Why All the King’s Horses and All the King’s Men Can’t Pull Humpty Dumpty Off the Wall

Mark Goulston
3 min readJul 12, 2022

The Democrats’ problem with Donald Trump

Fearful repression is no match for fearful aggression.

The Democrats have fearful repression which means discovering that they have a mean and even cruel streak in their unconscious threatens their belief in themselves as good and decent people.

If you’re a Democrat and “doth protest — this — too much,” relax. All people have a shadow to their personality. Those are the parts of our personality that can cause Democrats to feel deeply ashamed and thus they try to deny that they exist. But they do… in everyone.

On the other hand, Trump has fearful aggression based on a paranoia that he will be found out to be a. incompetent and/or b. not caring about anyone — including his base, his appointees, even his family — and only cares about himself.

The paranoia of having these secrets revealed fuels his aggression. The more aggressive he becomes, the more he triggers “fight or flight” in others both of which cause others to become emotional and reactive. That causes them to have difficulty maintaining a rational approach with him and instead they often become like a deer in the headlights (remember Jeb Bush vs. Trump during the debates prior to the 2016 election where Bush’s polite smile all but revealed an inner desire to eviscerate Trump).

One thing I would say to him if I were a CNN/msNBC reporter is: “You seem very passionate and convinced about the election being stolen from you. Is that true?”

Hopefully, he’d say, “Yes.”

Then I would say, “If you could tell me all the demonstrable and verifiable facts and evidence and what you ruled out to come to that conclusion, I’d be willing to stand up to my colleagues and say, ‘Maybe he’s got a point.’ However, if you can’t offer up those facts and evidence and what you ruled out to come to your belief, I’m going to have a problem.”

And then I would just calmly and quietly look him directly in the eye. This could serve as a “gotcha” that onlookers might rubber neck to see how he responds.

The more agitated or bombastic he becomes, the more I would let him rant and vent, but I would still come back to: “I understand how you see it that way and are upset about how it turned out, but my offer still stands that if you can offer up demonstrable and verifiable facts and evidence and what you ruled out to come to your belief that the election was stolen, I’d really would be willing to go to bat for you with my colleagues.”

I think Trump would become befuddled, more agitated and more demeaning. If that happened, it would be clear that he couldn’t handle it while I, as the reporter, maintaining my composure would be the clear winner and onlookers would wonder why he was becoming so upset when I was making such a gracious and generous offer.

Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis was really onto something when he said, “Sunlight is the best of disinfectants.”

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Mark Goulston

Dr. Goulston is the world's #1 listening coach and author of "Just Listen" which became the top book on listening in the world