We're Getting Screw(worm)ed by the Love Bomber in Chief | America, You Got This?

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We're Getting Screw(worm)ed by the Love Bomber in Chief | America, You Got This?

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This week’s episode was supposed to be about the screwworm invasion, which, in case you missed it, is a flesh-eating parasite eradicated from the US since the 1960s that’s now back in Texas because Trump fired thousands of people at the agency that prevented it. It’s already screwing cattle farmers in Texas. Lauren pointed out that the MAHA moms in love with beef tallow have been suspiciously quiet. I still am not entirely sure what beef tallow is. Is that a fancy name for lard? I refuse to Google this. Ok, I’ll Google this. *Quickly Googles*Turns out lard is from pigs and tallow is from cows. I guess the MAHA moms will have to put lard on their faces. But I digress, which is something we do (by design) on our show because that’s how we stay sane and present. It’s a meandering journey, and we hope you’re enjoying it with us because we’re having a blast. Lauren was on the go this week for NetRoots in Philadelphia and TrendingUp Con, and I survived a week in my new apartment with no hot water. Moving to Portugal and living in a foreign language means that sometimes things, like connecting the gas, can get lost in translation. What wasn’t lost on me was the fact that Greg Bovino was also in Portugal, headlining a European far-right conference dedicated to the white nationalist mission of Remigration. Two Americans in the same foreign country, VERY different visions of the future. On Lauren’s flight to DC last week, she had an interesting encounter with her seatmate: a MAGA-coded, ivermectin-curious, Agricultural lobbyist. She told him exactly what she was headed to DC to do (be progressive AF), and the conversation shifted to Illinois politics, and he told her, unprompted, how much he loves Julianna Stratton — Illinois’ lieutenant governor, who just won the Democratic Senate primary. He said, “She’s what real leadership looks like.” The cynic in me was ready to call BS, but Lauren listened and had the epiphany that he sounded like someone in the early stages of realizing they’re in an abusive relationship.And that is exactly what Trump’s relationship with his base is. The problem is he’s not just their President. He’s our President too, and we are suffering at the hands of a malignant narcissist. Lauren has been saying this since 2016, when watching him campaign gave her panic attacks because his behaviors looked exactly like the behaviors of someone she used to know. I had a similar experience. Back in 2022, I interviewed psychiatrist Dr. Bandy X Lee, who edited the 2017 book, The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump. It’s a whole damn book about Trump being a malignant narcissist and the effects it would have on our collective consciousness. Trump was a walking red flag. The psychiatrists broke with medical tradition and tried to sound the alarm, but their advice was largely ignored. Here is the cycle:Love bombing. Years of campaigning, where he tells his base everything they want to hear. I am your retribution. I alone can fix it. You’re the forgotten men and women. He positions himself as the protector. They’re after you, and I’m the one standing in their way. He is so convincing. He is so charming in the exact way they need him to be charming.The hook. They give him everything. Their votes. Their loyalty. Their flags. Their family Thanksgivings. They break ties with loved ones until they’re surrounded by other people who have also given their votes, their loyalty, their flags. The discard. Now that Trump has what he wanted, he doesn’t need his base anymore. The tariffs hurt the farmers who put him in office. The war in Iran hurts the people who were screaming about high gas prices when Biden was in office. Beef is about to triple in price, and the man who promised them cheaper groceries is pardoning insider traders and hosting a UFC cage match on the South Lawn. DARVO (Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender): Trump’s policies fail, and he denies it. He attacks anyone who points out the obvious. He claims that Republicans are the victims of election fraud and that Democrats are the offenders. This is just what he did to Kristen Welker on Meet the Press over the weekend. Anyone who dares to question Trump and his policies is crooked or stupid. He is the victim. The perpetrators are anyone who doesn’t agree with him. This is what narcissistic abuse looks like, and anyone who has been targeted by a narcissist knows it on sight. While it’s often said that his base is in a cult, it could also be argued that they are victims of his narcissistic abuse, and that’s why they are clinging to him, despite the fact that he is not fulfilling his campaign promises. He outright denies having promised no new wars, as reported in this Hill article.As the lies pile up, his base starts to lose faith in the original lie: that he cared about them at all. What’s worse is that Trump almost seems to delight in letting them know how little he cares. When he was running...

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