# Post ts_112973535972114721

- Post ID: `ts_112973535972114721`
- Platform: Truth Social
- Posted: 2024-08-16T20:15:55.039Z (UTC)
- Deleted: no
- Repost: no
- Canonical URL: https://trump.fm/post/ts_112973535972114721
- Analysis page: https://trump.fm/post/ts_112973535972114721/analysis
- Audio narration: https://static.trump.fm/audio/ts_112973535972114721.mp3 (a synthesized voice reading the post text, not a recording)

## Post text

> If you think things are expensive now, they will get 100 times WORSE if Kamala gets four years as President. Under her plan, Kamala will implement SOVIET Style Price Controls. She will abolish private health care, and make California's ridiculous tax policies the law of the land, meaning EVERY American will be taxed up to 80% of their income! If you want more CASH and less TAX, VOTE TRUMP!!!

## Engagement

- Likes: 20,243
- Reposts: 6,508
- Replies: 1,386
- Views: unknown
- Metrics collected: 2026-02-01T01:19:51.340Z (UTC)

# Analysis

_Machine-generated by trump.fm on 2026-03-25T11:22:29.893Z (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 4:15 PM ET during DNC convention buildup week, this economy-attack post is most likely aide-drafted with Trump stylistic review, functioning as counter-programming against Harris's rising media momentum. Three major factual claims are demonstrably false: the 80% income tax figure has no basis in any Harris proposal; "Soviet Style Price Controls" wildly distorts targeted anti-price-gouging policy; "abolish private health care" misrepresents her 2024 platform. Psychologically, the post reflects grandiose-pole narcissistic operation under supply-competition pressure — rival receives convention media saturation, Trump floods the zone with catastrophist counter-narrative. Defense mechanisms are distortion (policy positions reshaped into existential Soviet-era threats) and splitting (binary cash/freedom vs. Soviet/confiscation). No narcissistic rage signature; this is calibrated offensive campaigning. The "SOVIET" schema activation bypasses policy-level evaluation via Cold War threat memory. No cognitive baseline deviations, no danger indicators, no dehumanizing language. Clinically unremarkable relative to Trump's documented baseline — routine campaign-mode output distinguished primarily by the concentration of fabricated factual claims: 0 of 3 verifiable assertions rate true or mostly true.

# Analysis: Truth Social Post — 2024-08-16

## Context
Posted at **4:15 PM ET** during the week preceding the Democratic National Convention (Aug 19–22, Chicago), where Harris and Walz were to be formally nominated. The post functions as counter-programming against accelerating Harris media momentum (DNC buildup, $2M SF fundraiser) and coincides with Trump's Asheville economy speech that same day.

## Authorship Attribution
**Assessment: Aide-drafted with Trump stylistic review (hybrid)** — confidence: medium.

Business-hours timing (4:15 PM ET), three-part structured rhetorical arc, and absence of typos or stream-of-consciousness fragments suggest campaign staff origin. However, the ALL CAPS distribution ("WORSE," "SOVIET," "EVERY," "CASH," "TAX," "VOTE TRUMP"), triple exclamation close, and hyperbolic numeric anchoring ("100 times," "80%") are authentic Trump stylistic fingerprints. Most probable: aide-drafted template reviewed and possibly lightly edited by Trump before posting.

## Fact Verification

| Claim | Verdict | Evidence |
|-------|---------|----------|
| "Kamala will implement SOVIET Style Price Controls" | **Mostly False** | Harris proposed targeted anti-price-gouging enforcement mechanisms for grocery chains — a narrowly scoped regulatory intervention with legal precedent. No proposal resembled Soviet-style comprehensive price controls across the economy. |
| "She will abolish private health care" | **False** | Harris expressed Medicare for All support in 2019 primary but explicitly moderated this position by 2020 and governed within Biden's ACA-preservationist framework through 2024. Her 2024 campaign platform did not propose abolishing private insurance. |
| "EVERY American will be taxed up to 80% of their income" | **False** | No Harris proposal approached 80% marginal rates. Her 2024 tax plan proposed restoring the top federal marginal rate to approximately 39.6%. Even combined with California's 13.3% state rate, the figure is approximately 53% — not 80%, not universal, and not applicable to every American. The 80% figure has no basis in any Harris proposal. |

Overall Veracity: 7%

## Psychological Analysis

### Narcissistic Dynamics
The post reflects a **grandiose-pole narcissistic state** in offensive campaign mode. The trigger is competitive: a rival is receiving intensive favorable media attention (DNC convention week), and the post floods the zone with catastrophist counter-narrative. This is supply-competition response rather than narcissistic-injury reactivity — no rage signature is present. The closing "VOTE TRUMP!!!" functions as supply-seeking (identity affirmation from followers) while positioning the subject as the sole solution to articulated catastrophe — the "only I can fix it" identity schema.

### Defense Mechanisms
- **Distortion (pathological)**: Policy positions are not merely exaggerated but replaced wholesale with maximally threatening caricatures. Anti-price-gouging enforcement becomes the Soviet command economy; ACA alignment becomes abolition of private medicine.
- **Splitting (immature)**: The binary Trump=cash/freedom vs. Harris=Soviet/confiscation admits no policy complexity.
- **Projection (immature)**: Collectivist authoritarian intervention is attributed to Harris; the subject's own documented use of executive power is absent from frame.

## Rhetorical Analysis
The post follows a compressed **fear → agency → solution** arc:
1. Establish present pain ("things are expensive now")
2. Catastrophize future under opponent (100x worse, Soviet controls, 80% tax)
3. Offer single-variable solution ("VOTE TRUMP")

The **"SOVIET" schema activation** is the post's most effective rhetorical device — it bypasses policy-level evaluation in older demographics by invoking Cold War threat memory, reframing a domestic policy disagreement as an existential civilizational choice. The **80% tax anchor** functions as a hyperbolic reference point that may make adjacent distortions seem moderate by comparison.

## Narrative Identity
Trump casts himself as **Economic Savior/Protector**, the sole agent standing between followers and Soviet-style economic collapse. The narrative sequence is **contamination**: things are bad now and will be catastrophically worse under the contrasting other (Harris). The post's identity claim is minimal and concentrated in the closing — "VOTE TRUMP" as tautological solution, the name itself as sufficient answer.

## Cognitive Assessment
No baseline deviations detectable in written text. Syntactic simplicity, short declaratives, and direct emotional register are consistent with Trump's established written communication pattern. The low complexity score reflects campaign communication design, not a decline signal.

## Danger Assessment
**None.** No dehumanizing language, no eliminationist framing, no target identification, no stochastic terrorism markers. Standard economic attack rhetoric operating within documented campaign communication norms.

## Authorship Analysis

**Uncertain** (score: 40%)

### Indicators

- 4:15 PM ET posting time — business hours, consistent with campaign staff operation
- Structured three-part attack format suggests template authorship
- ALL CAPS typography and triple exclamation close are authentic Trump stylistic markers
- Hyperbolic numeric anchoring ('100 times WORSE', '80%') consistent with Trump rhetorical fingerprint
- Posted same day as Asheville economy speech — campaign communication cadence

## Psychological Profile

### State

**Grandiose State**

**Trigger:** Preemptive Attack — Comparison (Harris DNC convention momentum and media cycle competition)

Sentiment: -0.60

### Clinical

**Malignant Narcissism:**
- Narcissistic: 65%
- Antisocial: 50%
- Paranoid: 15%
- Sadism: 20%

**Defense Mechanisms:**
- distortion (pathological)
- splitting (immature)
- projection (immature)

**Cognitive Complexity:**
- Complexity: 28%

**Parasocial Techniques:**
- Direct address to followers as potential economic victims ('If you want more CASH')
- Shared-fate framing ('EVERY American')
- Command-form CTA ('VOTE TRUMP!!!') establishing follower role

## Danger Assessment

**NONE**

### Gaslighting

- 80% income tax claim is a fabricated statistic presented as factual policy description with no basis in Harris proposals
- 'Abolish private health care' misrepresents Harris's documented 2024 platform
- Reality substitution: maximally threatening caricatures replace documentable policy positions

## Fact Checks (3)

_The model's verdicts from 2026-03-25._

> Kamala will implement SOVIET Style Price Controls

**MOSTLY FALSE**

Harris proposed targeted anti-price-gouging enforcement mechanisms for grocery chains — a narrowly scoped regulatory intervention with legal precedent. No proposal resembled Soviet-style comprehensive price controls across the economy.

Sources: Harris 2024 campaign economic platform

> She will abolish private health care

**FALSE**

Harris expressed Medicare for All support in 2019 primary but explicitly moderated this position by 2020 and governed within Biden's ACA-preservationist framework through 2024. Her 2024 campaign platform did not propose abolishing private insurance.

Sources: Harris 2020 position shift on Medicare for All; Biden-Harris 2024 health care platform

> EVERY American will be taxed up to 80% of their income

**FALSE**

No Harris proposal approached 80% marginal rates. Her 2024 tax plan proposed restoring the top federal marginal rate to approximately 39.6%. Even combined with California's 13.3% state rate, the figure is approximately 53% — not 80%, not universal, and not applicable to every American. The 80% figure has no basis in any Harris proposal.

Sources: Harris 2024 tax policy proposals; California state income tax schedule

Overall Veracity: 7%

## Tags

- economic_fear_appeal (90%)
- red_baiting (85%)
- fabricated_statistic (95%)
- DNC_counter_programming (80%)
- grandiose_narcissistic_state (70%)
- reality_substitution (85%)
- aide_assisted_authorship (65%)
- splitting_defense (80%)
- campaign_attack_mode (90%)

## That day

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

**Pre-DNC Counter-Programming Blitz: Coordinated Messaging Escalates to Dehumanization by Late Afternoon**

Trump spent August 16 running a disciplined counter-programming operation against the approaching Democratic National Convention, posting six times across a normal business-day window while campaigning in Asheville, North Carolina. The morning started with routine aide-produced content — a crime-immigration link and a police endorsement — but the afternoon brought a rapid-fire cluster of three attack posts within one minute, all targeting Kamala Harris with increasingly extreme rhetoric comparing her policies to Soviet communism and Venezuelan collapse. The day's most striking feature was the sheer density of fabricated claims packed into the late-afternoon burst, with nearly every verifiable assertion rating false. A persistent thread of dehumanizing language toward immigrants ran through the day, escalating from a single shared headline to sustained rhetoric equating undocumented people with terrorists and criminals.

Full digest for 2024-08-16: https://trump.fm/date/2024-08-16/analysis

## Citation

- APA: Trump, D. J. (2024, August 16). If you think things are expensive now, they will... [Social media post]. Truth Social. trump.fm. https://trump.fm/post/ts_112973535972114721
- MLA: Trump, Donald J. "If you think things are expensive now, they will get 100..." Truth Social, 16 Aug. 2024. trump.fm, https://trump.fm/post/ts_112973535972114721. Accessed 9 Oct. 2026.
- Chicago: Donald J. Trump, "If you think things are expensive now, they will get 100...," Truth Social, August 16, 2024, archived at trump.fm, https://trump.fm/post/ts_112973535972114721.

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