For anyone with the traits - ...

For anyone with the traits - of feeling himself victimized, of seeking to be the strongman who resolves everything, yet sees truth only through his own self and negates all other truth outside of it - is bound to become more malignant when he has power. Power then breeds an intensification of all this because the power can never be absolute power - to some extent it's stymied - but the isolation while in power becomes even more dangerous. Think of it as a vicious circle. The power intensifies these tendencies and the tendencies become more dangerous because of the power.
 See image
 Robert Jay Lifton

Quotes from the same author

Again, I was influenced by my father, who was very much an atheist and took pride in combating the traditional or orthodox forms of Judaism, which his parents and which my mother's parents were very steeped in.
 See image
 Robert Jay Lifton
Trump has a mind that in many ways is always under duress, because he's always seeking to be accepted, loved. He sees himself as constantly victimized by others and by the society, from which he sees himself as fighting back. So there's always an intensity to his destructive behavior that could contribute to his false beliefs.
 See image
 Robert Jay Lifton
It may sound terrible, but I often say that the military saved me from a conventional life in the United States and I've never really thanked them for it, because I haven't exactly been pro-military in my work.
 See image
 Robert Jay Lifton
Donald Trump gives the impression that he would like to govern by decree. He has that impulse in him and he wants to be a savior, so he says, in his famous phrase, "Only I can fix it!" That's a strange and weird statement for anybody to make, but it's central to Trump's sense of self and self-presentation. And I think that has a lot to do with his identification with dictators. No matter how many they kill and no matter what else they do, they have this capacity to rule by decree without any interference by legislators or courts.
 See image
 Robert Jay Lifton
Sometimes its said that psychiatrists are doctors who are frightened by the sight of blood. I might have fallen into that category.
 See image
 Robert Jay Lifton