# Post ts_111664217538459976

- Post ID: `ts_111664217538459976`
- Platform: Truth Social
- Posted: 2023-12-29T14:39:01.288Z (UTC)
- Deleted: no
- Repost: no
- Canonical URL: https://trump.fm/post/ts_111664217538459976
- Analysis page: https://trump.fm/post/ts_111664217538459976/analysis

## Post text

> https://dailycaller.com/2023/12/22/deroy-murdock-mess-around-and-find-out-if-dems-can-remove-trump-from-ballots-gop-must-do-the-same-to-biden/

## Engagement

- Likes: 5,041
- Reposts: 1,426
- Replies: 120
- Views: unknown
- Metrics collected: 2026-02-01T01:19:51.381Z (UTC)

# Analysis

_Machine-generated by trump.fm on 2026-03-20T15:05:05.080Z (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 bare URL share — posted at 9:39 AM EST at Mar-a-Lago, with strong aide authorship indicators — functions as a proxy threat communication in response to the Maine Secretary of State's December 28 ballot removal decision, compounding Colorado's ruling. By sharing a Daily Caller op-ed advocating retaliatory GOP removal of Biden from ballots, the subject transmits a retaliatory signal without direct authorship, preserving plausible deniability on a legally sensitive topic. The post embodies a vulnerable narcissistic state counterattacking through deflection: the article's tit-for-tat framing ("mess around and find out") converts a constitutional legal defeat into a retaliatory threat, while a false equivalence between the 14th Amendment insurrection clause and a hypothetical groundless removal action distorts procedural reality. Defense mechanisms include projection (attributing weaponization to Democrats while proposing identical conduct), rationalization (proportional response framing), and acting out via proxy. Danger level is elevated: the post normalizes ballot access as a retaliatory political instrument and may prime state-level Republican officials toward reciprocal action. No original text precludes cognitive analysis. The same-day pattern of multiple URL-only shares across Breitbart, Newsmax, Gateway Pundit, and JustTheNews confirms a staffed content-dissemination workflow rather than authentic reactive posting.

# Analysis: URL Share of Retaliatory Ballot Removal Op-Ed (2023-12-29)

## Post Nature
This post consists entirely of a bare URL with zero original text, linking to a Deroy Murdock op-ed in the Daily Caller (published December 22, 2023, shared December 29). The article headline reads: *"Mess Around and Find Out: If Dems Can Remove Trump from Ballots, GOP Must Do the Same to Biden."* The entirety of the communicative act is the *choice* to share this specific article at this specific moment — a proxy communication strategy that allows the subject to float a retaliatory threat without directly authoring it.

---

## Authorship Attribution

**Local Time Analysis:**  
Trump was almost certainly at Mar-a-Lago, Palm Beach, Florida on December 29, 2023 — standard winter holiday location.  
- UTC: 14:39:01 → EST (UTC−5): **9:39 AM**  
- This falls squarely within business hours (9am–6pm local).

**Format indicators:**  
- Zero original text — no typos, no emotional register, no ALL CAPS, no impulsive commentary  
- Clean URL paste, no punctuation artifacts  
- Article is from December 22 — 7 days old — suggesting deliberate curation, not reactive impulse  
- Posts on the same day include other bare URL shares of Breitbart, Gateway Pundit, and Newsmax, suggesting a coordinated content-dissemination session (aide workflow)

**Verdict:** Strong aide (Scavino) authorship indicators. Confidence: **high.** The 9:39 AM posting time, absence of original text, and multi-post URL-dump pattern on this date are all inconsistent with authentic Trump posting style. Authorship score: **0.10** (aide).

---

## Psychological State & Triggers

**Trigger:** This post arrives the day after Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows removed Trump from Maine's 2024 primary ballot (December 28), compounding the Colorado Supreme Court ruling. This constitutes a significant **narcissistic injury** — a direct institutional attack on the subject's ability to compete for power. The ballot removal actions strike at core identity (the "winner," the "inevitable candidate") and at fundamental agency (the ability to seek office).

**Narcissistic State:** Mixed, but trending **vulnerable** → **counterattack.** Rather than direct rage expression (as seen in Christmas posts with "ROT IN HELL"), this share represents a more calculated response — the wounded narcissist reaching for a retaliatory instrument, but doing so through proxy rather than direct expression. This restrained channel suggests either aide mediation of the content or a brief period of calculated response rather than reactive posting.

**Trigger type:** Narcissistic injury (defeat/exposure) — the ballot removal rulings represent both a practical threat and a humiliation.

**Psychological function of the share:**  
The act of sharing this article functions as a **veiled threat** — signaling awareness of and willingness to pursue retaliatory tactics against Biden's ballot eligibility — while maintaining plausible deniability. This is consistent with the subject's established pattern of floating threatening ideas through third-party proxies (retweeting others' extreme content rather than direct statement).

---

## Defense Mechanisms

**1. Projection (immature):** The article — and by extension this share — frames the Democratic ballot actions as illegitimate political weaponization, while simultaneously proposing that the GOP engage in identical conduct. The shared narrative displaces the appearance of "weaponization" entirely onto Democrats, projecting the very motive (political removal of opponents) that the retaliatory proposal embodies.

**2. Rationalization (neurotic):** The "mess around and find out" framing provides pseudo-logical justification for retaliatory norm-destruction — "we're only doing what they started." This transforms an escalatory anti-democratic threat into a reasoned proportional response.

**3. Acting Out via Proxy:** Rather than directly threatening Biden's ballot status, the subject uses the article as a vehicle — a displacement mechanism that externalizes the threatening content while preserving association with it.

---

## Rhetorical & Propaganda Analysis

**Key techniques:**

1. **Proxy communication / plausible deniability:** By sharing rather than stating, the subject transmits a threat without owning it. This is a sophisticated rhetorical maneuver — the message lands but the messenger is Deroy Murdock, not Trump.

2. **Tit-for-tat framing / whataboutism:** The article title invokes a retaliatory logic ("if they can do it to us...") that creates a false equivalence between:
   - Democratic actions invoking a specific constitutional provision (14th Amendment, Section 3, insurrection clause), which requires legal adjudication  
   - A hypothetical Republican action with no specified legal basis  
   This is structural misinformation — treating procedurally and constitutionally distinct actions as symmetrical.

3. **Implied threat:** "Mess Around and Find Out" is a vernacular warning — signaling consequences without specifying them. It positions the subject's political bloc as capable of and willing to retaliate in kind.

4. **Audience priming:** Shared against a backdrop of same-day posts about border crisis, Hitler comparisons, and Iran — creating a cumulative information environment that frames Democrats as existential enemies warranting aggressive response.

---

## Fact Verification

| Claim | Verdict | Evidence |
|-------|---------|----------|
| "Democrats are removing Trump from ballots" | **Mostly True** | Colorado Supreme Court ruled Trump ineligible under 14th Amendment Section 3; Maine SoS ruled similarly on Dec 28. Both decisions stayed pending appeal. Actions were legally initiated, not purely partisan — Colorado case brought by Republican voters. |
| "Republicans could/should do the same to Biden (implied equivalence)" | **Mostly False** | 14th Amendment Section 3 applies to individuals who engaged in insurrection after taking an oath to the Constitution. No court, election official, or legal scholar had identified a comparable constitutional or statutory basis for Biden's removal. The retaliatory equivalence has no legal foundation. |

Overall Veracity: 50%

## Danger Assessment

**Level: Elevated**

The post advocates — through proxy — the normalization of retaliatory ballot removal as a political tactic. While not directly inciting violence, this represents:
- **Norm erosion:** Treating constitutional ballot access as a bargaining chip for political retaliation
- **Threat signaling:** Warning Democrats of consequences through the "mess around and find out" framing
- **Escalatory logic:** The retaliatory framework, if acted upon, degrades democratic infrastructure

This is consistent with a broader pattern of treating democratic institutions as weapons to be wielded rather than norms to be honored. Not stochastic terrorism, but a contribution to institutional delegitimization.

---

## Narrative & Archetypal Analysis

**Protagonist role:** Fighter-in-waiting, Warrior responding to attack  
**Narrative sequence:** Contamination — legitimate candidacy contaminated by illegitimate institutional attack  
**Contrasting other:** Democratic officials (Bellows, Colorado court) as lawless aggressors  
**Archetype:** Warrior (retaliatory posture) with Victim overlay (subjected to unjust removal)

**Order/Chaos dynamics:** The post positions the subject as an **order-restorer** who has been subjected to chaotic attacks by a corrupted institutional order. The retaliation threat re-frames chaos as symmetrical — "we can play this game too" — while claiming the moral high ground of proportional response.

---

## Cognitive Assessment

Insufficient original text for meaningful cognitive analysis. The zero-word post precludes assessment of vocabulary, syntax, word-finding, or coherence. No deviation from or comparison to baseline is possible. This is noted as a **data gap** in longitudinal tracking.

---

## Longitudinal Context

The same-day posting cluster (Breitbart border piece, Newsmax Hitler piece, Gateway Pundit immigration piece, JustTheNews Iran piece, JustTheNews Jack Smith piece) reveals a coordinated media amplification session — multiple right-wing outlet articles shared in rapid succession, consistent with a staffed content-dissemination workflow rather than organic browsing. The ballot removal article fits this pattern. Taken together, the December 29 posts construct a unified threat environment: enemies everywhere (legal, immigration, international), requiring a combative response.

## Authorship Analysis

**Aide-Written** (score: 10%)

### Indicators

- 9:39 AM EST local time — squarely within business hours at Mar-a-Lago
- Zero original text — bare URL paste only
- No typos, emotional punctuation, ALL CAPS, or stream-of-consciousness markers
- Article is 7 days old — deliberate curation, not reactive impulse
- Part of a same-day multi-URL dump pattern across Breitbart, Newsmax, Gateway Pundit, JustTheNews — aide workflow signature

## Psychological Profile

### State

**Vulnerable State**

**Trigger:** Narcissistic Injury — Defeat (Maine Secretary of State ballot removal (Dec 28) compounding Colorado Supreme Court ruling)

Sentiment: -0.35

### Clinical

**Malignant Narcissism:**
- Narcissistic: 50%
- Antisocial: 40%
- Paranoid: 40%
- Sadism: 10%

**Defense Mechanisms:**
- projection (immature)
- rationalization (neurotic)
- acting out (immature)

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

**Parasocial Techniques:**
- Proxy threat signaling — audience understands implied message without explicit statement
- Retaliatory framing as in-group reassurance — 'we have countermeasures'
- Ambient threat environment construction through same-day content clustering

## Danger Assessment

**ELEVATED**

### Indicators

- Advocacy via proxy for retaliatory removal of political opponent from ballot — normalizes use of ballot access as political weapon
- Tit-for-tat framing that could encourage state-level Republican officials to pursue retaliatory actions against Biden
- 'Mess around and find out' framing signals willingness to escalate without specifying limits
- Contributes to institutional delegitimization of election administration as neutral process
- Pattern: floating extreme actions through proxy content before direct advocacy — historical escalation precursor in this subject's posting history

### Gaslighting

- False equivalence construction — implies Democrats' constitutional legal proceedings and a hypothetical Republican retaliatory action are procedurally and morally identical, distorting the factual legal distinction
- Frames the subject as victim of 'Democratic removal' rather than defendant in a constitutional adjudication, inverting the factual sequence (DARVO pattern in article framing endorsed by share)

## Fact Checks (2)

_The model's verdicts from 2026-03-20._

> Democrats are removing Trump from ballots

**MOSTLY TRUE**

Colorado Supreme Court ruled Trump ineligible under 14th Amendment Section 3; Maine SoS ruled similarly on Dec 28. Both decisions stayed pending appeal. Actions were legally initiated, not purely partisan — Colorado case brought by Republican voters.

Sources: Colorado Supreme Court ruling Dec 19 2023; Maine SoS Bellows ruling Dec 28 2023

> Republicans could/should do the same to Biden (implied equivalence)

**MOSTLY FALSE**

14th Amendment Section 3 applies to individuals who engaged in insurrection after taking an oath to the Constitution. No court, election official, or legal scholar had identified a comparable constitutional or statutory basis for Biden's removal. The retaliatory equivalence has no legal foundation.

Sources: 14th Amendment Section 3 text and scholarly interpretation

Overall Veracity: 50%

## Tags

- ballot-removal (95%)
- 14th-amendment (85%)
- retaliation-signaling (90%)
- proxy-communication (90%)
- aide-authored (88%)
- false-equivalence (85%)
- narcissistic-injury-response (80%)
- colorado-ruling (75%)
- maine-ruling (90%)
- norm-erosion (70%)
- whataboutism (80%)
- zero-original-text (95%)

## That day

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

**After Second Ballot Removal, Trump's Machine Builds Counter-Reality While He Broadcasts a Target**

Trump spent the day reeling from Maine's decision to remove him from the 2024 primary ballot — the second state to do so in two weeks. His team flooded his account with nearly two dozen links to friendly media outlets, building a counter-narrative of surging polls, Democratic overreach, and retaliatory threats to remove Biden from ballots. The most alarming moment came late the previous night, when a bare link to the Maine official's personal biography was posted without comment — broadcasting her identity to millions of angry followers. By evening, Trump himself appeared to take the wheel, firing off an all-caps accusation that Biden is "a threat to democracy" and predicting a Great Depression if he loses — turning the very charge leveled against him into a weapon.

Full digest for 2023-12-29: https://trump.fm/date/2023-12-29/analysis

## Citation

- APA: Trump, D. J. (2023, December 29). https://dailycaller.com/2023/12/22/deroy-murdock-m... [Social media post]. Truth Social. trump.fm. https://trump.fm/post/ts_111664217538459976
- MLA: Trump, Donald J. "https://dailycaller.com/2023/12/22/deroy-murdock-mess-around..." Truth Social, 29 Dec. 2023. trump.fm, https://trump.fm/post/ts_111664217538459976. Accessed 9 Oct. 2026.
- Chicago: Donald J. Trump, "https://dailycaller.com/2023/12/22/deroy-murdock-mess-around...," Truth Social, December 29, 2023, archived at trump.fm, https://trump.fm/post/ts_111664217538459976.

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