In days of yore, which is to say December 2016, I wrote about “Lessons I Learned Working For A Narcissist And What That Means For Il Trumpe“, in which I listed one of the key characteristics of a narcissistic boss:
Bold and heedless in the face of danger; highly imaginative, given to flights of fancy fueled by lack of any instinct for self-doubt, during which any and all ideas will be perceived as brilliant, even inevitable, no matter how lame.
And:
Incapable of viewing others as real creatures with needs discrete from his or her own, consequently has no problem using others for any purpose that furthers his or her desires, up to and including their destruction, for which he or she will feel no remorse. Remorse in general not a strong suit.
Which brings us to this discussion of how Trump ‘thinks’ (boldface mine):
Donald Trump does not think strategically. Nor does he think historically, geographically, or even rationally. He does not connect actions he takes on one day to events that occur weeks later. He does not think about how his behavior in one place will change the behavior of other people in other places.
He does not consider the wider implications of his decisions. He does not take responsibility when these decisions go wrong. Instead, he acts on whim and impulse, and when he changes his mind—when he feels new whims and new impulses—he simply lies about whatever he said or did before…
…If allied leaders thought that their sacrifice might count for something in Washington, they might choose differently. But most of them have stopped trying to find the hidden logic behind Trump’s actions, and they understand that any contribution they make will count for nothing. A few days or weeks later, Trump will not even remember that it happened.
What this misses is that it is not an issue of Trump lacking object permanence, it is that he willfully forgets–that is, he lies to himself. Why? Back to December 2016:
First, he is essentially a full-tilt diva, with the rest of us either as bit, cameo players, or else the audience (or both). One day the script might be ‘hard-charging businessman’, the next ‘compassionate philanthropist’, followed by ‘competent manager’ and so on. Regardless, the show must go on. Ideally, his entire life is a fantasy, unmoored from reality. Anyone who challenges this fantasy causes extreme psychological distress.
That brings us to sunny point #2. Just like the addict’s primary goal is to get that fix, the narcissist’s primary goal is to maintain the fantasy. They will construct elaborate mechanisms to deny unpleasant realities. Plainly put, they turn everyone around them into liars. You [as a subordinate] have to lie as a self-defense mechanism in order to fend off and manage the impulsiveness, the bouts of inadequacy, the hare-brained ideas, and the laziness and ineptitude.
And yes, this has ramifications for policy making:
The narcissist is often not very good for the organization’s mission. While he often rose to his position by selling a five-star sizzle on a one-star steak, he’s often underprepared and unskilled, and very dependent on others–essentially, he’s an Illustrious Name on the Door. Unfortunately, leaders, on occasion, do have to lead–and that does involve work, knowledge and experience, and relevant skills. The dishonest climate is another massive problem. Problems will fester and multiply because the narcissist doesn’t want to hear about them–the show must go on. Then things reach a crisis point, as the lies collapse on each other. At this point, the narcissist swings into paranoia and rage. Why did all of these awful people lie to me? (Can’t imagine why…). Then the impulsiveness kicks in. Needless to say, this isn’t the optimal environment for crisis management. So if you care about the goals of the organization, the narcissist boss is often the largest impediment.
This is why The Discourse™ must recognize that Trump is mentally ill, and he not only does not manage his illness, he leans into it. He is not senile, though his aging is not helping (aging rarely does). He is a narcissist, and that means he is delusional.
mikethemadbiologist
Why 70 million votes for Trump? (Trump won 74 million votes, nearly five million more than any previous presidential candidate) Says Thomas Greene (from Noteworthy): “Trump will not be defeated by educating voters, by exposing his many foibles and inadequacies. Highlighting what’s wrong with him is futile; his supporters didn’t elect him because they mistook him for a competent administrator or a decent man. They’re angry, not stupid. Trump is an agent of disruption — indeed, of revenge…..Workers now sense that economic justice — a condition in which labor and capital recognize and value each other — is permanently out of reach; the class war is over and it was an absolute rout: insatiable parasites control everything now, and even drain us gratuitously, as if exacting reparations for the money and effort they spent taming us. The economy itself, and the institutions protecting it, must be attacked, and actually crippled, to get the attention of the smug patricians in charge. Two decades of appealing to justice, proportion, and common decency have yielded nothing.”
Disappointed by the conventional parties, Trump voters are willing to take a chance on a “disruptor” who his own party initially rejected. Meanwhile, Republicans are adaptive enough to embrace him as long as he helps them maintain their grip on power.
The problem is that Obama is at the origin of Trump voters’ disappointment. He promised justice, even hope, after the disastrous Bush 43 presidency. Americans were disgusted by the naked, aggressive imperialism of Bush/Cheney. Their votes reflected that, too. They gave Democrats both houses of congress and the presidency in 2008.
That mandate is worth remembering because the conventional excuse for Obama’s inadequacies is that Republican control of congress denied him any policy victories. Yet rather than using this mandate, Obama spent most of this political capital passing big-pharma-friendly “Romneycare”–a Republican health care plan. As for justice: Obama not only refused to prosecute the war crimes of Bush / Cheney, he promoted those who supervised torture and prosecuted the whistle blowers.
Perhaps most revealing was the way Obama handled the subprime / derivatives meltdown, now called the “Global Financial Crisis” (GFC) by economists–something the Clinton administration’s collusion with a Republican congress to deregulate Wall Street enabled. In the GFC, U.S. net worth declined 40%, and nine million families lost their homes. Republican pollster Frank Luntz reports the Obama administration was the only time he saw people weep in his focus groups. The public hated seeing enormous bank bailouts–$16 – $29 trillion, in addition to TARP, the Fed’s audit reports–while they were losing their homes and retirement accounts. For only $9 trillion, the Fed could have paid off everyone’s mortgage; but Wall Street, whose frauds crashed the economy, not Main Street, is who got bailed out.
It’s no surprise that the victims of this scam wept. And as long as the corporate Democrats–like Joe Biden–continue to ignore the public outrage at the failure of the public institutions they manage, at best they will have a precarious mandate to rule, even as systemic problems best handled by government–like the climate catastrophe–continue threaten the survival of the species.
Unfortunately, outrage is not a solution in and of itself, but some Democratic humility might make us less divided.