# Post ts_111616279445395677 - Post ID: `ts_111616279445395677` - Platform: Truth Social - Posted: 2023-12-21T03:27:44.068Z (UTC) - Deleted: no - Repost: no - Canonical URL: https://trump.fm/post/ts_111616279445395677 - Analysis page: https://trump.fm/post/ts_111616279445395677/analysis - Audio narration: https://static.trump.fm/audio/ts_111616279445395677.mp3 (a synthesized voice reading the post text, not a recording) ## Post text > Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick: “Maybe we should take Joe Biden off the ballot in Texas…” ## What the media says **Video transcript** (0:20), transcribed automatically, so names and numbers may be wrong. Speakers aren't identified, so a voice in it may not be his: > We're fed up. In fact, seeing what happened in Colorado tonight, Laura, makes me think, except we believe in democracy in Texas, maybe we should take Joe Biden off the ballot in Texas for allowing eight million people to cross the border since he's been president, disrupting our state far more than anything anyone else has done in recent history. ## Media - video: https://static-assets-1.truthsocial.com/tmtg:prime-ts-assets/media_attachments/files/111/616/279/171/363/421/original/5dd0863cf8023da1.mp4 ## Engagement - Likes: 11,255 - Reposts: 3,309 - Replies: 829 - Views: unknown - Metrics collected: 2026-02-01T01:19:51.387Z (UTC) # Analysis _Machine-generated by trump.fm on 2026-03-20T14:51:52.234Z (UTC): a model's reading of this post, not his words. Its psychological terms describe the language, not a clinical assessment of him._ ## Summary Posted at 10:27 PM EST — within Trump's authenticated late-night window — this minimalist quote-amplification post represents a controlled retaliatory response to the Colorado Supreme Court's December 19 ballot removal ruling, one of the most significant narcissistic injuries of Trump's political career. Rather than threatening retaliation directly, Trump employs proxy ventriloquism: amplifying Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick's suggestion to remove Biden from the Texas ballot, transmitting the implicit threat while preserving victim status and plausible deniability. Read with the immediately preceding Lincoln post — which frames Democrats as historical ballot suppressors — the two posts form a paired propaganda unit: historical legitimation → contemporary victimhood → justified retaliation. Primary defenses include DARVO (reversing the actual victim/offender relationship), projection (attributing ballot manipulation to the party that did not initiate this process), and splitting (Democrats as oppressors, Republicans as reluctant retaliators). The post's danger rating is elevated not for violent content but for its function as an authorization signal to Republican state officials, implicitly sanctioning retaliatory ballot challenges. A significant reality distortion normalizes false equivalence between a constitutional 14th Amendment adjudication and an explicit political threat. The oscillation across this posting cluster — vulnerable victim (Lincoln post) to counterattacking retaliator (this post) — is consistent with the unstable narcissistic self-structure described in malignant narcissism literature. # Analysis: Trump Truth Social Post — December 21, 2023 ## Overview This is a minimalist, quote-amplification post — Trump reposting Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick's statement that Biden should be removed from the Texas ballot. The post contains zero original text from Trump; its entire communicative payload is carried by the act of selection and amplification. Posted at 03:27 UTC (10:27 PM EST at Mar-a-Lago), this falls squarely within Trump's established late-night authentic posting window. The post is best understood as a retaliatory proxy signal issued within 48 hours of the Colorado Supreme Court's December 19 ruling removing Trump from the state's primary ballot. --- ## Authorship Attribution **Local time analysis:** December 21, 2023 at 03:27 UTC = **10:27 PM EST** at Mar-a-Lago (Florida, where Trump typically spends the Christmas holiday season). This falls in Trump's confirmed authentic late-night posting window (10 PM–2 AM). The reactive, minimal-text format — amplifying someone else rather than composing original content — is consistent with Trump's impulsive, emotionally driven late-night behavior. No aide would post a retaliation signal at 10:27 PM without explicit direction. **Authenticity confidence: medium-high.** --- ## Contextual Trigger The Colorado Supreme Court ruled 4-3 on December 19 that Trump engaged in insurrection under the 14th Amendment, Section 3, disqualifying him from the primary ballot — the first such ruling in U.S. history. This is a catastrophic narcissistic injury: not mere criticism but formal institutional rejection and exclusion. Trump's response cluster over December 20–21 (including the immediately preceding Lincoln/1860 post) constitutes a multi-part defensive counteroffensive. --- ## Psychological State and Narcissistic Dynamics ### Trigger Type Classic **narcissistic injury** — the most severe category. Ballot removal is not a policy setback; it attacks Trump's core identity as an inevitable, dominant political force. The injury is public, institutional, and unprecedented, maximizing its destabilizing impact on a personality structure organized around grandiosity and dominance. ### Narcissistic State: Oscillating Vulnerable → Grandiose Counterattack The Lincoln post (immediately preceding) occupies the *vulnerable* pole — casting Trump as the persecuted successor to Lincoln, victim of Democratic tyranny. This Patrick quote occupies the *counterattack* pole — implying retaliatory power. Together they form a classic oscillation: **"I am the wronged victim" → "but we will retaliate."** The oscillation itself is diagnostically significant; it reflects the instability characteristic of the vulnerable-grandiose cycling described in malignant narcissism literature. ### Proxy Ventriloquism The most psychologically sophisticated element here is what is *not* said. Trump does not threaten to remove Biden from the Texas ballot — he lets Patrick say it for him. This technique achieves: 1. **Plausible deniability** — "I was just sharing a news item" 2. **Threat transmission** — The message reaches the audience with full force 3. **Preservation of the victim narrative** — Trump doesn't appear as aggressor; Patrick does 4. **Group coordination signal** — Republican officials receive tacit authorization to pursue retaliatory ballot challenges This is not impulsive acting-out; it is calculated displacement of threat through a proxy, suggesting some impulse control even in a heightened emotional state. --- ## Defense Mechanisms ### Primary: DARVO (Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender) The entire rhetorical structure reverses the victim/offender relationship. The Colorado court is the aggressor; Trump is the victim; Democrats are the true ballot manipulators (see Lincoln post); therefore Republicans are *justified* in removing Biden. The DARVO arc spans at least two posts and is architecturally deliberate. ### Secondary: Projection The act of ballot removal — which Trump's own legal team is fighting — is projected onto Democrats as their characteristic behavior ("they would not allow Lincoln to be mentioned") and then threatened as retaliation. Trump's team is engaged in legal action to *stay on* ballots, while simultaneously implying Biden should be *removed* from them. ### Tertiary: Splitting Democrats = historical oppressors who remove candidates (Lincoln, now Trump). Republicans = defenders of electoral fairness who are reluctantly compelled to retaliate. Classic all-bad/all-good division with no acknowledgment of legal complexity. ### Quaternary: Displacement The rage generated by the Colorado ruling cannot safely be expressed as direct violent threat without legal consequence. It is displaced onto a threat against Biden's ballot status — a legally parallel but politically symmetrical target. --- ## Rhetorical Techniques ### Whataboutism The Patrick quote is structurally a whataboutism: "Maybe we should do to Biden what they did to Trump." This deflects from the substantive legal question (did Trump engage in insurrection?) to a political equivalence argument (they can do it too). ### False Equivalence The Colorado ruling was a constitutional adjudication under the 14th Amendment by a state supreme court following an adversarial legal proceeding. The Patrick proposal is an explicit political threat of retaliatory removal. Amplifying Patrick's statement implies these are equivalent — a significant reality distortion. ### Implied Threat / Dog Whistle The post functions as a political mobilization signal to Republican state officials. Dan Patrick is the Lieutenant Governor of Texas; his statement carries institutional weight. Trump's amplification functions as authorization or encouragement to pursue parallel actions. ### Narrative Bracketing (with preceding Lincoln post) The Lincoln post establishes the historical frame (Democrats as historical ballot suppressors). This Patrick post completes the arc with a contemporary retaliation logic. Together they form a complete propaganda unit: historical precedent → current victimization → justified retaliation. --- ## Reality Distortions and Gaslighting - **False equivalence** between a constitutional court ruling and a proposed political retaliation - **DARVO framing** obscures that it is Trump's legal team seeking to avoid accountability, not Democrats removing candidates arbitrarily - **Historical distortion** (in adjacent Lincoln post): Lincoln did not appear on Southern ballots primarily because Republicans chose not to field candidates in slave states, not because Democrats "removed" him — a significant historical misrepresentation that reframes current events --- ## Cognitive Status The post contains no original language from Trump — impossible to assess lexical complexity, syntactic structure, or language production quality. **Baseline deviation: none assessable.** The selection behavior (choosing this quote, this framing, at this time) is consistent with established Trump retaliatory patterns. --- ## Danger Assessment **Level: Elevated** The post does not contain dehumanizing language or direct violent imagery. However: - It signals Republican officials that retaliatory ballot challenges are sanctioned from the top - It contributes to a normalization of ballot removal as a political weapon rather than a constitutional remedy - Combined with the Lincoln post, it constructs a grievance narrative that frames the 14th Amendment ruling as political persecution requiring resistance - The pattern (injury → victimhood narrative → retaliation signal) is consistent with political radicalization literature on escalation dynamics No stochastic terrorism indicators (no individual targets, no violence framing). --- ## Personality Profile ### Big Five (State Expression) - **Extraversion**: High — assertive even through a proxy voice - **Agreeableness**: Very low — zero concession to the court's legitimacy, pure antagonism - **Conscientiousness**: Low deliberation, high reactive impulsivity (late night, minimal text) - **Neuroticism/Angry Hostility**: Elevated but controlled — rage is present but channeled through a proxy - **Openness**: Very low — rigid binary framing, no acknowledgment of complexity ### Motives - **Agency/Power**: Dominant — the post is fundamentally about preserving electoral access and threatening reciprocal harm - **Communion**: Absent ### Narrative Identity - **Protagonist role**: Righteous fighter and victim simultaneously - **Contamination sequence**: Electoral dominance (polling well) → institutional persecution (ballot removal) - **Contrasting other**: Democrats as historical and contemporary ballot suppressors - **Identity claim**: "I am Abraham Lincoln's successor; they are doing to me what they did to him" ## Fact Verification | Claim | Verdict | Evidence | |-------|---------|----------| | "Implicit claim that removing Trump from the Colorado ballot is equivalent to a partisan political act comparable to removing Biden from the Texas ballot" | **Mostly False** | The Colorado ruling was a 4-3 decision by the state Supreme Court applying Section 3 of the 14th Amendment following an adversarial legal proceeding with evidentiary record. The Patrick proposal is an explicitly political threat of retaliation without any stated legal basis. These are categorically distinct processes. | | "Implicit suggestion that Biden has engaged in conduct comparable to Trump's regarding January 6 that would warrant ballot removal" | **False** | No court, legal proceeding, or bipartisan body has found Biden engaged in insurrection or any conduct that would trigger Section 3 of the 14th Amendment disqualification. | Overall Veracity: 10% ## Authorship Analysis **Self-Written** (score: 72%) ### Indicators - 10:27 PM EST local time at Mar-a-Lago — falls within authentic late-night posting window - Reactive, emotionally driven selection within 48 hours of major narcissistic injury (Colorado ruling) - Minimal original text is consistent with impulsive amplification behavior - No aide would independently select this retaliatory framing at 10 PM without explicit direction - Pattern matches prior authenticated late-night reactive posts ## Psychological Profile ### State **Mixed State** **Trigger:** Narcissistic Injury — Defeat (Colorado Supreme Court ballot removal ruling (December 19, 2023)) **Rage:** Intensity 62% targeting Colorado court / Democratic Party / Biden - Proportionality: 25% Sentiment: -0.52 ### Clinical **Malignant Narcissism:** - Narcissistic: 78% - Antisocial: 45% - Paranoid: 55% - Sadism: 30% **Defense Mechanisms:** - reaction formation (neurotic) - projection (immature) - splitting (immature) - displacement (neurotic) - passive aggression (immature) **Cognitive Complexity:** - Complexity: 100% **Parasocial Techniques:** - Proxy ventriloquism — letting Patrick voice the implicit threat - Narrative bracketing with adjacent Lincoln post to create complete propaganda unit - Mobilization signal to Republican officials via platform amplification - Victim/retaliator oscillation engaging audience emotional identification ## Danger Assessment **ELEVATED** ### Indicators - Implicit authorization signal to Republican state officials to pursue retaliatory ballot challenges against Biden - Normalization of ballot removal as a political weapon rather than a constitutional remedy, potentially escalating electoral conflict - Part of a coordinated narrative cluster (with Lincoln post) building a grievance-retaliation framework that could motivate partisan institutional attacks on electoral processes ### Gaslighting - False equivalence between constitutional 14th Amendment adjudication and proposed political retaliation, implying both are equivalent forms of ballot manipulation - DARVO structure reverses the actual situation: Trump's team is fighting to remain on ballots while this post implies Democrats are the aggressors - Framing the Colorado ruling as partisan ballot suppression rather than constitutional legal process attacks the legitimacy of judicial proceedings ## Fact Checks (2) _The model's verdicts from 2026-03-20._ > Implicit claim that removing Trump from the Colorado ballot is equivalent to a partisan political act comparable to removing Biden from the Texas ballot **MOSTLY FALSE** The Colorado ruling was a 4-3 decision by the state Supreme Court applying Section 3 of the 14th Amendment following an adversarial legal proceeding with evidentiary record. The Patrick proposal is an explicitly political threat of retaliation without any stated legal basis. These are categorically distinct processes. Sources: Colorado Supreme Court ruling December 19, 2023; U.S. Constitution, 14th Amendment Section 3 > Implicit suggestion that Biden has engaged in conduct comparable to Trump's regarding January 6 that would warrant ballot removal **FALSE** No court, legal proceeding, or bipartisan body has found Biden engaged in insurrection or any conduct that would trigger Section 3 of the 14th Amendment disqualification. Sources: Available legal record as of December 2023 Overall Veracity: 10% ## Tags - ballot-removal (95%) - Colorado-ruling-response (92%) - DARVO (88%) - proxy-amplification (85%) - whataboutism (82%) - narcissistic-injury-response (88%) - false-equivalence (80%) - retaliation-signal (78%) - 14th-amendment (75%) - late-night-authentic (72%) ## That day _From trump.fm's machine-generated digest of the day, not his words._ **48 Hours After Historic Ballot Disqualification, Trump Cycles Through Every Stage of Narcissistic Injury in a Single Day** Trump spent December 21 processing the Colorado Supreme Court's decision to remove him from the state's primary ballot — the most significant legal blow of his campaign to that point. The day opened with a late-night posting burst that ran past 2 AM, starting with proxy threats and building to all-caps rage declaring Biden "a threat to democracy." By afternoon, the tone shifted to confident spin, reframing the ruling as a guaranteed path to victory. The evening closed with a rapid-fire string of campaign slogans and rival attacks that seemed designed to bury the Colorado story under sheer volume. Across the full day, the word "insurrectionist" — the court's label for Trump — was systematically projected onto Biden in a textbook reversal pattern. Full digest for 2023-12-21: https://trump.fm/date/2023-12-21/analysis ## Citation - APA: Trump, D. J. (2023, December 21). Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick: “Maybe we should take Joe... [Social media post]. Truth Social. trump.fm. https://trump.fm/post/ts_111616279445395677 - MLA: Trump, Donald J. "Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick: “Maybe we should take Joe Biden off..." Truth Social, 21 Dec. 2023. trump.fm, https://trump.fm/post/ts_111616279445395677. Accessed 9 Oct. 2026. - Chicago: Donald J. Trump, "Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick: “Maybe we should take Joe Biden off...," Truth Social, December 21, 2023, archived at trump.fm, https://trump.fm/post/ts_111616279445395677. ## For agents - Site overview: https://trump.fm/llms.txt - API specification: https://trump.fm/openapi.json - MCP server: https://trump.fm/mcp (search and fetch tools, no auth) - This post as JSON: https://trump.fm/api/posts/ts_111616279445395677 - Analysis as JSON: https://trump.fm/api/analysis/ts_111616279445395677 - All citation formats: https://trump.fm/api/cite/ts_111616279445395677 - Same day: https://trump.fm/date/2023-12-21 - The record alone, without the analysis: https://trump.fm/post/ts_111616279445395677.md?analysis=false _Markdown view of a trump.fm page. Post, analysis, date, feed, contradictions, search and about pages answer in markdown at their URL with `.md` appended (`/index.md` for the home page), or when sent `Accept: text/markdown`._