He has an animal cunning to spot weakness and/or opportunity. Listening to his unguarded remarks betrays the limited vocabulary of less than average intelligence. His cunning though has helped him pick intelligent supporters and aids. He burns through them quickly and dumps them as soon as their value is gone. His pathology only has room for self preservation. Loyalty or empathy don’t exist . He has respect for those more cunning and vicious than he himself, thus his admiration of Putin. Equally I think is hatred of Obama is based on his recognition of an altogether superior man who is black and who poses a potential threat. His misogyny gave him license to attack Hillary Clinton, another person who is vastly more intelligent. We have a seriously defective creature at the helm of a nation that has the power to wreak destruction of the Earth if not we very alert to curtail him. And even though many of those he surrounds himself with are the kind of people I respect I do believe most of them realize their need to keep this fool somewhat corralled.
PS RIP Dick Gregory I would love to have heard you take on this fool
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At what point do we admit that this isn’t so much a problem of electing a moron to the white house as it is a question of why congress keeps him there. It’s not as if we don’t already have a list of crimes and violations that would hang any other president.
Narcissists aren’t really aware that other people actually “exist” – other people (even people in their immediate family, who they “love”) are more like characters on TV or in a movie. They exist to give the narcissist something to do. For example, someone to yell at (or about), someone to feel sorry for (well, not really “sorry” – more like, someone to look down on). The best people are the ones who give you something entertaining to do, and make you feel good about yourself.
To empathize: pretend you’re about four or five, and have spent your whole life in candyland. You’ve never met another person like yourself, because there are no other people – just these weird cartoon characters that walk around. Some cartoons are so funny you laugh and clap your hands; others make you feel bad, like, really angry. Also, I forgot to mention that you have two emotional states – really pleased with yourself, and really unhappy with yourself. Some things you say and do make you feel awesome. You will always do these things. Others make you feel bad. You will never do those things willingly.
Trump’s racism is not “failing”. It is succeeding massively. The GOP are not a normal party with a regrettably fascist fringe to their support; they are a fascist party.
National polls are irrelevant; fascists don’t give a fuck about the will of the majority. The USA is no longer a democratic country, and waiting for undeniable, incontrovertible proof of that fact is suicidal.
In that graphic you can see he got a bump for the “fire and fury” thing, and he is about to get another bump for the Afghan war speech. This is the way they cater his image to the Republican base, he does things they hate but always follows it with something they like and suddenly they stopped caring again - because after all they had to not care to vote for him to begin with.
That continued level of support is horrifying but not really that surprising. It’s hard to imagine many people who were OK with everything he’s said or done until now changing their minds over the events of the last week.
On the one hand I wish I could wrap my head around that,sort of mind to try finding ways to helping those that think like that understand why I find it distressing in a way that doesn’t have them immediately go ‘bleeding heart liberal.’
On the other listening to old trump appearances while I feel his general ‘anyone questions me will be destroyed’ hasn’t changed… I personally think he’s suffering from dementia as his speeches and general appearances didn’t used to be this nakedly… meandering.
It concerns me. Trump genuinely scares me and the republicans around him are scaring me for not trying to have him removed. Even if I disagree with general alt-right bullshit, most of them understand you don’t blow holes in the boat you’re trying to be captain of… I hope anyway. However since they are not trying to immediately REMOVE him for bankrupting the secret service budget, his constant trips TO HIS OWN PROPERTIES and other shenanigans… i dunno. I just don’t.
I just hope when he finally breaks and does/says something that will finally sink his “presidency”, it is caught on camera so I can watch it over and over again. 'Cause I truly believe he is headed there. Is we (via the press) keep pushing him, he’s gonna go over the edge…
Is this quite right? My limited experiences with suspected narcissists suggest the emotional states are:
Really pleased with yourself.
Really unhappy with everything else.
Like, if something is good it’s because of you. If something is bad it’s because of other people around you.
There’s never a time when you are unhappy with yourself. Your mind is incapable of self blame, so if something is wrong it must be someone else.
I don’t think he refuses to empathize. I think he has no ability to. And I think he’s a sociopath because he has no moral compass. He’s willing to morally equate a white supremacist running over and killing a person with the people protesting what that guy is doing.
He doesn’t know right from wrong in any meaningful way and gets confused and angry when people try to explain why he should care.
Recognizing that diagnosing public figures is just for sport and not really a thing we can do:
I’ve been leaning towards the idea that his behaviour is more borderline than narcissistic. Here’s the signs and symptoms from NIMH:
Frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment
A pattern of intense and unstable relationships with family, friends, and loved ones, often swinging from extreme closeness and love (idealization) to extreme dislike or anger (devaluation)
Distorted and unstable self-image or sense of self
Impulsive and often dangerous behaviors, such as spending sprees, unsafe sex, substance abuse, reckless driving, and binge eating
Recurring suicidal behaviors or threats or self-harming behavior, such as cutting
Intense and highly changeable moods, with each episode lasting from a few hours to a few days
Chronic feelings of emptiness
Inappropriate, intense anger or problems controlling anger
Having stress-related paranoid thoughts
Having severe dissociative symptoms, such as feeling cut off from oneself, observing oneself from outside the body, or losing touch with reality
Now obviously we wouldn’t know about suicidal/self-harming behaviour or dissociative symptoms, but there are a few things that lead me towards this:
The author of The Art of the Deal described him as “an emotional black hole” which is language I’ve heard used to describe people with BPD from care providers.
He creates a huge amount of chaos around himself - there doesn’t seem to be a plan from one moment to the next. I think I’d expect a narcissist to be more manipulative/controlling.
I’ve often heard him described as basically a sad child seeking affection. That’s much more BPD than narcissist.
The narcissism statements are extremely confounded with trump. He sure thinks a lot of himself and thinks he is entitled to special privileges, but for him that’s actually rational. Trump is associated with high status people and institutions and has been for much of his life.
Also, a quick note, not directed at anyone in particular, I want to acknowledge that by talking about Trump and mental illness we risk stigmatizing people with mental illness. Mentally ill people aren’t meaningfully more likely to harm others than people without mental illness but are significantly more likely to harm themselves or be a target for others. People with mental illnesses are a marginalized group that deserves support rather than scorn. I don’t actually think there is anything wrong with noticing that Trump fits criteria for mental illnesses, I just want to make sure that everyone takes a breath and reminds themselves that just because a person is narcissistic, borderline, psychotic, or anything else doesn’t mean they’re going to be as shitty a person as Trump.
I saw several news articles before Trump’s Arizona rally which spelled out exactly what he should avoid doing or saying in order to keep any possible “presidential” momentum going.
Instead, he complained that he was the real victim of Charlottesvile and said that the press is “trying to take away our history and our heritage” by covering the events there, the removal of Confederate statues, and what he sees as unfair coverage of the alt-right versus the “anarchist left”. He then repeated, “They’re trying to take away our culture. They are trying to take away our history.”
He also stated that the Left has policy goals that are “a step beyond socialism”.
