"Old and quite weird": Democrats finally discover new effective attack — and Republicans hate it
"Old and quite weird": Democrats finally discover new effective attack — and Republicans hate it
After nearly a decade of being forced to take Trump seriously, Democrats increasingly call BS on the whole charade.
After nearly a decade of being forced to take Trump seriously, Democrats increasingly call BS on the whole charade
Sure, Donald Trump is a threat to democracy — a would-be dictator on day one who has called for terminating the U.S. Constitution so he can hold onto power even after losing a free and fair election. But while draped in the rhetoric of populism, Trump and his MAGA movement are not actually popular; the man himself has never won more votes than the person he ran against, a majority of Americans twice rejecting him and his off-putting cult of personality. That he was ever president is more or less because a few thousand swing voters in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania thought it would be fun.
President Joe Biden won in 2020 largely by promising to a return to normalcy and baseline competency. In 2024, Democrats are making a similar argument but more forcibly: They’re pointing, laughing and dismissing Trump and his circus as a total freak show to which we can’t return.
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The reason it works is because there is no refuting it other than, "Nah uh!" It's almost the equivalent to repeating someone's argument back to them in a tone to sound stupid. HOWEVER, this tactic works when arguing with a kindergartner, so it works here too.
It's also a primal fear for narcissistic men to be called 'weird' or 'creepy' by attractive women.
Actually narcissistic people don't care about that, because narcissistic people aren't sexually attracted to anyone. Narcissus rejected everyone who made moves on him. That's why, at 16, he was put to death by the gods for not loving anyone.
Narcissism is not a sexual orientation. You can be a narcissistic asexual. But being a narcissist does not mean you dont experience sexual attraction in the colloquial form of the word.
I think they read the story of Narcissis and assumed that narcissism is a one to one translation of meaning.
amazingly confident in incorrectness.
Narcissus wasn't put to death. His own self-absorption killed him.
Some one, therefore, who had been despised by him, lifting up his hands towards heaven, said, “Thus, though he should love, let him not enjoy what he loves!” Rhamnusia74 assented to a prayer so reasonable. There was a clear spring, like silver, with its unsullied waters, which neither shepherds, nor she-goats feeding on the mountains, nor any other cattle, had touched; which neither bird nor wild beast had disturbed, nor bough falling from a tree. There was grass around it, which the neighboring water nourished, and a wood, that suffered the stream to become warm with no rays of the sun. Here the youth, fatigued both with the labor of hunting and the 104 III. 413-445 heat, lay down, attracted by the appearance of the spot, and the spring; and, while he was endeavoring to quench his thirst, another thirst grew upon him.
Rhamnusia made him fall in love with his reflection. It's right there in the text.
Like others here, I gotta say it’s super weird that this comment is focused on Narcissus the character’s specific death rather than the actual disorder. It’s like getting caught up on Oedipus’s platonic relationships. The disorder references the character but does not demand that every detail of the story is relevant.
NPD is diagnostically defined in the DSM-5 (APA 2013; pages 669-672) as a pervasive pattern of grandiosity, need for admiration, and lack of empathy, with interpersonal entitlement, exploitiveness, arrogance, and envy. Five out of nine of these criteria need to be present to meet the diagnosis of NPD.
(The nine can be found online from many sources. None mentions sexuality.)
There’s good reading on sexual selfishness or sexually addictive behavior from narcissists. One from the American Journal of Psychiatry, emphasis mine:
In addition to the grandiose and vulnerable subtypes, there is a healthier group of individuals with narcissistic personality disorder, described as “high-functioning,” “exhibitionistic,” or “autonomous.” These individuals, illustrated by Mr. A, are grandiose, competitive, attention seeking, and sexually provocative, while demonstrating adaptive functioning and using their narcissistic traits to succeed.
For a more contemporary comparison, it’s like seeing the trope of the Starscream and insisting that for the archetype to fit, they must be disintegrated by the guy they backstabbed reborn and renamed. The disorder is named after the self obsessive behavior, not the less important particulars.
Naming an ego disorder after Narcissus is ridiculous. The boy's core character trait was his lack of interest in relationships with other people. The self-obsession isn't his character trait, it's a punishment inflicted on him by the gods. It would be better to call it Nemesism. Nemesis is the god who inflicted the self-obsession. If you're talking about Narcissus, the asexuality is why he was killed. The asexuality is the trait the Greeks saw as evil.
I mean maybe, but I assume that by the time it was named, people mainly remembered the staring at oneself until death thing. The story is old enough that it’s been simplified many times, I’ve heard it more without the curse bit than with. The authors aren’t really around to correct the record.
I’m curious, were you more familiar with the particulars of the story than the actual disorder, and just applied it? I’m confused about the point of the orignal comment. It feels like you’re more interested in Greek myths than the actual discussion that was happening.
Which is fine— there’s a place for that, even if that wasn’t the way to introduce the subject. I’d have been (and really, still am) interested in other not-entirely-faithful myth inspired names. But by beginning with an inaccurate take on the contemporary term narcissist, it mostly just led to confusion.
I was extending the benefit of the doubt. If we're all speaking Greek, and disagree on whether Trump is asexual, well that's a very weird conversation to have but it could result without malice. However, if someone is throwing around ableist slurs and saying Trump's evil is the result of neurodivergence, then they deserve to be punched in the face.
I guess I just don’t see the relevance of sexuality when no one uses “narcissist” to indicate that. Seems like a complete non sequitur and didn’t yield any results?
Get out of my brain.
I was literally just wondering why it's so effective and I think it's this.
Most liberal "insults" are draped in facts and figures, to the point that Republicans just close their ears and say AlTeRnAtIvE fAcTs.
I think the simplicity, and it's fact-less insult cuts through their reasoning brains (which there wasn't much of) and hits them in the emotional centers.
I mean....it took Democrats 6 years to figure this out?
Better late than never but happy we're finally hitting below the belt.
Democrats finally learn how stupid undecided voters are
Democrats need to meet people where they are. Most people want to be manipulated and told what to think and do.
Honestly, that's how are brains are wired. The group is more important than the truth.
There is no reasoning, it's just emotion and identity. This hits both.
That might be part of it, but the Republicans tried a similar attack against Biden and it mostly didn't land. It only works when it's true in the sense that the average person genuinely finds the position or behavior in question disturbing.
queue up the Faith No More song Kindergarten
Eggs. They're not weird.