Psychological projection occurs when you attribute to other people qualities or motives which actually describe yourself.

Projection is usually subconscious. It happens because deep down, you’re afraid of being the thing you accuse the other person of being; and to shut down your anxiety, you accuse the other person, instead.

Projection can also be conscious and deliberately manipulative. The motive is to distract others from the fact that you possess these qualities, in hopes of encouraging them to focus on the fact that others do.

It’s hard to imagine a more clear-cut example of projection than the Democratic and leftist-progressive reaction to Donald Trump’s nomination acceptance speech.

First, there’s the Washington Post editorial. “The real estate tycoon is uniquely unqualified to serve as president, in experience and temperament,” the editorial reads. “He is mounting a campaign of snarl and sneer, not substance.

Whether you agree this describes Trump or not, it most certainly describes Obama. His whole presidency has been one long sneer in the face of dissenting opinion. Whether it’s allowing the IRS to target Tea Party groups who fervently oppose his policies, or refusing to negotiate with Republicans in Congress (most of whom are milquetoasts anyway), Obama neither welcomes nor celebrates dissenting opinion. In fact, when his Attorney General threatens to prosecute people who disagree with Islam or climate change, he’s moving beyond a sneer to the ruthless will of a dictator.

“To the extent he has views, they are wrong in their diagnosis of America’s problems and dangerous in their proposed solutions. Mr. Trump’s politics of denigration and division could strain the bonds that have held a diverse nation together.”

And Obama has united America? You’ve got to be kidding. America is more divided since Obama’s presidency than at any point since at least the 1960s. Divisions are not entirely due to Obama. They’re due to lots of different things, such as culture and ideology. But Obama has done more than any president to exploit those differences for the benefit of advancing his own policies and power.

Examples: Embracing the Muslim Brotherhood; embracing Black Lives Matter; and by refusing to hold advocates of Islam responsible for the actions related to the ideas of their religion. Islam is the most divisive force in the world today: It’s the ultimate manifestation of “us versus them,” taken to the literal and absolute extreme. By defending Islam as a “victim” of hate and discrimination, Obama provides aid and comfort to the advocates of that us-versus-them, brutally divisive and totally anti-Western, anti-freedom ideology. It’s the same when he divides the nation into victim-blacks and racist-whites. It’s insulting to both racial groups to generalize them in this way; yet that’s what he does, and he enlists terrorist thugs like Black Lives Matter in that quest by supporting and morally empowering them as they mow down police officers and create anarchy.

“What the candidate [Trump] does offer is a series of prejudices and gut feelings, most of them erroneous,” the Post writes. “Allies are taking advantage of the United States. Immigrants are committing crimes and stealing jobs. Muslims hate America.”

Actually, the editorial intends to be sarcastic here. But the sarcasm is based on truth, particularly with regard to Islam. Islam is an open and vitriolic opponent not only of the United States, but of all things Western. This includes things like separation of church and state, which — in other contexts (gay marriage, abortion) — the Washington Post supports. Yet when it comes to Islam all you hear is, “How dare you criticize Muslims?”

As for prejudices, isn’t it prejudiced and biased for Obama to say things like, “You didn’t build that,” and that people who succeed and make a lot of money are the “lottery winners” of life? His bias against wealth is intense, and his opposition to the economic progress which makes wealth possible is much more narrow and hostile than anything coming out of Donald Trump’s mouth.

The Post concludes that a President Trump would pose a threat to the Constitution.

“He doesn’t know what is in the nation’s founding document … Worse, he doesn’t seem to care about its limitations on executive power,” the editorial reads.

Breathtaking. In saying these words, the Post completely evades Obama’s reliance on executive orders as a substitute for legislation, most notably when ignoring and changing existing immigration laws he could not get changed in Congress. The Constitution does not permit the President to make or alter laws, or to turn them on and off to please one’s donors or friends, as Obama did with Obamacare. Obama openly states his intention to use executive orders more and more to further erode, or perhaps eliminate, the Second Amendment right of peaceful citizens to own guns for self-protection. If Trump manages to win in November, then watch for a flurry of executive orders from Obama like the nation has never seen.

Then there’s uber-progressive U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren’s projection. “What Donald Trump says is ‘turn on each other.’ And the consequence of that one is when you turn on each other is the same guys in power, the same guys who rigged the system, get to stay in power,” Warren said.

Whether Trump says “turn on each other” or not, there’s no question that Elizabeth Warren, Hillary Clinton and other socialist Democrats do so. The entire Democratic Party is based on class warfare. “The rich guys have it and you don’t. We’re taking it from them, and giving it to you.” It’s not even true. There are not enough rich people to cover the $19 trillion dollars in debt and trillions more in deficit spending the Democrats and their Republican lackeys engage in. A lot of it comes from the middle class, many of whom vote for these plundering Democrats. Most importantly, it’s not the government’s money to take and redistribute, in the first place.

Regardless, the entire welfare state, reaching beyond the bounds of the Constitutional mandate to protect individual rights to pursue life, liberty and happiness (not take money or property from others), is grounded on the ultimate “us versus them” mentality. A socialist like Elizabeth Warren condemning anyone for fostering divisiveness to gain power is the biggest example of psychological projection I have ever seen.

“Every time you kind of scratch the surface a little bit and see what Donald Trump is really talking about, what he’s really talking about is what he’s talked about all his life and that is how to improve the world for Donald Trump,” Warren continued, before commenting on how Trump’s tax-cut proposal would benefit himself and his family.

And this doesn’t describe her party’s standard bearer, Hillary Clinton? Hillary Clinton is all about Hillary Clinton, and always has been. This would not be a problem, except she uses her self-interest not to produce, but to seize power, take rights and money from some, and give it to others, all in the pursuit of her own power. On top of it, she uses this power to make herself a millionaire, and then runs around the country with people like Elizabeth Warren, condemning the evil rich, most of whom (unlike her) made their millions or billions honestly by pleasing customers who willingly buy their products or services. The projection, evasion and downright unfairness in all this is truly staggering!

“Everyone is underestimating Donald Trump,” Warren said. “He is one dangerous man and we need to take him seriously. Take him out now.”

“Take him out” now? Can you imagine if a conservative or libertarian said this about Hillary Clinton? The Secret Service and FBI would be at their doors.

One thing is sure. We already have a dangerous man in office. The damage he has done to the country, both in government and morale, will be with us for years to come. Hillary Clinton is a dangerous woman for all the reasons — and more — that the Post and Warren say Trump is a dangerous man.

The progressive, leftist case against Donald Trump is the very case against their own party, ideology and candidates. I would tell Democrats to heal themselves, but I know they never will.

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