This will not be long because the issue is so obvious, preposterous, and transparent.
Psychology Today defines “projection” as:
…the process of displacing one’s feelings onto a different person, animal, or object. The term is most commonly used to describe defensive projection—attributing one’s own unacceptable urges to another…
It is followed by an example.
But perhaps the most pertinent, timely and classic example appears in a recent piece at The Federalist.
Under the title “Kamala Harris Is Priming Democrats For Violent Resistance If Trump Wins,” John Daniel Davidson writes, “The purpose of constantly invoking the specter of a dictatorship under Trump is to condition Democrats to react violently if Harris loses.”
Whitewashing Trump’s constant dark threats about what will happen if he does not win the election and what he will do to “the enemy within” if he does win, Davidson attempts to turn the tables using the most questionable “techniques” of projection.
Davidson claims that the main purpose of accusing Trump of being an existential threat to American democracy is “to prime Democrat voters for violent resistance should Trump win in November.”
This, after insinuating — no, flat out stating — that “[t]he purpose of it isn’t just to scare voters into casting their ballot against the former president, or to provoke some unstable would-be assassin into taking a shot at Trump (although some Democrats no doubt see that as a happy by-product of this Trump-as-dictator rhetoric).”
Before wrapping up his outrageous projection, Davidson once more calumniously and baselessly claims that “[a]t least two would-be assassins have taken the Democrats’ anti-Trump rhetoric seriously [and that] Harris is hoping that many more people will do so between now and Election Day, and respond by rejecting a second Trump term — in the streets, if they must.”
And here comes the coup de grâce (or icing on the projection):
What Harris and the Democrats are doing with this line about Trump rounding up Americans and putting them in camps is preparing the ground for massive civic unrest in the event of a Trump victory. The purpose of the unrest would be to cripple Trump’s administration before he even takes office, and to disrupt normal life for so many Americans that they will rue the day they ever voted for Trump.
“It’s the hecklers veto on steroids, and it’s exactly what Harris is planning for and hoping to provoke if Trump wins,” Davidson adds.
I call this a case of “projection on steroids.”
Sigmund Freud must be rolling around in his grave.
You could not make this stuff up.
The author is a retired U.S. Air Force officer and a writer.