Psychologist sees hope despite warning of 'murderous aggression' at Trump campaign's end

Vice President Kamala Harris has figured out exactly how to hit former President Donald Trump where it hurts on the campaign trail, psychologist Stephen Ducat told Salon's Chauncey DeVega.

Specifically, Ducat said, Harris has shaken Trump's sense of "impunity" — the idea, integral to his whole brand, that he can do whatever he wants, go after whomever he wants, and nobody can touch him for it.

And she's taking advantage of it as Trump ups the ante in the closing days before the election, he said.

'[Trump] frames his own murderous aggression as simple retaliation against being victimized by liberal persecutors," Ducat wrote.

"Trump seizes every opportunity to play the crucified Christ but one that will never turn the other cheek."

And he said, "The central quality that has defined Trump’s success as a businessperson and political conman and as a brand is impunity. The fact that he has been openly corrupt, lying, racist, predatory, cruel – and until recently never been held to account or made to pay a significant price – is what half the population has found ugly and infuriating. It is also what the other half continues to experience as powerfully seductive and admirable."

By being the way he is, he continued, Trump acts as a "permissive superego" that lets his supporters act like sociopaths knowing they'll get approval for doing so.

For years now, Trump has gotten away with this — and has even managed to delay all of his criminal trials, save one, past the election for the time being, he wrote.

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But Harris is piercing the bubble, Ducat said, and she is doing it by embodying what the Democratic Party has sought to represent for years.

"The strategic intelligence of the Harris team, especially their departure from the messaging fecklessness of earlier Democratic Party campaigns, has given me hope," he said.

"Especially notable has been their effectiveness at speaking to Gen Z, a cohort that has been hard for Biden to mobilize in recent years. That generation tends to be more open-minded and embracing of difference, like liberals more generally."

This comes as Harris has gone on the offensive to make Trump look as weak as possible, even highlighting the fact that people are increasingly leaving his rallies early — something that has visibly shaken Trump and prompted fierce denials from him.