Trump’s narcissistic personality disorder

| 3:00 pm EDT August 15, 2024
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So I put it to you, brothers and sisters, who do you know who has a grandiose sense of self-importance, who fantasises about unlimited success, power and brilliance? Who comes to mind when I refer to someone who believes he or she is special or unique and can only be understood by, or should be associated with, other special or high-status people? When you think about someone who requires constant and excessive admiration, who comes to mind?

Who has unreasonable expectations of favourable treatment? Who demands automatic compliance with his or her expectations? Who is exploitative? Who lacks empathy? Who is unwilling to recognise or identify with the feelings and needs of others? Who is envious of others or believes that others are envious of him or her? Of all the people you know about, who has the most arrogant and haughty attitude?

Of course you know immediately who I’m referring to. Of course I’m referring to Donald Trump. That’s obvious, isn’t it? You may even have the misfortune of knowing such a person yourself — I have personally known two of them — but when it comes to famous people, you might say nobody fits those descriptions better than Trump. You might even say nobody has ever seen anything like him.

Those are also the diagnostic criteria for narcissistic personality disorder, or NPD for short, from the 5th edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders, or DSM-5 for short. There are nine such criteria in all, any five of which identifies a person with NPD. Donald Trump fits them all.

Oh but wait, you might say, I’m diagnosing Trump from afar. Should I be doing that? After all, I’m not a psychiatrist or a trained psychologist. No, I don’t see a problem. I don’t need a meteorologist to tell me that the sky is blue. Anyone can see that Trump fits all those criteria. They are designed to be easy to spot by amateurs. What’s more, anyone with an ounce of discernment can tell that the Republican nominee for president of the United States is a very, very sick man.

In a recent interview George Conway agrees. “[Trump] is a decompensating narcissistic sociopath,” Conway said to Jen Psaki. “He is a very unwell person. I’ve been saying this for years.” And as far as the DSM-5 diagnostic criteria, Conway also agrees with me. “The criteria were made to describe him.”

It is into such hands that we never want to place the nuclear codes. It is into such hands that we never want to entrust America’s relations with its allies. It is into such hands that we never want to place our civil rights, the reproductive rights of women, our right to vote, our right to the Social Security benefits we have paid for, our tradition of free and fair elections and the peaceful transfer of power. It is into such hands that we never want to entrust the sacred responsibility for care and stewardship of a planet in the grips of global climate change.

Many such people ultimately destroy themselves after they ascend to power. The fascistic rule for Hitler, Mussolini, Jair Bolsonaro and Idi Amin ended badly for them. But the likes of Stalin, Mao, and (so far) Netanyahu, Putin and Kim Jung un have survived, and even thrived. There is no guarantee that once a person like Trump rises to power we can get rid of him easily. And sometimes getting rid of such people comes at a great cost.

I will go even further as regards Trump. I don’t think there is any doubt that Trump has become psychotic. His collapse is becoming so alarming and obvious that I suspect his handlers and strategists are terrified of what he might do or say next. He seems to be unwilling or unable to commit to a winning strategy, and instead, more than ever, is given over to wild conspiracy theories about Kamala Harris, her race, her crowd size, her political agenda.

Of course, this is a good thing. A smart Trump with a clear path to victory would be horrifying. But now that Republicans have seen the way, what smarter Trump will they put forward next? What rough beast slouches towards Washington in 2028?

Once we win the 2024 election, we will still have our work cut our for us. We must be victorious every time for now and the foreseeable future. Failure is not an option. MAGA only has to win once. And, as ever, ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, comrades and friends, stay safe.