Palin & Beck Projecting Anger Will Incite More Violence

Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, and the others or their ilk are inciting violence by projecting their anger and hate onto others. Palin's cavalier attitude about lying is obviously something she feels is acceptable, and probably so because she has projected that attitude onto others. If you assume that everyone lies, then it is okay if you do it.

I've talked here a little about projection. It is a term that is extremely important to understand in the therapeutic process, and something that counselors pay attention to as we watch for transference and counter-transference. Most of the time, it has little effect on our day to day life if we are reasonably healthy (from a mental health standpoint) and functioning well.

What many people do not understand about mental illness, is that in all cases except one,* a necessary criteria for a diagnosis of a mental health disorder, is the effect on the ability to function. An individual may have a delusion, but if the delusion does not otherwise interfere with the activities of daily living, then a diagnosis of a disorder is not appropriate.That does not mean that an individual cannot have symptoms of a mental health disorder and exhibit features that are typical of someone with poor coping skills, one of the more common being projection. It also does not mean that everyone with poor coping skills and difficulty functioning has a mental illness. It is all too easy for armchair psychologists to diagnoses those they see in the news and decide what they should or should not do. Just as we complain about the pundits making pronouncements we disagree with, it is too easy to state that those we disagree with have some sort of mental illness.

Projection occurs when you place your fears and insecurities onto someone or something else. Everything that you dislike about yourself, everything that you are afraid of,is out there. The qualities you least like about yourself are those you are most likely to react to in others. Does the saying "thou doest protest too much" ring a bell? Are you having an affair, or seriously tempted to have one? You probably feel guilty about it, which sets up a cognitive dissonance. The brain does not like dissonance. It is uncomfortable. To resolve it, it projects those feelings onto someone else, so you believe your significant other is cheating, thus making your behavior okay. Do you cheat on your taxes? Then you assume that everyone else does. Do you lie? Even "tiny" lies (and tell me, where exactly is that line)? Then so does everyone else.

We assume that everyone else is just like us, that they behave like us, that they think like us, and that they will respond like us. We also believe that if people look like us, they will like us, so we like them. People tend to like those who like them, so if you like those around you, they will most likely like you. We tend to agree with those we associate with, and conversely, people who associate with us tend to agree with us. This is called the false consensus effect. It is an interesting dynamic and one that organizers of Tea Parties and Town Hall disruptions and other similar events understand. I am certain that along with all the other experts employed by public relations firms, social psychologists hold an important place.

People who project their fears and insecurities on others, have learned to avoid responsibility and to blame others. By projecting what is wrong onto someone or something else, you do not have to deal with it. Is everything going wrong in your life? Are you having problems at work or at home? Can't get along with your neighbors? It's the governments fault, those illegal immigrants, those minorities, that fake president, or something out there. It is not your fault, so you have no responsibility to solve the problem. It is somebody else's problem to fix.

If people don't look like us, then we become confused, especially if we have no frame of reference for dealing with people that are not like we are. Our normal method of processing information is shaken, and we look around for something or someone to help us and we become vulnerable to the likes of Glenn Beck, or Sean Hannity; people who look like us and appear to have authority and talk and act as if they know what they are doing. When our locus of control is external, then we look to external sources to regain control.

Someone like Glenn Beck is projecting all of his anger and hate onto the people he blames for everything wrong with this country; President Obama and the Democrats and progressives. It does not matter what the president does, what Congress does or does not do, because they are who they are, it has to be wrong. Glenn is so full of rage and has focused that rage on President Obama, that he must generate ever more illogical "facts" to maintain the emotional momentum he is building. It still is not clear whether or not he believes what he is saying or whether or not he is in it purely for the money, but it is clear that there is an underlying hate in this man. He has incited acts of violence that have caused death. He continues to do so and laughs about causing the deaths of those he disagrees with. At this point, his motives don't matter. What matters, is that he has a national platform, a lot of followers, the support of the Republican Party, and a society with a lot of deeply disturbed people looking for directions.


Stop and think about this for a moment. He laughs about the possibility of Speaker Pelosi dying, and of his causing her death. He laughs at the thought of the President dying. He laughs at the thought of revolution. What does revolution mean? It means death, war in the street, people dying. He assumes that his followers are just like him. That they believe as he does. He opens his show and tells his viewers to "be sure to DVR this." And they do. What else will they do?

Sarah Palin is on her book tour this week. Over the weekend the AP fact checked her book and found numerous instances of out and out lies, which she referred to on her Facebook page as "opposition research." What is that? On Oprah, she accused "Obama's people" of coming to Alaska after the election and doing "opposition research" and claimed it as one of the reasons for her resignation from the governorship. Why would he? Why would he care? And again, what is "opposition research?"

On Keith Olbermann's show last night, he had great fun showing video clip after video clip side by side of lies told. One thing said a year ago and reported differently in the book. Most of them so trivial it was dumb to lie about it. Rachel Maddow had AnaMarie Cox on her show to discuss Sarah Palin's treatment of Steve Schmidt and Nicole Wallace (McCain campaign staff) in the book. Again, out and out lies easily verified through emails, video, and statements from others who had been present during the events spoken of.

But remember, in the Palinverse, just like the Beckverse, and in the world of those who are unable to cope with their own problems so project them onto others, everyone lies, so they do. All of their problems are caused by factors outside their control - in this case, President Obama - so they blame him. Sarah Palin lost the election (funny, I thought McCain did), so therefore it was the fault of everyone who worked on the campaign. The facts weren't quite interesting enough in the book, so re-write the scenes and make them fit the Palinverse. Have the truth come out? Oh well. Everyone lies. So what. That's what life is like in the Palinverse and how she wants to recreate our country.

Why should we care? Because there are many, many people in this country who are angry, scared, confused, filled with rage, hurting, and deeply disturbed. There are many, many people who have lost their jobs, their homes, their health care, and thus their medications. People who have trouble coping and who have perhaps begun to (or continued to) self-medicate themselves as a way to cope. People who watch Fox News and grasp onto anything they can as an external locus of control, any way possible to blame someone else. Glenn Beck does it. Sarah Palin does it. Rush Limbaugh, the head of the Republican Party does it. Our legislative leadership stands back and allows it and in fact, appears with them and tacitly supports them. So we are sending the message to these people that violence is the answer. We are sending the message to people who are deeply angry and deeply disturbed that violence is okay.That these powerful, important people would like for the powerful, important Democrats to be dead.

President Obama receives on average 30 death threats per day. This is a 400% increase from the average 3,000 per year that President George W. Bush received.

The people that Sarah Palin speak to, that she is trying to attract, are the people who carry guns to presidential events. When asked by Oprah what her plans were for a presidential run in 2012 were, she responded with something her father had said, "She didn't quit, she just stopped to reload." Shortly afterward, a woman called into a newspaper in Michigan and threatened "to do what they did at Fort Hood" because she didn't like an anti-tea party editorial. Carrie Prejean runs around crying about her free speech supported by Beck and Palin, and their supporters threaten the free speech of others?

AnaMarie Cox suggested last night that with this book, any political aspirations that Sarah Palin might have are over. Other political pundits disagree, saying that with a Republican party membership at about 20%, and a primary field so large, it is very possible that Sarah Palin could win the nomination. She really doesn't need that many votes to actually win the Republican primaries. Many Democrats say yay, no way could she win against Obama. But look at the progressive and Democratic anger against Obama. Are we sure? She may be a liar and a joke, but even the Joker was dangerous.

Thanks for stopping by. Come back soon.
k

* DSM-IV criteria include as a condition for a diagnosis, an impairment in the ability to function in one or more of life's major activities, except one, dysthymia, which is characterized as a low-grade, chronic depression, sort of like always having the blues, but not enough to really interfere with your day to day life. So in effect, a legitimate DSM-IV diagnosis, treatable, but does not require the criteria of functional impairment.

Glenn Beck is Projecting, and the Violence Will Escalate Because Of It

Unfortunately, it was a stunt, but he does not realize what he has done.



I can't recall a clip or quote of Glenn Beck's in which he hasn't called someone something vile. Fascist, racist (President Obama), ... or suggested that people trying to help this country were in fact trying to harm it.

It's one thing to have differences of opinion. That's fine. But Beck is either delusional or disingenuous. And by the way. It's not name calling to simply point out the truth.

When Obama legitimately won the election, Beck called for revolution. He claimed that the 2nd Amendment was under attack and incited fear to the point that 3 police officers were killed in Pittsburgh (the shooter claimed that he acted because of the ban on guns that Obama was planning, according to Beck). He stated that he hated 9/11 victim families and started a 9/12 movement (or tried). He suggested that FEMA was setting up concentration camps so President Obama (who he nightly called either socialist, Marxist, or fascist) could round up Americans in order to create his Totalitarianist society--something that he did not bother to "debunk" until weeks later. Beck joked about poisoning Speaker Pelosi, going so far as to set up a skit with a staffer in which Beck encouraged 'her' to drink poison-laced wine as he giggled at the camera. And on, and on, and on.

So he brings on this psychiatrist to help us average people learn how to handle name calling. How to deal with the stress. How to cope.

What the psychiatrist should have talked to Glenn Beck about is something called projection.

Projection is when thoughts and feelings you are unable to acknowledge about yourself are assigned to someone else. Feel guilty about cheating on your significant other? You believe they are cheating on you. Think someone doesn't like you? You don't like them. There are different forms of projection; neurotic, complementary, and complimentary.

Neurotic projection involves your projecting what you (unconsciously) least like about yourself onto others.

Complementary projection occurs when you believe that everyone thinks and believes as you do.

Complimentary projection assumes that everyone else can do things as well as you can.

This last is socially helpful as social psychology teaches us that we typically think the best of people who are most like us so if we are around people and can project that they are like us, we are more likely to like them, and thus get along (the false consensus effect). People who organize the Tea Party events and the Town Hall protests are very aware of social psychology, as are , I'm sure, the people behind Glenn Beck.

Projection is of interest to psychologists and counselors, as it prevents real connection between people and interferes with the therapeutic process. Projection tends to occur in paranoia as they project their negative attributes onto others and believe that nobody likes them. Projection enables us to turn neurotic anxiety into reality anxiety and takes our internal locus of control (a position of strength) to an external, and thus weak, locus of control.

It's much easier to be anxious of something out there than have to deal with internal neuroses and moral ambiguities. If it is the government, or immigrants, or minorities who are at fault for everything that is wrong in your life, then you have absolutely nothing to do to fix your problems. The locus of control is external. It is out of your control.

Projections makes behavior about someone else, not about you. It's not your fault, it's theirs. If you respond with violence, you're entitled to protect yourself. They're out to get you. It feeds on itself and when the Glenn Becks of the world are given a national media platform assuring you that you are absolutely correct in this view, then the paranoia deepens, the projection widens, the behavior worsens. He has validated their beliefs. By adding a psychiatrist to his show to help his listeners (and no, dealing with every person and situation as you would with a drug addict is beyond ridiculous - it's called a one-note-wonder) he validated my belief that this man is just another extreme- right-wing operative, laughing all the way to the bank.

Thanks for stopping by. Come back soon.
k