Mike the Mad Biologist

Observed at 16th and P Streets NW, Dupont Circle, D.C.

While I think there’s a tendency ‘overpsychologize’ politicians’ actions, but Trump’s narcissism is just so damn predictive. In our ongoing ‘excursion’* in Iran, we are seeing another example of textbook narcissistic denial (boldface mine):

After Trump administration officials gave a closed-door briefing to lawmakers on Tuesday, Senator Christopher S. Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut, said on social media that the administration had no plan for the Strait of Hormuz and did “not know how to get it safely back open.”

Inside the administration, some officials are growing pessimistic about the lack of a clear strategy to finish the war. But they have been careful not to express that directly to the president, who has repeatedly declared that the military operation is a complete success.

Mr. Trump has laid out maximalist goals like insisting that Iran name a leader who will submit to him, while Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth have described narrower and more tactical objectives that could provide an off-ramp in the near term.

Meanwhile, Trump is insisting that Iran did not lay any mines in the Strait of Hormuz, even though they obviously have done so, which is another example of narcissistic denial in action. As I have written (and POASTED!) about so many times, Trump is mentally ill and, as such, experiences periods of delusion, especially when reality does not conform to his desires.

That said, Trump–and the rest of us who are dragged along with him–eventually collide with reality. The narcissistic break is going to be ugly when it happens, and he will likely do something really stupid and impulsive.

*The conventional wisdom is that Trump heard the word incursion, flipped it around in his brain to excursion, and no one wants to correct him.