It's called "mirror propaganda": accusing others of doing what you are doing (or want to do).
"Projection" isn't exactly the right term, as projection is a psychological defense mechanism. In the spirit of Jen's wonderful precision with language, let's boost the correct term: Mirror propaganda.
I've never liked the use of the term "projection" to explain Trump. I always thought it implies its subconscious, and not deliberate. Thanks for highlighting that it is propaganda, whether we add "mirror" to that or not.
“Propaganda by its very nature is an enterprise for perverting the significance of events and insinuating false intentions. There are two salient aspects of this fact. First of all, the propagandist must insist on the purity of his own intentions and, at the same time, hurl accusations at his enemy. But the accusation is never made haphazardly or groundlessly. The propagandist will not accuse the enemy of just any misdeed; he will accuse him of the very intention that he himself has and of trying to commit the very crime that he himself is about to commit. He who wants to provoke a war not only proclaims his own peaceful intentions but also accuses the other party of provocation. He who uses concentration camps accuses his neighbor of doing so. He who intends to establish a dictatorship always insists that his adversaries are bent on dictatorship. The accusation aimed at the other’s intention clearly reveals the intention of the accuser. But the public cannot see this because the revelation is interwoven with facts.” Jacques Ellul, Propaganda: The Formation of Men’s Attitudes (1965) p. 58
“Every accusation is a confession”. I like this one. Let's start a Confession Tracker page, where every daily accusation is listed and the confession details are highlighted.
Yes! Stop The Steal (he thinks he can hide what he is doing - trying to steal the election) and Musk is in on this too, “major corruption” while winding up government
oversight on his enterprises. What could that possibly mean? /S
Today, nearly 200 former ambassadors, diplomats, national security officials, State Department and USAID officers (myself one of them), Peace Corps directors, Department of Agriculture officers, and distinguished former high-ranking military offices all signed a letter delivered to the Speaker of the House, Minority Leader Jeffries, Senate Majority Leader Thune and Minority Leader Schumer, asking them to do all in their power to rescind every executive orders stemming from the Trump-Musk freeze of the small US foreign assistance program and accompanying dismantling of USAID, which is already causing havoc and disaster in multiple countries overseas.
I would post the letter here but it's 17 pages long with signatories, and I don't know how to do that anyway. It has gone to various press outlets. Thanks for your support both for America's 'soft power' and its vital link to tens of millions in other countries.
I need to look at my emotional reactions in the light of the biochemistry of fear: fight, flight, faint, freeze and tonic immobility. We all have degrees of this response and extreme fear evokes tonic immobility..the inability to fight. I feel like that sometimes. I need some hope. I was very hopeful at first. But I see all of GOP caving in....probably due to President Musk's broad reach...who knows, he could be threatening their families. I am also disheartened by some of my fellow Americans response to the Musk takeover. They actually like it. It's just weird. Russia disinformation won them over. I am sick about our country. So sad. But then sometimes I feel ok. Just writing this out has helped. Joining with people helps. I need to go to a good march. Someone PLEASE sponsor a good Million Person March on DC!
You're not alone, Kathy. Everyone I know is going through the same processes. Try to remember, though, something Pete Buttigieg recently posted: "we are not powerless and they are not competent." That gives me some real hope.
I agree with you Kathy. You can check out http://mobilize.us where they are posting places, dates and times marches are taking place around the country, along with other ideas on how to put pressure on the legislators. Good luck.
The State Department announced the purchase of armored Tesla vehicles, then mysteriously the document was later edited to remove reference to the brand name. Wait and see what happens; I hope the news media will scrutinize that procurement and any other suspicious government actions that line the pockets of Elon, the Trump crime family, or any of his cronies.
Either way you look at it, it's propaganda. In Biden's decades of work he has never been found to be anything less than moral and upright. Even his former friend, Lindsey Graham, says "he is a good man." He does not deserve the humiliation and hate that Trump has generated against him and his family. Trump commits the crimes and cries he is being politically persecuted while Biden only wanted to help the people of this country. Trump only wants to help himself. HOW MUCH OF A TAX CUT DO THESE RICH PEOPLE NEED? Musk is giving himself contracts worth millions. There was a report yesterday that Trump and Musk received $80,000 from one of the agencies set up to help those in disasters. How come, were they short on paying for dinner? This is reprehensible. If Trump continues to go along with his idea to make he and Musk money on Gaza - through the United States Treasury, he will be tried for war crimes - and it won't be the U.S. police who will take him in.
I find it interesting that the group hit hardest by dissolution of USAID was Catholic Relief Services. Meanwhile, the evangelist churches appealed for a waiver, and got it. Catholics take note. You got snookered, unless you are Opus Dei pushing anti-woke programs, kiss your humanitarian and charity efforts goodbye.
The pope is too woke for this administration. Trump just signed an Executive Order declaring the pope a terrorist based on his affiliation with the Deep State.
Isn't it ironic that Catholics were the original Christians, but have been the most condemned. Granted, there were times when it too was corrupt, and I am not giving them a break, but where do you draw the line between which religion is more "Christian"? As far as I'm concerned, those who are judgmental and non-inclusive, who have taken a false "god" as their savior are just as corrupt. Does that make me judgmental?
When a narcissist accuses someone of something, it is a confession from them. This is b/c they can not see any way to live other than the way they live. So if they accuse you of something, it is b/c they know they would be doing that in that situation. How else would anyone act other than the way they act. It is clear that T was installed in 2016 when our computerized elections were new. It is clear that M dark maga'd the election, this time, as well - they have come right out and said so. Will our system of gov be able to resist this take over? Will it? I do know this: when I tell my friends and fam that I think T and M stole the elections, they ridicule me. When I wonder why one Tuberv guy can block appointments, they shrug at me. When I show videos of T and M saying that it's easy to switch votes when the voting tallies are being uploaded during an election, they poopooh me. When I show video of M saying "only have to change one line of code", the engineers around me turn away. And now, M is hacking our whole government, b/c he can. T has seen that he can get away with this shit. Why should he stop? If nobody is gonna stop him? Can the courts stop someone who won't obey a court order? My hope is now with the geeks inside the gov who can fight against M and his hacker team by hacking harder. This is a war of computers. The law has to be backed up by geek enforcers. Go Geeks!
I got the same reactions when I said Musk did something to the computers, especially in Pennsylvania (and Trump even thanked him for helping with those computers). They said I was believing conspiracy theories now, that there really are a lot of people who voted for him (I live in Michigan). I think each state should compare their paper votes to what the computers read and see if there are discrepancies. I doubt that will happen though. I still feel in my heart that he did not win legitimately. We HAVE to have hackers who are better than Elon's, who can bring them down. There is only HOPE.
History prof here. In addition to supporting projects like The Contrarian that aim to clarify what the (Hell) is going on, and drumming up support for them, I bring insights, interpretations, and clarifications I've gleaned from them into the classroom. I also force them to read while many colleagues have given up, understandably. Students struggle to understand history and what the (Hell) is going on in the present, but I tell them that's ok. We're all grasping for language to comprehend this historical moment of which we are a part. It's important work. This, too, is part of the resistance. I've learned this as a scholar of federal Indian law and policy and Native American history. That history, as a significantly interwoven and foundational strand of U.S.history, is as mind-bending as what we're going through now.
P.S. I'm writing a book, but I have other things to say. I started a substack (thing?), but don't know where to start. Do you think I might start with the comment I posted? Strike that. I think I will start with the comment I posted. Enough about me, my students, etc. I appreciate the work being done here and all the erudite, and sometimes panic-stricken, comments.
I was an elementary student of the late 1970s and 1980s of the Wisconsin Public School System. I’ve been thinking a lot about my History classes from K - 12. I am an avid reader of Prof. Heather Cox Richardson, and I have been trying try to marry my memories of those classes to what I have learned from Prof. Richardson and my current observations of day-to-day life. More and more often I feel like the approach to the teaching of history was wrong. We would focus on the history (story) of pre-civil war America, but Civics of that time would be a completely different class and usually a different year. I feel like the laws created, proposed and enacted didn’t really connect to what was going on in society at the time. Maybe that was a failure of imagination on my part, but I think too many view “politics” as outside of their reality and therefore something either outside of their day-to-day lives or not theirs to control. ….. perhaps I’m mis-remembering my school experience or as I said it’s a failure of my imagination. I’m heading into my crone phase, and it is a lot to remember
Thanks for this. No, teaching of history has changed from K through college. You were in step with your time, as I am in mine. Many (most?) of us try to put the past and present in conversation with each other. That's not the principle aim of our university courses, but the practice has become normalized. This practice is dangerous for K-12 teachers, today. In my case, I use a couple of minutes at the beginning of class to update the news. Sometimes I put it into context or explain the significance of what happened. Disclosure, in this case, I do not feel obliged to parrot the "other side" because it is frequently based on dishonest representations and insincere talking points. Over the past two decades, attacks on the humanities have diminished history and other majors in the eyes of students. I/we want them to see the relevance of history to our understanding of contemporary events, society, culture, politics, economy, etc. Thank you for your years of teaching. Respect.
During the first Obama administration I got my first introduction to right wing conspiracy theory when a taxi driver informed me that FEMA was building concentration camps for Christians. When I pointed out that FEMA doesn't really build anything, it just coordinates the link of federal resources with state and local officials, I was told that the point of the story was that it "might" happen. Turns out she was right. Now the defense department is putting Christians in concentration camps.
Persecution of Christians in this country is not new - it's just that the type of persecution that takes place pleases the "right kind of Christian." You know, like feeding the hungry - giving aid to the homeless - leaving water in the desert. Those things have been deemed "illegal" in many places, by Good Patriotic Upstanding Holier Than Thou Could Ever Be Christians, and they castigate the Wrong Kind of Christians, if they are the ones doing it. People have been arrested for these things like these: https://www.findlaw.com/legalblogs/legally-weird/2-pastors-90-year-old-man-arrested-for-feeding-homeless-in-public/
It is true that almost every accusation is a confession.
We know all this. We could see it coming and it’s here. Almost everything has been in Trump’s heart and mind since 2017. The only knew, and worse, ingredient is Musk. He bought Trump and he doesn’t just want to destroy the US Government, he wants to rule the world. Musk is forming alliances with Putin (he had his own phone call), and with extreme right-wing groups all over the world. He has the money to support them.
If Musk was able to claw back money that went to New York for migrants, why is anything we have in a bank safe from “claw-back” for “taxes.”
The question now is WHAT CAN WE DO TO PROTECT OURSELVES AND OUR COUNTRY???? My friends are moving money to Canadian or Swiss banks. Anther friend has rented an apartment in Toronto. Congress is about to approve everything that Trump/Musk are doing, making it legal so the courts can’t stop it. We certainly can’t trust the Supreme Court.
Will we be able to vote in two years? Will Trump use the army to stop protests and shoot a few to make his point? We will see. Might makes rights in the situations. How many people care?
Most Americans really weren't listening the last couple of months drumpf was campaigning, when he made the statement "You'll never have to vote again." He meant exactly what he said. If left to his own malicious wishes, we won't be able to vote again because even voting will get axed.
David French has a lot of blood on his hands, going back to his legal work representing anti-choice groups. Only belatedly has French recognized that his forced birther friends have very little, if any, interest in policies that are pro-family.
Trump doesn’t give a rip about Christians or Jews or any other ethnic or religious group. He uses them for his own political gain. If he did then why does he not denounce antisemitism and other religious bigotry? Why only Christians? Because he got 80%+ of their votes. It’s all about who he can snooker.
It's called "mirror propaganda": accusing others of doing what you are doing (or want to do).
"Projection" isn't exactly the right term, as projection is a psychological defense mechanism. In the spirit of Jen's wonderful precision with language, let's boost the correct term: Mirror propaganda.
I've never liked the use of the term "projection" to explain Trump. I always thought it implies its subconscious, and not deliberate. Thanks for highlighting that it is propaganda, whether we add "mirror" to that or not.
“Propaganda by its very nature is an enterprise for perverting the significance of events and insinuating false intentions. There are two salient aspects of this fact. First of all, the propagandist must insist on the purity of his own intentions and, at the same time, hurl accusations at his enemy. But the accusation is never made haphazardly or groundlessly. The propagandist will not accuse the enemy of just any misdeed; he will accuse him of the very intention that he himself has and of trying to commit the very crime that he himself is about to commit. He who wants to provoke a war not only proclaims his own peaceful intentions but also accuses the other party of provocation. He who uses concentration camps accuses his neighbor of doing so. He who intends to establish a dictatorship always insists that his adversaries are bent on dictatorship. The accusation aimed at the other’s intention clearly reveals the intention of the accuser. But the public cannot see this because the revelation is interwoven with facts.” Jacques Ellul, Propaganda: The Formation of Men’s Attitudes (1965) p. 58
Common M.O. of sociopaths.
I prefer the more accurate term of: "idiocy"........
“Every accusation is a confession”. I like this one. Let's start a Confession Tracker page, where every daily accusation is listed and the confession details are highlighted.
That's a good idea Rosie. There should be someone keeping track of all their lies and thefts.
Yes! Stop The Steal (he thinks he can hide what he is doing - trying to steal the election) and Musk is in on this too, “major corruption” while winding up government
oversight on his enterprises. What could that possibly mean? /S
Fellow Contrarians,
Today, nearly 200 former ambassadors, diplomats, national security officials, State Department and USAID officers (myself one of them), Peace Corps directors, Department of Agriculture officers, and distinguished former high-ranking military offices all signed a letter delivered to the Speaker of the House, Minority Leader Jeffries, Senate Majority Leader Thune and Minority Leader Schumer, asking them to do all in their power to rescind every executive orders stemming from the Trump-Musk freeze of the small US foreign assistance program and accompanying dismantling of USAID, which is already causing havoc and disaster in multiple countries overseas.
I would post the letter here but it's 17 pages long with signatories, and I don't know how to do that anyway. It has gone to various press outlets. Thanks for your support both for America's 'soft power' and its vital link to tens of millions in other countries.
Here's the posted letter bring circulated, thanks to Peacefare.net. Please feel free to repost -- everything is public.
https://www.peacefare.net/2025/02/13/rescue-usaid-and-refugee-assistance-now/
I need to look at my emotional reactions in the light of the biochemistry of fear: fight, flight, faint, freeze and tonic immobility. We all have degrees of this response and extreme fear evokes tonic immobility..the inability to fight. I feel like that sometimes. I need some hope. I was very hopeful at first. But I see all of GOP caving in....probably due to President Musk's broad reach...who knows, he could be threatening their families. I am also disheartened by some of my fellow Americans response to the Musk takeover. They actually like it. It's just weird. Russia disinformation won them over. I am sick about our country. So sad. But then sometimes I feel ok. Just writing this out has helped. Joining with people helps. I need to go to a good march. Someone PLEASE sponsor a good Million Person March on DC!
You're not alone, Kathy. Everyone I know is going through the same processes. Try to remember, though, something Pete Buttigieg recently posted: "we are not powerless and they are not competent." That gives me some real hope.
I agree with you Kathy. You can check out http://mobilize.us where they are posting places, dates and times marches are taking place around the country, along with other ideas on how to put pressure on the legislators. Good luck.
Or A million dollar march on April Fools Day thur thur out every city of this usa
The State Department announced the purchase of armored Tesla vehicles, then mysteriously the document was later edited to remove reference to the brand name. Wait and see what happens; I hope the news media will scrutinize that procurement and any other suspicious government actions that line the pockets of Elon, the Trump crime family, or any of his cronies.
Elon’s next edict: Waste and fraud are bad, except when they benefit me. Marco agrees with me.
Either way you look at it, it's propaganda. In Biden's decades of work he has never been found to be anything less than moral and upright. Even his former friend, Lindsey Graham, says "he is a good man." He does not deserve the humiliation and hate that Trump has generated against him and his family. Trump commits the crimes and cries he is being politically persecuted while Biden only wanted to help the people of this country. Trump only wants to help himself. HOW MUCH OF A TAX CUT DO THESE RICH PEOPLE NEED? Musk is giving himself contracts worth millions. There was a report yesterday that Trump and Musk received $80,000 from one of the agencies set up to help those in disasters. How come, were they short on paying for dinner? This is reprehensible. If Trump continues to go along with his idea to make he and Musk money on Gaza - through the United States Treasury, he will be tried for war crimes - and it won't be the U.S. police who will take him in.
I find it interesting that the group hit hardest by dissolution of USAID was Catholic Relief Services. Meanwhile, the evangelist churches appealed for a waiver, and got it. Catholics take note. You got snookered, unless you are Opus Dei pushing anti-woke programs, kiss your humanitarian and charity efforts goodbye.
Karma smacks the Catholics. About time.
The Pope just offered a condemnation of Trump's deportation policy and Vance's erroneous reading of the Bible. In case you missed it. https://www.npr.org/2025/02/11/g-s1-48194/pope-rebukes-trump-over-migrant-deportations-and-refutes-vp-vances-theology
The pope is too woke for this administration. Trump just signed an Executive Order declaring the pope a terrorist based on his affiliation with the Deep State.
Just kidding (for now).
Isn't it ironic that Catholics were the original Christians, but have been the most condemned. Granted, there were times when it too was corrupt, and I am not giving them a break, but where do you draw the line between which religion is more "Christian"? As far as I'm concerned, those who are judgmental and non-inclusive, who have taken a false "god" as their savior are just as corrupt. Does that make me judgmental?
When a narcissist accuses someone of something, it is a confession from them. This is b/c they can not see any way to live other than the way they live. So if they accuse you of something, it is b/c they know they would be doing that in that situation. How else would anyone act other than the way they act. It is clear that T was installed in 2016 when our computerized elections were new. It is clear that M dark maga'd the election, this time, as well - they have come right out and said so. Will our system of gov be able to resist this take over? Will it? I do know this: when I tell my friends and fam that I think T and M stole the elections, they ridicule me. When I wonder why one Tuberv guy can block appointments, they shrug at me. When I show videos of T and M saying that it's easy to switch votes when the voting tallies are being uploaded during an election, they poopooh me. When I show video of M saying "only have to change one line of code", the engineers around me turn away. And now, M is hacking our whole government, b/c he can. T has seen that he can get away with this shit. Why should he stop? If nobody is gonna stop him? Can the courts stop someone who won't obey a court order? My hope is now with the geeks inside the gov who can fight against M and his hacker team by hacking harder. This is a war of computers. The law has to be backed up by geek enforcers. Go Geeks!
I got the same reactions when I said Musk did something to the computers, especially in Pennsylvania (and Trump even thanked him for helping with those computers). They said I was believing conspiracy theories now, that there really are a lot of people who voted for him (I live in Michigan). I think each state should compare their paper votes to what the computers read and see if there are discrepancies. I doubt that will happen though. I still feel in my heart that he did not win legitimately. We HAVE to have hackers who are better than Elon's, who can bring them down. There is only HOPE.
More like massive purge from the voter rolls.. Check Greg Palast.
Totally agree!!!!!
This!
History prof here. In addition to supporting projects like The Contrarian that aim to clarify what the (Hell) is going on, and drumming up support for them, I bring insights, interpretations, and clarifications I've gleaned from them into the classroom. I also force them to read while many colleagues have given up, understandably. Students struggle to understand history and what the (Hell) is going on in the present, but I tell them that's ok. We're all grasping for language to comprehend this historical moment of which we are a part. It's important work. This, too, is part of the resistance. I've learned this as a scholar of federal Indian law and policy and Native American history. That history, as a significantly interwoven and foundational strand of U.S.history, is as mind-bending as what we're going through now.
P.S. I'm writing a book, but I have other things to say. I started a substack (thing?), but don't know where to start. Do you think I might start with the comment I posted? Strike that. I think I will start with the comment I posted. Enough about me, my students, etc. I appreciate the work being done here and all the erudite, and sometimes panic-stricken, comments.
I was an elementary student of the late 1970s and 1980s of the Wisconsin Public School System. I’ve been thinking a lot about my History classes from K - 12. I am an avid reader of Prof. Heather Cox Richardson, and I have been trying try to marry my memories of those classes to what I have learned from Prof. Richardson and my current observations of day-to-day life. More and more often I feel like the approach to the teaching of history was wrong. We would focus on the history (story) of pre-civil war America, but Civics of that time would be a completely different class and usually a different year. I feel like the laws created, proposed and enacted didn’t really connect to what was going on in society at the time. Maybe that was a failure of imagination on my part, but I think too many view “politics” as outside of their reality and therefore something either outside of their day-to-day lives or not theirs to control. ….. perhaps I’m mis-remembering my school experience or as I said it’s a failure of my imagination. I’m heading into my crone phase, and it is a lot to remember
Thanks for this. No, teaching of history has changed from K through college. You were in step with your time, as I am in mine. Many (most?) of us try to put the past and present in conversation with each other. That's not the principle aim of our university courses, but the practice has become normalized. This practice is dangerous for K-12 teachers, today. In my case, I use a couple of minutes at the beginning of class to update the news. Sometimes I put it into context or explain the significance of what happened. Disclosure, in this case, I do not feel obliged to parrot the "other side" because it is frequently based on dishonest representations and insincere talking points. Over the past two decades, attacks on the humanities have diminished history and other majors in the eyes of students. I/we want them to see the relevance of history to our understanding of contemporary events, society, culture, politics, economy, etc. Thank you for your years of teaching. Respect.
"The Lunatics are running the Asylum"!
We have entered The Twilight Zone. Everything is turned upside down. A cult is running Congress and there’s nothing to stop POSOTUS.
During the first Obama administration I got my first introduction to right wing conspiracy theory when a taxi driver informed me that FEMA was building concentration camps for Christians. When I pointed out that FEMA doesn't really build anything, it just coordinates the link of federal resources with state and local officials, I was told that the point of the story was that it "might" happen. Turns out she was right. Now the defense department is putting Christians in concentration camps.
Persecution of Christians in this country is not new - it's just that the type of persecution that takes place pleases the "right kind of Christian." You know, like feeding the hungry - giving aid to the homeless - leaving water in the desert. Those things have been deemed "illegal" in many places, by Good Patriotic Upstanding Holier Than Thou Could Ever Be Christians, and they castigate the Wrong Kind of Christians, if they are the ones doing it. People have been arrested for these things like these: https://www.findlaw.com/legalblogs/legally-weird/2-pastors-90-year-old-man-arrested-for-feeding-homeless-in-public/
It is true that almost every accusation is a confession.
We know all this. We could see it coming and it’s here. Almost everything has been in Trump’s heart and mind since 2017. The only knew, and worse, ingredient is Musk. He bought Trump and he doesn’t just want to destroy the US Government, he wants to rule the world. Musk is forming alliances with Putin (he had his own phone call), and with extreme right-wing groups all over the world. He has the money to support them.
If Musk was able to claw back money that went to New York for migrants, why is anything we have in a bank safe from “claw-back” for “taxes.”
The question now is WHAT CAN WE DO TO PROTECT OURSELVES AND OUR COUNTRY???? My friends are moving money to Canadian or Swiss banks. Anther friend has rented an apartment in Toronto. Congress is about to approve everything that Trump/Musk are doing, making it legal so the courts can’t stop it. We certainly can’t trust the Supreme Court.
Will we be able to vote in two years? Will Trump use the army to stop protests and shoot a few to make his point? We will see. Might makes rights in the situations. How many people care?
Most Americans really weren't listening the last couple of months drumpf was campaigning, when he made the statement "You'll never have to vote again." He meant exactly what he said. If left to his own malicious wishes, we won't be able to vote again because even voting will get axed.
David French has a lot of blood on his hands, going back to his legal work representing anti-choice groups. Only belatedly has French recognized that his forced birther friends have very little, if any, interest in policies that are pro-family.
Trump doesn’t give a rip about Christians or Jews or any other ethnic or religious group. He uses them for his own political gain. If he did then why does he not denounce antisemitism and other religious bigotry? Why only Christians? Because he got 80%+ of their votes. It’s all about who he can snooker.