Of course the Politico report that Nancy Pelosi should be in jail is making the news. However, Trump hasn’t tweeted about her yet. He did brag about the glowing reviews from the British media. This is not true, they roundly mocked him and George Conway documented this on Twitter. However it is noteworthy that in his saying that Rachel Maddow’s ratings were “dying” ( they were lower than usual but hardly dying) he also admitted he was paying attention to her.
“The President has received glowing reviews from the British Media. Here at home, not so much. MSNBC Ramps up hateful coverage and promotes conspiracy theories during Trump’s trip to Europe.” @seanhannity The good news is that @maddow is dying in the ratings, along with @CNN!
Does Trump even realize that when he puts @maddow in a tweet if someone hovers over it they see this the image below. Perhaps he does, after all he’s addicted to Twitter. This is a gift to her since her Twitter feed is composed of her own tweets and re-tweets from the likes of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
If you click this you go to Rachel Maddow’s Twitter page.
As for Rachel’s ratings, According to The Wrap:
…. her all-in average of 2.6 million total viewers per show this month was better than several other months she experienced during Trump’s tenure. “The Rachel Maddow Show” was still the third highest-rated primetime series across cable news, ranking behind only Fox’s “Hannity” and “Tucker Carlson Tonight.”
Is it possible that the endless fawning over him gets Trump bored, and this leads him to do a little channel surfing and tune in to see what kind of coverage he is getting on MSNBC and CNN? In all his narcissism and self-deception I have to wonder whether at some level or in some way it bothers him that he isn’t universally worshipped.
As one of the first Duty to Warn psychotherapists I’ve written extensively about Trump’s personality. I believe in Sun Tzu’s dictum from The Art of War: “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle” and “If ignorant both of your enemy and yourself, you are certain to be in peril.”
I think Trump is driven by deeply unconscious insecurity and self-doubt. I think he was an unloved child. I think he craves the love he didn’t have from his parents, particularly his mother. I think that the cheers from his crowds barely satisfy him because these are people he considerers gullible ignorant lowlifes.
I think he tries to get love from his sycophants, for example the widely mocked Cabinet meeting when he went around the table soliciting praise from everyone, but knows they were merely sucking up to him for their own selfish reasons.
I think that for all his bluster and braggadocio deep down inside Trump is a profoundly insecure person craving genuine love. I can’t imagine that the gushing admiration he gets from the likes of Hannity, Carson, Ingraham, Fox and Friends, ands others of their ilk satisfy his deepest needs. For one thing, as a performer himself he knows (at least at some level) that these Fox News personalities have to be all-in for Trump or they’d loose their jobs. Likewise he must know, again perhaps not consciously, that many if not most of his White House appointees feel the same way.
I think that this tweet from last night, when one would think a normal president would be getting reading for today’s D-Day memorials and meetings means he wants her to engage him in a twitter battle.
I think this is because deep down inside he wants Rachel Maddow to love him.
Thursday, Jun 6, 2019 · 3:36:35 PM +00:00 · HalBrown
The social psychologist Erich Fromm first coined the term "malignant narcissism" in 1964, describing it as a "severe mental sickness" representing "the quintessence of evil". He characterized the condition as "the most severe pathology and the root of the most vicious destructiveness and inhumanity". Along with the founder of Duty to Warn, Dr. John Gartner, I consider Trump to be a malignant narcissist.
I find it telling, and ironic in this context that Fromm wrote The Art of Loving. Here’s a quote:
“The main condition for the achievement of love is the overcoming of one's narcissism. The narcissistic orientation is one in which one experiences as real only that which exists within oneself, while the phenomena in the outside world have no reality in themselves, but are experienced only from the viewpoint of their being useful or dangerous to one. The opposite pole to narcissism is objectivity; it is the faculty to see other people and things as they are, objectively, and to be able to separate this objective picture from a picture which is formed by one's desires and fears.”
Read more quotes here. See if you think Trump is even capable of loving.
Thursday, Jun 6, 2019 · 5:25:20 PM +00:00 · HalBrown
Trump probably also craves love (maternal unconditional approval) from another woman, this one who I think is a mother figure. I think his relationship with Nancy Pelosi is the most complex of all his relationships with female adversaries, and like with Rachel (and Bette Midler) he has a love-hate dynamic. Read Trump blasts 'fool' Mueller, 'Nervous Nancy' Pelosi at Normandy cemetery.
This is a sickening example of Trump’s taking what should be a dignified solemn occasion to politicise it and make it all about himself and his grudges. It also once again demonstrates the malignant (sociopathic) element of his malignant narcissism.