Dammit, I’m frustrated. Frustrated, I tell you! Here I am blogger extraordinaire changing the world with my every post and we still have reporters, pundits, commentators, and bloggers responding to the trepid New York Times reporter’s, Michael Schmidt, spontaneous rollicking mostly on-the-record interview on Thursday 28 December with Oh my god! He so cray-cray! and we all start anew with wringing our hands and clutching our pearls and tsking our tsks about what could be wrong with him.

I’ve been blogging since the campaign that the Ol’ Pussy Grabber is a narcissistic personality disorder. It is the only thing you really need to know about him. He may be suffering from normal age-related dementia exacerbated by a grossly unhealthy diet and lifestyle, but it isn’t the primary concern. His extreme narcissism poses an existential threat to our country. And, in true narcissistic fashion, it poses a threat from within and without. Let’s psysplain it!

The Symptoms of Narcissistic Personality Disorder

So, let’s throw over the Unproductive, Malignant, Narcissism WATCH page for now, and turn this into a full-fledged post on just how cray-cray the Ol’ Pussy Grabber is because there is narcissistic detritus strewn all over that interview.

Before we begin, let’s review the symptoms that qualify one for a diagnosis of narcissistic personality disorder. This list is taken from The Narcissism of Donald J. Trump [sic].

• Having an ego so bloated that you think you are more important than you are
• Deluding yourself that you are exceptional even if you haven’t ever done anything exceptional except being an exceptional asshole
• Lying through your teeth about everything you’ve done and your talents and your skills
• Fapping to fantasies of your own success, power, brilliance, beauty
• Needing to have your ass-kissed constantly
• Needing special favors and exceptions to be made for you because you are some kind of a special fragile snowflake
• Expecting others to ask how high after you’ve screamed jump at them and like it!
• Taking advantage of others to get what you want
• Being an insensitive asshole unable to acknowledge the emotions or needs of others or even that others exist outside of the purpose of meeting your needs
• Seeing everyone around you as being green with envy for you and your bullshit
• Being a stuck-up shit like some little queen bee high school mean girl

Man, I read that list, and I’m like, Yes sir, that thar describes the Ol’ Pussy Grabber to a gotdammed tee!

Here’s the frustrating part: knowing that he is a narcissistic personality disorder, you can predict his reactions very precisely. Using these predictions, you can easily manipulate him whether you’re a reporter, aide, or one of the enemies of our country.

Chronic, Pathetic, Pathological Liar

For example, it is well known to all of us that the Ol’ Pussy Grabber is a chronic pathological liar. So, what would happen if a reporter came prepared to confront one of his predictable lies? (a) You’d get some push back from him, but just a little; (b) you’d get an attempt at changing the subject; and (c) in the face of real persistence, you’d get an explosion of anger and a direct attack on the reporter. Kinda like we saw with Katy Tur on the campaign trail.

And this interview did not disappoint on the veracity trail, the Washington Post looked at the excerpts that were published and determined that he lied once every 75 seconds. Talk about a chronic pathological pathetic liar.

Knowing this, a reporter — and I would argue that Michael Schmidt did  — could be prepared to push on his lies and grandiosity to make him look ridiculous and allow other reporters, pundits, commentators, and bloggers to analyze and explain it all just as it is happening now. In this way, the Ol’ Pussy Grabber might not blame the interviewer directly for all the resulting bad press and grant him yet another interview. The Ol’ Pussy Grabber is very manipulable in this way.

The Poverty of Content

Another example of how his narcissism can be used to inform reporting and analysis is how much reporters, pundits, commentators, and bloggers have made of his limited vocabulary and repetitious speech patterns. People have been trying to explain this aspect of him since he hit the campaign trail. But, it ain’t hard, narcissists usually have limited descriptive language. How was the trip? might get answered with It was great! The place was fabulous! A follow up question of What did you see? might get answered with Absolutely everything. It was fabulous! Great! See? Limited and repetitious. This is termed poverty of detail.

Narcissists aren’t interested in making extensive detailed observations of the people, places, and events in their lives even if they reflect positively on them. All they care about is how it reflects on them, so that’s all you’ll get from them. Because they aren’t paying attention to anything other than themselves, they literally don’t have the details to fill-in the blanks with. If they visited the Eiffel Tower, they’re thinking, Wow! Look at me, I’m at the Eiffel Tower! I’m such a great world traveler! They aren’t looking at the details of the tower. They won’t even wait in the line to go to the top (pro-tip: don’t wait in line to go to the top to view the city skyline because the one feature of the city skyline you know isn’t there, the Eiffel Tower! Go to the Pompidou Center instead). They’re just focused on how it makes them look. If you ask them about the carousel that is nearby, they’ll blow you off with a disinterested grunt and a vague, Yeah, it was there. If it seems important to you, Yeah, it was fabulous. If it seems like it might expose them or diminish them, Look at this guy, I visit the Eiffel Tower, and he’s asking about the carousel! Whatever the response, though, it is always about aggrandizing them. There are no details left over for anyone or anything else.

UN Sanctions, China, & Caught in a Lie

Here’s the perfect example of both the poverty of detail and the reaction to having a lie questioned. Okay, it isn’t precisely a lie. You could argue that the Ol’ Pussy Grabber just wasn’t paying attention to the details and got them wrong. Since the New York Times won’t let you copy-and-paste from the site — no wonder they’re failing! — I’ll just summarize it.

Schmidt asks about North Korea, Finish your thought on North Korea. What’s going on with China… To which the Ol’ Pussy Grabber laments that he’s disappointed in China’s collusion with the Koreans since the Chinese are sending oil to North Korea.

Schmidt actually interrupts by asking, How recently… It’s like he has a gotcha question up his sleeve because recently released satellite photos taken in October showed a Chinese ship transferring oil to a North Korean ship. The Ol’ Pussy Grabber said it was recent because he had seen it on Fox News that morning! He implied that it happened just the other day because it was on the news so it must’ve occurred in the 24 hour news cycle.

Also in the response, the Ol’ Pussy Grabber claimed the UN Sanctions as his deal saying the distribution of oil was not part of his deal. Schmidt continues his questioning by asking him to expand upon “his deal.” To which, the Ol’ Pussy Grabber replies that we’ve got to treat them very rough.

Given the poverty of detail in the response, Schmidt goes back to the well… was that picture from recent or was that months ago? And, the Ol’ Pussy Grabber replied emphatically, Oil is going into North Korea, I know. Oil is going into North Korea. So, I’m not happy about it.

You can see the following narcissistic traits: (a) The poverty of detail: treat them rough, no detail; my deal, no detail; oil is going into North Korea, no detail. (b) Placing himself at the center of the controversy, self-aggrandizement or emphasizing his own importance over every other country that voted for the sanctions. Any other president, mindful of his diplomatic pees and cues, would defer to the UN Sanctions knowing that we need other countries for the sanctions to work. The Ol’ Pussy Grabber cannot do that. He has to be the most important person in the sanctions regime. It must be his deal even if it exacerbates his already sour relations with the UN. And (c) when the “mistake” is gently pointed out to him — the evidence is not of a recent transfer of oil, it is of a three-month old transfer of oil — he falls back on I know implying that since he knows, we should all just believe him without question shutting down — he hopes — any further discussion about when the transfer took place and what he knows and doesn’t know.

The Illusion of Truthiness and Gaslighting

Another frequently cited symptom of his obvious mental problems that no one will name, is his repetitious language. Those inclined to count (I’m looking at you Joy Ann Reid)  have counted 15 times he used the phrase, no collusion. Worse, though, is his repeated lie that all Democrats know there is no collusion and have admitted to as much. He sites Diane Feinstein’s comments from long ago as proof.

Why are people looking for reasons why he would repeat no collusion endlessly or that the Democrats know their is no collusion? We have part of the answer in his narcissism, poverty of detail. We also have another piece in his narcissism: gaslighting. It is well known to those who know it well that a repeated lie takes on the veneer of truthiness (apologies to Stephen Colbert). Because of the availability heuristic, when we hear something, we recall the items related to it, but only the most easily located items. We assume things that are heard more than once are true. A flaw in the human brain, but true. By repeating no collusion endlessly, the Ol’ Pussy Grabber is taking advantage of this idea. It is an old gaslighting and authoritarian propagandist’s trick to fool your target of abuse into believing your lie.

By wringing our hands and agonizing over his “dementia” or his weirdness or his fixation, we do ourselves a huge disservice because  we need to be inoculating ourselves against such attacks. We cannot dismiss them as not working on progressive-liberal-Democratic types because the gaslighting technique is based on a hardwired shortcut in the brain. It must be consciously resisted.

Manipulated by a Foreign Power

The real problem with having such an extreme narcissist in office is that it makes him so easily manipulated by our enemies. Here we have the Chinese supplying North Korea with oil all the while they are feting him in Beijing on his Asia tour. I’ve found the paragraph of his remarks on his time in China from one of the numerous articles on the interview.

Yeah, China. … China’s been. … I like very much President Xi. He treated me better than anybody’s ever been treated in the history of China. You know that. The presentations. … One of the great two days of anybody’s life and memory having to do with China. He’s a friend of mine, he likes me, I like him, we have a great chemistry together. He’s [inaudible] of the United States. …[Inaudible.] China’s hurting us very badly on trade, but I have been soft on China because the only thing more important to me than trade is war. O.K.?

The satellite photos of China violating sanctions against North Korea were taken in October and were released by the Treasury Department. If the Chosun Ilbo (South Korean newspaper) could analyze them and come up with the connection, you’d think someone in the administration would’ve too. And, you’d think it woulda made it into the daily brief that has to be pictures and bullet points and worded so very carefully so as not to offend the snowflake and set off a temper tantrum. And, you’d think that if “his deal” were so important to him, he’d want to go over there and give them a diplomatic piece of his mind on all this.

But, the greatest negotiator in the world can’t be bothered with such pesky details and any type of confrontation not when he’s being treated so well by people who love him so. If he’s so offended by the Chinese violation of sanctions and their lack of absolute support in corralling North Korea, you’d think he’d bring it up there. And, you’d think he’d want to use it as proof of his being the best negotiator and toughest leader and all that.

Instead they stuck their finger up his ass and tickled his prostrate, so the Ol’ Pussy Grabber sits back to enjoy the pee-hooker show and lets the violation of UN sanctions slide (if he even knew about it).

While our reporters, pundits, commentators, and bloggers might not fully appreciate the implications of his extreme narcissism, the Chinese, the Saudis, and the Russians do fully take advantage of it.