# Post ts_111121965057265809

- Post ID: `ts_111121965057265809`
- Platform: Truth Social
- Posted: 2023-09-24T20:17:05.021Z (UTC)
- Deleted: no
- Repost: no
- Canonical URL: https://trump.fm/post/ts_111121965057265809
- Analysis page: https://trump.fm/post/ts_111121965057265809/analysis

## Post text

> https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/09/bannon-unloads-murdochs-president-trump-will-return-like/

## Engagement

- Likes: 10,010
- Reposts: 2,426
- Replies: 143
- Views: unknown
- Metrics collected: 2026-02-01T01:19:51.397Z (UTC)

# Analysis

_Machine-generated by trump.fm on 2026-03-24T08:55:12.157Z (UTC): a model's reading of this post, not his words. Its psychological terms describe the language, not a clinical assessment of him._

## Summary

This URL-only share amplifies a Gateway Pundit article featuring Steve Bannon attacking Rupert Murdoch/Fox News and casting Trump as a "modern Cincinnatus" — the Roman dictator who twice relinquished power and returned to save the republic. The post processes a real narcissistic injury (Fox's post-2020 distancing, Murdoch's reported DeSantis preference) through classic splitting: formerly idealized media patron Murdoch is devalued to "foreign scumbag" while convicted Bannon is elevated as truth-teller. The Cincinnatus framing represents sophisticated identity work — reframing electoral defeat as noble withdrawal pending triumphant return, pre-loading a victorious narrative arc for the 2024 campaign. A paranoid inversion underpins the election denial content: Fox is accused of manipulating the 2020 election through its accurate Arizona call, while Fox's actual $787.5M Dominion settlement for false pro-Trump claims goes unacknowledged. Authorship attribution leans aide-assisted (3:17 PM CDT, no personal text, pattern of five consecutive URL shares). Danger level elevated for dehumanizing language amplified at scale and ongoing election denial grievance infrastructure.

# Analysis: ts_111121965057265809 — Gateway Pundit / Bannon on Murdochs (2023-09-24)

## Post Character
This is a bare URL share with zero accompanying text — one of five consecutive URL-only posts on this date. The post's entire meaning is delegated to the linked content: a Gateway Pundit article featuring Steve Bannon attacking Rupert Murdoch and Fox News while casting Trump as a modern Cincinnatus destined to return.

## Authorship Attribution
**Lean: Aide-assisted (0.3/1.0 authentic)** — Mid-afternoon posting (3:17 PM CDT, Trump in Dubuque, Iowa for a rally), no personal text, and a pattern of five consecutive URL shares on the same day all suggest curated amplification rather than spontaneous authentic posting. Trump's authentic posts characteristically carry at minimum brief emotional punctuation. Confidence: medium.

## Level 1: Dispositional Traits
Extraversion is attenuated — no direct assertion. **Low agreeableness** is visible through proxy via the hostile framing toward Murdoch. The content amplified reflects **high neuroticism (angry hostility)** directed at a formerly idealized media patron.

## Level 2: Characteristic Adaptations
**Agency motive dominant**: The post processes a real status threat — Fox News and Murdoch had been signaling preference for DeSantis; the Cincinnatus myth reasserts Trump's inevitability and indispensability. **Paranoid schema**: Accurate Arizona election-night reporting is reframed as deliberate betrayal, fitting an established persecution framework.

## Level 3: Narrative Identity
The Cincinnatus comparison is the most analytically significant element. Cincinnatus, the Roman patrician who twice left his farm to rescue Rome as Dictator and twice voluntarily returned to private life, was the ultimate anti-tyrant hero — George Washington famously embodied this ideal. By applying this archetype to Trump in the context of the 2024 campaign, Bannon (and Trump by amplification) accomplishes several narrative tasks simultaneously:
- Reframes the 2020 loss not as defeat but as a Cincinnatus-style withdrawal
- Reframes the 2024 campaign not as desperate political survival but as noble return to service
- Pre-loads the victorious narrative: Cincinnatus *always* returns and *always* succeeds
- Implicitly likens Trump to Washington — the republic's necessary founder-savior

This is among the most elaborate mythological identity claims in the Trump media ecosystem, and its amplification here is psychologically significant regardless of authorship.

## Level 4: Clinical Indicators

### Narcissistic Dynamics
**Trigger**: Narcissistic injury from perceived Murdoch/Fox defection. Fox's post-2020 editorial pivot away from Trump, Murdoch's reported interest in DeSantis as alternative, and the lingering wound of the Arizona call all constitute unfavorable comparison and abandonment. **Defense**: Devaluation (Murdoch as 'foreign scumbag') replaces idealization (Fox as loyal MAGA megaphone). This splitting is characteristic — no gradation between trusted ally and treacherous enemy. **Supply mechanism**: Amplifying Bannon's hagiography is supply-by-proxy, allowing grandiose self-mythologizing without direct self-aggrandizement.

### Paranoid Features
The claim that Fox's Arizona call constituted "media cover for stealing" the election represents a paranoid inversion: Fox's Arizona projection was early but ultimately accurate, and Fox later *settled for $787.5M* with Dominion over its false pro-Trump election claims. The amplified narrative inverts documented reality — Fox is accused of the precise wrongdoing it was actually penalized for committing *on Trump's behalf*. This is a projection/distortion compound.

## Defense Mechanisms
**Devaluation** (immature): Murdoch reduced to 'foreign scumbag.' **Projection** (immature): Fox accused of election manipulation — mirrors Fox's actual conduct per Dominion settlement. **Idealization** (immature): Bannon, a convicted felon, elevated as sole truth-teller. **Rationalization** (neurotic): Defeat becomes selfless withdrawal; campaign becomes heroic return.

## Archetypal Analysis
**Primary archetype amplified: Hero/Savior + King** — the Cincinnatus frame is the King who relinquishes power, waits, and returns to restore order. **Shadow projected onto**: Murdoch/Fox — corrupt foreign power corrupting American democracy from within. **Secondary: Warrior** — Bannon's "unloads" framing keeps the combat posture active even within the mythological framing.

## Order/Chaos Dynamics
**Order attacker + Order restorer**: Fox/Murdoch represents corrupt establishment order (fake order). Trump represents legitimate order that will be restored. The post positions the Murdoch media empire as the chaos agent, and Trump's return as the restoration — even as the rhetoric itself destabilizes epistemic order through election denial.

## Gaslighting & Reality Distortion
**Present**: The Arizona call was accurate reporting. Framing it as election manipulation inverts documented fact. **DARVO pattern**: Fox is accused of doing to Trump what Fox was actually doing *for* Trump (spreading false election claims). Followers who accept this framing enter a reality tunnel in which accurate reporting = corruption and false reporting = integrity.

## Fact Verification

| Claim | Verdict | Evidence |
|-------|---------|----------|
| "Fox News/Murdoch provided media cover for 'stealing' the 2020 election through the Arizona call" | **False** | Fox's Arizona call on election night 2020 was accurate — Biden did win Arizona. Fox News subsequently paid $787.5M to Dominion Voting Systems for broadcasting false pro-Trump election fraud claims, i.e. the documented media manipulation ran in the opposite direction from Bannon's claim. |
| "Murdoch declared intention to make Trump 'a non-person'" | **Unverifiable** | Presented as a direct quote without sourcing in the article. Could not verify from available evidence. |
| "Trump is comparable to Cincinnatus in his relationship to power" | **Unverifiable** | This is a rhetorical/historical metaphor, not a verifiable factual claim. |

Overall Veracity: 33%

## Danger Assessment
**Elevated** — not for direct violent content, but for the dehumanizing language ('foreign scumbag') amplified to millions, and for the continued propagation of election denial narratives that provide the grievance infrastructure for politically motivated violence.

## Summary Note
Clinically this is a moderate-intensity proxy supply post. The absence of Trump's own words limits direct assessment but the curation choices are themselves diagnostic — the Cincinnatus mythologization represents the most sophisticated self-heroizing frame in the Trump media apparatus and its amplification here reflects the grandiose-redemptive narrative that anchors Trump's 2024 identity construction.

## Authorship Analysis

**Aide-Written** (score: 30%)

### Indicators

- UTC 20:17 = 3:17 PM CDT (Iowa, Central Daylight) — mid-afternoon business hours on a rally day in Dubuque
- Zero accompanying text — no personal commentary, exclamation, or reaction
- One of five consecutive URL-only posts on this date — suggests curated media push rather than spontaneous reaction
- Gateway Pundit is a known Trump amplification outlet; curation is ideologically consistent but manner of posting is impersonal

## Psychological Profile

### State

**Grandiose State**

**Trigger:** Narcissistic Injury — Comparison (Murdoch/Fox News perceived defection toward DeSantis; Fox's post-2020 editorial distancing from Trump)

Sentiment: -0.40

### Clinical

**Malignant Narcissism:**
- Narcissistic: 70%
- Antisocial: 30%
- Paranoid: 50%
- Sadism: 10%

**Defense Mechanisms:**
- devaluation (immature)
- projection (immature)
- idealization (immature)
- rationalization (neurotic)

**Cognitive Complexity:**
- Complexity: 0%

**Parasocial Techniques:**
- Heroic mythology (Cincinnatus) invites followers to see themselves as witnesses to a historic return
- In-group/out-group reinforcement: true patriots watch real news vs. Murdoch-controlled 'non-persons'
- Grievance transfer: Fox's Arizona call reframed as personal betrayal of every Trump supporter

## Danger Assessment

**ELEVATED**

### Indicators

- Dehumanizing language ('foreign scumbag') amplified to large audience via repost
- Ongoing election denial narrative provides grievance infrastructure for politically motivated actors
- Delegitimization of major media outlet accelerates epistemic fragmentation
- Bannon — source being amplified — has a documented history of incitement rhetoric

### Gaslighting

- Fox's accurate Arizona election-night call reframed as corrupt election interference — inverts documented reality
- Fox later settled with Dominion for $787.5M for false pro-Trump election claims — the actual fraud direction is inverted in this framing
- DARVO pattern: Fox accused of the precise election manipulation it was actually penalized for conducting on Trump's behalf

**Dehumanizing Language Present**

## Fact Checks (3)

_The model's verdicts from 2026-03-24._

> Fox News/Murdoch provided media cover for 'stealing' the 2020 election through the Arizona call

**FALSE**

Fox's Arizona call on election night 2020 was accurate — Biden did win Arizona. Fox News subsequently paid $787.5M to Dominion Voting Systems for broadcasting false pro-Trump election fraud claims, i.e. the documented media manipulation ran in the opposite direction from Bannon's claim.

Sources: Dominion v. Fox News settlement, April 2023; Arizona certified Biden victory, November 2020

> Murdoch declared intention to make Trump 'a non-person'

**UNVERIFIABLE**

Presented as a direct quote without sourcing in the article. Could not verify from available evidence.

> Trump is comparable to Cincinnatus in his relationship to power

**UNVERIFIABLE**

This is a rhetorical/historical metaphor, not a verifiable factual claim.

Overall Veracity: 33%

## Tags

- election_denial (80%)
- anti_murdoch (90%)
- cincinnatus_mythology (85%)
- bannon_amplification (70%)
- fox_news_devaluation (80%)
- url_only_post (60%)
- gateway_pundit_share (70%)
- narcissistic_injury_processing (65%)

## That day

_From trump.fm's machine-generated digest of the day, not his words._

**From Abortion Victory Lap to Media 'Treason' Threats: Grandiosity Curdles Into Authoritarian Escalation**

Trump spent most of the day in self-congratulatory mode, sharing a flood of favorable polling articles and claiming sole credit for overturning Roe v. Wade. The afternoon brought a burst of link-sharing -- over a dozen posts in two hours, mostly curated by staff -- highlighting polls showing him leading Biden by 10 points. The mood darkened toward evening as he pivoted to the Menendez indictment to relitigate his own legal grievances, and the day ended with the most alarming post: an explicit threat to use federal regulatory power against NBC and MSNBC for what he called "Country Threatening Treason." That final post stood out as a concrete, specific vision of press suppression framed as patriotic duty.

Full digest for 2023-09-24: https://trump.fm/date/2023-09-24/analysis

## Citation

- APA: Trump, D. J. (2023, September 24). https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/09/bannon-un... [Social media post]. Truth Social. trump.fm. https://trump.fm/post/ts_111121965057265809
- MLA: Trump, Donald J. "https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/09/bannon-unloads-murd..." Truth Social, 24 Sep. 2023. trump.fm, https://trump.fm/post/ts_111121965057265809. Accessed 9 Oct. 2026.
- Chicago: Donald J. Trump, "https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/09/bannon-unloads-murd...," Truth Social, September 24, 2023, archived at trump.fm, https://trump.fm/post/ts_111121965057265809.

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