Narcissists’ influence is so strong that you might forget who you are. They repurpose you for their own benefit. Hardcore Trump voters are obsessed with him. They talk of nothing else. They are clear victims of narcissistic manipulation. They reinforce Trump’s grandiosity.
This dynamic – where others live in service to the narcissist, shoring up the narcissist’s delusions – is very common with narcissists. The narc considers these people “supply“. Narcs have to have supply – they must have people around them who admire them and buy into their self-delusions. They are so cripplingly insecure and scared on the inside, they require more or less constant support on the outside. Yet, to a narcissist, their supplies are just that: a means to an end. When the supply ceases to be useful, they are thrown away like trash. The narcissist doesn’t think he owes anyone anything. They think it’s only right that people should adore them.
Trump has been a media figure for decades. He once gained supply via his popularity as a businessman. In an interview with Fox News in 2015, Trump said, “They say I’m the best-known businessman.” That was his reputation and his source of narc supply. But at some point, Trump decided that wasn’t enough anymore. The world was leaving him behind. He needed more. He drew inspiration from interviews he’d done in the past, including his interview with Playboy in 1990 (in which they discussed a theoretical President Trump’s policies) and realized he could turn himself into a national hero. He set about crafting himself a political image that purposely built on his past image as a businessman.
Trump the businessman and deal-maker was highly cunning. He was always on the lookout for opportunities to make deals in which he would come out on top. Even then, his grandiosity took center-stage. Almost everything he owned was named the Trump Something. He wanted big, obnoxious buildings that ruined the scenic views of the cities they were built in and stuck out like sore thumbs.
Trump the American “hero” isn’t different, per se. He shares many of the political views of his former image. What he does have is a different emphasis. Trump is a “virtuous” soul under attack by the “Fake News Media”. He’s a fighter, a hero, a genius. His grandiosity is a key element of his political campaign.
An interesting thing to note about narcissists like Trump is that they have inbuilt programs for dealing with both positive and negative attention. Trump’s program for dealing with positive attention is false humility coupled with an offensive “attack mode” in which he goes after his rivals and extols his own grandiose idea of himself. His program for dealing with negative attention is similar to that of other narcissists: victimization. He’s under attack – the whole media and a deep state conspiracy is out to get him. They attack him because they don’t like him, not because they have valid criticisms – they couldn’t possibly have any because Trump is perfect!
Trump is, in a lot of ways, just these two programs run in alternation. He doesn’t know anything else. It’s paramount that he protects his image, because if he doesn’t, his narc supply will drain away. He’s all too conscious of the dangers, and that awareness has led him to react in extremely sore, bitter ways when he feels his image is threatened.
WITCH HUNT!!!
One of Trump’s favorite phrases
Trump will say and do anything to secure supply. Supply is the thing he needs. Without supply, he’s nothing. He could never just shut up and remove himself from the public eye. He craves supply in absurd amounts. You must feed the beast, the insatiable narc that demands love and adulation, simply because his real self is so flimsy and immature.
Trump himself admitted in 2015 that he hadn’t really changed since first grade.1 Deep down, he’s an undeveloped little boy. His nerves are so raw, so sore, he constructed the outer shell of Trump to act as a false self, in order to protect his true self, which is extremely fragile.
Trump Lies
I LOVE TRUTH, THE REAL VOICE OF AMERICA!
Trump
Says the man who tried overturning the results of an election because he didn’t like them! Trump deals in lies. He loves lies. Lies are the tool with which he shapes the world around him.
To the dismay of even conservative observers, Trump appears totally indifferent to the truth. Time magazine gave Trump an opportunity to clarify his refusal to correct his long string of falsehoods. What the March 23 interview produced instead was an astonishing revelation of his thinking: He states what he wants to be true. If his statement is proven false, he is unfazed, and confidently predicts that the facts will catch up with his belief: ‘I’m a very instinctual person, but my instinct turns out to be right.’ Even when the top sleuth in the country, FBI director James Comey, condemned Trump as a fabulist, Trump ignored the public rebuke and bragged about his ability to persuade millions of his paranoid version of Obama as “sick” and surreptitiously spying on him.
Gail Sheehy
Trump’s grandiosity extends to his assessment of the facts. He doesn’t believe he’s ever wrong. Admitting he’s wrong is like admitting he’s a loser. He will appeal to whatever he needs to in order to make people love him. His legions of credulous supporters will always agree with him. They are bound in a relationship with the narc.
A key puzzle of narcissism is explaining why normal people hang around narcs despite the fact that they are never acknowledged, the narc never shows any interest in them and always deflects the blame when confronted. This is an abusive relationship, not a healthy one. So, why don’t people get rid of them?
There can be many reasons for this, a few of the most notable ones being trauma bonding, lack of self-esteem, or denial. With Trump, the main reason is investment. So many of his most ardent supporters have invested so much of themselves into being Trump supporters and claiming Trump is the best president ever, they cannot now withdraw without admitting they’ve wasted significant time and effort on a malignant narcissist. This is promoted by the sunk-cost fallacy: when you’ve invested a huge amount of time and/or effort into something, you’re much less likely to call it a waste of time.
Trump, from his own writings, has shown massive hypersensitivity to shame or humiliation.
Dr. James F. Gillian
He must protect the little boy that his narc shell is designed to hide. He never became a real adult, hence his inability to act like one. He doesn’t understand maturity or being secure in oneself.
[Trump] became addicted to rallies, where he excited crowds with his hypomanic charisma, and where they in turn threw gasoline on the fire of his hypomanic grandiosity. This culminated in the Republican National Convention, at which Trump made a grandiose statement that encapsulates it all: ‘Only I can fix it.’
John D. Gartner
Trump believes he’s a one-of-a-kind genius(!), that nobody else could possibly do what he does. He’s addicted to telling people this and having people believe him and cheer for him. No normal (sane) person would need such supply, and no sane person would make such claims of themselves. Trump is profoundly unhealthy. It’s a testament to the failure of democracy (to be a good political system) and the madness of the people that he’s still in a position to become president.
Trump is a profoundly evil man exhibiting malignant narcissism. His worsening hypomania is making him increasingly more irrational, grandiose, paranoid, aggressive, irritable, and impulsive. Trump is bad, mad, and getting worse. He evinces the most destructive and dangerous collection of psychiatric symptoms possible for a leader.
John D. Gartner
Trump doesn’t live in the real world and never has. He’s remained profoundly detached from normality all his life. He lives on Planet Trump, the constructed world of his own delusions. He’s excessively psychotic (detached from reality) in almost every area.
A self is not just a structure we impose on ourselves – the self is also imposed on the world as we see it (i.e. it affects how we see reality). In Trump’s case, the (fake, grandiose) self is so disruptive, so overwhelming, it actively interferes with his perception of facts, redefining truth. Trump’s narc self is his reality. The real world, external to Trump, never fully registers with him. Every truth is subjected to the Trump Delusion and if it fails the test (Trump doesn’t like it), it simply never enters his worldview.
We all have lenses through which we view the world. In Trump’s case, the lens is highly warped and he’s incapable of seeing things without it.
The Insane System
David M. Reiss, M.D. made a very telling and crucial observation regarding American politics:
The current political system sets no intellectual or cognitive standards (or physical/medical well-being standards) for someone to become POTUS. Clearly, this is a vulnerability. Equally as clearly, the question of where any “line should be drawn” regarding health or, in particular, intellectual and cognitive prowess, as well as how and by whom those parameters would be measured, in my opinion, make it practically unlikely that any such standards will ever be implemented.
So, by enforcing no standards in the quality of the cognitive functions of those in power, America makes it all but guaranteed that a case like Trump’s will happen sooner or later. In another century or so, perhaps we’ll have another insane president. There are no checks in place to ensure that doesn’t happen, no requirement that the president demonstrate they actually understand the issues they’re supposed to remedy.
Isn’t this an insane way to run a political system?? If you enforce no quality on the process, you can hardly expect quality to be reflected in the result!! This is a critical and damning indictment on the current system. Any system that allows a malignant narcissist like Trump in power clearly has fundamental issues. A Trump presidency should never have happened. It’s an absolute disgrace.
It’s difficult to overstate how serious this problem is. If you allow psychopaths, narcs, and Machiavellians to run the world, you have already lost the battle for decency and equality. A good leader has empathy and isn’t obsessed with self-glorification. Virtually all of the problems in the world today can be attributed to the fact that all the wrong people – the incompetent and the evil – are allowed in power. Only when the right people are in power can the world heal.
There’s a term for this – garbage in, garbage out, or GIGO. The idea is that anything based on flawed methodology or bad information (garbage) will produce more garbage. The American presidency is based on stupid people (commonly middle- and upper-class Americans) and a system that validates their stupidity. Only garbage ever gets into politics, so only garbage can ever come out of it. Trump is simply the highest expression of garbage that has hitherto been seen. He is pure insanity.
If those at the top of society have the most power, then it follows logically that they will have the biggest impact on it. And so the quality of your society will always be largely dictated by the quality of those at the top. If shitty, abusive, manipulative people are allowed at the top, then society itself will be shitty, abusive, and manipulative. Shittiness, abuse, and manipulation will be glorified. That’s why it could hardly be more important that we enforce some standards in this area. America doesn’t.
Trump Supply and Thought Inertia
What does Trump require of his supplies (the people that adore him)? They have to be loyal (though Trump doesn’t have to be loyal to them); they have to accept whatever he says as truth (anyone who doesn’t is “low IQ”); they have to show their support for him in the most simpering, sycophantic way possible; and they must reject anyone who attacks Trump (i.e. they must become complicit in his protection of himself).
Trump’s supplies are merely an extension of his narcissism. They have all the same qualities as he does, except not directed toward themselves. The Trump Contagion supplants the existing self.
When will they wake up and realize they’ve been manipulated? Most of them never will. The Trump Delusion has taken hold. The sunk cost fallacy, cognitive dissonance, confirmation bias, etc. will support the delusion.
Physicists speak of “inertia” – a property of matter that makes it resistant to changing its velocity. You need much more force to move (or to stop) a heavy, inert object than a light one. What about thoughts? Do they also have inertia that makes them resistant to entering or leaving your head? Are some thoughts more inert than others? The Trump Delusion is an extremely inert thought because it’s highly demanding. You either believe in it whole-heartedly or you reject it as absolute nonsense. All the most polarizing thoughts are highly inert – they’re resistant to being moved. You love ’em or hate ’em.
The goal of a narcissist, in order to secure their supply, is to create a thought so powerful, so inert, that it’s extremely resistant to being ousted. They create a lie that appeals to you, you adopt it, and before you know it, you’re trapped. You now have to make a sacrifice to get rid of the narc’s influence. Making that sacrifice is too much for a lot of people, so they employ denial. By simply denying that the narc is a problem, they enable their continued belief unencumbered by doubt. All dissonance is resolved. There is no problem. Everything is fine.
If there’s one thing people want to hold on to, it’s their identity. Narcs aim to make themselves part of your identity so that you never let them go. All the most pernicious lies operate on a similar principle. Get people invested. Once they’re invested, the chances of them turning their backs on you are practically zero.
Trump has merged himself with the Republican identity. Now they’re invested. They can’t ever reject Trump without sacrifice. Much of their public dialog (such as their inane ramblings on Twitter) serves the purpose of eradicating cognitive dissonance.
Reject narcissists in power. Reject Donald Trump and his fake self. Reject his hapless supplies.
Only smart, sane people can lead America out of the gutter, and Trump is not one of them. He is another malignant narcissist who’s desperate for attention. Trump stopped developing at a very young age. He found it impossible to grow up because his environment and temperament didn’t permit it. He remains a child deep down, and like every narc, has constructed a tough outer shell to protect and garner adoration for that child self to compensate for its rampant insecurities.
All narcs need attention. They talk endlessly about themselves while showing no interest in others. Their own life is infinitely more interesting to them than anything else.
Exploitation and Entitlement
Two more concepts relevant to narcissism.
Entitlement: Narcs believe that everyone owes them. They never owe anyone anything. Everyone should do what the narc wants.
Exploitation: Narcs will use people as their supplies, regardless of whatever damage they might inflict or distress they may cause.
These two are potent and dangerous combination. We have the mechanism of exploitation and the justification of entitlement. That’s why narcissists act so selfishly and don’t think anything of it. It’s only right that you should give them everything while they give you nothing, they believe.
Trump has spent decades seeking attention to further his narcissism. So extreme is his inner insecurity that he goes above and beyond what many narcs would dream of doing for supply. He must compensate for the deep pit of despair. His exploitation and entitlement are off the scale. Moves that may look to the outsider like self-sabotage are actually important to his narcissism.
Trump made his life as a businessman, and despite his ostensibly political motives today, he’s still all about business. His treatment of America as a business is clear to see. Business – fierce competition and manipulation – is all he understands.
Trump genuinely believes he’s the smartest person alive and the best president ever! His extreme grandiosity can never be punctured because if it is, it’s all over for him. This guy is a masterclass in delusion. He doesn’t just live on delusion; he is delusion.
I play to people’s fantasies. People may not always think big themselves, but they can still get very excited by those who do. That’s why a little hyperbole never hurts. People want to believe that something is the biggest and the greatest and the most spectacular.
In The Art of the Deal
Trump’s 2004 book, How to Get Rich, says:
When somebody hurts you, just go after them as viciously and as violently as you can.
That’s a perfect description of how raw and desperate Trump is. No slight can be allowed to go unanswered, no challenge unmet, no opposition left alone. He hates being threatened and will go to any lengths to “win”. For him, winning is the only outcome. Losing isn’t an option, and you can take that quite literally – he never acknowledges losing. On Planet Trump, Trump never loses.
This man is completely and utterly unfit to be anybody’s president. If you vote Trump, then you are complicit in his narcissistic manipulation of America. You are an accessory to his monstrous crimes.
Make the sacrifice. Remove the Trump Delusion from your life.
Enablers
… and when they don’t [have enablers/supply], they actually don’t do well because there’s nobody any longer propping up their behavior and letting them get away with stuff, and without enablers, there’s no one making excuses, so even as new people come in, they’ll say, ‘This is bad,’ and there’s no one saying, ‘No no no, you’re reading the situation wrong!’ So, enablers are not only sources of validation, they’re also sources of excuses, and when those things go away, the narcissistic person loses a lot of their power.
Don’t enable narcs. If you do, you’re part of the network that gives them power. You help to bring in further enablers by providing excuses.
Trumpism of the Day
Today, we don’t have a quote, but rather some damning news:
So, if Trump is elected and you live in a state that votes blue, better run the fuck away!!
Why is this not surprising? Trump has ruined my ability to be surprised by anything Trump does!
Mark Harvey, who was Trump’s senior director for resilience policy on the National Security Council staff, told E&E News on Wednesday that Trump initially refused to approve disaster aid for California after deadly wildfires in 2018 because of the state’s Democratic leanings.
But Harvey said Trump changed his mind after Harvey pulled voting results to show him that heavily damaged Orange County, California, had more Trump supporters than the entire state of Iowa.
You can’t expect Trump to look after your interests. He’s all about himself, and if you’re not a source of narcissistic supply to him, then you’re less than nothing. This disgusting man should never have been allowed near the presidency and certainly should be in jail today. He’s a criminal. Any regular person, having done half the things Trump has done, would be locked up and fucking down. Trump is a living reminder that the rich always get what they want; they are the beneficiaries of a system that consequently marginalizes everyone else.
No scumbag rich guy can ever be moral or decent. The sooner all those dumbass Trump voters get that into their tiny brains the better.
It’s absolutely atrocious for any president to favor his voters over anyone else. The president is charged with the protection of the whole country. Yet Trump’s thinking was that if he let blue voters die and saved red voters, he’d have a better chance of getting re-elected. It’s difficult to conceive of a more psychopathic move as president. He knew he couldn’t get away with massacring Democrat voters, so he thought he’d let nature do the job instead.
Musk finally breaking into the comedy scene! Oh, this is just too funny!
If you wanted to serve the people, Mr Musk, you’d be in a very, very different position right now and your Twitter feed would look very different! But you are joking about that, right? I mean, you aren’t serious!! The absurdity of the joke is what makes it so funny – you are so funny, Elon!!!