I am no psychic, but I can forecast a few basic things. For example, as a very casual baseball fan I am modestly certain that Shohei Ohtani and Aaron Judge will be selected as the respective MVPs of the junior and senior circuits. As a somewhat more scrutinizing fan of the NBA, I can confidently guess that Steph will lead the league in three point shots made, and Wemby will top all shot blockers for the upcoming season.

But I do harder predictions too – like the upcoming US presidential election that will determine how quickly humanity goes down in a hot Mesozoic reprise. Let me tear open the secret envelope…..are you all ready? The winner will be – wait for it – Donald “I raped more women than any fascist dictator in history” Trump. This might be counterintuitive – after all, Trump raped more women than any other fascist dictator in history, and more than half of the electorate is comprised of women. Even if you argue that most female voters are not attractive enough for Trump to rape, it still boggles the mind, or does it? 

You also might complain that Trump is the first treasonous traitor to conduct an incompetently planned coup, bungled on national TV. I personally prefer to vote for successful seditionists, but less discriminating fans of the violent overthrow of pseudo democracies will still turn out in enormous numbers to vote for a man who could not overthrow the government of the most decaying, worm-eaten, termite infested nation to ever limp across an entire voting cycle. 

OK, you still might argue that my predicted winner is a transparently self-serving conman with the vocabulary of a six year old, and a mean-spirited sneer that would alarm even the best natured Labrador retriever. I might counter with the observation that Kamala Harris has abandoned the barest pretense of working class fidelity – and that she has been seen publicly with her arm draped around the doddering remains of Dick “I mistook my friend for a moose” Cheney. But Harris’ descent into fascism lite is not the key to my tin foil hat abilities. 

Allow me to dabble on the subject of mass psychology – Donald Trump arouses our collective brain chemistry. Yes, he appeals to our cruelty, our lust for violent spectacles, and our longing for facile answers to complex problems, but Democratic Party politicians also give the public plenty of simplified bullshit and a full throttle display of proxy genocide and sadism toward asylum seekers. How is it that we need Trump to goose our national dopamine?

Almost a quarter of a century ago, the Canadian psychologist, Bruce K. Alexander, wrote:

“To have a place in human society, a person must establish and continually rework a set of supportive relationships with a family, community, religion and so forth. This process has been called “psychosocial integration” (Erikson, 1963; 1968; 1982)’. The cumber- some term, “psychosocial integration,” refers simultaneously to an individual’s experience of engagement with a group, and to the group’s understanding and acceptance of the individual. Psychosocial integration is essential – it makes life bearable and even joyful at its peaks.

Universal dislocation is the focus of this article. Although a person in any society can become dislocated, “free market” societies inevitably dislocate their members, rich as well as poor, from traditional family, community, and religious ties. This is done in order to create and maintain a free-market in labour, land, currency and consumer goods which allows an unencumbered pursuit of individual and corporate wealth (Weber, 1920/1958; Polanyi, 1944, Gray, 1998). The founding principle of free-market society is that unencumbered pursuit of wealth benefits everybody in the long run by multiplying the “wealth of nations” (Smith, 1776/ 1991). 

   Whether or not it is universal, severe dislocation provokes a desperate response. Dislocated people struggle to find or restore psychosocial integration – to somehow “get a life”.”

Among the ways that “dislocated” people in market economies attempt to compensate for their degraded lives, addictions feature prominently. The dopamine depleted members of neoliberal societies become, according to Alexander, avid seekers of chemicals and experiences that bolster a sense – however temporary – of well-being. Alexander cites studies using rats (I personally disapprove of animal experiments, but reference this point for clarity) that showed an inverse relationship between social connectedness and drug seeking frequency. Isolated rats pulled levers that released drugs far more than those with access to companionship. 

The French philosopher, Bernard Stiegler, would echo Alexander in his 2010 manifesto, stating:

“Now, while this generalized becoming-waste pollutes the natural environment, the disposability of the object affects the subjects who dispose of these objects: they feel that they themselves are disposable. Consumerist society thus proves to have become, today, and in the eyes of everyone, toxic, not only for the physical environment, but also for mental structures and psychic apparatuses: as drive-based, it has become massively addictogenic—and this is why the French national association of stakeholders concerned with toxicology and addiction held its 2009 congress under the banner, “Addictogenic society.”

The “adictogenic” quality of life in the US – the belly of the neoliberal beast – explains why America leads all industrial nations in deaths of despair. Reading Alexander and Stiegler helps us to understand why US residents spend more time watching porn and more money on gambling than any nation on earth. But this piece is about Donald Trump’s imminent election victory – what does gambling and addiction to porn have to do with the US electoral system?

The term “tolerance” defines a fundamental aspect of the addiction process – stimulating experiences produce less and less dopamine over time. Addicts famously use more and more drugs or engage in escalating behaviors to boost dopamine. Thus, the kid who took an occasional toke with friends may, under the worst circumstances, wind up incrementally in need of more stimulation. Few addicts begin the addictive process doing daily “speedballs.” The casual porn watcher may “graduate” to spending the rent check on prostitutes, and the person who begins buying “Powerball” tickets once a week may ultimately spend their life savings on a bet that the White Sox will win the 2025 World Series. Addiction is an incremental process of craving, relief, tolerance and escalation.

If we see tolerance as driving a series of escalating risks in pursuit of the elusive treasure, dopamine, we understand the predicament of Alexander’s “dislocated” masses. We are a nation fumbling through our short lifespans with little access to the traditional means of well-being. We increasingly seek more and more outrageous, and wildly destructive pastimes to transform the chemical deserts of our brains into blooming oases of numbed out respite.

We are also political animals, and, like sex, gambling, food and drugs, politics provide a pathway toward neurochemical redemption. But there is that gnarly problem with tolerance. Like skydivers, speed-ballers and sex addicts we crave political experiences that lubricate our neurons. We are a nation collectively sick of the tedious, boring politics of centrists – we have built up tolerance to the Bushes, Clintons, Obamas and Bidens. Centrist politics are like watered down beer. Donald Trump is a speedball, a parachute jump from the Burj Khalifa, an injection of fentanyl in one arm and a simultaneous shot of crystal meth in the other. Tolerance and escalation are the two components of addiction, and if politics represent one of the limitless avenues to keep dopamine at the level of psychological survival, then Donald Trump becomes a vehicle for those searching for an alternative to shooting crystal meth.

If, as Alexander maintains, we inhabit an addictogenic society, the crazy obsession with brain altering risks ends with Trump. If the drug addict goes from hydrocodone to percocets to morphine, the political addict has gone from Nixon to Reagan to Trump. Politics, like chemical addictions, seeks an endgame of fatal overdosing.

A recent piece by Ralph Nader urges the Democratic Party to embrace working class values and policies, to turn away from war, to align with the needs of poor, and to advocate for far more forceful ways to mitigate climate. I rather assume that a writer as gifted and savvy as Nader understands that it is too late to divert the speeding Democratic train from the abyss awaiting it, but there is an even larger issue that the best of progressives fail to acknowledge – we, the residents of this beleaguered country crave both relief from the crimes of capitalism, but also deliverance from the numbing ennui of our dislocation. 

The Democratic Party suicidal mission – to affix Republican lunacy to the polite rituals of political tradition – leaves us without an eye-dropper full of dopamine. Many of us love Trump precisely because he is batshit insane, utterly unhinged and barely recognizable as a member of the human species. As our “tolerance” for traditional politics has left us in a depressed stupor, we have sought the relief of an absolute lunatic. Trump is the political equivalent to a smoking crack.

It is not merely political change but excitement that voters seek, and the Democratic Party has been slow to catch on. Trump gives us crazy shit as a function of his mangled soul. He offers the prospect of rageful cruelty devoid of substance. But a radical movement on the left could offer the same dopamine injecting theater within the context of real policy. 

What if a political leader called for the jailing of oil executives? How about threatening to seize the holdings of venture capitalists who buy up housing on an industrial scale? What might happen if a presidential candidate promised to turn over Northrup Grumman executives to The Hague for war crimes? We have bizarrely come to associate cravings for escalating political excitement as being merely a property of the far right.

Attaching Trump’s agenda to the superficial balm of moderation is a fool’s errand. In America, progressive agendas have been called crazy. But crazy is what America longs for. We are victims of collective boredom, shaking with withdrawal cravings. No one will beat Trump with moderation. A progressive movement has to run on a platform promising dopamine for all – even if the final goal is to free the addicted masses from dislocation.

Phil’s writings are posted regularly at Nobody’s Voice.

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