This past July, while attending what was billed as Paul Simon’s last American concert at Forest Hills Stadium, a torrential storm caused a rain delay, necessitating spectators to huddle close together under the grandstand. It was during this protracted delay that I came face to face with a Trump supporter for the first time. As a New Yorker, I had been accustomed to speaking with Hillary or Bernie people, while being shielded from having contact with Trump supporters. It didn’t take long for the conversation with the stranger to lead to a revelation. The Trump supporter had very little to say about what he liked about his candidate, but he was passionately outspoken about his hatred for Hillary. He quickly and angrily “accused” me of being for Hillary. Mercifully, the rain stopped and my acquaintance and I parted company forever. What lingered was the question of what instilled such hatred for Hillary. With the passage of time it became quite evident that millions of Americans across the country shared the sentiment to the extent that it appears to have been a significant determinative factor in the outcome of the election.
In my capacity as Psychologist who conducts Forensic Child Custody Evaluations for Family Court and New York Supreme Court, I often encounter an insidious condition that is quite debilitating for the children who are afflicted with it. It is child alienation, also referred to as parental alienation. The former label focuses on the child victim’s signs and symptoms, whereas the latter label pays more attention to the alleged perpetrator’s actions. Only recently has it hit me that there is a remarkable overlap between the presentation of an alienated child and that of a Hillary hater, such as the man at the Simon concert. Anyone who has ever lived with, assessed or otherwise observed an alienated child knows how impervious he or she is to considering any information that departs from a fixed perception of the rejected parent. I’ve found the following definition of the alienated child to be most useful: “One who expresses freely and persistently, unreasonable negative feelings and beliefs toward a parent that are significantly disproportionate to the child’s actual experience with that parent.” Furthermore, rejection of the parent is intense, total and intended to be permanent; the child fails to acknowledge the presence of any redeeming qualities about the rejected parent. The following are characteristics of the alienated child that are most salient to the present discussion:
For alienation to take hold, several conditions must be in place and several events must occur over time. Most obvious is the engaging in alienating behavior by the alienating or favored parent. Parental alienation strategies include making negative comments, encouraging disregard, and fostering anger/hurt towards the rejected parent, while promoting total reliance on the favored parent. The underlying message is that the rejected parent is unsafe, unloving and unavailable to meet the child’s needs, thereby creating the appearance that the rejected parent has rejected the child.
As consequence of being subjected to such alienating practices, the alienated child typically feels worthless, flawed, unloved, unwanted, and endangered. Most often there are pre-existing conditions that heighten the probability of alienation to occur. A vulnerable child, one who is overly dependent, anxious, fearful or troubled, is more likely to be responsive to the alienating strategies of the favored parent. Developmental factors such as the child’s age, cognitive capacity, temperament, and individuation history are also relevant. Furthermore, the likelihood of alienation is heightened by the child’s being subjected to a family environment featuring domestic strife, physical or psychological abuse and/or neglect. Finally, it also “helps“ if the rejected parent resorts to inept parenting practices, as well as engages in counter – rejecting behavior aimed at the child and the favored parent.
When all or most of the above conditions and events are present for a sufficient duration, a perfect storm is created, and child alienation is highly likely to occur. It is theorized that the child, overwhelmed by parental conflict, and subjected to alienating strategies by one parent, possibly coupled with inept parenting by the other parent, is apt to regress, resorting to the defensive operation of splitting, so as to reduce anxiety. The child ultimately accepts the distortion of history presented by the alienating parent, while simultaneously relinquishing the capacity or desire for engaging in critical thinking. Self-doubt about one’s own perceptions emerge, in association with increasing dependence upon the perceptions of others in defining “the truth.” A low sense of self-efficacy, and diminished self- esteem are the inevitable sequelae, which serve as mediators for the development of such negative outcomes as depression, anxiety disorder, dissociative disorder, conduct disorder and substance use disorder.
So what does all of the above have to do with the 2016 presidential election? Among the unique aspects of this election campaign was the significantly high unfavorable ratings of both candidates, hovering somewhere around 60% or higher in poll after poll. Those who opposed Donald Trump felt he was unqualified for the job and were repulsed by many of his outrageous sexist, racist and xenophobic remarks. Those who opposed Hillary Clinton objected to her seeming dishonesty regarding past handling of emails, her purported cold-hearted response to the Benghazi tragedy, and her dealings with Wall Street, as well as the Clinton Foundation. Trump was ultimately able to prevail in the swing states, flipping key states to the Republican line, because he succeeded in defining himself as the agent of change. But that doesn’t tell the whole story. A significant number of voters who opposed Hillary didn’t just disagree with her policies or intended programs. THEY HATED HER. Many voted for Trump, despite considerable misgivings about his qualifications and character, because their hatred for Hillary rendered them utterly incapable of casting their vote for her.
One Wisconsin voter, a lifelong Democrat, explained his reason for voting for Trump in very simple terms: “He wasn’t Hillary.” In the swing states of Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, Trump’s collective plurality over Hillary amounted to approximately 75,000 votes. If one-half of these voters, 37,501, voted for Hillary, she would be the President-Elect. We may never know just how many of these swing voters were propelled to vote as they did more by their hatred for Hillary, than their approval of Trump as a messianic agent of change.
In my estimation, the expressed hatred for Hillary, not just opposition to her positions, reflects the same kind of thinking and dynamic that is found in the alienated child. Many of the people who voted for Trump, or for Jill Stein, or stayed home and didn’t vote, felt constrained by their hatred towards Hillary. Their hatred was intense, entrenched, and disproportionate to the mistakes she made or was perceived to have made, and disproportionate to her supposed character flaws. It took time for this hatred to congeal as it did, but the perfect storm against her candidacy was in place. Alienating behavior came almost daily from all directions, not only from Trump himself, but from right wing media. She was demonized as being a criminal who should be locked up, despite the absence of any legal verification of such claim. Accusations of her having lied to the families of Benghazi victims about what happened there had no merit. She was endlessly labeled as “crooked Hillary” by Trump who was successful in instilling this characterization into the minds of millions of people. They swallowed it whole, without bothering to do their own critical analysis regarding the evidence or lack of evidence present. The characteristics of the alienated child aptly describe the alienated child voter in the 2016 election. Trump successfully targeted a substantial subgroup of vulnerable voters, who as a group resemble the vulnerable child i.e. economically dependent, anxious about safety and economic threats posed by illegal immigrants, fearful over physical threats posed by anyone perceived to be an agent of ISIS, or troubled by changes in the American landscape. That Hillary was a flawed candidate contributed to the alienation outcome. She exacerbated feelings of distrust towards her whenever she evaded questions or parsed words in attempting to “explain” her motives and actions regarding her handling of emails. That she engaged in counter-rejecting behavior aimed at Trump voters (remember her “deplorables” comment?) certainly didn’t help her cause, either. By the time of the election, there were millions of voters nationally, and perhaps tens of thousands of voters in swing states who passionately hated Hillary, so much like the alienated child, that absolutely nothing positive that might have been said about her or absolutely nothing negative that might have been said about Trump would have changed their mind. Their beliefs were, by that time, enmeshed with those of the alienating agent, Donald Trump, with whom they were in lockstep in their denigration of Hillary.
That voter alienation occurred, and figured substantially in the 2016 election, was no accident. It could happen again and again in future local and national elections, unless the campaign/election process is overhauled. Much has been said and written about the adverse impact that the Citizens United Supreme Court decision has had on the financing of candidates. Big money can skew priorities away from the public good and in the direction of special interests. It can pay for political ads aimed at distorting reality, particularly in the minds of economically and/or emotionally vulnerable citizens. The antidote must come not only from campaign finance reform, but also from effective attempts at promoting critical thinking within the electorate. Educative efforts must start in elementary school and continue through college and beyond. Political pressure and economic incentive should be exerted on media outlets to revert to a more balanced, objective treatment of the news. Those outlets that strive for objectivity and eschew dichotomous argumentation should be lauded and rewarded for their efforts. Let’s revert to having news programs that are not content-controlled by ratings considerations, not functioning primarily as either entertainment, or proselytizing entities. Revert to having a clear demarcation between news and entertainment.
Leonard T. Gries, Ph.D.
East Hills, N.Y.
In my capacity as Psychologist who conducts Forensic Child Custody Evaluations for Family Court and New York Supreme Court, I often encounter an insidious condition that is quite debilitating for the children who are afflicted with it. It is child alienation, also referred to as parental alienation. The former label focuses on the child victim’s signs and symptoms, whereas the latter label pays more attention to the alleged perpetrator’s actions. Only recently has it hit me that there is a remarkable overlap between the presentation of an alienated child and that of a Hillary hater, such as the man at the Simon concert. Anyone who has ever lived with, assessed or otherwise observed an alienated child knows how impervious he or she is to considering any information that departs from a fixed perception of the rejected parent. I’ve found the following definition of the alienated child to be most useful: “One who expresses freely and persistently, unreasonable negative feelings and beliefs toward a parent that are significantly disproportionate to the child’s actual experience with that parent.” Furthermore, rejection of the parent is intense, total and intended to be permanent; the child fails to acknowledge the presence of any redeeming qualities about the rejected parent. The following are characteristics of the alienated child that are most salient to the present discussion:
- relentless hatred towards rejected parent
- no ambivalences about rejected parent or about favored parent (one is considered all-bad; the other is considered all-good)
- child engages in aggressive, hostile verbal (sometimes physical) attacks on the rejected parent without guilt or remorse
- child parrots the favored or alienating parent
- many of child’s beliefs are enmeshed with those of the alienating parent
- many beliefs are irrational, even delusional, as they are not based upon actual experience with the rejected parent
- child is in lockstep with the alienating parent to denigrate the rejected parent
- there seems to be no capacity to forgive the rejected parent
For alienation to take hold, several conditions must be in place and several events must occur over time. Most obvious is the engaging in alienating behavior by the alienating or favored parent. Parental alienation strategies include making negative comments, encouraging disregard, and fostering anger/hurt towards the rejected parent, while promoting total reliance on the favored parent. The underlying message is that the rejected parent is unsafe, unloving and unavailable to meet the child’s needs, thereby creating the appearance that the rejected parent has rejected the child.
As consequence of being subjected to such alienating practices, the alienated child typically feels worthless, flawed, unloved, unwanted, and endangered. Most often there are pre-existing conditions that heighten the probability of alienation to occur. A vulnerable child, one who is overly dependent, anxious, fearful or troubled, is more likely to be responsive to the alienating strategies of the favored parent. Developmental factors such as the child’s age, cognitive capacity, temperament, and individuation history are also relevant. Furthermore, the likelihood of alienation is heightened by the child’s being subjected to a family environment featuring domestic strife, physical or psychological abuse and/or neglect. Finally, it also “helps“ if the rejected parent resorts to inept parenting practices, as well as engages in counter – rejecting behavior aimed at the child and the favored parent.
When all or most of the above conditions and events are present for a sufficient duration, a perfect storm is created, and child alienation is highly likely to occur. It is theorized that the child, overwhelmed by parental conflict, and subjected to alienating strategies by one parent, possibly coupled with inept parenting by the other parent, is apt to regress, resorting to the defensive operation of splitting, so as to reduce anxiety. The child ultimately accepts the distortion of history presented by the alienating parent, while simultaneously relinquishing the capacity or desire for engaging in critical thinking. Self-doubt about one’s own perceptions emerge, in association with increasing dependence upon the perceptions of others in defining “the truth.” A low sense of self-efficacy, and diminished self- esteem are the inevitable sequelae, which serve as mediators for the development of such negative outcomes as depression, anxiety disorder, dissociative disorder, conduct disorder and substance use disorder.
So what does all of the above have to do with the 2016 presidential election? Among the unique aspects of this election campaign was the significantly high unfavorable ratings of both candidates, hovering somewhere around 60% or higher in poll after poll. Those who opposed Donald Trump felt he was unqualified for the job and were repulsed by many of his outrageous sexist, racist and xenophobic remarks. Those who opposed Hillary Clinton objected to her seeming dishonesty regarding past handling of emails, her purported cold-hearted response to the Benghazi tragedy, and her dealings with Wall Street, as well as the Clinton Foundation. Trump was ultimately able to prevail in the swing states, flipping key states to the Republican line, because he succeeded in defining himself as the agent of change. But that doesn’t tell the whole story. A significant number of voters who opposed Hillary didn’t just disagree with her policies or intended programs. THEY HATED HER. Many voted for Trump, despite considerable misgivings about his qualifications and character, because their hatred for Hillary rendered them utterly incapable of casting their vote for her.
One Wisconsin voter, a lifelong Democrat, explained his reason for voting for Trump in very simple terms: “He wasn’t Hillary.” In the swing states of Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, Trump’s collective plurality over Hillary amounted to approximately 75,000 votes. If one-half of these voters, 37,501, voted for Hillary, she would be the President-Elect. We may never know just how many of these swing voters were propelled to vote as they did more by their hatred for Hillary, than their approval of Trump as a messianic agent of change.
In my estimation, the expressed hatred for Hillary, not just opposition to her positions, reflects the same kind of thinking and dynamic that is found in the alienated child. Many of the people who voted for Trump, or for Jill Stein, or stayed home and didn’t vote, felt constrained by their hatred towards Hillary. Their hatred was intense, entrenched, and disproportionate to the mistakes she made or was perceived to have made, and disproportionate to her supposed character flaws. It took time for this hatred to congeal as it did, but the perfect storm against her candidacy was in place. Alienating behavior came almost daily from all directions, not only from Trump himself, but from right wing media. She was demonized as being a criminal who should be locked up, despite the absence of any legal verification of such claim. Accusations of her having lied to the families of Benghazi victims about what happened there had no merit. She was endlessly labeled as “crooked Hillary” by Trump who was successful in instilling this characterization into the minds of millions of people. They swallowed it whole, without bothering to do their own critical analysis regarding the evidence or lack of evidence present. The characteristics of the alienated child aptly describe the alienated child voter in the 2016 election. Trump successfully targeted a substantial subgroup of vulnerable voters, who as a group resemble the vulnerable child i.e. economically dependent, anxious about safety and economic threats posed by illegal immigrants, fearful over physical threats posed by anyone perceived to be an agent of ISIS, or troubled by changes in the American landscape. That Hillary was a flawed candidate contributed to the alienation outcome. She exacerbated feelings of distrust towards her whenever she evaded questions or parsed words in attempting to “explain” her motives and actions regarding her handling of emails. That she engaged in counter-rejecting behavior aimed at Trump voters (remember her “deplorables” comment?) certainly didn’t help her cause, either. By the time of the election, there were millions of voters nationally, and perhaps tens of thousands of voters in swing states who passionately hated Hillary, so much like the alienated child, that absolutely nothing positive that might have been said about her or absolutely nothing negative that might have been said about Trump would have changed their mind. Their beliefs were, by that time, enmeshed with those of the alienating agent, Donald Trump, with whom they were in lockstep in their denigration of Hillary.
That voter alienation occurred, and figured substantially in the 2016 election, was no accident. It could happen again and again in future local and national elections, unless the campaign/election process is overhauled. Much has been said and written about the adverse impact that the Citizens United Supreme Court decision has had on the financing of candidates. Big money can skew priorities away from the public good and in the direction of special interests. It can pay for political ads aimed at distorting reality, particularly in the minds of economically and/or emotionally vulnerable citizens. The antidote must come not only from campaign finance reform, but also from effective attempts at promoting critical thinking within the electorate. Educative efforts must start in elementary school and continue through college and beyond. Political pressure and economic incentive should be exerted on media outlets to revert to a more balanced, objective treatment of the news. Those outlets that strive for objectivity and eschew dichotomous argumentation should be lauded and rewarded for their efforts. Let’s revert to having news programs that are not content-controlled by ratings considerations, not functioning primarily as either entertainment, or proselytizing entities. Revert to having a clear demarcation between news and entertainment.
Leonard T. Gries, Ph.D.
East Hills, N.Y.
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