I hope you and your co-author are lawyered up in advance and that the publisher has your back. This is one litigious bunch of scumbags you’re going after, and soon they’ll have new tools at their disposal.
Whatever emerges out of your book politically, it will make more people aware of the toxic narcissists in their own lives and give them a path away. Good show.
We as a nation frequently thank soldiers for their service to the country. In that same vein I would like to thank you for your service as well. This is a whole new game for us as citizens and we owe it to our democracy to do all we can to remain a great nation.
If the pop-psych “diagnosis” leads to valid prediction of how he will behave, then it can be useful in determining our actions. For example, we might want to keep Trump supporters within arms length so that when Trump inevitably bursts their bubble they can be brought into the fold.
Or we can goad them into fervent reactionary support for Trump for years and then when the disillusionment comes we can laugh at them really, really hard. Whichever feels right.
Why would it?
This brings to mind an old friend.
He never had the benefit of hundreds of millions in financing for his indulgence, but he’s alienated a lot of people over the years…
Flying Monkeys are real
I think think they start off by billing it as what it is: Two people who have lived with someone with a personality disorder telling us that they recognize Trump’s behaviour from their personal experience. That mask certainly seems to slip, though, and later they act as if Trump definitely does have a particular disorder. The “We’re not saying he does, we’re saying it’s a question we should be asking” can be read as a bit of a “Did Glenn Beck rape and murder a young girl in 1990?”
But I don’t want to say the whole thing is nonsense to be dismissed, and here is why:
This quotation is a good example:
“During one of the many arguments, he kept interrupting me so much, I set a timer and asked him not to interrupt me for three minutes. He agreed, and then continuously interrupted me, turning the discussion into a three-hour tangle of tangents and distractions that kept the focus off of his behavior and his accountability for it. Defeat. Surrender. It seems easier to lose the little battles, but they start becoming big ones. I started to accept the bad behavior instead of fight it. That is what I came to understand as “managing down expectations.” I just wanted to get through the day. I put up with things I never thought I’d put up with. I began to normalize them, because fighting was futile and exhausting. Facts didn’t sway.”
It doesn’t matter whether Trump has a disorder or not, this kind of enabling through normalizing is something to look out for. I think America’s expectations of their president have been managed way down.
For us, it has been like watching a journalist covering a blind president, and wondering why he never looks you in the eye. No matter how much you treat him like a sighted person, he will not change. You can take to social media and complain about how you were right in front of him and he didn’t see you. You can drone on about how unfair it is, how the previous president always looked you right in the eye. In fact, all the previous presidents did. The dude is blind, you guys. No amount of research is going to change that.
Trump may have a personality disorder or he may not. Whether he does or not, the way the media try to analyze him - the same way they’ve always analyzed politicians - is probably pretty stupid. It’s a good reminder that different people are actually different, and we shouldn’t assume we can understand Trump’s behaviour through a traditional lens.
And independent of whether he’s not, his behavior requires a similar containment strategy.
We aren’t going to treat him, just live under his diseased brain.
Applies to physical ailments, too.
Pretty sure I can spot a cold on my own, or a missing limb. Some things are glaringly obvious, even to the unqualified.
Ordered…thank you!
Thank you for taking the time to read and give such insightful commentary. I am concerned about the “mask” slipping in saying he definitely has the disorder because we were trying not to say that directly, only provide the criteria and relate our experience. Can you please share which section devolves? I’d like to revise for clarity. Thank you!
Great! So glad to help!
Exactly.
You haven’t qualified yourself to make such a statement.
Thank you for your kind words.
And, nah… she’ll always be with me. I look at it like she was the kind of person she was and I’m the kind of person I am. There’s no reason why her being awful a lot of the time should change that.
I dated two. I married the second one. I am a slow learner.
(Not Mr. Bells, who is a lovely person and whatever the opposite of a narcissist is.)
An Echo?
If Trump has NPD, or at least behaves a hell of a lot like he does, what does it say that so many Americans relate to him? Isn’t “American exceptionalism” just another way of saying “American narcissism?” We assume that we’re going to be the best at everything, and if we fall behind it must be because some out-group is weighing us down, taking advantage of our excess of compassion and generosity, and not because of any flaws or limitations that we ourselves possess. We loudly proclaim that we’re the “greatest country in earth” and react with hostility when someone suggests that other countries might be as good (then why don’t you f-ing move there?). We feel entitled to intervene in foreign conflicts that we clearly do not understand, and forcefully impose our culture and institutions where they’re not desired.
I’m not saying that Trump supporters are individually narcissistic, but rather that we’ve been trained (by TV and schools) to think of America’s place in the world in ways that are profoundly narcissistic, and Trump is simply a product of this—a Jungian archetype personifying a deeper complex that lies buried in our collective unconscious.
Persons are well receptive to those with NPD or other personality disorders. They may be garbage humans but have plenty of charisma.
I don’t think there’s anything new or unique there, research John R Brinkley and others and you’ll see these Trumps exist all throughout history.
There’s plenty more where he came from all over. Power, might, hate and nastiness is enough to unite persons.
