In Freudian psychology, displacement (German: Verschiebung, "shift, move") is an unconscious defense mechanism whereby the mind substitutes either a new aim or a new object for goals felt in their original form to be dangerous or unacceptable.[1]
A term originating with Sigmund Freud,[2] displacement operates in the mind unconsciously, its transference of emotions, ideas, or wishes being most often used to allay anxiety in the face of aggressive or sexual impulses.
One example of that is scapegoating, where aggressive energy is transferred on to a safer outlet. So the boss, angry with his own superiors, yells at his employee, who goes home and yells at his wife, who yells at her kid, who yells at the dog.
This helps to explain the strange outcome of the broadcast of the Access Hollywood tapes, in which Donald Trump boasted to Billy Bush that Trump's favorite hobby was sexually assaulting women. Trump got elected and Billy Bush lost his job.
Everyone is unconsciously afraid of the big bully and everyone secretly despises the clueless little wimp who sucks up to the big bully (because the wimp reminds everyone of themselves). So all the fear and loathing that people have of the bully is unconsciously redirected toward the wimp. That is classic displacement.
Trump seems to know this, at least at an intuitive level. Trump seems to thoroughly understand the need to maintain this image or persona of the bully, which gives Trump an invisible protective shield.
Trump was involved with professional wrestling, during which he seems to have come up with the idea of developing his own image as a bad guy or "heel" in the political realm.
If he drops this public image for a second, he knows that the public will turn on him.
But Trump's commitment to being outrageously antagonistic in public goes back much further to the advice of his late personal lawyer Roy Cohn and to Trump's father. They advised to never admit to mistakes, to always be on the offensive, to never back down, and so forth.
There was a recent column in the NY Times that Trump's objective vis-a-vis Europe seems to be the break up of the Western alliance and the destruction of NATO. This is incorrect. Trump's ultimate goal is to maintain a certain public image of himself regardless of the consequence to the world, because if his pugnacious image slips for just a second, it would be like blood in the water for sharks. So Trump is invested in always creating discord and disruption in otherwise amicable relationships. Trump's targeting of the NATO alliance is just one of many examples.
One will note that Trump plays the tough guy, but it is a very limited kind of tough guy. Trump would never stand up against a formidable opponent, Trump will only attack weak people and allies. This gives Trump the bully image that protects himself without having to risk real conflict. When Trump deals with other leaders who are widely seen as antagonistic by Americans -- the leaders of Russia and China -- Trump is suddenly very obsequious and fawning and servile. Although Trump is subservient when dealing with America's adversaries, no one seems to notice this because Trump is always attacking America's friends. (Interestingly, Vladimir Putin is very similar to Trump in being a fake tough guy who consciously plays the role of a bully in public in order to maintain his great popularity among Russians, in particular, among the Rural Working Class. It's an odd public image for a former boring KGB technocrat who was a PhD candidate in economics.)
It has been said that Trump is the kind of political leader who would get assassinated. Trump might be immune to assassination attempts as long as he can play the Jedi mind trick of being the bully who attacks friends and poor people, thus deflecting any potential aggression against himself.
That is, if there was a group of people riled up enough to assassinate Trump, they would not do it. Instead, they would displace their anger onto a "wimp" who "sucks up" to Donald Trump.
That just might be Jared Kushner.
Jared Kushner is the son of the real estate developer Charles Kushner. The latter is reputed to be even worse than Donald Trump in terms of his bad temper, greed, narcissism and sociopathy. Jared Kushner's personality is very passive and calm -- the opposite of his father. Jared Kushner's personality developed that way in order to deal with his father. This makes Jared Kushner remarkably compatible with Donald Trump, but it also makes him appealing to Ivanka Trump, who found her soul mate in a husband who is the opposite of her father.
What also makes Jared Kushner an appealing target for assassination is his pure focus on personal enrichment, which is so similar to Donald Trump. Both the Trumps and the Kushners have a freakish single-minded interest in money. Public service is inconceivable to them. This is a very unappealing personality trait in itself, but in that it is shared with Trump, it makes it that much easier to displace hatred of Trump onto Kushner.
This provides a hint as to who might want to assassinate Kushner. Liberals and moderates and conservatives are not going to organize to assassinate anyone. Instead, it would be hardcore Trump supporters who would go after Kushner. Over time, American ultra-nationalists might get an increasing sense that Trump only cares about himself, not about them or the USA (or even his own family). But this intuition might only exist in their minds at an preconscious level because they lack the boldness, imagination and intelligence of Steve Bannon to realize and articulate the insight that Donald Trump loves only himself. So American nationalists would not dare to say or even to think anything against Trump. Also, the Kushners are globalists who support free trade, international institutions and alliances (again, for their own enrichment). This would make it that much easier for nationalists to target them.
That the Trumps and the Kushners only care about their self-enrichment reveals certain insights about the election and about Trump's foreign policy. If Trump "colluded" with Russia, it was not so he could win an election -- he dreaded winning the election. Trump wanted to and still wants to build an empire of hotels and casinos in Russia, China and Saudia Arabia, and so he courts these countries assiduously. Along with his need to bully others in order to create an aura of invincibility around himself, US foreign policy is also shaped by Trump's desire to be the wealthiest land developer in the USA.
