Psychology

The psychology of the Trump era is a study in cognitive biases deployed at scale: confirmation bias, motivated reasoning, the Dunning-Kruger effect, the backfire effect, groupthink, and terror management theory. Trump's communication style consistently exploits these vulnerabilities.

Key psychological patterns documented in this corpus:
- Narcissistic injury response: Every criticism is met with counter-attack, never reflection
- Projection: Accusing opponents of exactly what he is doing (e.g., "they're the real election riggers")
- Splitting: The world is divided into loyalists and enemies; no middle ground exists
- Gaslighting at scale: "What you're seeing and what you're reading is not what's happening"
- The authoritarian follower: Why 30%+ of the population consistently supports actions that violate democratic norms

This category connects to neuroscience for the biological underpinnings of belief formation, and to propaganda for how these psychological vulnerabilities are systematically exploited.