Plenty of his opponents have accused President-elect Trump of riding a wave of carefully constructed scapegoating to victory, and in some ways continuing to do so as he prepares to take office. But is he really doing that?
Researcher on the psychology of threat, Daniel Sullivan, published about the best summary and explanation of why people scapegoat, and how his appreciation of that served Mr. Trump. You can read the whole piece – not terribly long and totally accessible for the non-experts which most of us are – at Quartz. Or, I can make it really easy for you by telling you that people scapegoating, comes down 2 things: 1, to feel that they are in control of their lives and 2, to feel that they are people of worth.
No doubt those are important things and we all want them, to one degree or another. There is no doubt that all successful politicians play to those needs, and that the real difference between them being that some we think do so constructively and others do so destructively. People concerned about Donald Trump would argue that he does so destructively, and they may be correct that his rhetoric is destructive, but they are not correct about it being scapegoating – not in the classical sense of the word.
Not only does Donald Trump not scapegoat, I wish he would! In fact, given that the human needs described by Professor Sullivan are pretty universal, I wish we all would try a little real scapegoating. Really.
Scapegoating is actually a remarkably sophisticated and useful ancient technology – one which, contrary to popular belief, addresses our deeply human need to experience a measure of control over our own destinies, and to affirm our inherent worth, while also taking real responsibility for our own misdeeds.
Scapegoating first occurs in the Biblical Book of Leviticus (16:4-28, for the Biblicists among us), and includes sending an otherwise innocent goat into the wilderness to carry away the sins of the Israelites, achieving some sense of control over things in the life of the community and restoring some sense of the their worth. That however is not the entire ritual.
Prior to choosing the scapegoat, the priest in charge of this ritual – President-Elect Trump for those who charge him with scapegoating – must first take stock of and seek expiation for his own sins. Real scapegoating demands acceptance of one’s own misdeeds before that same person can place blame on anyone else.
And perhaps even more amazingly, all those engaged in the ritual scapegoating must then purify themselves for having performed this necessary ritual. The fact that it is humanly necessary, doesn’t mean that those performing the needed service are not themselves tarnished by the experience.
One may detest DJT, see him as leading a great restoration of our nation, or anything in between, but nobody has seen The President-Elect do either of those steps which are as central to scapegoating as the goat itself. So yeah, I wish he would start doing a little genuine scapegoating.
However “unevolved”, “suboptimal”, or even dangerous it may be to blame others, that human trait is not going anywhere soon. The real question is how to moralize or ethicize the need to blame others, and I think scapegoating – real, full-on, Biblical scapegoating, has real potential.
In fact, given that we all need to cast blame at one time or another as part of coping with whatever we think is going wrong – be it in our lives, our country, or our world – I hope that we would all start doing a little real scapegoating. We would start by assuming our own role in whatever we think has gone wrong, and end by taking stock of how we dirtied ourselves by seeking to offload the problem on others. And as in the Biblical story, the need to do all that starts at the top.
So yeah, I genuinely hope that Donald Trump, and all people in positions of political power and influence, would start scapegoating. It would be a genuine revolution in wedding real psychological need to genuine personal responsibility and moral accountability which could serve us all.
Listed for many years in Newsweek as one of America’s “50 Most Influential Rabbis” and recognized as one of our nation’s leading “Preachers and Teachers,” by Beliefnet.com, Rabbi Brad Hirschfield serves as the President of Clal–The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership, a training institute, think tank, and resource center nurturing religious and intellectual pluralism within the Jewish community, and the wider world, preparing people to meet the biggest challenges we face in our increasingly polarized world.
An ordained Orthodox rabbi who studied for his PhD and taught at The Jewish Theological Seminary, he has also taught the University of Pennsylvania, where he directs an ongoing seminar, and American Jewish University. Rabbi Brad regularly teaches and consults for the US Army and United States Department of Defense, religious organizations — Jewish and Christian — including United Seminary (Methodist), Yeshivat Chovevei Torah (Modern Orthodox) Luther Seminary (Lutheran), and The Jewish Theological Seminary (Conservative) — civic organizations including No Labels, Odyssey Impact, and The Aspen Institute, numerous Jewish Federations, and a variety of communal and family foundations.
Hirschfield is the author and editor of numerous books, including You Don’t Have To Be Wrong For Me To Be Right: Finding Faith Without Fanaticism, writes a column for Religion News Service, and appears regularly on TV and radio in outlets ranging from The Washington Post to Fox News Channel. He is also the founder of the Stand and See Fellowship, which brings hundreds of Christian religious leaders to Israel, preparing them to address the increasing polarization around Middle East issues — and really all currently polarizing issues at home and abroad — with six words, “It’s more complicated than we know.”