When those of us who are appalled at T-rex’s stomping and smashing of political structure and social decency try to comprehend T-rump and the people who love him, we are bewildered. Nothing seems to make sense. The man appears to have no conscience. The people who follow him appear to be blind or stupid or both.

Brene Brown—(If you haven’t heard of her, get on YouTube. She is an amazing, insightful researcher on emotions and well-being.)  

Her book Dare to Lead is a comprehensive overview of her work. Within those pages of sparkling insight, she hits the T-nail on the head. Here is a view of what creates a political monster followed by a wildfire of enthusiasts.

“In our political chaos, people throw around the word shame-less when they see someone make a self-serving or unethical decision and attributing unconscionable behavior to a lack of shame. This is wrong and dangerous. Shame isn't the cure; it's the cause. Don't let what looks like a bloated ego and narcissism fool you into thinking there's a lack of shame. Shame and fear are almost always driving the unethical behavior. We've now seen that shame often fuels narcissistic behavior. In fact, I define narcissism as the shame-based fear of being ordinary.”

“Grandiosity and bluster are easy to assign to an overinflated ego. It's tough to get a glimpse of the fear and lack of self-worth that are actually behind the posturing and selflessness because posturing leads to a weaponizing of hurt and turning it on other people.

“The last thing people like that need is more shame. More accountability for their behavior and lack of empathy? Yes. More shame just makes them more dangerous, gives them the opportunity to redirect attention to the shaming behavior, and weirdly can drum up support from others who are also looking for a way to discharge their pain and an enemy to blame.”

“Shame is not a compass for moral behavior. It's much more likely to drive destructive, hurtful, immoral, and self-aggrandizing behavior than it is to heal it. Why? Because where shame exists, empathy is almost always absent. That's what makes shame dangerous. The opposite of experiencing shame is experiencing empathy. The behavior that many of us find so egregious today is more about people being empathy-less,  not shame-less.”

It sounds like to truly cure him; he needs to soak in a bath of love and understanding surrounded by hugging grandmas, therapists, and cathartic bodyworkers. His followers, too. Hot tubs and therapists posing as cowboys for the whole South and midwest!

But seriously, the followers of Rump-T probably just want their views heard and acknowledged on some level instead of being negated -that’s why they yell. If we stopped fighting and started listing, we might heal the factions. For example, a concession may be that there are some states where there are no abortions. But people can easily leave the state if they want to. Perhaps there’s a bus from a protected, local Planned Parenthood clinic.

Just thoughts.

A great hippy book about this kind of drama is called The Kin of Ata Are Waiting for You. In the story, a horrible man gets trapped on an idealistic island.  The people create swirling gardens, sleep in one big room together, have healing hovels in the ground, and listen to their dreams. They are gentle and happy. He falls in love with one of them and then tries to rape her. Bad man. But the story continues about how this society deals with him. No spoilers. It’s short and worth reading.

It's a hard road to be empathetic. Brene describes empathy as not necessarily becoming entangled with another person’s feelings (sympathetic) but simply acknowledging them and understanding what they are going through.

This is a quick list of her empathy skills

1. To see the world as others see it.

     (Do I want to become one with Mr. White-bread man? Humm? What does that tobacco chew taste like?)

2. To be nonjudgemental.

      (You mean no higher-than-thou hippy rants?) (see vocab)

3. To understand another person’s feelings.

    (But what about my feelings? -this is demanding.)

4. Mindfulness.

     (It looks like we all have to become Buddhas.)

Tough order.

With Rump-a-T-dump, it will have to be an empath master. I just wish he’d get in touch with his feminine side.