The Projection of the Self

 The excellent newsletter Garbage Day had a piece out earlier this week about the latest Epstein revelations. They dwelled in particular on the fact that one thing we learned from the newly-released data trove of Epstein emails was just how close the pedophile financier was, in life, to Steve Bannon. 

This is—to say the least—richly ironic. Bannon, after all, has probably been more responsible than any other figure in politics for mainstreaming right-wing populist ideology. His whole ostensible worldview is a quasi-conspiratorial one, in which a corrupt and Machiavellian "globalist" elite exploits and abuses ordinary people for their own profit. 

And now, here come these emails to reveal that Bannon himself—all this time—fancied himself as the ultimate "New Machiavelli"—and was palling around, in his quest for megalomaniac power, with none other than Jeffrey Epstein—the ultimate embodiment, if anyone could be, of the decadent "global elite"; the corruption and moral rot of so many of the rich and powerful. 

It's hypocrisy, of course. But it's hypocrisy of a pretty standard sort, which ought not to surprise us. As Richard Hofstadter observed long ago, in his classic essay on the "Paranoid Style in American Politics": conspiracy theorists are nearly always engaged in an act of psychological "projection" of this sort—in which they talk about their adversaries in ways that really describe themselves.  

They attribute to their imagined enemies all of their own worst desires and traits. They accuse others of having ambitions of world conquest and of puppeteering global events—which they use in turn to justify their own claim to have the right to try to achieve total power and secretly manipulate opinion. 

The purported evil and cynicism of their enemies becomes an all-sufficing excuse for their own underhanded tactics. 

As Hofstadter put it: 

It is hard to resist the conclusion that this enemy is on many counts the projection of the self; both the ideal and the unacceptable aspects of the self are attributed to him. The enemy may be the cosmopolitan intellectual, but the paranoid will outdo him in the apparatus of scholarship, even of pedantry. 

He goes on: 

Secret organizations set up to combat secret organizations give the same flattery. The Ku Klux Klan imitated Catholicism to the point of donning priestly vestments, developing an elaborate ritual and an equally elaborate hierarchy. The John Birch Society emulates Communist cells and quasi-secret operation through “front” groups, and preaches a ruthless prosecution of the ideological war along lines very similar to those it finds in the Communist enemy.

So too, Bannon conjured up an elaborate mythology of a "globalist elite," and positioned himself and his followers as the heroic defenders of "populist nationalism" who bravely faced it down like David confronting Goliath. Yet, behind the scenes—as these emails reportedly reveal—he was the one trying to act as global puppet-master; he was the one secretly marionetteing the forces of political opinion in order to serve his agenda—and doing it all in partnership with one of the most corrupt, powerful, wealthy, cynical, and socially well-connected people on the planet. 

Projection, indeed. 

And we see the same thing in other kindred right-wing conspiracy theorists too. Hofstadter's line about the "cosmopolitan intellectual" stands out. I immediately pictured Alex Jones in my mind's eye. Is he not forever railing against the intelligentsia—and yet claiming for himself the ability to best and outdo any one of them in "scholarship" or even "pedantry"? 

Is it not a constant theme of his rants that he has done more "research" than any of them and "looked at this question from every angle"? 

Projection, projection, all the way down. These men are like the fellow in an anecdote told by Sartre—in his book on Genet—who kept stumbling over his words, and then looked up at the author in outrage and said "Why do you keep making that exasperating mistake?" (Frechtman trans.). 

As a character in Henry Green's novel Party Going puts it: "how odd it [i]s, that people always seemed to dislike in others just what they were always doing themselves[.]"

That's Bannon all over—attributing his own basest desires to others; accusing the "globalists" of being the megalomaniac power-seekers, when that is exactly what he was doing himself. Projection, projection, projection. 

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I have less to say about the other big Epstein-related topic of the Garbage Day newsletter this week: namely, the non-stop proliferation of internet memes that has resulted from the bizarre suggestion, contained in one of the released emails from Epstein's brother, that a photo exists somewhere of Trump performing fellatio on someone named "Bubba" (a nickname that elsewhere in the emails reportedly refers to Bill Clinton; though Epstein's brother has put out a statement denying that that's who he had in mind). 

Obviously, there are about five layers of good reasons why this lewd hint should not be taken seriously. It's a rumor shared as a joke between people who are just about the least credible sources of information on earth. 

Besides, the jokes and memes on the subject all tend to border on the homophobic. Let us have no more of them. 

But still, they do capture one thing in spirit that has been ceaselessly eerie and obvious from these Epstein emails: namely, how many rich and powerful men adopted an inexplicably sycophantic and bootlicking attitude toward Epstein—almost homoerotic in nature. 

One person after another—whether in the notorious "Birthday Book" or elsewhere—has praised Epstein as a "genius"; a man of profound intellectual range and endlessly stimulating conversation. 

And yet—we hear his voice in these emails; which are always replete with bizarre and idiosyncratic spelling and grammar mistakes—and none of that "brilliance" comes across at all. 

The Miami Herald reported two days ago that one of the emails found in the latest document dump featured a glowing testimonial from Noam Chomsky—who has admitted to knowing Epstein socially; and whom the emails reveal to have maintained what appears to be a pretty close friendship with him. The reference letter—in Chomsky's name—speaks of how much Chomsky learned from Epstein about the global economy and how wise his insights were. 

The Herald notes that Chomsky did not sign the letter—so it's possible he did not draft it or approve its contents, but rather, that Epstein himself had prepared it in the hopes of getting Chomsky to sign it. 

Still, Chomsky has said publicly that he turned to Epstein for financial advice after the death of his first wife. And plenty of other public figures have heaped similar kinds of praise on Epstein, describing him in numerous articles and profiles as a brilliant man. 

Yet, he comes across from these emails as someone who couldn't even string a sentence together. What gives? 

Why were people so bizarrely fixated on flattering this man? Why did they all lick his boots? Why did Trump and other powerful men seem to fancy him so much? 

The internet can, perhaps, be somewhat forgiven for associating images of fellatio with this whole self-abasing spectacle—all these powerful men going down on their knees to metaphorically kiss Epstein's ring (or something else)—flattering him grotesquely for qualities he never visibly seemed to exhibit. 

As Harold Pinter once wrote of the "Special Relationship" between Bush and Tony Blair: "A man bows down before another man / And sucks his lust."

I sincerely doubt that such a transaction ever literally occurred between Trump and any other guest at Epstein's house. 

But, in a metaphorical sense, it obvious did occur between Trump and Epstein—and all of these other powerful men—including Bannon—who shamelessly flattered a monster.