The same could be said of anyone rendering any opinion, including you. You have said a great many things about Trump and his supporters. Are you describing true facts or are you projecting your own issues onto your topic of conversation? Don't answer that. I don't want to get into that debate.
I'll answer it. The answer is both. And sometimes both at the same time. It is part and parcel of voicing an opinion. What I rarely if ever do, however, is throw out opinion as fact, especially when it comes to a medical diagnosis.
I simply wish to point out that while it may be true that a person's comments about another person or topic can reveal something about the speaker's own psychology, it may be equally true that the comments do not.
That's only true when the comments spoken are devoid of opinion. Social influence and personal psychology are the bedrock of opinion formation, so when someone gives their opinion, they are necessarily revealing at least a portion of their own psychology. When they bandy about pejorative, negative, even demonizing terms about someone or some topic, they reveal more than a small portion.
Everyone speaks from their own prejudices most of the time, and especially so in politics, do they not? What is politics if not people coming together to do exactly that?
Yes they do. But my comment wasn't in the context of speaking from prejudices in politics or in general, it was in the context of calling a political figure a narcissist or some other medical term because of that prejudice. Like I said, it's may be a worthwhile endeavor for some, it should be undertaken carefully.
Remember how political foes and pundits (conservatives, all) diagnosed Obama as having a Cult of Personality Disorder by some, and by others as having full-blown Narcissistic Personality Disorder, despite the fact that he's relatively introverted, at least for a politician, and almost preternaturally low on neuroticism - emotionally calm and dispassionate, arguably to a fault.
I do not remember that. I paid little attention to Obama until Obamacare messed up our health insurance.
It was pretty ubiquitous, especially on conservative television (Fox News) and radio. A simple
EO search for "obama narcissist" reveals several examples right here in these forums, some of which include pasted articles from "experts" and even actual doctors of psychology. Back in 2009 when Obama openly criticized Fox News, it wasn't much of a leap for the right to diagnose Obama with extreme pathological narcissism, one symptom of which is narcissistic rage. You criticize Obama's policies, you're a racist. Obama criticizes Fox News' conservative reporting, he's in a fit of narcissistic rage. And so it goes. You gotta demonize the candid you do not support, to make yourself feel better about not supporting him. That's human nature politics, and pretty much no one is immune or above it.
The push to diagnose Donald Trump from afar has a clear political angle. If he’s diagnosed with a mental disorder, the reasoning goes, he is unstable and crazy, therefore unfit to lead.
Unfortunately, this is fallacious reasoning.
Maybe so, but it is not a line of reasoning I follow. While I believe Trump to be a textbook example of narcissism, I do not believe he is unstable or crazy.
But you do feel that he's unfit to lead. Otherwise there's be no talk of losing his supporter base and of Republicans impeaching him. And that's fine. How you got there is up to you.
There are plenty of people with narcissistic personality disorders who are strong leaders. They are CEO’s and thought leaders in their fields. They are entertainers and athletes who operate their own million dollar companies. They are politicians who push past resistance and get results. Yeah. sure, they may be insufferable to work with and nearly impossible to be in a relationship with, but they can be effective leaders. This is not to say that Trump would be an effective president, but rather to make the point that a diagnosis of Narcissistic Personality Disorder by itself does not exclude someone from being an effective leader. He may very well be unstable and unfit to serve as president, but not simply because he might have a personality disorder.
Well said. I agree. The distinguishing characteristic with Trump is that this full-blown narcissist is about to become the most powerful man in the world under the Constitution of the United States. That is a potentially explosive combination, the outcome of which will be ours to discuss as it unfolds.
So, you may want to rethink that. It will certainly help you avoid false dichotomies like "up or out" and "dictator or impeached."
While I could be wrong, of course, I remain confident in my assessment of the man and my prediction of his future. Having met and worked with the man, I have followed his 2016 campaign with great interest. ... The Trump meetings were little different than any of the others. We got together to do political work and that was pretty much it. Back then, Trump gave me no reason to believe he was a narcissist and I had no reason to wonder about such things.[/quote]It's rare for someone to have full-blown narcissistic personality disorder at 70 while exhibiting little or no signs of it at 55, or 50, or even 30. Narcissistic Personality Disorder is actually very rare in and of itself, but those who do develop it usually begin doing so in adolescence and it gets fully developed my the mid to late 20s. It always stems from severe disturbance in the child-parent relationship. And it gets worse with age, for those who can even survive it. Classic complications from NPD are difficulties in school or work, relationship difficulties including casual relationships, chronic clinical depression, drug and alcohol abuse, suicidal thoughts.
By all accounts, Trump's relationship with his parents weren't notably dysfunctional at all (in as much as any family can be functional or dysfunctional). By the same accounts he was a wild and largely rebellious kid without any sense of discipline or drive, and it was only after his father sent him off to military school that he became competitive (both academically and athletically) and driven to win. That would actually the opposite of NPD. His father did have a large influence on him to succeed, but so did
another man, who had maybe the biggest influence on Trump's psyche. And what many people see as full-blown narcissism can also be fully explained by gross self-confidence. While extreme self-confidence and narcissism may seem similar, they are very different.
My narcissism theory took shape during the 2016 campaign when I read a news article that made that suggestion.
Could have been any one of several hundred. It was almost like it was a coordinated effort amongst seemingly unrelated media outlets. Suddenly, experts were coming out of the woodwork to satisfactorily label the demon. And they all managed to come up with a remarkably consistent label. Then again, experts did the same for Obama, and Junior, and Bill. I find particularly amusing the ones that pointed out Trump and Obama were narcissists, and "Oh, by the way, so was Hitler. I'm just sayin'." You know, just in case "narcissist" wasn't demon enough. But Hitler references are getting tiresome, so it's mostly back to the tried and true "dictator" references these days (as if somehow a dictator could actually take hold in a country with more guns than people, but I digress).
At that time, Trump had me befuddled. Many times I looked at the TV and asked, why, oh why would you say such a thing? Why oh why would you do such a thing? What in the world are you thinking, Donald? What in the world are you thinking? When I read up on narcissism, those questions became easy to answer.
Quick. Easy. Soul-soothing. I get it. We all have deep-rooted biases that need to be vindicated somehow. That's not necessarily a bad thing. It is, afterall, human nature.
Why does an object fall to the ground when it is dropped? The theory of gravity explains it. Why does Trump say and do the things he does? For me, narcissism explains it. I don't have an advanced degree in physics but I can still speak about gravity. I am not an educated meteorologist deeply observant of the scientific method, but I can still speak about the weather. So too with narcissism and Trump. I'm not a psychologist or psychiatrist but like every voter is allowed to do, I can maintain a theory about what makes Trump tick.
I completely understand. We all need ways to help us understand and reconcile certain things. But do keep in mind that unless you really and truly understand gravity and space-time and how they interact, you're speaking on gravity in the most superficial terms. The same with meteorology and the weather. And, with mental disorders.
P.S.
This Wikipedia piece describes Trump's 2000 presidential initiative. With the events of today now known, this piece provides an interesting look back.
Familiar with it, thanks. I think it's interesting how on most things, such as trade, the economy, jobs, etc., he's been remarkably consistent since the 1980s.
Incidentally, I have met Trump (and his first wife Ivana), as well, in 1980. Three times, twice at dinner in Manhattan and once for dinner at our house in Jersey. But I interacted with him very little, and had no business of my own with him whatsoever. My attention was more directed at the food, and quite honestly, Ivana (which may be why I wasn't at any of the other meetings <snort>). One of Trump's many business partners was Equitable Life Assurance (now AXA Equitable), of which my dad was a vice-president from 1971 until 1984, and between 1978 and 1981 was officed in the Equitable Life Building in NYC (famous for several reasons) and was in charge of what would later become Equitable Real Estate Investment Management. That division worked directly with Trump, and my dad had many meetings with him. I formed no real opinion of Trump at the time, other than he was very personable, nice and gracious. I had no interest in real estate or the management of the investments thereof, and thus didn't participate in any of the discussions. I was a musician doing mostly studio and theater work in NYC.
