Umair Haque: “Have you ever
wondered why you can’t 'reason' with a Trumpist? Why a Brexiteer will simply
just ignore reality? It’s because erotomania is occurring — what psychologists
might call an ‘erotomanic transfer.’ They have bonded so strongly to
demagogues, they feel about them like they would surrogate parents — Trumpists
and Brexiteers believe, just like little children, that mommy and daddy will
always look after them, even until the end of the world. There is nothing you
can say to convince them otherwise because there is nothing that can be said at
all to convince them otherwise.
"They are operating at a level below words, at a
level of pure feelings. The pleasure of erotomania grips them in a kind of
delusional mania — and you can see it on the rapturous, ecstatic faces at Trump
or Brexit rallies: can you see the same note of fervent exhilaration I do? It’s
the look of infantile regression — when an adult has become an infant, and
feels perfectly cared by an ideal mommy and daddy again. This pattern of
collective delusion — delusions of grandeur, which feed persecution fantasies,
held in place by an unbreakable erotomanic bond with a demagogue, which
operates far below the level of the adult mind — we’ve seen it before.”
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