Trump’s Narcissism Apparent in His Campaign Strategy

I2I4 has been extra-offensive lately with bad-mouthing a judges daughter and getting all grievancey on Easter. It has lots of us progressive politico-types making comments like Tengrain’s from over at Mock Paper Scissors:

The thing to note here in all of this is that Vulgarmort Inc., is NOT reaching anyone new, this is just more of keeping his 30% basement (and ceiling) firmly in the fold. All this weird messianic stuff is not bringing anyone new (and potentially might drive out some). His campaign strategy seems to be not expansive, but not losing anyone already in his grasp.

While it is certainly weird, and definitely mental, I don’t see it being effective in an electoral sense. He’s adding no one to his column.

Get Off The Cross, Someone Else Needs The Wood — tengrain on 1 April 2024

Conventional wisdom would have it that to win an election, you need more votes than your opponent, ergo ipso facto and all that crap, you need to appeal to more people. It buggars the question, why ain’t I2I4 trying to appeal to more people? Why does he seem to go out of his way to alienate more and more voters?

The answer is simple, and it is the same answer to every question you may ever ask about Trump, He’s a narcissist.

The Telltale Signs of Narcissistic Personality Disorder

Defining Narcissism: Analyzing the Characteristics of NPD

How does that work in this instant? Let’s jump in the Wayback Machine and visit a frighteningly prescient post, The Narcissism of Donald J. Trump from 22 June 2016, in which the diagnostic criteria for narcissism is outlined and thi prediction is made:

It will have the paranoia of Nixon, the ineffectiveness of Harding, sheer callous cruelty of Jackson, and the racism of Wilson. But, no where in that mix will there be any clear policies or agendas to pursue because Mr. Trump is completely empty and devoid of anything other than a slavish devotion to his own ego and utter fear of the narcissistic wound.  In short, he doesn’t have the executive functioning necessary to be an executive.

The Narcissism of Donald J. Trump

Let’s start with the basic definition of narcissism since it’s been awhile since we last talked about I2I4’s narcissism. I hope that one day I can stop writing about Trump’s narcissism, but it doesn’t look like that day is going to be soon.

• PSYCHOLOGY: extreme selfishness, with a grandiose view of one’s own talents and a craving for admiration, as characterizing a personality type. (emphasis added)
  
• PSYCHOANALYSIS: self-centeredness arising from failure to distinguish the self from external objects, either in very young babies or as a feature of mental disorder. (emphasis added)

Google Search Definition

I love that line, failure to distinguish the self from external objects. That is I2I4 all over. He is the world and the world is him. Grandiosity, craving admiration, selfishness all attributes of the The Donald.

Symptoms and Behavior: How Trump Embodies Narcissistic Traits

The “official” symptoms of narcissistic personality disorder:

• 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

The Impact of Trump’s Narcissism on his Campaign Strategy

So, why does Trump thinking doubling and tripling down on Hitler’s fascist rhetoric and appealing to MAGA is going to work? Why does he think he doesn’t need to appeal to women, youth, or communities of color?

First, it worked in 2016 and almost worked in 2020. We were within 40,000 votes of it working. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, right?

Second, and most importantly, Trump thinks every thought he has is pure genius. The greatest thought ever thunk by a human being in the history of the universe. He’s right, and he knows he’s right. It’s the root of all of the “Sir, sir, how do you know so much stories…” attributed to giant macho he-men with tears in their eyes. He thought when he said that thing about the CDC exploring internal light as a way to cure #COVID19 was pure Wile E. Coyote super genius and his toady in a scarf squirming in her chair was trying to contain her gushing orgasm instead of embarrassment.

And third, Trump has surrounded himself with sickophants who will tell him whatever he wants to hear because he’s too thin-skinned to tolerate anything else. His hangers-on are hoping to cash in on the grift-train that is saddled to his fat white hairless ass. They wantin’ to feed at that trough.

Except for the Steven Miller-types who are true die-hard fascist racists who really do want concentration camps and kangaroo courts with people shot out back.

That’s it. To answer the question of why does Trump think he can win with just his MAGA coalition, it’s because he is a narcissist. He thinks he’s right and everything he does is perfect. And, when the people you’ve surrounded yourself with are feeding your bottomless pit of adoration and propping up your bouncy-castle of a facade, then you’re even more likely to give into the self-doubt that’s always eating away at narcissists.

Image Attribution

This image was generated using Poe’s StableDiffusionXL bot using the prompt, Make a film noir movie poster for, “The Age of Narcissus” starring Donald Trump