The frantic Trump resistance, the Democratic Party, and the inherently analytical legitimate media are literally killing themselves trying to figure out Donald Trump, especially since the Surrender Summit.
After a year and a half of Trumpworld, we who inhabit the Other Reality have overthought ourselves into exhaustion, disorientation and existential hospice care from trying to process a daily avalanche of lies, cruelty, doublespeak, jaw-dropping incompetence, upside-down-and-backwards nonsense, arrivals and departures on the hectic Trump train, open collusion with Russia and every manner of slimy despots via the worldwide media, and other treasonous and unnatural acts.
At this rate, we won’t survive to topple Trump. All the collective cognitive power and energy that we should be expending on bringing Trump down is being wasted on trying to define him so that we can have the right game plan for going toe to toe with him. Trump, who despite the typhoon of daily chaos he generates lives a remarkably stress-free existence thanks to being born without the part of the brain that gives most of us memory and a conscience, will at this rate clearly outlast us all. In fact, that may be—really and truly—his re-election strategy: to destroy the opposition by making our heads explode.
It’s fair to contend that you need to know your enemy in order to fight him effectively, but we can conclude this debate about Trump now and move on to the battle plan.
The various schools of thought around our Chief Executive can be boiled down to four core profiles:
• Trump #1: The successful business man beholden to no one who has sacrificed an impossibly sweet private life to come to Washington as the first President with the guts and deal-making ability to take on the more-than-two-hundred-years’ reign of the swamp-dwelling deep state. (This is the version of Trump that his core supporters pray to.)
• Trump #2: A deeply flawed but brilliant con artist who managed to hijack the Republican party, give it enough energy/momentum/support to retake not only the White House but Congress in the bargain, and, following that unbelievable trifecta win, completely remold it in his own pompadoured and painted image to the point where he downside any disloyalty to him on the Republican side means instant political death. (This is the perception of Trump held by professional, office-holding or office-aspiring Republicans.)
• Trump #3: A brilliant strategist for all that is bad, truly evil, or just plain stupid about America. The Monster of Mar-a-Lago, the cunning commandant of the screaming flying monkeys, the apocalyptic communicator who is swiftly making his hillbilly hordes proud flag wavers for racism and fascism and methodically destroying governmental institutions and the very rule of law. (This is the bogeyman Trump feared by many who despise him.)
• Trump #4: A lazy, unprincipled, moronic, and unbelievably weak narcissist who can’t even comprehend, much less realize, the standard human survival skills of hard work, preparation, knowledge and empathy and who is driven not by a brain but by some kind of awful, prehistoric lizard gland—a supremely crude mechanism that our species supposedly left behind eons ago and was thought to now only survive in lampreys, vampire bats, guano-eating beetles and those blind fish that live at great depths in underwater caves--that enables him to improvisationally careen, second by second, through a world inhabited only by himself, completely clueless about the wreckage he leaves in his wild wake. (This is the imbecilic Trump familiar to the Russians and those who have worked closely with him.)
We can quickly dispense with Trump #1. Trump parlayed a multimillion gift from his old man to finance four bankruptcies before being hired by NBC as the star of a television show. He IS a tenacious press agent (he actually used to call up reporters using a fake name and pretend to be his own spokesperson) and he knows how to make money licensing his name, but he’s a wizard at bankruptcy, not at business.
Trump #2 is part myth and part reality. Winning the Republican nomination against the likes of Jeb Bush and Ted Cruz doesn’t require brilliant political instincts—more qualified candidates can be found in any high school student council slugfest. It’s absolutely true that no one—no one—thought he would win against Clinton. But he lost the popular vote by a considerable margin and won the Electoral College by getting 70,000 more votes in three pivotal states. The key point about the election is that no one was more stunned by his victory than Trump himself. A failed run at the Presidency was, in Trump’s version of career planning, designed to get him a Fox New contract after the cancellation of “The Apprentice.” But since his improbably victory Trump has completely hypnotized 35% of Americans, which means he completely owns the Republican Party, the NRA and Fox News.
Trump #3 is based on a complete myth but otherwise spot on. The true part is the demagoguery and Trump’s effort to make racism and fascism okay again. The mythic, bogus part is the brilliant strategist piece. Trump has no strategy. He rewarded the far-right Republicans who supported him during the campaign with Cabinet-level jobs and has allowed them to gut their departments and allow themselves and their cronies to loot the government till, but in no way is he managing these people or orchestrating an overarching plan to destroy government. He is actively using his demagogic skills to attack the rule of law, the intelligence agencies, and the Justice Department not because of any personal philosophy or credo but because those are the people who could put him in jail.
Trump #4 is completely and utterly accurate.
So the most accurate composite of Trump the politician political is a pathological, lazy moron completely driven by self interest and self promotion who has connected in a profound way with the sizeable portion of the electorate that is driven by racism and a taste for authoritarianism over the rule of law, and who has used that base of support to complete the transformation of the Republican Party and Fox News as white supremacist, fascist gangs. This connection is what makes this hopelessly random goofball the most dangerous internal threat in American history.
As we can see by reviewing the perceptions of Trump, it’s impossible to separate his politics from his personality. To cut to the chase and get to a final Trump diagnosis, then, it is appropriate to leverage the centuries of research compiled by behavioral scientists. Not surprisingly, they have formally codified a personality type that fits Trump like one of the Vaseline-filled gloves with which he covers his tiny hands: the narcissistic sociopath.
Behold the specific traits identified by the medical community that characterize the narcissistic sociopath, which scientists categorize as “a malignant personality.” According to the experts, the presence of any five of the following characteristics means that you’re dealing with a narcissistic sociopath:
• A grandiose opinion of themselves and a belief that they are superior to other people. Narcissistic sociopaths will state that their goal is to rule the world. They believe that they are all powerful and all knowing and that, when it comes to getting what they want, that the end justifies the means.
• A marked tendency to lie pathologically and make false promises to build up a complex belief about their own powers and abilities—to the point where they can pass lie detector tests.
• An excessive and persistent need for others' admiration and praise coupled with a strong, often violent, response to negative feedback.
• A hostile and domineering personality and a tendency to humiliate others.
• A noticeable lack of regard for the rights of others and a tendency to violate those rights.
• A lack of a conscience and empathy for others. An inability to show remorse, shame, or guilt or to apologize. A lack of religion and morality in their lives.
• A marked tendency to divide and conquer by smearing people and pitting people against each other.
• A marked tendency to employ other people with psychological problems.
• An inability to take responsibility. Whatever the problem, it is always someone else’s fault.
• The inability to display emotions like love, warmth, compassion and humor.
• Poor listening skills.
• A marked tendency to impulsive and reckless behavior.
• A marked tendency to be sexually promiscuous.
• A marked tendency toward extreme paranoia.
• A marked tendency toward drama and the association of that drama with “bad” people.
Trump, obviously, exhibits every single one of these traits to an extraordinary degree.
The diagnosis of narcissistic sociopath is not armchair psychobabble. This profile not only suits Trump to a T, it also explains his politics. Narcissistic sociopaths are NEVER going to defend the country if that doesn’t help them personally. They are going to be racists. They are going to think that they, and they alone, understand the problem enough to fix it. They are going to be secretive and authoritarian. They are going to admire other tyrants. They are going to make war on anyone who dares to question or counter them—anything but an ass-kissing festival is going to be “fake news.” They are going to despise the rule of law because they can’t control it and because it is a threat to them. They are going to hire sycophants and yes men, and then fire them willy nilly. They are going to divide people. Their policies are going to be cruel. Above all, they are not going to have a strategy about anything because their reaction to events and to others will be improvised depending on how they are affected by them personally.
Okay, Doc, you’ve nailed it. Trump to a T. In fact, we’ve seen all these traits in Trump for nearly three years now. We have our diagnosis and we can close his file. But you can’t stop there—you’ve got to tell us how to best deal with this lunatic. After all, he’s not just the biggest asshole at work or the shittiest neighbor in the apartment building—he’s THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. Literally the entire world wants to know how to live with—or effectively take on—this malignant wild man.
The behavioral scientists have this advice for dealing with narcissistic sociopaths:
• Realize that you will never change them.
• Pay attention to your instincts.
• Cease contact. Take steps to protect yourself.
• Do not try to reform them or give them more chances.
• Realize that it’s not your fault.
• Don’t wait for them to agree or ask you permission.
• Don’t feed their ego.
• Don’t wait for them to overpower you—take control whether they like it or not.
• Give up fear—respond with reason and calmness.
There is a framework here for the next phase of the resistance—the actually-doing-stuff phase.
Stop thinking about Trump and start fighting him. Don’t ignore Trump’s hourly lies and crimes, and be ready to show up in the streets to protest particularly odious actions and policies, but don’t obsess about them or let him or the GOP sap your energy or destroy your morale. Swap cable news and Facebook time for hours spent volunteering on the front lines.
Don’t expend ANY of your finite energy engaging with Trumpists. The vast majority did not vote for him because of his economic platform (whatever that was) or because the Democrats didn’t care about them (which is true). They are white people who voted for him because they didn’t like the prospect of the end of white supremacy in this country. Uncle Joe didn’t pull the lever for Trump because you didn’t give him an effective counterargument—not your fault!—and we don’t need him, anyway. We can beat Trump without converting a single Trump voter, because they are still the minority in this country. Our task is to make our election results look like the electorate. Given the GOP gerrymandering, this will take an enormous get-out-the-vote effort by all of us. Focus on that.
Take action now, because soon it really will be too late. Vote for Democrats. Don’t nullify your vote and your opposition to Trump by voting for write-in or third-party candidates. Volunteer in your neighborhood and city to get anti-Trump people elected mayor, to your city council, and to your local school board, and donate to their campaigns. Work and donate within your state to get Democrats elected as governor, lieutenant governor, secretary of state (a role that is vitally important, as it oversees elections), and state legislator. If you live in a Congressional swing state, you are especially important and influential—work for, and donate to, the Democratic candidate.
If you live in a completely safe Republican district, sign up with SwingLeft (https://swingleft.org/) to find the swing district nearest to you and learn how to volunteer for Democrats there.
Join or start an Indivisible group in your city (https://www.indivisible.org/), the group that has created a powerful template for local political organizing that really works.
Join and donate to the ACLU (https://www.aclu.org/). The courts have already shown that they and the rule of law can be major disruptors to the Trumpists’ agenda, and the ACLU has been the most aggressive and successful group to leverage the courts to throw sand in the GOP’s gears.
Subscribe to legitimate news outlets. There has been some incredible reporting on Trump that has helped to counter his lies and Fox News and to publish new details of his crimes.
Keep expressing your anger to your elected representatives (https://countableaction.com/ and https://democracy.io/#!/).
Don’t expend any energy on being afraid. The best antidote to fear and anxiety is to join like-minded people and take action. There are more of us than there are of them.