"The Pot Calling the Kettle Black"

In 1682, William Penn wrote in “Some Fruits of Solitude,”  “If thou hast not conquer’d thy self in that which is thy own particular Weakness, thou hast no Title to Virtue, tho’ thou art free of other Men’s.  For a Covetous Man to inveigh against Prodigality, an Atheist against Idolatry, a Tyrant against Rebellion, or a Lyer against Forgery, and a Drunkard against Intemperance, is for the Pot to call the Kettle black.”  

This idiom, “The Pot Calling the Kettle Black,” is used to describe a person who is guilty of the very thing of which they accuse another and is an example of what we now call “psychological projection.”  Projection is attributing one’s own faults to another person.

When Donald Trump on Tuesday called Senator Harris “nasty” he was projecting on her his own penchant to be nasty.  If you don’t think Donald Trump is a nasty person you haven’t paid much attention over the past four years.  When he called Harris “disrespectful” he was projecting his own disrespect of others upon her.  Donald Trump has been and is “disrespectful” to all who oppose him or who are critical of him.  That’s a matter-of-fact!

“She’s told many stories that aren’t true,” Mr. Trump lamented.  He went on then to lie about what Harris is for and against.  According to fact-checkers, Trump has spoken a “Tsunami of untruths”—some 20,000 false or misleading reports.  

“It was terrible for her, for our nation,” Trump said about the senator's  questioning of Kavanaugh two years ago.  “I thought she was the meanest, most horrible, disrespectful person of anybody in the U.S. Senate.”  Projection—pure and simple!

We all do it—project our own stuff on to other persons.  By doing so we don’t have to deal with ourselves.  Jesus didn’t coin the phrase, “The Pot Calling the Kettle Black.” He used another phrase:  “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.” If one projects on to others his or her own faults—then, it makes that person feel like he or she is without fault and therefore (without sin) has every right to “cast the first stone.”  Trump’s favorite verse in the Bible is “an eye for an eye” and it shows.

“She’s nasty, but I can be nastier than she ever can be,” Trump told The New York Times after Hillary Clinton criticized his comments on women’s appearances in their first debate in 2016. The next day he suggested at a rally that Clinton had “cheated on her husband,” but failed to offer any evidence to his claim.  Yes, he “can be nastier” and indeed is!  He is the epitome of “The Pot Calling the Kettle Black”, i.e. psychological projection.

We must lift our eyes to the hills.  We must mount up
with wings as eagles so that we are enabled to walk
and not faint.