A psychiatrist's view of how Donald Trump poses a serious and imminent treat
Dr. Bandy X. Lee
(Please be forewarned that I will be talking a lot about feces further below.)
Donald Trump has set many records in protests. The day after his 2017 inauguration was the Women’s March, the largest single-day protest in U.S. history, with a turnout somewhere between 6 and 7 million people in over 600 U.S. cities and more than 80 countries.
In June and July 2020, between 15 and 26 million people in
the United States participated in Black Lives Matter demonstrations. Protests
occurred in over 2000 U.S. towns and cities and more than 60 countries on every
inhabited continent. Geographically, it was the largest global civil rights
movement in human history.
Now, the No Kings protests, also known internationally as
the No Dictators or No Tyrants protests, on June 14 and October 18, 2025, broke
records as well. The June 14 event mobilized demonstrations in over 2100 cities
and towns across the U.S., by 4 to 6 million people—which places it on par with
or possibly surpasses the Women’s March
(which was estimated at 3.3 to 5.6 million in U.S. attendance). For October 18,
2025, reporters cite 7 million participants in more than 2700 locations across
the U.S., signaling considerable scale and spread of opposition. It is
certainly the largest demonstration against a U.S. president in all history.
Commentators remark (if they do at all) that it is,
“shocking”, “insane”, and “infantile”; most do not have words. Yet, we must
recognize that we cannot continue to bury our heads in the sand. To appreciate
truly the ominous meaning of the extraordinary expression, and to handle and
properly prepare for what it entails, we must develop greater psychological
literacy—for this is not simply child’s play or an ostentatious display.
In fact, in early Freudian analysis, feces held specific
meaning (though strange in imagery or terminology, if one were to spend just a
little time in the psychiatric setting, one would quickly learn how
illuminating Sigmund Freud’s observations are and why he is considered a
genius—the connections he has made are simply clinically uncanny). Feces,
associated with the “anal stage,” denote control, autonomy, and self-exertion.
As a brief introduction, here is an overview of what Freud
called, “the psychosexual stages of development”:
1. Oral stage (birth to age 1)
2. Anal stage (ages 1 to 3)
3. Phallic stage (ages 3 to 6)
4. Latency stage (ages 6 to 11)
5. Genital stage (adolescence to adulthood)
At the oral stage, the child’s anatomical zone of fixation is the mouth, and the focus of development is trust and nourishment. At the anal stage, the zone of pleasure and conflict is the anus, and the focus of development is control, autonomy, and compliance. At the phallic stage, the zone of pleasure and curiosity is the genitals, and the focus of development is gender identity, desire, rivalry, and morality. At the latency stage, there is no longer an anatomical zone of fixation, and the focus is on learning, socialization, and skill development. At the genital stage, the focus is on full-blown sexuality, and the developmental theme on maturity, intimacy, and generativity.
The first three stages are critical in personality and ego
development, and any severe deprivation results in arrestation at that stage
(or, in times of stress, regression to an earlier stage).
For example, a person who has not received enough nurturance
in infancy may not get past an “oral” fixation that leads to problems with
overeating, smoking, or excessive talking in adulthood. If a person is arrested
in toddlerhood, through neglect or abuse, one may get fixed on things of
retention and release: autonomy from control and exertion of power. And if a
person is stunted at the phallic stage, problems with sexual identity and
self-worth may ensue.
Returning to the subject of feces, at the anal stage, a
child discovers that they are “something of one’s own creation”—a possession
they can choose to give or withhold—as toilet training becomes the first
experience of real negotiation and struggle with the parent, instead of being a
passive recipient. Defecation, therefore, is an early symbol of power.
The child may also view feces as a “gift” to the parent,
especially when the giving or withholding expresses affection or defiance.
Retention or elimination symbolizes control and mastery, and therefore is
connected to submission or rebellion.
Freud noted that feces often become symbolically “equated
with money,” stemming from this early perception of feces as a valuable
substance that one may offer (“anal-retentive” personality traits—such as
stinginess or orderliness—arise from this connection). They may even represent
a product of creativity and productivity, having come out of the self and being
released into the world.
At the same time, expelling waste can symbolize violence and
aggression toward others through a wish to dirty or degrade them.
“Anal-expulsive” personalities thus tend to be aggressive, defiant, and
antisocial.
All these fixations are normal at the appropriate stage of
development. When they occur later in life, however, they can be indications
that the individual is psychologically “stuck” in that earlier stage, for
whatever reason—and this becomes pathology.
The earlier the stage of arrested development or regression,
the more severe the pathology as a rule. And the greater the frustration of the
control, power exertion, and defiance that never happened at an appropriate
age—whether because of abuse, neglect, or misfortune of circumstances—the
greater the buildup of rage, which now seeks expression with revenge.
This reminds me of an earlier, similarly infantile video
that mixes total destruction with total fantasy:
And as reality fails—as it always does—to meet the infantile fantasies of unlimited control, total dominance, and utter destruction of the world that has failed him, the buildup of fury only grows. This is why “dictators” who are most commonly wounded at the anal stage are so effective at mobilizing others who are similarly developmentally wounded, and equally effective at similarly wounding the world, in vengeance for what they did not receive in childhood.
And the better we understand what we are facing, the more
swiftly we will be able to find solutions. We would not put a literal toddler
in charge of the nation; why would we a functional one?
Dr. Lee is a forensic and social psychiatrist who became known to the public through her 2017 Yale conference and book that emphasized the importance of fit leadership. In 2019, she organized a major National Press Club Conference on the theme of, “The Dangerous State of the World and the Need for Fit Leadership.” In 2024, she followed up with another major Conference, “The More Dangerous State of the World and the Need for Fit Leadership.” She published another book on fit leadership that has been recently expanded, in addition to a volume on how unfitness in a leader spreads and two critical statements on fit leadership. Dr. Lee warned that journalists and intellectuals are the first to be suppressed in times of unfit leadership, and it is happening here; she continues, however, to be interviewed or covered abroad, such as in France, Germany, Norway, Switzerland, the Czech Republic, Italy, Poland, Russia, Brazil, Chile, Argentina, Mexico, and Canada (with notable articles in Dutch, Finnish, Estonian, Lithuanian, Slovakian, Ukrainian, Turkish, Persian, Hindi, and Korean). She authored the internationally-acclaimed textbook, Violence; over 100 peer-reviewed articles and chapters; and 17 scholarly books and journal special issues, in addition to over 300 opinion editorials. Dr. Lee is also a master of divinity, currently developing a new curriculum for public education on “One World or None.”
