“America First…alternative facts.”
These words are all about Donald Trump’s effort to reshape our country into his image. “America first” is the collective version of “me first.” “Alternative facts” is an euphemism for telling lies.
Donald Trump is a “me-first” guy who has shown no regard for truth, and he wants the country to be just like himself.
The reason Trump speaks and acts as he does is widely known and, I am afraid, widely dismissed as insignificant.
That reason is narcissism.
Therapist friends of mine say that Trump has all the symptoms of narcissism, which is a personality disorder, defined as “extreme selfishness, with a grandiose view of one’s own abilities and a craving for admiration, leading a person to become manipulative and easily angered.”
Narcissists function in a world that revolves around them. When they speak, it is about themselves. When they react to others, it is all about how they think they have been treated and nothing else.
Narcissists can focus attention at a birthday party for someone else on themselves at the drop of a hat. We saw a version of this when Trump visited CIA headquarters last weekend, prompting former Republican CIA Director Mike Hayden to say in an email: “I was heartened that the President gave a speech at CIA. It would have been even better if more of it had been about CIA.”
It wasn’t because nothing Trump does is about anything or anyone but himself.
Narcissism controls his worldview. It makes him believe that people are either for or against him, but in either case it is always about him.
Narcissism makes Trump all the more vulnerable to believing stories he himself makes up such as losing the popular vote because thousands of illegal immigrants voted, or that the press was deliberately distorting the size of the inaugural crowd to make him look bad.
There is no rhyme or reason to these claims because there is no rhyme or reason to the way narcissists think.
Perhaps more alarming than anything is the fact that there is no medication or therapy for the problem. This is the case with virtually all personality disorders. I did read one article by a psychologist who believes narcissistic patterns can be somewhat altered if the narcissist is willing to work on it and he or she has people around them to help.
Neither is the case with Trump, which means the nation is stuck with him just as he is.
Let me be clear. I am not criticizing Donald Trump for suffering from narcissism. I am only underscoring the fact that his condition is not something to be dismissed as if it is just one of many personality traits people have, some good and some bad.
Personality disorders are not only serious. They are dangerous.
So far as I know our nation has never faced anything like this. We now have a president with a certifiable psychological problem, the consequence of which might become catastrophic.
Whether or not Trump’s narcissism will allow him to survive four years of the constant barrage of criticism presidents face or having Congress refuse to go along with what he wants to do remains to be seen.
Whatever happens, he and the nation are in for some very difficult and unsettling times, suggesting that describing Trump’s presidency as unlike anything we have seen before is an understatement of epic proportions.
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