This story is the third part in a series from a candid conversation Dr. Jordan Peterson had with Fox News Digital. The first part on Pride is available here, and the second installment on his mandated sensitivity training is available here.
Famed Canadian psychologist Dr. Jordan Peterson is baffled by why so many Americans love to hate former President Trump.
Trump, the presumptive GOP nominee, is a polarizing figure. He is absolutely beloved by his base but passionately despised by many on the far-left. Peterson believes elitists throughout America are simply peeved that the brash businessman from Queens has been so successful.
"The degree of animosity that people have for Trump is actually somewhat of a mystery to me. I can't quite crack it. There's a class thing there, I would say. Elitist people are annoyed that someone like Trump, or someone who they think Trump is, has dared to enter the upper echelons of the establishment," Peterson told Fox News Digital.
"So, there's something about it that's very classist… and Trump is a brash salesman-y sort of character, right? I mean, he ran ‘The Apprentice’ for years. He's a huckster. And I don't mean that in a denigrating way," Peterson continued. "I mean, part of what's made America great is its ability to sell, right? And the shadow side of the salesman is the huckster."
Peterson believes "Trump straddles the line between salesman and huckster," which irritates liberals.
"Especially anti-capitalist, elitist leftist types," he said, noting that there have to be other reasons why the former president drives so many liberals insane.
"Is it Trump's rough edges? There's that. Is it his proclivity to bully, with which he does it very effectively and sometimes very usefully? It's that, he's déclassé, you know," Peterson added. "The elite types really hate that. They feel that he's contaminating their domain… it's very mysterious and there's multiple levels to it."
Peterson, who has studied, taught and practiced psychology for decades, admits he doesn’t completely understand what exactly makes Trump so historically polarizing. Peterson does, however, believe that the former president being found guilty on all counts in the unprecedented New York v. Trump is "terrible" for trust in America.
"Trust in major institutions has been unbelievably weakened in the last five years. Many people don't trust the medical establishment. Many people don't trust the psychological community. Many people don't trust higher education, or media, or government… or the judiciary," he said.
"Societies where trust collapses become impoverished and imperiled. It's really bad. And that sort of institutional trust is extremely difficult to develop and to maintain," Peterson continued. "I believe that the major consequence of the Trump trial will be that another 30% of Americans will lose faith in the judicial system, and that's a catastrophe."
Trump was found guilty on all counts after the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office charged him with 34 counts of falsifying business records in the first degree. Trump, who pleaded not guilty and has maintained his innocence, has blasted the entire process as "rigged."
"The Trump voters think, and rightly so, ‘Well, if they're going to persecute the person I voted for, and would like to vote for again, what's to stop them from persecuting me?’ And that is a perfectly valid question," Peterson said.
Peterson also recently explained his thoughts on "Trump Derangement Syndrome" in a post on X.
"TDS is a psychological condition induced by the requirement to make of @realDonaldTrump a worse villain than even the worst imaginable villainies of @TheDemocrats. So that all the evil the left does and is planning can be justified by the constant insistence," he wrote, noting that Trump critics believe "no matter how badly we behave Trump would be worse," and "no matter what we do in the future Trump would do worse."
"Trump now literally has to be Hitler," Peterson wrote.
"Why? Because @TheDemocrats have now taken their ideological corruption so far that only such a comparison suffices to make their primary opponent a threat more dangerous than the one they themselves clearly pose," he continued. "Trump Derangement Syndrome: Because no matter how horrible we are, he has to be worse."
