As hashtags deriding Trump and demanding his impeachment/resignation continue to trend globally, let’s hear from Speaker Pelosi who tweeted this today:
While @realDonaldTrumpthreatens to continue
the #TrumpShutdown for “years,”
Democrats are taking further action
to re-open government in order to meet
Americans’ needs, protect our borders & respect our workers.
I know that thousands if not millions of people around the world are scratching their heads, trying to figure out how Donald Trump manages to hold onto his delusions.
Let’s take a look inside the mind of a classic narcissist, one who is so outside the realm of reality the rest of us live in that he seems alien in nature.
Below is an excerpt from my book “America’s New Breed of Freedom Fighters” — which Trump supporters have enjoyed trashing with fake reviews online so that my real readers — progressives and democrats and women marchers — don’t even find the book.
So I’ll keep sharing excerpts from the books in my Liberty and Justice series in this Daily Kos blog, and hope that if you enjoy the excerpts, you will consider reading the books and leaving kind reviews on Amazon.
The following book excerpt is from “America’s New Breed of Freedom Fighters, Part Two: Inside the Mind of a Narcissist”:
[Note: this section is much longer in the book than the brief excerpt below]
Self-Absorbed
Narcissism goes far beyond vanity, beyond an inferiority complex, beyond temper tantrums and into the realm of mindboggling self-absorption.
The narcissist has no empathy—no ability within that cold heart to look at others with compassion and reach out to offer assistance.
Any offer of help will always be self-serving.
The narcissist looks at life from the perspective of personal gain. He is ruthless in getting his way all the time, even over trivial matters ("Who took the garage clicker!") that you would think wouldn't be important to get in such a rage about.
His view of life is "Gimmee, gimmee, gimmee"—although he feels undeserving deep inside, on the outside he grabs as much as he can as if that proves he must be special.
He is always looking for an angle to come out on top of everyone else.
Every situation and relationship is about control. It must be an "I win/you lose" outcome. It's never about win/win or working together for a common good.
His ego is so distorted that he cannot see any advantage to being the sort of person about whom a kindergarten teacher would say "plays well with others."
He makes it clear when he's unhappy with your choice of a TV show, movie, restaurant, and any other activity – – it becomes easier to not have to go through all that rigmarole just to go out and have what you thought would be a pleasant evening. So you cave in time and again until it is so automatic that you do it without conscious thought, and in fact circumvent the whole issue by only suggesting activities he has already marked with his seal of approval. You cater to the narcissist and he wins on a regular basis. This inadvertently feeds his sick behavior so that it grows stronger and deeper roots.
Think twice before asking him to compromise, because to a narcissist that is the greatest insult. "My way or the highway" is the attitude most often demonstrated, unless he's already dismissed the importance to him of the issue you want to compromise on. If so, he'll "let" you win as if tossing you a crumb and pretending he doesn't care or doesn't have time to deal with your whining.
Be wary, however, because the value of that crumb will suddenly go up when he wants you to compromise—he'll expect you to give him 100 times the value of that concession he grudgingly agreed to earlier.
Skewed Perception of Himself
The narcissist is proud of his excesses. He often has a keen interest in being well-groomed at all times and well-dressed so that no one can find fault with his appearance.
If he is of modest means, the narcissist will not care what the rest of the family must sacrifice for his clothing budget to be indulged. And yet, he will turn on them in a fury if he feels the way they are dressed is an embarrassment to him. He sees himself in a distorted mirror that tells him he is the greatest in the land and no one can compare.
He creates messes and leaves them for others to clean up.
As a child, that might have been the task of an overworked or exasperated parent who kept hoping things would change. As an adult, the messes have grown much larger and more threatening to the welfare of others, but he still looks to others to clean up the mess and keep him out of trouble.
Toxic Behavior
When you witness a narcissist in action, you may stare, your mouth agape, wondering how he gets away with what he does.
His attitude is: I can do and say whatever I want (everyone else be damned), rinse, repeat.
When you are involved with a narcissist, the fog of denial seeps over you on a regular basis because he's so good at stonewalling you and simply pretending that he never said what you know he said, and that he never did what you know he did.
Unmasked
A narcissist craves adulation. He lives with the secret terror that someone will discover he is a total fake. The narcissist is driven from within to pass himself off as a success and prevent the annihilation of being unmasked. That is why the outward trappings become so important—the narcissist may pay a lot of attention to his appearance, clothes, hair, jewelry and status symbols, even if he can only afford the knock-offs.
Although narcissism is not just a case of being a little conceited, the vanity that is under the surface drives a lot of resentment toward others he fears may be or have more than he does.
The narcissist has been a stock character in plays and films time out of mind. He's easy to spot—look for the one strutting like a peacock in full display. And watch for the one who is charming until thwarted, at which time his wrath explodes on the hapless folks in his orbit. In a romantic comedy, he'll be the guy we hope our sweet heroine will jilt at the altar because she has come to her senses and realizes what a jerk he really is.
Trump’s Extreme Narcissism
Trump's television celebrity made it "safe" for him to explode at will, and get admired for how nasty he could be as he crushed people under his heel.
It's never a good idea when dealing with the narcissistic personality disorder to let the person go on a rampage. It may appease him momentarily as he gets the inrush of feeling powerful, but soon the emptiness returns and he craves more and more attention, more and more power.
The country, indeed the world, needs to get better informed about what it's like to have a narcissist in charge.
A narcissist is determined to get what he wants when he wants it, and you'd better not thwart him.
The narcissist is 100% positive that the rules do not apply to him, because he's special. Rules are made for lesser people, not for his highness. Any parent who has raised a toddler will notice the similarity between a toddler's tantrums and those of a narcissist; however, of course, the narcissist in a position of power can do far more damage than a two-year-old kicking his heels in the air and screaming to relieve his frustration when things don't go his way.
Like an overgrown toddler, furious with contempt and outrage for anyone who stands in his way, the adult narcissist spends a lot of energy on punishing those he sees as enemies. The child yells out "I hate you!" to his parents. The adult narcissist takes stronger measures than just a few words of contempt. He is superior to everyone, and demands the adulation that goes with that superiority.
Our popular culture praises, applauds, aids and abets the narcissists in many ways with our lopsided love of celebrities.
But with a narcissist, that moment will not be something to examine and grow from –instead, it would be seen as the slug under the rock, something ugly and unwanted to stomp on and push away because the feeling of unworthiness is not congruent with his inflated ego.
Everything going on around him is a perceived threat to the narcissist. He walks through life on alert, ready to pounce on an idle comment that someone makes which he feels was an insult. Seeing a homeless man will evoke terror that it might happen to him, so he has to do what he can to push away those uncomfortable feelings inside, such as yelling out to the man, "Get a job!"
An extreme narcissist wreaks havoc in the lives of everyone around him and yet seemingly feels little or no remorse. His sense of entitlement (pumped up by the groveling praise from minions) assures him that the rules don't pertain to him.
In his mind he's far above the ordinary man who must bow and kowtow to the demands of society and family. He sees empathy as weakness.
The out-of-control extreme narcissist is the one who has left those closed doors behind and feels entitled to act how he pleases, wherever he wants. He rages in public, at the drop of a hat.
He is confident he can get away with this outrageous behavior because he's been applauded for his abusive comments. He knows he can do as he pleases and say whatever pops in to his head without losing the support of loyalists who overlook his excesses of anger and overweening pride.
Trump: A man who brags that he doesn't pay income tax because he "doesn't have to" and yet complains bitterly that he is inconvenienced by taxpayer-funded roads that need repair.
Trump: His team members decried his snide comments about groping women—and yet stood by him anyway. We used to call that being a "hypocrite" but apparently now it's just considered by the Republican party to be "business as usual."
Trump in response to a comment about his total inexperience with foreign policies and as an international diplomat: "I've been places!"
This seemingly paradoxical phenomenon is actually part of the web that a narcissist casts, where people join up in alliance with him for their own gain and simply turn a blind eye to his faults and lack of experience as if he's got a bad tic that he shouldn't be blamed for.
Trump and his team capitalized on his reality TV fame and managed to pull off enough entertainment for enough people to be fooled that "celebrity" must equate "ability."
He is the least qualified candidate ever put before the American voters, and yet…he was given the presidency. Historians will interpret this to the best of their ability—and I wish them luck in identifying the lack of awareness in a voting public that couldn't see the difference between electing a progressive thinker with many years of experience in diplomacy and Constitutional law, and someone who rants and raves when his least whim is thwarted.
It's important to understand just who your foe is and what principles they represent. We label people "paranoid" if they walk around flinching at shadows, because we can see their thinking has become dis-eased and they see threats everywhere, even when the enemy is truly the mind within.
An extreme narcissist sees only his own needs and glory.
Trump has made it abundantly clear that the frightened little boy inside would delight in forcing the world to its knees and then crown himself emperor.
If you ask a narcissist to do something that he doesn't want to do—because he's afraid it will weaken his position or diminish the esteem people hold him in— he simply digs in his heels and finds one excuse after another no matter how implausible.
The key to working with a narcissist is to find ways to show him how this new plan you are suggesting will actually benefit him in some way. He has to see that he will be admired if he agrees to it.
When dealing with a tyrant you have to be aware of his ego-driven motives, and work with those needs instead of trying to push against him, or make him see reason.
Attempts to show a narcissist why his thinking is "wrong" will simply result in his taking an even firmer stance and gathering in the forces he needs to support his position.
[end of book excerpt]
And meanwhile, let’s be sure to keep our focus strong on all our progressive issues for human rights, sensible immigration laws, gun control, fair taxes, and so much more.
What do you think about Trump’s level of narcissism? Please leave your comments below. And thank you.
Evelyn