Part 1
If you Google “Trump narcissism” you will come up with hundreds, perhaps thousands, of results. By now every progressive has more or less memorized the DSM criteria for diagnosis of narcissistic personality disorder.
Everywhere we turn we see and hear Trump described and decried as a narcissist, sometimes with the word prefaced by extreme or malignant, the later modifier being the more powerful.
The variations of the word narcissism are so frequently used that this may be lessening their impact. We may consider using synonyms for narcissism to describe Trump’s behavior and personalty (right>>)
One term that hasn’t been used too often is narcissistic rage. Here it is worthwhile to delve into some psychiatry because the we have already seen that Trump is so easily offended that the term “thin-skinned” comes up in articles every time he Tweets out a hostile response to a slight or criticism. This is a fairly benign way of saying he is exquisitely reactive to perceived slights and criticism, and this could lead to a narcissistic rage reaction with dire consequences.
"Narcissistic rage is the response of a narcissist to anything they perceive as a threat to their ego, their control or their power. It is usually intense, out of proportion, often random and is used to manipulate."
"And at the same time the narcissist may also be plotting how to get revenge on the person who dared to challenge them. So the person gets twice the punishment...!"
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- Control freaks
- Irritability
- Short fuses
- Low frustration tolerance
- Argumentative
- Need to have the last word
- Unable to lose
- Won’t take “No” for an answer
- Quick to anger if you don’t accommodate them
- Quick to being aggressively defensive if you call them on any deficiency, fault or responsibility
- Can’t apologize or if do, can’t do it sincerely
- Rarely say, “Thank you” or “Congratulations”
- Don’t feel or demonstrate remorse
- Feel entitled to enthusiastic and appreciative approval, adoration, agreement and obedience
- Gloat in victory, sullen in defeat
- Quick to rage if you humiliate
Below, emphasis added:
What is really at the core of narcissists is an instability in their ability to feel and sustain feeling bigger, larger, smarter and more successful than everyone else which they need to feel stable. And just as Hamlet’s mother said, “the lady doth protest too much,” “the narcissist doth brag, scorn, talk down, primp and belittle too much” in order to continually prove to the world and themselves that they are larger than life. This is not to increase their self-esteem as much as it is to continually spackle the holes in their core that lead to a feeling of instability—and that, if not spackled, will lead to brittleness followed by fragmentation.
Narcissistic rage occurs when that core instability is threatened and furthermore threatened to destabilize them even further. Not unlike a wounded animal being the most vicious (because they think the next wound would kill them), narcissistic rage occurs when narcissists believe the next insult/assault to their grandiose based stability would shatter them.
Part 2
Now that yet two more credible allegations of sexual improprieties and assault have come out about Trump, bringing the total to 10, I have to wonder what will happen as Trump has to defend himself against behaviors he knows are true. He has denied ever meeting any of the women recounting his undated sexual advances; but he can’t claim that about the the latest one since they clearly knew each other.
It is in his nature to counter-punch. This is what he will do. That’s on the outside, on the inside psychological defenses are at work but we can only make educated guesses as to what they are. This isn’t all that relevant because we know that the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior.
I’ve written about what the final straw, which bombshell, would break the back of Trump’s campaign. That has happened. The campaign camel has a broken back and four broken legs. But now I wonder what will happen when Trump continues to blame Hilliary and an imaginary evil conspiracy including nefarious (possibly Jewish) banks, the press, and even establishment Republicans. What will his brainwashed supporters do. And as a clinician, I wonder what will happen to Trump himself.
Because Trump is such an extreme narcissist and has so much of his self-worth invested in winning the election, we need to understand narcissistic injury and narcissistic rage. We must understand what happens when circumstances drive extreme narcissists into a state of rage, and consider what might happen when one has the power to influence and persuade a significant portion of the population to act out.
I think a Trump loss even if he doesn't absolutely nothing to encourage it, there will be a real feeling among the farthest fringe that they are been given license to act out on their feels of white entitlement. The more Trump encourages them by ranting about how he lost because the system was rigged, the more he throws gasoline on the rage of zealous supports who are possibly mentally unstable supporters. These the risk of this rage turning into a flaming and dangerous fury.
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It should go without saying what could happen when unstable people feel empowered to act on their anger. Trump has made me afraid, and I no long fear what will happen if he wins, I fear what will happen when he looses.