Quotessence
Home / Authors / Robert Jay Lifton
Robert Jay Lifton

Robert Jay Lifton Quotes

Psychiatrist

Filter quotes by topic

AllDangerousPeopleBelievePresidentPsychologicalStudyBrainwashingCountryDoctorsKindThinkingCommunismFeelingsFirstsMaoismMarxismMeanMilitaryMindPsychiatric

Famous Robert Jay Lifton Quotes

“There are people who believe that there should be a standard psychiatric examination for every presidential candidate and for every president. But these are difficult issues because they can't ever be entirely psychiatric. They're inevitably political as well. I personally believe that ultimately ridding the country of a dangerous president or one who's unfit is ultimately a political matter, but that psychological professionals can contribute in valuable ways to that decision.”

PeopleBelieveCountryPoliticalDifficultPresidentDecisionDangerousValuablePsychologicalPresidentialPresidential CandidatePsychiatricUs President
Author:Robert Jay Lifton
Create image

“Donald Trump doesn't have clear contact with reality, though I'm not sure it qualifies as a bona fide delusion. He needs things to be a certain way even though they aren't, and that's one reason he lies. There can also be a conscious manipulative element to it. When he put forward, and politically thrived on, the falsehood of President Obama's birth in Kenya, outside the United States, he was manipulating that lie as well as undoubtedly believing it in part, at least in a segment of his personality.”

BelieveReasonRealityLyingPresidentPersonalityBirthConsciousNot SureDelusionPresident ObamaFalsehoodManipulative
Author:Robert Jay Lifton
Create image

“While Donald Trump doesn't have any systematic ideology, he does have a narrative, and in that narrative, America was once a great country, it's been weakened by poor leadership, and only he can make it great again by taking over. And that's an image of himself as a strongman, a dictator. It isn't the clear ideology of being a fascist or some other clear-cut ideological figure. Rather, it's a narrative of himself as being unique and all-powerful. He believes it, though I'm sure he's got doubts about it.”

BelieveCountryPoorDoubtUniqueIdeologyDictatorIdeologicalGreat Country
Author:Robert Jay Lifton
Create image

“Donald Trump both disbelieves and believes in falsehoods, so that when he did thrive on his longstanding - the claim that Obama was not born in the United States - he's crazy like a fox in manipulating it because it gave him his political entrée onto the national stage. In order to make your falsehoods powerful, you have to believe in them in some extent. And that's why we simplify things if we say that Trump either believes nothing in his falsehoods and is just manipulating us like a fox or he completely believes them.”

BelievePoliticalPowerfulCrazyThriveFalsehoodSimplify
Author:Robert Jay Lifton
Create image