Projection:
An unconscious self-defense mechanism characterized by a person unconsciously attributing their own issues onto someone or something else as a form of delusion and denial.
A way to blame others for your own negative thoughts by repressing them and then attributing them to someone else. Due to the sorrowful nature of delusion and denial it is very difficult for the target to be able to clarify the reality of the situation.
A way to transfer guilt for your own thoughts, emotions and actions onto another as a way of not admitting your guilt to yourself.
Urban Dictionary
Donald Trump is constantly criticized because he`s such a horrible human being, but like most psychopaths he`s a master at projection.
During Wednesday`s press conference Trump employed this tactic when reporters asked him legitimate questions about his nasty tone and racist rhetoric.
When PBS`s Yamiche Alcindor asked Trump in a measured tone whether his decision to call himself a “nationalist” may have emboldened white nationalists, he angrily replied:
I don`t know why you`d say that, such a racist question. I don`t believe that, I don`t believe it. To say that, what you said, is so insulting to me.
Trump calling himself a “nationalist” is one of the symphony of dog whistles that he has employed to appeal to his racist base. It is the epitome of projection for a brazen racist to call a black journalist a racist for merely doing her job.
When CNN reporter Jim Acosta asked about a racist, anti-immigration commercial, that even Fox News stopped airing, Trump bit his head off screaming that he was “a rude and terrible person.”
Acosta is a dogged reporter in the mold of Sam Donaldson, but he`s neither rude or a horrible person. Mocking losing Republican candidates who didn`t ask Trump to campaign for them because they were running in suburban districts where`s he`s anathema is the very definition of a rude and terrible person.
Trump`s strategy of projection isn`t fooling anyone, he`s universally despised in the homeland and around the globe.
Yamiche Alcindor and Jim Acosta are a dutifully serving the nation by holding Trump accountable for his toxic words. They will go down in history as heroes for speaking truth to power, and Trump will go down in history as a rude and terrible president.