Over a century ago, Sigmund Freud, the famous psychoanalyst claimed he had discovered primitive and sexual and aggressive forces hidden deep inside the minds of all humans, warning that if those forces weren’t controlled, they would lead individuals and societies to chaos and destruction.
But what about using those same forces to control people?
Of course, it has already been done.
As I will explain, Adolf Hitler used those hidden unconscious drives to create his dictatorship of Nazi Germany and the Third Reich, and today, Donald Trump, too, is using those same primitive forces to build his presidential candidacy.
This article, though, is not about a comparison between Hitler and Trump. It is, though, about revealing how both Hitler and Trump understood those instinctual drives for sex and aggression and, used them to bring themselves to power.
In his work on crowd psychology, Freud described how the frightening irrationality inside human beings could emerge in mass groups stating that the moral center of consciousness is displaced by the larger crowd, to be replaced by a charismatic crowd leader.
Freud referred to deep ‘libidinal’ forces of desire (love) that are given up to the charismatic leader while the aggressive instincts (hate) are unleashed on those outside the group. In other words, the masses develop a love and devotion to the leader, and deep hatred and aggression towards everyone who is identified as being different, an outsider.
Hitler and the Nazis were deliberately encouraging these primitive forces because they believed they could master and control them. They appealed to the people for love of the leader, The Fuhrer & the love of Germany, and, the hatred for the outsiders – the Jews and everyone else.
Donald Trump is using the same strategy.
By using the campaign slogan, “Make America Great Again” and continually reinforcing the notion that America is losing and being killed & destroyed by so many nations and other forces, Trump is reminding people that they need rescuing and he is the guru that can save them. However, unlike the traditional guru who simply demands obedience, Trump delves deeper into the emotions of fear and powerlessness, by admonishing and appealing to the people who believe they have lost their country to China, Mexico, big business, lobbyists, politicians, the establishment, illegal immigrants, terrorists, Muslims, refugees, and anyone who is different or an outsider.
Donald Trump is constantly and successfully stimulating people’s inner desires and satiating them with his phrases, promises and emotional impulses of aggression, conquest and power in a brilliant display of harnessing and guiding the irrational forces of the masses to build his power and leadership.
Tapping into their desires, longings and fears, Donald Trump is offering the people an immediate feel good medication to ease away their pain – even though it may make no real difference in the long term. Directing the hidden forces of aggression, Trump is offering to change the relations of power – the promise to not just take back America, but rather to take back power.
By continually stimulating the irrational self, Trump is able to continue to amass power. As with the Nazi rallies, Trump is effectively harnessing the primitive animal drives and instincts at his rallies when he requests that his audience lift up their right hand and take an oath, he’s asking them to devote themselves to him, to give love to their leader and then rallying the crowds to hate the outsiders.
Although, Trump is being accused of dividing the country, he is in effect, uniting the country, in the same way that Hitler did – uniting the country to hate those people deemed to be different – a threat, the enemy. And as it happened in Nazi Germany where the people that were deemed to be a threat & enemy were people living within Germany (the Jews), so too, the threat & enemy identified by Trump are people, religions and groups living within America.
Finally, as Nazi Germany and its horrific death camps revealed, savage dangerous forces exist inside all human beings, and those forces need to be carefully controlled, not unleashed!
Anointed “The Woman Expert” by WGN Chicago, Patrick Wanis PhD is a renowned Celebrity Life Coach, Human Behavior & Relationship Expert who developed SRTT therapy (Subconscious Rapid Transformation Technique) and is teaching it to other practitioners. Wanis’ clientele ranges from celebrities and CEOs to housewives and teenagers. CNN, BBC, FOX News, MSNBC & major news outlets worldwide consult Wanis for his expert insights and analysis on sexuality, human behavior and women’s issues. Wanis is the first person ever to do hypnotherapy on national TV – on the Montel Williams show.