President Donald Trump made a shocking joke that left people in the Oval Office visibly uncomfortable on Thursday during a meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi. A reporter asked Trump why he didn't tell U.S. allies, including European and Asian countries, such as Japan, that he was pl...
Yup, this is why his accusations are always confessions. Projection is the psychological phenomenon where you refuse to see yourself as bad, so you justify your bad actions with “everyone does bad stuff like this, so it doesn’t make me bad to do them.” But when all of your interactions are colored by that “everyone does bad stuff like this” part, it means you project those bad intentions onto others and default to assuming they’re just as bad as you are. So when he’s accusing people of bad things, it is because he has projected those intentions onto them.
And Trump’s narcissism refuses to let him do any kind of soul-searching that may lead him to stop projecting. And thus, every accusation is an admission.
I’ve heard the neat phrase ‘reverse cargo cult’ in regard to such views. Applied to a group of people, though, as cults typically require.