In the aftermath of the deaths of Rob and Michele Reiner, the internet flooded with heartfelt messages of shared grief and support for the family.

Mostly.

Over on Truth Social, the posting medium of choice for President Donald Trump, the tone was different. 

“A very sad thing happened last night in Hollywood. Rob Reiner, a tortured and struggling, but once very talented movie director and comedy star, has passed away, together with his wife, Michele, reportedly due to the anger he caused others through his massive, unyielding, and incurable affliction with a mind crippling disease known as TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME, sometimes referred to as TDS,” the president wrote on Truth Social on Monday night. 

“He was known to have driven people CRAZY by his raging obsession of President Donald J. Trump,” Trump continued, “with his obvious paranoia reaching new heights as the Trump Administration surpassed all goals and expectations of greatness, and with the Golden Age of America upon us, perhaps like never before. May Rob and Michele rest in peace!”

Insulting the victims of a domestic violence-related crime and somehow making the tragedy about his own victimhood didn’t resonate for many. 

Even some proud Trump voters stepped up on the Truth Social platform to critique the president’s “tacky” response to a family tragedy, calling it “heartless and uncalled for” and “unnecessary” to attack Reiner in that moment. Yet, as of this writing, his post still had 9.31k reposts and 38.9k likes. Although there have been some prominent Republican detractors, they were mostly individuals who were already on the outs with the president or had previously spoken against him. 

Trump’s offensive message came after extensive discourse, fuelled by the right in the wake of the assassination of Charlie Kirk, arguing that “insensitive critiques” of the dead (like sharing words they said aloud to a camera) were in poor taste, grounds for people to lose their jobs, and even akin to promoting political violence. 

To gain a better understanding of how this seemingly hypocritical dynamic came to be, HuffPost spoke with psychologists about what causes individuals to condemn something vehemently one day, only to find themselves seemingly indifferent just a few months later.

Why Would Anyone Post Like That? 

“It is no real surprise that Trump made it all about himself,” John Jost, co-director of the Center for Social and Political Behaviour at New York University, told HuffPost. “That is what destructive narcissists do, people who exhibit what psychologists refer to as malevolent personality traits.”

“Trump also makes Freud relevant again,” Jost added.........

© HuffPost