If Biden is the man I'm told he is, he should praise Trump when accepting his Presidency. Not only because Trump's vote count (and electoral vote) has been incredible but, as pointed out here on another thread, he's accomplished quite a lot as President that predecessors failed to do. In this superficial world, black and white rules but a balanced and fair man would give credit where due. Unstinting (why bother to mention the bad things - he can reverse most of them). Half the electorate voted for Trump. Seem generous Joe.

I agree. I'd go a bit further and suggest that Biden pardons Trump, in the event that Trump can't pardon himself. It'd annoy the Democrat base but it would allow everyone to move on from the situation without however many years of investigations. Even if he was found guilty, half of the country would believe he had been set up and the prosecution was payback.

Trump’s entire life has been a long series of grifts going all the way back to his time at High School. Did you know he (allegedly) paid a friend to take his SATs (A-level equivalent) according to his niece. In this country most people have to work very hard to get good A-level grades just like you did. Over the years he has got his ex-lawyer Mr Cohen to legally bully and threaten his ex-schools, universities, business associates and other assorted victims into never divulging the truth about his grades, past behaviour and dubious practices. Cohen claims he did this over 500 times.

Trump’s litigation record is unmatched by any other politician or business person, coming in at over 4,000 court cases; he has even boasted about it by telling reporters he has a PhD in litigation! This continues into the present, as we witness his splatter gun approach of serving legal challenges to the election outcome in various states and counties.

Of course the visible evidence of Trump’s unpleasantness, crassness and ignorance has been served up to us in plain site on a daily basis via his rallies, Twitter posts and rude press briefings; I once heard him being described as being a morbidly selfish ignoramus on a podcast. He’s also been a very divisive President, and his only appeal seems to be that he is a TV celebrity and not a politician, who has created a cult around his own myth. When he finally leaves the Whitehouse, he will lose his immunity from prosecution and will be open to all sorts of challenges, most importantly from the IRS who he claims have been unfair to him. Perhaps the myth of him being a self-made stable genius will finally be debunked.

So if Biden is gracious towards Trump on Inauguration Day, just remember, it’s very unlikely to be sincerely reciprocated.

www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/11/09/wh...-cant-afford-to-lose

Like most of us, he has some talents and some faults. Unless we embrace the current superficiality regime, that should not allow us to go black or white. In many ways he's apparently a ghastly man. In many ways Trump has done bad things as President. But I think he's also dared to do some good things. Best of all; he was not prepared to surrender to media pressure. And he won the media war - for four years.

Mr Flintstone wrote:
I agree. I'd go a bit further and suggest that Biden pardons Trump

All my instincts go against this, but I actually do think it would be the wisest course of action in a Country horribly divided.

I wonder how many individual projections Trump’s hissy fits attract? I suspect one of the reasons for the popularity of Monster stories is that they help keep a lid on fears of ‘unacceptable’ thoughts hiding in our minds from being exposed to others. This is especially troublesome in zero tolerant times when the penalties for exposure are harsh.

Division starts within our own minds. The difficulty in recognising this source of inner division is understandable as it usually starts in early childhood. A child could pick up the disappointment of parents who wanted a boy instead of a girl or vice versa. A dirty, disapproving look from a stressed-out mother is another occasion where the mind can start to split into a conflict of fear of being unloved. The belief of being unloved could later be reinforced when a temper tantrum is met with strong disapproval. Hidden states of brokeness can be carried unknown and unexamined throughout life.

Later on, we are told that we need to get rid of any negative emotions that arise in our minds. An example of this typical way of dealing with negativity is shown on the Unicef website. While I agree with Unicef that stuck negative beliefs can be detrimental to a healthy immune system, I think it’s impossible to put a stop to the thoughts, good or bad, that constantly arise and run through our minds. All these thoughts are a part of us. Trying to blot out the unpleasant ones by banishing them from surface awareness to the deeper recesses of the mind, doesn't get rid of them. This way of dealing with them only sends them to a place inside ourselves where they can stick and fester. Stuck negative thought has great power in the long run. How often do the words: “I don’t know where that came from” appear after a sudden outburst of emotion?

There is another way of dealing with negative thoughts. This is to see and accept them for what they are - just everyday, odd thoughts that along with the positive ones, forever run through the mind. It's not necessary to tell the world about unsavoury thoughts, either. Just a quiet acknowledgement is often all that is needed to reduce the fear and their potential for destruction.

An alternative to “getting rid of our negative emotions” is “getting our emotions into a state of balance”.

www.unicef.org/northmacedonia/stories/health-yes-stigma-no

md wrote:
I wonder how many individual projections Trump’s hissy fits attract? I suspect one of the reasons for the popularity of Monster stories is that they help keep a lid on fears of ‘unacceptable’ thoughts hiding in our minds from being exposed to others.

An alternative to “getting rid of our negative emotions” is “getting our emotions into a state of balance”.

www.unicef.org/northmacedonia/stories/health-yes-stigma-no

I suspect my projections of Trump arise because he is a narcissistic, orange, bell-end; rather than my mother looked it me harshly a couple of times while
I was crayoning the walls.

But I am all for a bit of mindfulness; def can be beneficial.

Mind you, the best route to improved mental health for us all currently, would to not be under house arrest...

Like most of us, he has some talents and some faults. Unless we embrace the current superficiality regime, that should not allow us to go black or white. In many ways he's apparently a ghastly man. In many ways Trump has done bad things as President. But I think he's also dared to do some good things. Best of all; he was not prepared to surrender to media pressure. And he won the media war - for four years.
I agree. I know I have done things that I deeply regret and if I could go back and do them differently, I would.

On the whole I thought Trumps foreign policy was okay. The big mistake was killing the Iranian general. I feel this action was short-sighted and basically legitimised terrorism.

md wrote:
I wonder how many individual projections Trump’s hissy fits attract? I suspect one of the reasons for the popularity of Monster stories is that they help keep a lid on fears of ‘unacceptable’ thoughts hiding in our minds from being exposed to others. This is especially troublesome in zero tolerant times when the penalties for exposure are harsh.

Division starts within our own minds. The difficulty in recognising this source of inner division is understandable as it usually starts in early childhood. A child could pick up the disappointment of parents who wanted a boy instead of a girl or vice versa. A dirty, disapproving look from a stressed-out mother is another occasion where the mind can start to split into a conflict of fear of being unloved. The belief of being unloved could later be reinforced when a temper tantrum is met with strong disapproval. Hidden states of brokeness can be carried unknown and unexamined throughout life.

Later on, we are told that we need to get rid of any negative emotions that arise in our minds. An example of this typical way of dealing with negativity is shown on the Unicef website. While I agree with Unicef that stuck negative beliefs can be detrimental to a healthy immune system, I think it’s impossible to put a stop to the thoughts, good or bad, that constantly arise and run through our minds. All these thoughts are a part of us. Trying to blot out the unpleasant ones by banishing them from surface awareness to the deeper recesses of the mind, doesn't get rid of them. This way of dealing with them only sends them to a place inside ourselves where they can stick and fester. Stuck negative thought has great power in the long run. How often do the words: “I don’t know where that came from” appear after a sudden outburst of emotion?

There is another way of dealing with negative thoughts. This is to see and accept them for what they are - just everyday, odd thoughts that along with the positive ones, forever run through the mind. It's not necessary to tell the world about unsavoury thoughts, either. Just a quiet acknowledgement is often all that is needed to reduce the fear and their potential for destruction.

An alternative to “getting rid of our negative emotions” is “getting our emotions into a state of balance”.

www.unicef.org/northmacedonia/stories/health-yes-stigma-no

It goes against all my training, but from my observations and experience, I am actually a big fan of never speaking about certain things and just getting on with it.

I feel sorry for Trump because I think he is misjudged.

His rudeness, brutal honesty, lateral thinking and impulsiveness are, in my opinion, indicators of autism and dyslexia.

I have no explanation for the orange-ness

A lot of people were told to do the same in the immediate aftermath of WWII, Honey - to never talk about certain things to anyone and just get on with it.

Wyot wrote:
md wrote:
I wonder how many individual projections Trump’s hissy fits attract? I suspect one of the reasons for the popularity of Monster stories is that they help keep a lid on fears of ‘unacceptable’ thoughts hiding in our minds from being exposed to others.

An alternative to “getting rid of our negative emotions” is “getting our emotions into a state of balance”.

www.unicef.org/northmacedonia/stories/health-yes-stigma-no

I suspect my projections of Trump arise because he is a narcissistic, orange, bell-end; rather than my mother looked it me harshly a couple of times while
I was crayoning the walls.

But I am all for a bit of mindfulness; def can be beneficial.

Mind you, the best route to improved mental health for us all currently, would to not be under house arrest...
I don’t blame you, Wyot. Being a receptacle for the projections of others, positive or negative, large or small, must often feel like having a millstone or noose around the neck. I think JK is one of those rare exceptions as it doesn’t appear to bother him at all.

There’s nothing that unifies people more than a war against a common enemy. But it’s a false kind of unification because the divisions always reappear after the tensions subside or the open conflict ends. Then the search is on for the next enemy.