea that human nature is
problematic its violent it’s um you know
it’s it’s it’s it’s it’s it’s not
straightforward at all what what you do
with this on it’s not sort of simply
utopian or where we can say that
everybody’s not fundamentally good where
someone like Gerard and Schmidt very
much disagree is that Gerard believes
that once you describe this it has this
dissolving effect so scapegoating
violence only works if you don’t
understand what you’re doing and so if
we say well we have we have a crisis in
our village and we’re gonna have a
witch-hunt
so that everybody can you know get out
all their negative energy and you know
will target this one elderly woman that
only works if you don’t think of it as a
fake psychosocial thing right once you
think of it in those terms it stops to
work and so there’s sort of a there is
the sense of late modernity where this
unraveling has been for Girard an
ambiguous thing
it’s both a bad thing because they’re
these cultural institutions that were
the only way we had ever had of working
and they’re there unraveling
but it’s also inevitable we can’t
somehow put the genie back into the
bottle

 

Mimetic Desire: A Valuable Theory

You don’t have to believe in everything Peter Thiel says to take interest in René Girard’s mimetic theory, which argues that what we desire what we percieve others desire.

Mimetic Desire in Children

If 3 three-year-olds are in a room full of toys and one child grabs a toy, which toy do the other 2 children want?

The Answer: the toy the first child grabbed.

Why: They want it because the first child wants it.

This obviously leads to conflict, so there must be something more going on.

Girard’s answer is that we unconsciously redirect our conflicts to an external scapegoat, who distracts us from our immediate conflicts.

 

About René Girard: