Projection

If you have not heard the psychological term projection, you may want to look it up. Essentially, it is seeing in others what is actually in yourself—in your thoughts, actions, intentions. You see it in others when it is not there, but you fail to see it in yourself.

Let’s look at a couple of examples.

Example 1: The Impeachment Acquittal

President Trump, after second impeachment acquittal
photo: Oliver Contreras/Sipa/Bloomberg via Getty images, found here

This past Saturday former President Trump was acquitted in the impeachment trial. The prosecution spent two days last week drumming up emotional reaction to the violence that took place at the capitol on January 6th.

In an actual court of law, the defense would stipulate that the violence took place; showing evidence of it serves only to be “prejudicial rather than probative,[i]” so that would be inadmissible. Also inadmissible would be hearsay evidence, such as “I heard someone say that they heard Trump say….” The prosecution would have been required to depose the actual person who heard the actual statement.

In other words, while it is clear that violence took place, the prosecution showed zero evidence that the President incited it.

What they tried to do was claim it was his consistent horrible rhetoric that led to the violence. They speak of that as a given. But they don’t provide evidence of any rhetoric by President Trump actually calling for violence.

During the 2 ½ hours of defense presentation, the President’s lawyers also showed a video montage—of Democrats, many among those in that room—using the word “fight” as political rhetoric. (Here: It starts at the 20-minute mark and goes on for 11 ½ minutes.) Beyond that, many of them used actual calls for violence, and encouraged the violence that happened over the summer. Much of it was closer to incitement than anything President Trump said during his rally speech—or in any other speech.

That video montage of Democrats calling for fighting was instructive. The defense team didn’t claim those Democrats should all be prosecuted or impeached; they agreed that this was just political rhetoric. And political rhetoric actually has a heightened First Amendment protection, not lessened.

There was, in fact, plenty of evidence that the President didn’t incite the attack. He had sought only legal means regarding the voter fraud, and he reminded listeners that we are the party of law and order. I will add that he certainly had no motivation to disrupt the proceedings that were about to show the evidence of voter fraud that hadn’t been seen by a large portion of the public; that disruption was exactly opposite of what he called people to the rally to support.

The prosecution was embarrassed by the the presentation of the defense. Rather than going straight to a Senate vote, they spent time Saturday trying to call witnesses—after the trial. That is never done. You don’t get to closing arguments and suddenly say, “Oh, by the way, we want to call additional witnesses after all.” It’s too late for that.

In response, the defense said they were willing if they were also allowed to call witnesses—because they had been deprived of that during both the House and Senate parts of the process. Maybe they’d start with Nancy Pelosi, to learn what she knew ahead of time of possible danger to the capitol, and to have her explain why she refused additional protection to be brought in. Because there was, in fact, growing evidence that the attack was planned and had no connection to President Trump, and that Pelosi and others knew that in advance but wanted an opportunity to blame Trump.

The prosecution quickly backed off and settled for one statement to be read in; it was a second or third-hand account of something someone said they heard the President say—which, again, would not have been admissible in an actual court of law.

The vote went as expected—except that one of the Republicans who had voted that they didn’t have jurisdiction, looked at the prosecution, which was totally lacking in evidence but full of emotion, and voted to convict President Trump on incitement to insurrection. Still, unlike in a court with an actual jury, where consensus is required, this Senate jury fell ten short of a required two-thirds majority.

Defense attorney, Michael Van der Veen, in his closing statement, pointed out that it wasn’t justice that was driving the impeachment, and he offered four grounds for acquittal:

We heard one of the congressmen on the screen: “If you don’t impeach him, he might be elected again.” That’s the fear. That’s what’s driving this impeachment.

When you deliberate over your decision, there are four distinct grounds under which you must acquit my client.

(1)    First, there’s jurisdiction. There is no jurisdiction. And if you believe that, you still get to say it.

(2)  Two, rule 23: It had to be divisible. Each allegation had to be singularly set out in front of you, so it could be voted on and see if two-thirds of you think that they proved that case or not. They didn’t do that. You’ve got to ask yourself why. They know the Senate rules. They got them, and so did I. Why’d they do it? Because they hadn’t investigated, first of all. But also, what they found out, as they were preparing all of this, is they couldn’t do it. So, if they threw as much in as they could, and made as many bold, bald allegations as they could, then maybe two-thirds of you would fall for it. That’s why the rules don’t allow it to go that way.

(3)  Due process. I’ve exhausted that subject. It’s a really good reason for all of you—all of you in this chamber—to stop the politics, to read the Constitution and apply it to this proceeding, and acknowledge that the lack of due process—way over the top. Shocking. And you must not stand for it.

(4)  And, of course, the First Amendment, the actual facts of this case. There were no words of incitement.

Swalwell showed media the tweets presented as evidence.
He misunderstood the word Calvary. The blue check mark
was added; also, at this point, they had the wrong year,
meaning they were recreations, not screenshots.
This screenshot from here.

By the way, on that third one, due process, did you hear that the prosecution had doctored evidence?
Defense attorney David Schoen offered multiple examples. One was a tweet sent out by a woman saying they were bringing the Calvary, which House Manager Swalwell misread as “cavalry,” or armed warriors on horses, when it really meant followers of Christ, who died on a hill named Calvary. Besides the misreading, the tweet as presented as evidence had a check mark showing the sender as verified as a public figure, meaning she had a large influence—a mark she does not have on her account, meaning it wasn’t a screenshot of the original tweet and could not be offered as evidence. In a real court of law, a single doctored piece of evidence is sufficient to have the case dismissed. 

Enough about that process. It was political theater with a known outcome beforehand—like seeing yet another movie portrayal of Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express when you’ve read the book and seen previous movies. You know how it’s going to turn out.

But let’s add one more irony.

The attorney, Mr. Van der Veen, had his home graffitied, and his family and law practice threatened and attacked. People who are outraged about the capitol are pretty sanguine about threats and attacks on individuals. These miscreants called the attorney a traitor—in spray paint on his driveway—for providing a defense against the fact-free impeachment. And it doesn’t seem to occur to them that, if you have to intimidate a defense lawyer, you might be a much bigger threat to America than President Trump ever was.

Projection. They see Trump as bad, because they are bad, likely doing the very things they accuse him of.

This may not be exactly related to projection, but Candace Owens sums up their thinking, implying, yes, indeed, it is mental illness.

image found here

 

Example 2: Harris County Election Law Crime

There’s a case of voter fraud here in Harris County that we’re looking at right now. Actually there are many, but this one seems like it ought to be a slam dunk.

On October 14, 2020, a Republican poll watcher was denied access to observe the Signature Verification Committee’s work, related to ballots by mail. The presiding judge for that process was Rob Icsezen. He didn’t just deny her access. He wrote on her poll watcher certificate that poll watchers are not allowed to observe the work of that committee—and then he signed his statement.

The poll watcher appealed to Mr. Michael Winn, the Director of Elections for the Harris County Clerk; he refused to correct the situation. Members of the Early Voting Ballot Board witness the above and have signed affidavits saying so. The poll watcher then appealed to Mr. Keith Ingram of the Election Division of the Secretary of State’s office, who verified that poll watchers can observe the Signature Verification Committee’s work. In other words, Mr. Icsezen’s denial of access to poll watchers was illegal.

All of the signed affidavits related to the case were presented to the Office of the Attorney General that week. AG Ken Paxton’s office then sent its own investigators to Harris County to re-interview each witness, re-creating the affidavits. It is now February, and the Republican AG’s office has yet to take action on this case that was placed in their laps.

Many of us are contacting the AG’s office to encourage them to act. [If you’re in Texas and take an interest, here’s an action plan.] It may seem like a small thing, but if we don’t act on the known crime, it continues. At the very least, this presiding judge should be prevented from working an election again.

What got my attention, as I was learning about this case, was a memo this partisan PJ sent out the week before he committed that crime. In part, he urged voters to vote Democrat all the way down the ticket and explained why:

Even if the worst human of our generation, whose putrid vile will stain the top of our ticket, even if he loses this election, 60+ million Americans will have voted for him. [actually closer to 74-79 million]. And they’ll still be here when he is gone.

Let that sink in a moment. He is saying that Donald J. Trump is the worst human of our generation. Worse than Xi Jinping. Worse than Kim Jong-un. Worse than Jeffrey Epstein, who sex-trafficked children. Worse than Osama bin Laden. Worse than the guy who mass murdered people at a music concert in Las Vegas. Worse than the Boston Marathon bombers. Worse than drug cartels or violent gangs.

Because of his tweets. Which are supposedly worse than referring to people as “putrid vile” who “will stain the top of” a ballot just by having their name there.

image of Robert Icsezen post
from Oct. 6, 2020, from here 

I don’t want to defend rude tweets. But I keep waiting for someone to share at least one that is truly vile, or racist, or some other epithet they keep throwing around about President Trump. His account was taken down by Twitter, but someone archived it, here.  If you have time, please comb through them and find something worse than what this man just said about Donald Trump. Then we have a fact to converse on.

Here’s a bit more of what Icsezen says—about us voters:

The only principle that guides the GOPklan, is power. They have shown this repeatedly, trampling laws and norms without hesitation. It’s OK in GOPland to be an awful person unbound by any sense of community or consistency, so long as you get those judges in, deregulate big business and keep those black and brown people away from the polls and in cages.

That’s projection.

The Dems have used every lever they can find to increase and hold their power. Look at the censorship we’re dealing with. Look at the attempts to change voting laws going forward to facilitate fraud. Look at the insistence on taking away the people’s means of self-defense. Look at their plans to “pack the Senate” by adding DC as a state, and maybe also Puerto Rico and Guam, and to “pack the court” by adding whatever number to the Supreme Court they want in order to secure the outcome they want. They want to make sure their power is never again challenged, even if they must use Communist Chinese methods of monitoring, and threatening that those who disagree may not buy, sell, or make a living.

But somehow Trump’s smaller government, non-authoritarian actions over four years were pure power hunger?

And “trampling laws”? You mean like that refusal to allow observation by poll watchers to assure a free and fair election? What laws is he referring to?—since neither the first nor second impeachment of the President involved an actual accusation of a crime, because they couldn’t find one.

We could deal with each point. But, do Republicans keep black and brown people from the polls? No. We want free and fair elections for all. And, this election, that meant more black and brown people voting Republican than ever, mainly because their economic and social situations improved under Trump in ways that Democrat promises had never actually provided. Because, if it’s about power—as it arguably is for Democrats, at least their leadership—you want to keep people dependent. On the plantation, you might say. While we’re mentioning that, the actual Klan was and always has been affiliated with the Democrat Party.

And those cages? The photos you’ve seen are most likely from 2014, under Obama, when they were constructed. Or they might be people in the Middle East, not even the right part of the world. But lying is apparently the Democrat comfort zone.

The policy of separating children temporarily from parents has a specific purpose: to protect children from trafficking. It needed to be determined that the children belonged to the adults claiming them. If that could be determined, then they could consider a detention arrangement with parents reunited with children. The Democrats didn’t question Obama on it. But with Trump, they’re willing to throw children to traffickers for the chance to create a visual that makes Trump look bad.

In other words, everything this guy says about President Trump is a lie. And he is pasting the lies onto every Trump voter.

Icsezen, the guy who broke the law to facilitate a fraudulent signature verification process, says, “All Republicans are guilty.” Ironically, with much tone-deafness and lack of self-awareness, he adds,

They must be taught a lesson: that truth matters, facts matter, consistency matters, principles matter, decency matters.

I know when we’ve worked elections along with well-meaning Democrats, and they see that we run a free and fair election, which is what they want too, we have no difficulties with them. It is that connection to law that gives us civilization together.

When someone flouts the law and gets away with it, that civil connection breaks down. It’s like in a crime-ridden neighborhood. Once law enforcement starts taking care of the relatively small window breaking and petty theft, they get a lot less of the assault, burglary, rape, and murder. Criminals come to expect that the law will be enforced.

We need that restoration of law enforcement.

 

But those doing that crazy projection? How do you fix that sort of crazy? I don’t know. How do we function together in a society with people who cannot see those who believe differently as human, and cannot see the lack of human decency in themselves? Maybe we need a whole lot of clinical psychologists who specialize in dealing with projection.

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[i] I got the legal language from a Robert Gruler podcast.