It is common to observe
projection in campus and party politics, and in human affairs generally.
“Projection” is a well-understood psychological mechanism in which a
person or collective accuses another of doing what the accuser himself
or itself is doing. “Psychological projection
is a defense mechanism people subconsciously employ in order to cope
with difficult feelings or emotions. Psychological projection involves
projecting undesirable feelings or emotions onto someone else, rather
than admitting to or dealing with the unwanted feelings.”
The
classic example of Freudian projection is that of a woman who has been
unfaithful to her husband but who accuses her husband of cheating on
her. Another example of psychological projection is someone who feels a
compulsion to steal things and then projects those feelings onto others.
She might begin to fear that her purse is going to be stolen or that
she is going to be shortchanged when she buys something.
Many
highly entertaining examples of projection can be seen in recent party
politics. Members of the Democrat Party and the mainstream media have
accused President Trump being a potential dictator who would not honor
an election which he had lost, and who would thus undermine the American
electoral democracy. This from a party and media that refused to accept
the 2016 election, and set about from the day of the inauguration to
overturn the election and cancel the duly-elected president, most
recently seen in the House impeachment of the president. Thus, the
Democrat Party accuses the Republican president of not respecting the
Constitution and election results, at exactly the same time as they
reject the 2016 election winner.
Leading
members of the Democrat Party have accused and continue to accuse
President Trump of conspiring with a foreign power to interfere with the
2016 election, and to be similarly interfering with the upcoming 2020
election. No evidence has ever been adduced to support this assertion.
But what has been proven beyond doubt is that the Hillary Clinton
campaign and the Democratic National Committee conspired with and paid
for a foreign agent, the British spy Christopher Steele, who drew on
Russian informants to invent “dirt” on candidate Trump. The
uncorroborated Steele dossier was used by the FBI as justification to
spy on the Trump campaign. The Democrats accuse the Republican president
of colluding with foreign powers, while they not only collude but pay
for those with whom they collude.
House Democrats
have accused President Trump in an article of impeachment of “abuse of
power,” an entirely partisan impeachment supported solely by Democrats,
in a procedure that allowed President Trump no due process. None of the
Democrat “fact witnesses” could identify any crime that the president
has committed. The House Democrats could proceed because they were the
majority, had the votes to impeach, and thus had the power
notwithstanding the lack of due process and lack of evidence. So, in
fact, after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s criterion that a legitimate
impeachment must be bipartisan, the House Democrats have accused the
president of “abuse of power” when that is exactly what their partisan
and contentless impeachment, in procedure and substance, has been.
During
the House impeachment debates, multiple Democrat representatives,
parroted by their media puppets, solemnly declared that “No one is above
the law,” although the two articles of impeachment put forward by the
Democrats did not specify any law that was broken or any crime committed
by the president. But it was disorienting to hear members of the
Democrat Party -- the party of sanctuary cities, open borders,
abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), providing taxpayer
funding to illegal aliens for medical care and welfare, and
legitimizing illegal aliens through issuing official certification, such
as driver's licenses
-- proclaim with great gravitas that “No one is above the law.” So,
Democrat House members accuse, without evidence, the president of acting
outside the law, while their proudly asserted policies on illegal
aliens violate laws enacted by Congress! An impressive example of
projecting your lawlessness on others.
Finally,
in what would be a hilarious example if the issue were not so serious,
the Democrat Party, which engaged in an unprecedented partisan
impeachment of President Trump, is accusing the Republicans in the
Senate of not approaching the impeachment trial of President Trump in an
impartial manner. The superlatively partisan Democrat Party accuses the
Republicans of being partisan. One does not know whether to laugh or
cry.
In identity politics,
projection can be seen in accusations across race lines. Black Lives
Matter claims that white vigilantes and police are attacking innocent
African Americans. “The Black Lives Matter Global Network is a chapter-based, member-led organization whose mission is to build local power and to intervene in violence inflicted on Black communities by the state and vigilantes”
(emphasis added). But the sad facts of violence in Black communities
are quite different from what is stated by Black Lives Matter. According
to official FBI statistics,
in 2013, of the 2,491 “Black or African American” people murdered, 189
were murdered by “whites,” 20 by “other,” 37 by “unknown,” and 2,245 by
"Black or African American." In other words, 90.12% of African Americans
murdered were murdered by other African Americans. And while it is true
that 189 African Americans were murdered by whites, 409 whites were
murdered by African Americans. In cross-race murders, more than twice as
many whites have been murdered as African Americans. Overall, 48% of
all murders are committed by African Americans, more than three times
what would be expected from African Americans’ 13% of the population. So
Black Lives Matter is accusing white “vigilantes” and the government,
presumably police, of crimes that are almost entirely committed by
African Americans. Black Lives Matter is projecting onto others what in
fact is happening within their own group.
In our
universities, ideas deemed outmoded, such as academic achievement,
merit, intellectual integrity, and excellence, have now been superseded
by official policies of diversity, equality, and inclusion. The top
priorities of universities, in student admissions, student financing,
hiring of academic, non-academic, and administrative staff and leaders,
is to include members of “underrepresented” categories, such as females,
people of color (except East Asians), Hispanics, Native Americans or
First Nations, the disabled, LGBT++, Muslims, poor, under-educated, and
mentally unstable, while at the same time excluding members of
undesirable, “overrepresented” categories, such as males, whites, East
Asians, Christians and Jews, heterosexuals, able-bodied, middle and
upper class, over-educated, and mentally stable. The rationale is that
it is sexist not to include females, racist not to include people of
color and indigenous people, Islamophobic not to include Muslims,
homophobic and transphobic not to include LGBT++, oppressive not to
include the poor, and discriminatory not to include the mentally
unstable.
The position
favored by advocates of diversity, equality, and inclusion, commonly
under the general label of “social justice,” is that not including
members of every category at levels at least equivalent to their
presence in the general population is discriminatory. Anyone not in
agreement is accused of being exclusionary, as well as sexist, racist,
-phobic, etc. etc.
In this
new dispensation, “virtue” is not in treating people as complex
individuals, each with his or her own qualities, capacities,
achievements, and potential, but rather in reducing people to certain
superficial qualities according to their assignment in the gross census
categories of race, gender, sexuality, and ethnicity. The key point here
is that members of categories deemed to represent “victims” of our
“oppressive” society are, in the views of university administrators,
preferred, while members of other -- deemed by administrators
“oppressor” -- categories are unworthy.
The
result is that our “inclusive” universities include members of
preferred -- while excluding members of unworthy -- categories, which
they do by disregarding so-called “white supremacist” concepts such as
achievement, merit, and potential. The administrators who accuse earlier
administrators and society at large of being exclusionary are
themselves exclusionary, refusing whites, men, Christians, Jews, and
Asians. But in their eyes, that is a good thing because, they appear to
believe, Asians and Jews have never suffered, never been excluded, and
always been “privileged” oppressors.
African
American, Hispanic, Asian (if any), Muslim, and LGBT++ student groups
claim that they are excluded from university society, and their identity
-- nay, their very existence -- is denied if their demands are not met
in their entirety. What exactly are they demanding to facilitate their
inclusion? They demand segregated African American, Hispanic, Muslim,
LGBT++, and Asian eating, sleeping, and congregating facilities, plus
separate celebration and graduation ceremonies, from which others,
especially whites, would be excluded. Their version of “inclusion” is
segregating themselves and excluding others, an impressive example of
projecting on others exclusionary sentiments and actions.
Minority
student groups claim that, if all of their demands are not met, they
are being “silenced.” Yet if any professor or visiting speaker expresses
opinions with which they might disagree, these student groups mobilize
to block other students from attending, and/or enter themselves with the
goal of disrupting the lectures or presentations and silencing the
speaker. Once again, those who accuse others of silencing themselves
take it as their right to silence others. They project on others their
own motivations and actions.
What
can we conclude from these cases of political projection? The answer, I
think, is this: people in the fevered grip of an ideology -- whether
partisan, racial, or moralistic -- are not very self-aware, and see in
their appointed “enemies” the evil intentions that they themselves hold.
