Lizard Brain

June 10, 2016

It has become clear he simply can't help it. The fear in Donald Trump's lizard brain overrides whatever better instincts he might have, and the attacks soon follow.

Not that Trump has the brain of a lizard. The oldest and most basic part of our brains, the cerebellum, is sometimes called the lizard brain. It controls the primitive functions of life: heartbeat, breathing, the basics.

It's also home to our fight-or-flight reflex, triggered in the face of fear. It's where racism, sexism, misogyny and xenophobia are born, where the darkness in our souls lurks, awaiting the chance to escape

Empathy, sympathy, communication, the ability to make connections with other people, what we call humanity, all are located in newer parts of our brains.

Trump's more evolved brain is not part of his presidential campaign. It must be in there someplace, but it's his lizard brain we see in action. Trump is afraid of plenty, and his instinct is to fight, not flee.

His claims of egalitarian, merit-based workplaces notwithstanding, we've known Trump has had issues with women for a long time. Read his earlier books with their remarkably demeaning passages about women. Or listen to interviews in which he says men shouldn't let their wives work, or that his first marriage ended because his wife spent too much time working — not because of his serial philandering, about which he likes to brag.

Strong women clearly frighten him. He doesn't understand them beyond how they might look on his arm or in his bed. He lashes out at their appearance, and weight, is uniquely dismissive of most women journalists, and blames women for their husband's misbehavior.

And his fear isn't just gender-specific; he's plenty frightened by different races, ethnicities and religions too. If he doesn't understand it, or it doesn't agree with his restrictive viewpoint, he insults, demeans and attempts to diminish.

Mexico has unleashed Trump's lizard brain in full. Mexican illegal immigrants — he has mentioned no other nationality — he deems “bad people” who include rapists and murderers because “Mexico is not sending their best.” That was the setup; Mexicans are bad people who shouldn't be trusted.

The payoff is his more recent verbal assaults on a judge presiding over the civil trial involving Trump University. Trump says the judge should recuse himself because his rulings have been “biased” and “unbelievable” and — this is key — the judge is Mexican; so he should be disqualified. After all, Trump wants to build a wall.

The judge, of course, is not Mexican. He was born in Indiana. The “biased” and “unbelievable” rulings? They unsealed documents exposing the sham that was Trump University; legal experts confirm the rulings were perfectly appropriate. (It does make one wonder just whom President Trump would appoint to the federal bench.)

None of that matters to Trump nor most of his supporters. He's convinced them that they, too, should be afraid.

So terrified is Trump of Muslims that he'd like to prevent them from entering the U.S. altogether and thinks we should conduct surveillance on those already here. His vision of Islam is ISIS and Al-Qaeda, not the 1.5 billion Muslims doing nothing but living their lives or the millions peacefully and productively living here. Surveillance? On Kareem Abdul Jabbar?

Perhaps the fact that Trump gives voice, often unpleasantly so, to his fears is part of his winning formula — people are already thinking these heinous thoughts, so he'll just say them.

There is actually plenty of research indicating human beings are genetically encoded to be fearful and distrustful of people who don't look, speak, act or believe like they themselves do. Fortunately, most of us also have an evolved part of our brains that reassures us and allows us to learn, understand and reason. We know better than to condemn an entire ethnicity or religion even if our backgrounds and beliefs sometimes conflict.

Trump seems unable to make such a distinction. The Trump cerebellum is ever vigilant for anything outside his narrow vision. His reaction is the same on every occasion: attack.

Maybe he isn't afraid at all, maybe this isn't the Trump lizard brain at work. Maybe he's thought it over carefully and cynically decided that being a misogynist and bigot works to his advantage because it engages the lizard brains of his supporters: Evildoers are everywhere, but he will protect us.

His plan doesn't seem to be working. Despite his claims that he loves “the women,” “the Mexicans,” and “the blacks,” and they love him, the polls indicate otherwise. They show more than 60 percent of all women voters, 70 percent of Latino voters, and 80 percent of African-American voters say they will not vote for Trump under any circumstances. If those numbers are even remotely accurate, Trump's strategy will have worked in reverse.

He activated our lizard brains, and we chose to flee. From him.