This is speculation.
Recently, RobertEnders here at Daily Kos suggested that Trump possibly took those highly sensitive documents due to some sort of hoarding condition. At least one commenter replied that that kind of thinking tends to let Trump off the hook for his behavior. Still, I am one who thought the same as RobertEnders before reading his diary and I only agree even more so now: Trump exhibits certain strange behaviors that point to a manifestation of psychopathology.
When I say “certain strange behaviors,” I’m referring to those we’ve already seen confirmed, such as Trump tearing up and eating documents. The eating of non-nutritive substances is known as pica. Such behavior can manifest as a neurotic trait or as one symptom clustered among many, such as that displayed in the condition of obsessive-compulsive disorder.
So, there’s that. Plus the information we now have the haphazard condition of those boxes of sensitive documents mixed in with rather disparate objects indicates possibly some level of hoarding, specifically the disorganization that comes with that disorder.
According to USA Today, FBI agents retrieved:
- 31 confidential documents
- 54 "secret" documents
- 11 "top secret” documents
- 48 empty folders with classified banners
- 42 folders marked "return to staff secretary/military aide"
- 11,000+ government documents or pictures without classification markings
- 1,670+ magazines, newspapers, or press clippings
- 19 articles of clothing or gift items
- 33 books
But, really what I want to suggest is just something to think about. It’s speculation. (I’m not licensed in psychology in any sense; my background is in American studies, an offshoot of sociology. But I’ve been immersed in the literature of social psychology and psychology for a while now and studying MAGA in particular, so I make my offerings on those bases.)
I want to quote something from notes I took months ago, because I think the passage captures how I already felt about this particular personality structure, before Trump’s document disaster/scandal came to public awareness. I was trying to capture in psychological terms something I sensed indirectly about this construct, that of the avaricious megalomaniac.
4/12/22
The PUAs, the rapists, the serial killer, the groomer, the scalper [of aboriginal peoples]: they are all collectors.
The pick-up artists, the cult leaders, the Cassanovas, the manipulators, the scam artists: it is the collection of that conquest that they seek. The serial killer with his need to take trophies: that is the same as those in lynching bees who took body parts back home to store in jars. It is an eternal sign/symbol of total domination over another but also at the same time the utter capitulation of that conquest. The cult leader doesn’t physically destroy his targets but instead basks in the ever-renewing glow of the mark capitulating over and over again. The psychic vampire has found a renewable resource.
The PUA and the rapist get immediate physical gratification as a reinforcement and reward: he trains his own sadism all in the same moment. The scalpers, the lynchers, the burners of those at the stake (anciently equivalent to destruction in the gas chambers): the trophy renews the sadism, recollected in seclusion, with a private caress, a reminiscence, a fondness and longing. The gratification is empowering, and the power is gratifying: it is kindling rubbed from both directions.
These all spring from the same source. The sexual manipulator gets the surge of dopamine when his victim acquiesces—the actual intercourse is simply reward, simply confirmation of that initial signal to power. Their will to power. The deception is part of that will/domination. The deception deepens the reward, much like the physical overpower of the rapist fuels the testosterone, dopamine, adrenaline, the overall triumph of one body over another.
The notch in the belt or the bedpost is the same as the collecting of toes or trinkets or shrunken heads, I scribbled in the margin.
[I say “his” because psychopaths commit the majority of violent interpersonal crime; and most violent offenders tend to be male. This tendency is true also of pick-up artists and rapists. I am unsure at this time the ratio of males to females when it comes to charismatic leaders of cults, but I would wager that it’s lopsided toward the former. Please forgive the shorthand.]
So what do you think? I think it’s clear that Trump is a profoundly disordered being. I think that while it’s entirely possible—probable, even likely!—that Trump took these documents to sell or barter, I think also that the fact that he stored them at his private residence indicates something deeper, more personal. Just trying to reckon exactly what and why.
