Who or What is Donald Trump?

Speaker A: 00:00:00

Hello and welcome to the Cognitive Engineering Podcast produced by me, Fraser McGruer, for Aleph Insights. In this series of podcasts, we take a look at interesting topics and discuss what we think they tell us about analysis and decision-making. I'm here with Nick Hare of Aleph Insights and our special guest, Susie Ballentyne, and this week we're discussing what is Trump? Nick, so lead us in. We want to talk about Trump. We want to talk about what, who, how is Trump, but also obviously with us, we've got, we're very excited, we've got a special guest with us, we've got Susie Ballentyne who we've had on the podcast before as well. Yeah, intro the topic and tell us a bit more about Susie.

Speaker B: 00:00:41

Yeah, so obviously now we're in a position where Trump has now, for now, he's gone, he's out of the picture, following a extremely intriguing sort of series of calamitous events at the end of his tenure as president. And I think now might be an interesting time, tempers have cooled a bit, to do a bit of a retrospective into the person, Donald Trump, in what I'd like to be quite a sort of non-judgmental way, really. I think there's no doubt that judging by the spilled ink, you know, he's an interesting phenomenon. I don't, so I'm not really interested in what effects he's had, whether he's been good or bad, whether he's any effective, effective as a leader. I think it's, I think I'm interested in the person and what we can learn from, you know, his rise and fall and into what, in what ways we should accommodate Trump. You know, is he, is he, is he a person or is he just a thing? Is he accidentally like that or is it calculated? Is he playing a part or, you know, is he so, if he is playing a part, is he so good at it that it's no longer a part, but the, the reality, you know, there are all these interesting questions. You're a fascinating guy. And I thought, well, who better to get on to discuss these things than Susie Ballentyne, who is a friend, both of mine and of the podcast. And listeners will remember Susie from the podcast a year or so ago to talk when she was here to talk about her work into psychological resilience. And although she's a social psychologist, I think, you know, as in the past has studied leadership for, for government. And I think it would be really interesting finding out what she thinks about Donald Trump and how, how you would characterize him. Great.

Speaker A: 00:02:21

Thanks for that introduction. Hi Susie. And so yeah, anything else that we sort of, you know, to fill us in about who you are? So essentially you're a psychologist and, and, and fill it, fill it, fill out the gaps of it for us, would you?

Speaker C: 00:02:32

So, yeah, thank you. Well, thanks very much for having me back on. It's lovely to be back here. So I'm a social psychologist. I'm not a clinical psychologist, so I'm not, I'm not here to explore theories of his psychological disorders, dysfunctions or anything else. But I agree with you, Nick. I think he's, it's fascinating in terms of a leader who has, well, in many ways, controversially been very successful going from, you know, salesman to president of the United States is quite an achievement. And I think, why not look at that journey and look at how he's done it? You might not like it. And I think it's, you might love it. You have to park your own particular emotional response to Trump to one side to have a look at how he's actually done it. And I think when you start to tease it apart, it is really interesting. And I think he is going to provide vast amounts of material for researchers and students and commentators alike for many, many years as to what exactly he did and how he did it. So, yeah, I'm a social psychologist. I do, I work independently as a coach and a researcher, and I'm a doctoral student at Sussex University where I do my research on social identity and change, primarily with refugees and asylum seekers. So that's my actual specialism. I don't spend my day job studying Trump. But I think, who hasn't spent many evenings in a pub or over a cup of tea looking at the latest headlines and wondering what on earth is Trump all about?

Speaker A: 00:03:55

Great. I'm not quite sure how to start this, how to frame the discussion, because I once worked with someone who I believe was a narcissist. OK, I can start us off talking like that. Or do you just want to wait? How do we frame this discussion? Nick or Susie, how do you want to start this? Where do we want to go?

Speaker B: 00:04:14

Well, I thought maybe just start giving Susie the chat. How would she begin to characterize? What framework would we use to characterize Trump? What's a good way of sort of describing someone's personality?

Speaker C: 00:04:26

Well, I mean, it's interesting. I think the word narcissist is coming up so quickly in the conversation, and that's definitely the label everyone springs to, isn't it? Because people are trying to make sense of this person who has these very distinct and exaggerated personality characteristics. So we tend to dive straight into the personality. We want to sort of peel away the layers of Donald Trump and get to the man on the inside. And that's where most psychologists would go, and many psychoanalysts have been interviewed about Donald Trump. But I think it's interesting to look at it not just about personality, but to look at the other things that shape him and look at the sort of narrative of his life a bit. Things that he has tried to create and construct and how he's done that and how that's led to a particular following. So there are just different lenses you can use to look at him. You can try and understand his personality and try and work out if there's sort of dysfunctional aspects there. But I think actually, it's more interesting and you could argue more useful for society to understand how does this leader work and what's his appeal and why do people follow him?

Speaker A: 00:05:33

So let's do that. First of all, you talked about the narrative. And I don't know if we're talking about a constructed narrative from Trump on his part or just laying out the facts of his life. And then perhaps go on to what you said, which was about the sort of social effects.

Speaker B: 00:05:49

Why do people follow him?

Speaker C: 00:05:50

As I say, there's a sort of a key part, and as I say, I'm not a Trump expert, but if I was to give some commentary on him, what's fascinating is that he is all about brand and marketing and communication. And so his main motivation is maintaining a construction of what he wants people to believe him to be. And has been doing that for so long and so successfully that I don't doubt for a moment that he also believes it. And so part of the sort of cumulative effect of that is he has to maintain and persuade and manipulate and distort the world around him so that it aligns with his story so far. You know, this very sort of interesting story full of half-truths and mistruths about where he's come from, where his family's come from, what his successes are. But that's the story that has shaped him. And as a result, his future decisions seem to be determined by maintaining that particular narrative, that particular line. And it's really powerful. And I think one could argue he's been quite successful at it. It's not been pleasant to watch. And I think the ramifications of it have not necessarily been good globally in terms of global politics. But he's been quite the sort of leadership theorist we call the entrepreneur of identity. He's got an identity and he sells it well.

Speaker B: 00:07:12

Yeah. But it's interesting. I mean, just to throw in a kind of interesting data point is that PolitiFact have looked at all of Trump's, the Trump scorecard, which is all of the things that he said. And three percent of them come out as true. Nine percent are mostly true. Twelve percent are half true. And the rest are mostly false, false or pants on fire. So about one in six of the things he said is totally made up. How, Susie, why is this? How is this a successful strategy? Do you know what I mean? Like, you're characterizing, he's not really concerned with the truth of what he's saying. He's saying things because they have a certain effect. Why does that work?

Speaker C: 00:07:56

Well, I think you've got to think about the yardstick you're using to measure success. And the yardstick I'm referring to is his own personal success, which is primarily his main motivation. It's about maintaining his own story. So it rings true for him and his immediate followers, not necessarily that he is successful as a leader or what one would expect from a president. And so on that basis, first of all, he has a very complex and quite a strategic sense of what truth is. He uses it to serve his own purposes. And he's not somebody who is sort of highly concerned or worried about being shamed or about the ramifications or the consequences of that sort of deceit. Many of us would be. He isn't particularly. It's not something that probably keeps him awake at night. What would keep him awake at night is the idea that somehow people aren't buying into who he is or what he's doing, or that he may lose that sense of sort of self and value that is so important to him.

Speaker A: 00:08:58

But Susie, you started talking about this and part of the narrative, and I'm intrigued as to how you get to that point where that sort of worldview and that self-perception and preserving, I think, that self-perception. How is it that you get to that point? And again, maybe thinking about I don't know if you want to talk about this, but if you think it's interesting, but what events would have shaped that sort of? I think that's what I find fascinating. How do you end up like that?

Speaker B: 00:09:27

Can I build on the question a bit, which is it just seems from an evolutionary perspective to be very maladaptive to inwardly believe things that are false. I mean, it feels like that should not be successful. It would be better to believe, to have a realistic assessment of your own ability and your own strength so that you could then play to them. But certainly from outward appearances, Trump sort of has this belief that he's more or less fantastic at everything. Now, it seems on one hand, you can say, well, look, it worked. He's the president. He was the president of the US. How much more do you want? But obviously for every Trump, there's a million secondhand car salesman who have the same personality. That's the puzzle. It's not even like we have to explain a certain kind of extreme personality disorder or personality tendency. It's that it actually seems to be it ought to be counterproductive.

Speaker C: 00:10:29

Yeah, well, I think because it works in two ways. First of all, from an evolutionary perspective, it would make sense to capitalize on your strengths and stick to the facts about who you really are, unless you are so deeply insecure about who you are and feel that you live in a world which is constantly threatening to undermine it or take it away. Then your interest is in winning. And Trump's worldview is very much one of competition. You either win or you lose, you succeed or you fail. And the most important thing is that you win. He wins. And anyone who is not him or directly related to him or interested in him presents a threat. So the motivations behind it are built on his worldview, a model of thinking about the world, which is very much a sort of warlike battle. I mean, his whole narrative strand is about being in a growing up in New York where it was sort of dog eat dog. And if you weren't at the top of that hierarchy, you were going to get eaten alive. And that sort of driven and shaped him. Some theorists argue that he has a fundamental craving for attention to the point where it doesn't matter if he's lying or is caught out by his lies. He just wants to monopolize your psychological thinking. You know, part of it is about being in people's minds, colonizing people's minds is the term that psychologist Stephen Gross used to to be in and on everyone's radar and not being on people's radar is deeply wounding and deeply demotivating. And, you know, so for him, where does that come from? Well, you know, psychoanalysts would argue that there's some childhood experiences which would suggest that, you know, you weren't given the attention you craved as a child and therefore you spend your life trying to compensate for it. I'm not a clinical psychologist. I couldn't judge whether that's the case for Trump. But actually, if you look at his background, his family seemed to be, you know, his parental relationship seemed to be, from what I've seen, fairly normal. But he had a very strong role model in his father, who was similarly this, you know, landlord going around, you know, knocking on doors to collect the rent, dealing with a lot of the stresses and strains and competition of that sort of life in the in, I guess, what would have been sort of 50s and 60s. So, you know, he his whole social influence is one of you've got to survive. So his evolutionary model isn't I'm going to play on my strengths. It's I'm going to survive regardless of the odds. And I am never going to lose.

Speaker B: 00:12:52

Yeah, it's interesting. Thinking about it in those terms, sort of thinking about it in a quite sort of primal setting or as a kind of fundamental, you know, fairly fundamental kind of drive to survive in a world of threat, to see yourself as, you know, as as quite, I guess you'd say, quite low down on the on the hierarchy of needs that your immediate well-being is being threatened and that that conditions your worldview. And one of the things that I think, you know, it seems to me we probably underestimate in the same way we don't underestimate how important heat is. We don't because we're so used to being able to have heat. We don't think about how much effort would have been expended in the past to try and get hold of fuel so that you could be warm. I think your reputation, your social reputation was something that was vastly more important when you were living in a small band of, you know, 50 people or 100 people. And I suppose the way you've described Trump's guarding of his own personal narrative and his own self-image is a sort of extreme form of being extremely protective about your social reputation. Absolutely. And in those lights, it makes sense. You know, it's a kind of it's a kind of reputational obesity, you know, the drive, the drive to consume food, which we've evolved as it expresses itself in obesity and the drive to protect your reputation manifests itself in this sort of, you know, well, Trump style, you know, grandiosity.

Speaker C: 00:14:22

And there is and there's a really and that's, you know, reputation is everything. If you're, you know, he's a salesman. So in a very, you know, he would claim to be a very successful salesman, but it is all about the construction of the image. It doesn't actually matter what the reality is. He's not terribly open to information either. So he's not someone who craves evidence bases and facts and information that really doesn't, you know, matter to him. The most important thing is that he has a consistency of message and brand throughout his life, in his work. And, you know, things that threaten that threaten him. And, you know, it was interesting after the after the sort of storming of the Capitol, when he was talking afterwards, he was talking about the reputational damage it could do. He wasn't concerned about the damage to democracy or the damage to the nation. He was he was more concerned when it's drawn to his attention that this could be a bit of a brand disaster if he doesn't think about how he's going to correct it to him, not necessarily to the party, not even necessarily to his followers, for which he's quite happy to do a sort of 180 degree turn and sort of, you know, throw them under the bus if needed. He needed to protect himself and needed to protect the Trump brand.

Speaker A: 00:15:31

That being the case, how is it then? Can you talk a little bit about someone? A lot of people, you could phrase it as sort of see through this stuff and are repelled, let's say. And yet a lot of people, this appeals, you know, what, 68 million votes, 70 million votes, however many was, I don't know, and is massively admired by a lot of people. Can we talk to that a little bit?

Speaker B: 00:15:53

was his director of comms in: 2017

Speaker C: 00:17:13

Yeah, probably the latter. I mean, I don't know what Donald Trump's traditional IQ would be, his intelligence would be. I don't think he's stupid by any means. I don't think he's dumb. I think he is somebody who probably has an average intelligence. There's no doubt about it. You're right. I don't think he's intellectually curious apart from the things that matter to him. If you look at how he takes in information, he is, you know, somebody who takes in most of his understanding about the world through bite-size, high-impact, cinematic, televised, you know, Fox News style information. He takes small digestible pieces for which there isn't much complexity or shades of gray. He's not interested in that. He wants the information, he wants the message, and he wants it quickly. So, you know, I wouldn't say he's not intelligent. I wouldn't say he's intelligent, but I'd say he's pretty skilled as a salesman. I'd say as a marketeer and a communicator, he's actually learned the trade and has used that to his own apparent success. And he's done that very well. And he's certainly come along at the time where what he espouses and the way he offers it really chimes and really has traction with certain segments of the US population and probably elements of the global population. You know, there are probably people who equally, you know, think that his style of leadership and what he's offering resonates with their own worldview. And I think a lot of that can be characterized by the similar insecurity he has and the insecurities that many people have and the fear they have of loss. And there's nothing that motivates people more than loss. So whilst most presidents are talking about an idealized future and what the country stands to gain and what more you could have, Donald Trump has been all about being the protector of further loss and make America great again implies that something you once had has been taken away. And we know from theories of relative deprivation that that is a very, very motivating message. It's something you once had, something you're entitled to is being threatened or has been taken away. And I am the one to either protect it from further erosion or I'm going to restore it. And that's really, really powerful. So his followers who hear that message and feel that in their life that is them will see him as the protector and, you know, throw in the charismatic, narcissistic, evangelical elements of the way he leads. And that's actually quite a strong and quite powerful leadership style.

Speaker B: 00:19:50

I mean, again, I'm probably asking you to speculate a bit here, but it's something that I've noticed. I mean, I think I've seen this in a few studies that narcissists are and I know we haven't really discussed whether or not Trump is. I think it seems it's certainly uncontroversial among the kind of people who write about his personality that he's a sort of classic narcissist. But that they're rated more highly as leaders, even if they're less competent than non-narcissistic or if you like leaders who have a kind of reasonable appreciation of their own abilities. That's, again, something I find strange. Why are we predisposed to follow people? Yeah. Why are we predisposed to follow people who because I mean, I don't I'm not mystified by Trump's appeal. I get it. I mean, I totally get why Trump's appealing. There's aspects of it that I quite like. But, you know, competent leadership isn't something that I would, with the best will in the world, see him as being a good, you know, a good bet.

Speaker C: 00:20:53

And again, yeah, yeah. And you're right. So I think the interesting way to look at this and traditionally we've always become a bit flummoxed about why certain people become great leaders because we got so tangled up in them as a leader, we've forgotten to ask a question about the followers. And it's actually when you look at the psychology of followership with leadership that you understand a better dynamic about what's going on. And I think that makes sense for Trump because there's a really there's a really interesting model. And I personally don't I wouldn't say that Trump is a sort of diagnosable narcissist in the sense I don't think he has a personality disorder. I think he has narcissistic tendencies and traits that in certain times come to the But there's a really interesting way to look at it, which is about collective narcissism, which is about the narcissism that exists within groups. And it's very similar characteristics to the narcissism that people talk about in individuals. It's sort of grandiose self of who they are, the sense of sort of entitlement and most importantly, the sense of threat that's being presented by others. So looking at Trump and looking at Trump's followers, they work well together because there's almost a sort of emerging collective narcissism where Trump's narcissism is a sort of a need for a mirror to reinforce his sense of self, to tell himself that he's doing a good job, to tell himself that he is great. You know, hence the tweets go out, people respond to his tweets and he reads the responses as validation that this is what people think of him. Even though he's been the one to send those messages out, he's always looking for that sort of self verification that he is what he believes the marketing message has constructed. So he's always looking for that evidence of the constructed Trump. And in his followers, there's a real need for a sort of idealized sort of leadership, a sort of like, we are okay, we are safe, we are protected, we are better than other people.

Speaker B: 00:22:48

Also, he's smashing the enemies.

Speaker C: 00:22:50

Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker B: 00:22:50

You know, he's sticking it to the Washington elites and the Republican party, the woke SJWs and all of those people.

Speaker C: 00:22:58

And so that really is driving the truck. Yeah, exactly. And, you know, some ways you were saying, how could truth be so, how could mistruth and lying be so compelling to followers? Well, you know, some really interesting communications research done in the States that was showing that, you know, when people speak thoughts that we often feel are inappropriate to say, or aren't being said, the fact that he so brazenly says these things, which often defy sort of normal social conventions about what you should say and how you should say it, makes people think that there's a credibility there. He's, he's brave enough to say it. He's saying what we're all thinking, therefore, he must be right, it must be true, it must be credible. And so people buy into that type of communication style, where he will say and do and think the things that other people might be thinking, but don't feel that they can say. So the idea that somehow he's unveiling hidden thoughts and beliefs make people think, yeah, he is, and that is true. And he is the one.

Speaker B: 00:23:52

Yeah, although, I mean, I wouldn't characterize what he says as particularly sort of informative. I don't even mean true or false. I mean, it's not, it doesn't have a lot of content.

Speaker C: 00:24:05

Well, it depends what purpose of the communication is.

Speaker B: 00:24:07

Yeah, so what I'm, I suppose what I'm saying is, it's not even that you think, well, he's saying these things that are even meaningful, you know, that bear some kind of meaning that actually suggests the world is like a certain thing. They are all, they're really sort of a certain kind of pleasing noise about things are going great, and we're going to do this together. And all of that kind of, it just, you know, a pleasant sort of bath of affirmation, rather than, rather than, yeah, I mean, because it's in, I mean, the followers, his followers are, you know, I mean, in some sense, a sort of ragtag bunch of misfits. I mean, I think they, they, they're on a spectrum of, you know, not going to be judgmental on this podcast. Well, I'm not, I mean that actually affectionately and I, because, you know, on one hand, you have these sorts of quite intellectual, quite interesting libertarians, you know, who are pro-Trumpists because they're fed up of the kind of political consensus and they don't like the sort of, you know, Democrat knee-jerk, we're going to just fix this with government programs sort of thing, right through to evangelical Christians, who Trump is about the opposite of what you'd imagine they would want to see in a leader. But it isn't about that, is it? It's not about, it doesn't, Trump is not, he does not have an ideology. There is no such thing as Trumpism.

Speaker C: 00:25:26

Thank goodness, because he would be very dangerous if he did. He really would. You know, thank goodness it's a fairly, you know, it's all about him and nothing more. Because if it was an ideology behind it, we would be in, in real trouble because that would be one half of it.

Speaker B: 00:25:38

Well, that's, that's something I was going to, I was going to ask actually is, and it does come down to that relationship between the person and the, and the followers. And, you know, a lot of certain people on the left saw in Trump this kind of specter of, of sort of fascism. I never really saw that in Trump, certainly had aspects of it. The cult of personality was there. But actually, I was sort of thought, well, there's none of the politics, you know, there's none of the ideology. There's not even really much of American patriotism. There's not a sort of desire to do anything other than look good.

Speaker C: 00:26:14

he talks about this idealized: 1950

Speaker B: 00:26:41

Even then, I think you'd be hard pressed to find statements that he's made that, that that would explicitly come close to saying. I think his followers may be hearing that, but I think, you know, it's like people have tried to pin various, you know, they're trying to sort of say, well, Trump's a racist, but it's very hard to find statements where he's being racist. You've got to kind of read it in.

Speaker C: 00:27:04

eally understand the world of: 2020

Speaker A: 00:28:40

It might be irrelevant because he's now no longer in government. But, you know, if you were another government or even looking at this on an institutional level or from a personal level, if you're dealing with someone that you feel has Trumpist tendencies, but you've got to be we all bump around the world as individuals or institutions. We want stuff. We want things to happen. We've got our desires, right? And we want stuff from other people. So if you're a government looking either an ally or an adversary looking at America, you know, a year or two ago, and you want you've got your policy aims, how on earth would you go about achieving those with someone like Trump who doesn't seem to I think what we're talking about here, one of the things that was sort of shocked everyone is that we're used to sort of people in power behaving in a certain way, and the rules didn't seem to apply anymore. So if you're a government and the rules don't apply anymore, what do you do? Or was it really that different? Yeah, should we talk to that?

Speaker C: 00:29:39

Well, I think I mean, most presidents and leaders, one would hope have an element of sort of humanitarianism about them, where they they care deeply about the people of their country. And I think the difficult thing for Trump is that if you were to look at him in personality terms, some psychologists have speculated that he's incredibly low on what's called agreeableness as a personality trait, the natural sort of compassion and the warmth to get on with people, not to satisfy your own needs, but to sort of have harmonious relationships is not something that is of concern to him. He is a salesman, and he works in a transactional world. You know, even the evangelicals, there was a great quote from him talking about, you know, the evangelical advisers that he's brought into the White House give him so much, but he said, but then I've given you loads. So we're equal. You know, everything's seen as a transaction of what can you do for me and what can I do for you? So unless you're operating to that model, you're not going to have much traction with him. And I think where people have had any constructive relationships with him, it's where they've adopted it in a more of a boardroom style of I will do this for you and you can do this for me. But that's, you know, that's a very difficult, I mean, that will get you so far, but it won't get you much further. And, you know, as our former ambassador in Washington, Kim Darroch said, you know, this is a guy who is radiating insecurity. So you're not just dealing with the sort of business CEO style Trump, you're dealing with someone who is constantly surveilling their environment for threats. And if you're seen as one of them, he just wants to remove you, not do business with you. And I think that can make it a very, very difficult political terrain to try and navigate.

Speaker A: 00:31:17

So, I mean, in summary, that sounds like a very difficult previous four years for other governments, let's say.

Speaker C: 00:31:24

Oh, I imagine horrendous. Well, maybe unless you're Bolsonaro or somebody who probably understands that world view a bit more.

Speaker B: 00:31:31

Right. Yeah, I mean, the thing is that I think even, I must say that even sort of centrist commentators, I don't think people think that Trump has made lots of terrible errors. I mean, it's not, I think, you know, individuals who might be looking at some aspect of his policy towards, you know, particular countries might be able to reel off loads of terrible things that have gone wrong. But in general, I mean, he hasn't led America to war, you know, he hasn't presided over the complete collapse of society. It's, you know, I mean, he possibly hasn't really done very much, but I think certainly in terms of foreign policy, it's not like people, there isn't a consensus that he's totally destroyed everything. I think it's quite interesting. I mean, it might be that, you know, if he's, other authoritarians might quite like it dealing with someone like that. Well, I mean, in a sense, like you might feel like you know where you are more so than when you're dealing with someone who's very sort of consensual and wants to get, you know, isn't going to tell it like it is. And can you really trust, you know, someone like, you know, a well developed politician who's good at saying what you want to hear? Well, Trump isn't going to say what you want to hear, he's going to say what he wants

Speaker C: 00:32:50

to hear.

Speaker B: 00:32:50

It's easier to deal with.

Speaker C: 00:32:52

Well, I think part of the issue has been the fact that Trump isn't terribly interested in foreign policy. You know, his focus is on the domestic agenda. And I think if you're looking at whether he has done much damage or whether he's done much that's been not great as a political leader, it would be very different whether you're measuring that domestically in terms of, you know, some of the sort of creeping negative influence over things like, you know, abortion rights or immigration, where I think people would say he's actually done a lot of damage on the domestic agenda, which, you know, Biden has quickly gone in with some executive orders to try and correct. Things like global warming and environmental issues where he withdrew from the Paris Accord, you know, those sorts of things. I mean, the impact for some of those things weren't immediate. You know, it wasn't like he did, you know, declare sort of a war in the Middle East in any way. But I think some of the decisions he took, had he been left to realise some of those ambitions could have been really disastrous globally. But I think some of the things he's done domestically, insidious intergroup conflict, you know, especially in his response to the murder of George Floyd and his response to the Black Lives Matter, I think has been hugely damaging. I mean, there's no doubt about it. The cracks and the polarisation was there, but he has done nothing to try and harmonise that and everything to exacerbate it. And I think for that reason, his behaviour has been pretty disastrous and will take a long time to try and, you know, get back to where we were four years ago.

Speaker B: 00:34:24

It's interesting because this is, I actually sort of think in a way that something like Trump had to happen for that reason, in a way. I mean, I see it's almost like out of the collective unconscious comes this kind of trickster archetype at the exact moment you sort of need something like that. Because as you say, this polarisation has been growing for at least 10, 15 years. And I don't want to argue about who started it. I wouldn't say it's that kind of thing, really. But this kind of cultural divide, I mean, and it's not like it can't be Trump because we've had an almost identical sort of divide here, you know, since, well, before and during the whole Brexit referendum. And I think our existing, if you like, political frameworks can't accommodate this divide. And in a way, I feel like something like Trump has to come along, smash things up so that they can reform in a way that is more suited to what this new situation is. So I think, you know, yeah. So it's like our two political parties both have the same sorts of divisions going on. We don't have a means, there's no forum to have that debate because the frameworks we have don't accommodate it properly. They're not divided up in the right way. I mean, I know this all sounds a bit abstract if you, I mean, people who hate Trump are not going to see it in those terms. But I think there is a sense in which, you know, there was, if he hadn't happened now, he would have, we would have been storing up possibly an even worse Trump in five, ten years time.

Speaker C: 00:35:59

You could argue that it's a shot across the bow. I mean, it's been an unpleasant shot across the bow in my personal opinion. But it could have been a lot worse. And for that reason, he does show you what the possibility, you know, democracy is a very fragile thing. And I think it goes to show how easily that can be threatened. And that's a that's a cautionary tale that we should all heed.

Speaker A: 00:36:21

And that almost sounds like a conclusion in itself. So which is what I was going to say. We need to draw to a conclusion fairly shortly. Is there anything we want to round this off on? Is there anything we want to?

Speaker B: 00:36:33

Well, I was going to ask Susie now, what the best thing, what should what should Biden do about Trump? What does Trump want Biden to do? What should Biden do? What's the best thing to do to deal? He's going to cast a long shadow, isn't he?

Speaker C: 00:36:50

Yeah, he is. I mean, it's interesting, isn't it? Because there's sort of two camps on this. One is which, you know, keep chasing Trump down and hold him account to every unlawful and incendiary thing he's ever done, you know, impeach him, you know, and make him accountable. And I think the Biden view is maybe, you know, maybe because he is more of a sort of compassionate humanitarian, which is we just need to start bringing people together again. And actually, you know, if you if you look at the sort of wisdom of the psychologist Stephen Gross, he's like, look, Trump wants our attention. He's like a sort of in some ways a petulant child who is is always going to crave our attention. The best thing we can do is walk away from it is sort of, you know, remove our own slightly hooked obsession about Trump and fascination about him and not give him our mental bandwidth and focus on the really important things rather than letting him just take up all the airtime and all of our thinking capacity and move on to more important issues.

Speaker B: 00:37:47

So, you know, that what you said reminds me of how what a mature way to respond to a marital debate is, you know, if one side has a huge outburst because something's been building up for ages and they're really pissed off and it comes out in the form of some moaning about the way that someone loads the dishwasher and you have this massive blazing row. The best thing is at some point is not to keep trying to win that row. The best thing is to work out what can we do about what's really causing this issue and to talk about compassion. And I feel like Trump is this, Trump is the row. Trump is the blazing row that, you know, that the people who feel like they are not being listened to have now said their piece in a way. Yeah.

Speaker C: 00:38:26

And he wants to, you know, for Trump, you know, he won't, whatever Biden's decision is and however, you know, the US handle the legacy of Trump. Trump will not let this go. You know, he will be unrelenting in his tenacity to persuade himself and other people that he did not lose and that's an uncomfortable and inconvenient truth for him. But he doesn't care about the truth. So he'll carry on.

Speaker A: 00:38:52

But also he's, I mean, think about this from a social point of view as a social psychologist got this, all these people who voted for him and we talked about his audience, his followers and why they feel like that. Presumably, you know, they're going to be left feeling bereft and hard done by themselves and much in a similar way to Trump maybe. And maybe the answer is still the same as you said is we've just got to sort of let it go and let it sort of, you know, rather than argue it out and, you know, and prosecute Trump so that it died down, not just for him, but for them as well.

Speaker C: 00:39:26

Yeah. I mean, there's sort of two sides to that as well, because on the one hand, you know, you want to lead by example and there's an element where you've got to say, do you just let people like Trump come in, trample over the country for four years, that's your view and then get away with it? Because what sort of role modelling is that? You know, and so actually what we need to do is show our levers of power and law and order working to bring people to account because we would do that for anybody else. So why would he get away with it? Because that will only just feed into his sense of sort of being, you know, anointed as being somehow superhuman and special. But then on the other hand, is it really about Trump or is it really about the people and focusing more on bringing some unity and some understanding? And, you know, there'll be a lot of Trump supporters who are really, really fearful that he has gone because they did believe that he was some, you know, bouncer, gatekeeper to their country that is going to keep their country safe. And Biden's job is to bring those people on side and build some faith that he can provide them with better, more robust, long term protection in a more meaningful way than Trump ever could. And Biden's focus is actually on the people, not on the personality that sits in the Oval Office.

Speaker A: 00:40:45

Brilliant. I really enjoyed that. I really enjoyed that. I did. It's fascinating. What I always like when we have a guest is, and with no disrespect to Nick or the others, is to varying degrees, we just talk about stuff and have not really much idea what we're talking about. So that's why it's so nice to have a guest, Susie, who knows what they're talking about. Who knows what they're talking about. So definitely, if nothing else, I enjoyed it. We'll stop there. Please email us at podcast at alephinsights.com if you've got any comments on this show or indeed any others. And we always like to hear from you for any suggestions for topics. Also, if you like this podcast, if you enjoyed it, please leave a review wherever you listen to your podcast as it helps others to find us. And apart from that, just to say thank you so much. So I'm Fraser McGruer. We've been here with Nick Hare of Aleph Insights. But our special guest this week, Susie Ballentyne. Thank you so much for being with us. Really, really enjoyed it. Absolutely. Thanks for having me. And until next time, goodbye.