Trump vs Slender Man
“There are crimes of passion and crimes of logic. The boundary between them is not clearly defined.”
― Albert Camus
Among other things, crimes and trials help to define an era. I don't mean the petty crimes that society takes for granted. No, it's the type that one watches documentaries and reads books about. Most if not every meaningful work on the decade of the 1960s in the US, for example, will include the murders of JFK, MLK, RFK, and the Manson family. No study of the 1970s can ignore the crimes of Watergate, including a former Attorney General being incarcerated and a president resigning in disgrace.
Rubin used to say to me that it is near impossible for a person to have an objective view while standing within the picture frame. Yet, today, we can be sure that the crimes of Trump and his cult add definition to our society, so much so that the manner in which they are confronted will determine the nation's future. Among the questions being asked is how can so many people who previously appeared sane worship at the altar of Trump?
To understand this, in my opinion, requires some of the other crimes of the general era. This includes trends such as increases or decreases in violent crimes, but also the outliers, the crimes that appear -- to quote Jimi -- "beyond the will of God and the grace of the king." To do so here, for example, let's consider Waukesha, Wisconsin.
There is a criminal trial that will start there on Monday, which obviously is what got me thinking about this. It involves Darrell E. Brooks, who is charged with six counts of first-degree intentional homicide and 77 other charges, for driving through a holiday parade in November of last year. In pre-trial hearings, Brooks proved himself to be psychologists Rhonda Feinberg and James Greene called "the intractable client" in their 1997 study. They noted that "people with personality disorders usually ‘dig in’ and maintain their rigid attitudes and perceptions throughout the legal process." (page 355)
Brooks is determined to represent himself in the trial. His mother has told the judge and the media that he should not be allowed to, because he is mentally ill. In the pre-trial hearings, although Brooks is clearly an obnoxious fellow seeking to turn the trial into a circus, he has not shown symptoms of a major mental illness. It's not that he is incapable of assisting an attorney, it is that he wants to pursue a defense rooted in conspiracy.
There are no studies, for obvious reaons, that document the percentage of people who represent themselves -- other than in small claims court, where one cannot be represented by an attorney -- have Cluster B personality disorders. But as a group, these people are more likely to represent themselves, with the same extremely low chances for a positive outcome. In this case, Brooks intends to put on a "Sovereign Citizen" defense. Polite society may think of them as dinks who annoy cops who pull them over for driving without a license, insurance, etc. But let's take a closer look.
The Southern Poverty Law Center says the following:
"The roots of the movement are racist and antisemitic. It was founded by William Potter Gale, former member of the John Birch Society. Potter formed a group of antigovernment Christian Identity adherents who mistrusted state and federal officials. They believed that non-white people were not human, and that Jews possessed a satanic plot to take over the world. They identified themselves as Posse Comitatus, which is Latin for “power of the county” and centers on the idea that county sheriffs are the highest governmental authority. ....
"The activities of Potter’s Posse, many of them crimes, included refusal to pay taxes, filing property liens and committing violence against public officials. These actions, which were established by Gale’s group, have become customary in today’s sovereign citizens movement.
"The contemporary sovereign belief system is based on a decades-old conspiracy theory. Sovereigns believe that the American government set up by the founding fathers, under a common-law legal system, was secretly replaced. ..... Some sovereigns believe this perfidious change occurred during the Civil War, while others blame the events of 1933, when the U.S. abandoned the gold standard. Either way, they stake their lives and livelihoods on the idea that U.S. judges and lawyers, who they believe are foreign agents, know about this hidden government takeover but argue against it, denying the sovereigns’ motions and filings out of treasonous loyalty to hidden and malevolent government forces."
https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/ideology/sovereign-citizens-movement
They start sounding like the older siblings of the Trump cult, eh? Perhaps a difference in degrees to your neighbor, co-worker, or relative that you no longer want to talk to. But close enough for me to reinforce the truth of one of Rubin's favorite Mark Twain quotes, "The problem today is not one of ignorance, but one of people knowing so much that just isn't true." How can any person believe these things, the very foundations of the gospel of the Trump cult? Might another Waukesha crime and trial provide some insight?
I'd think the May, 2014 brutal stabbing attack on a 12-year old girl just might hold some clues. She was viciously attacked by her two 12-year old friends. The two were making a sacrifice to Slender Man, a fictional character that caught the imaginations of children at the time. One of the girls in this case was clearly suffering from a major mental illness that involved a delusional disorder. She believed fully in Slender Man. The other assailant was found to suffer from a shared psychotic disorder, in this instance, about the need to make a sacrifice to Slender Man.
This is not to say that Donald Trump is Slender Man. Maybe his porky sibling. But his threat is real, because a number of people in this country share the delusions of "sovereign citizens" because their projected fears prevents their prefrontal cortex from functioning above the level of pre-teens.
= new reply since forum marked as read
Is pretty much straight up narcissism, bent to fit the "rugged individual" template.
