Deflection

The Democrats are masters at deflection. All these California wildfires are not due to forest mismanagement on the part of these woke Libs. They are caused by that ogre “climate change” which, in turn, is Trump’s fault for pulling out of that Paris climate fraud.

Increased crime rates in many cities around the country are not due to open borders and sanctuary-city policies.  They are caused by Trump’s xenophobia and his racism.

Trump was involved in Russian collusion to win against Hillary ... when just the opposite was true. This trope is classic deflection or also known as transference by the shrinks — accusing me of doing what you, in fact, are doing.

I actually am surprised that the Dems haven’t started to make this same case — Trump is the true deflector ... and his investigation into all the intelligence community‘s malfeasance in 2016, 2017 and 2018 is to cover up for what his minions are doing today. This would be known as deflecting a deflection.

Shush ... not too loud!

Transference

Sigmund Freud identified an interesting twist in the spectrum of human emotions which he labeled “transference.”  This was the tendency of those being psychoanalyzed to view their psychoanalysts as all-knowing and all-seeing … and thus an object of veneration (frequently falling in love with them.)

Siggy baby had it right … but he didn’t nearly go far enough.  It seems that our society today engages in a wide variety of illogical transference-like emotions.  We view successful investors (such as Warren Buffet) as super-experts in taxing policy.  We view movie stars (such as Sean Penn) as super-experts on international relations.  We view pop singers (such as  Madonna) as super-experts on child-raising.  We view comedians (such as Jon Stewart) as super-experts in news commentary.  We view the spouses of legislators (such as Clair McCaskill) as super-experts on law-making. 

And we view consummate politicians (you pick your favorite) as super-experts in governance.  (I guess I have also to add that we view successful venture capitalists as super-experts in politics.)