And I thought about the psychic numbing involved in strategic projections of using hydrogen bombs or nuclear weapons of any kind. And I also thought about ways in which all of us undergo what could be called the numbing of everyday life.
Robert Jay LiftonThere's an all-enveloping destructiveness in Donald Trump's character and in his psychological tendencies. But I've focused on what professionally I call solipsistic reality. Solipsistic reality means that the only reality he's capable of embracing has to do with his own self and the perception by and protection of his own self. And for a president to be so bound in this isolated solipsistic reality could not be more dangerous for the country and for the world. He's not psychotic, but I think ultimately this solipsistic reality will be the source of his removal from the presidency.
Robert Jay LiftonDonald Trump both disbelieves and believes in falsehoods, so that when he did thrive on his longstanding - the claim that Obama was not born in the United States - he's crazy like a fox in manipulating it because it gave him his political entrรฉe onto the national stage. In order to make your falsehoods powerful, you have to believe in them in some extent. And that's why we simplify things if we say that Trump either believes nothing in his falsehoods and is just manipulating us like a fox or he completely believes them.
Robert Jay LiftonTrump has a mind that in many ways is always under duress, because he's always seeking to be accepted, loved. He sees himself as constantly victimized by others and by the society, from which he sees himself as fighting back. So there's always an intensity to his destructive behavior that could contribute to his false beliefs.
Robert Jay LiftonWith the nuclear threat we know that if sufficient weapons are used, human civilization - all of humankind - could be extinguished literally by "nuclear winter." So we have to see ourselves as part of the ultimate human group, just as we have to do with global warming.
Robert Jay LiftonThere is a movement of more people recognizing global warming as a danger, recognizing the human contribution to global warming, recognizing the necessity for doing something about it. So there's a trend in that direction, and that trend is consistent with what a climate swerve - which is, as we're both saying, a mindset.
Robert Jay Lifton