Trump’s True Profile
By: Stephen P. Watkins
Tags: Narcissism, Trump, Trump Base, Racism, Social Change

…and that of his ardent supporters

President Donald J. Trump, by all objective standards, is a Loser.

He lost the 2020 Presidential Election; he lost the multiple court cases brought to overturn the election results; he lost the public opinion polls; he lost the loyalty of the majority of Americans; he lost the respect normally afforded to U.S. Presidents from countries around the world; he lost the economy; he lost the stability of the Republican Party; he lost the lives of nearly 300,000 Americans; he lost the ability to forge bipartisan relations with Congress; and, hopefully soon, he will lose his freedom as the numerous state prosecutions around the country ramp up after the Inauguration of President-Elect Joe Biden on January 20, 2021.

Trump’s mental illness and character defects — and yes, I conflate the two, deliberately — have had resoundingly negative effects on America’s body politic for the last five years, since his ill-fated trip down the escalator in Trump Tower in Manhattan.

The Symptoms of Narcissistic Personality Disorder

Clearly, Trump is suffering from a severe case of narcissistic personality disorder (“NPD”), with its concomitant character flaws. People with NPD display the following symptoms:

They have a sense of entitlement

They expect to be admired

They exaggerate their life

They believe they are superior

They take advantage of others and lack empathy

They live in a fantasy world

They demean, intimidate and bully others

They need to be controlling (“You’re Fired!”)

They strive for perfection

They lack accountability and blame others

They lack boundaries

They expect attention and validation

They are driven by hidden fears

They are unable to truly be vulnerable

They talk over and interrupts others

They can be quite charming and persuasive

Is there any one of these that Trump hasn’t displayed, in spades? Of course not.

The pathology of Trump’s sickness has been well-documented during the last four years of his presidency. The sum and substance of what he has done to this country is that he has led the United States into a vortex of deteriorating social, political, economic, educational, health, and cultural conditions. But that descent would not have been possible without the acquiescence of — indeed, the eager solicitation from — his base.

Trump’s Base: Racism’s Domain

His base has been characterized as knuckle-dragging, mouth-breathing, beer-guzzling, NASCAR-watching, gun-toting, Walmart-shopping, Confederate flag-waving knuckleheads. Well….yeah. And add a large dollop of racism into the mix, and you have the perfect amalgam of the typical Trump voter.

These folks have staunchly defended their President, though he has dragged us through the mud. They have engaged in racist politics and culture since 1619. Their evangelistic ministers and pastors and preachers have quoted the Good Book — but have notably avoided practicing its most fundamental teachings.

They resent being looked down upon as inferior, of being treated like trash, of being given the short end of the stick when it comes to political decisions. They express their resentment, without the slightest note of irony, whenever a Black or Brown person has the temerity to express pride in his/her culture or ascends to a position of socio-economic privilege.

Yet, for over 400 hundred years, they had no aversion to breaking up families; of treating human beings as chattels, as the basis for mortgages on Southern plantations; of having double standards when it came to the rights of citizenship in the United States; of institutionalizing the incarceration of millions of Black and Brown people; of perpetuating an insane love of guns (and the correspondingly-insane amount of human-on-human violence because of those guns), as well as the passage of the 2nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. And they have treated their own morally corrupt arrogation of power over Black, Brown, Red, and Yellow folks as being, if not exactly Divinely Ordained, then, at the very least, the “natural order of things.”

So, in looking at the foregoing symptoms of NPD, is it a surprise that so many of them mirror the character defects of racists?

And with that said, is it surprising that Trump’s words and behavior have resonated so strongly with his base? It shouldn’t be.

These are people who took joy in Trump’s breaching of protocols of courtesy, civility, dignity and decorum. His willingness to “throw a hand grenade” into the halls of governance was something that got his base excited.

Significantly, Trump was able to manipulate his base, exactly the way that carnival barkers and tent-show preachers did back in the 1930s and ’40s. Using rhetorical dog-whistles, Trump was able to stimulate their “reptilian brain” aversion to people of color and to rouse their animosity towards non-Eurocentric peoples and cultures. His populist rhetoric was all part of his show, and he instinctively knew how to “charm and persuade” the attendees at his rallies to appeal to their racist tendencies.

Many will say “Oh, these folks aren’t racist; you’re just exaggerating to make a point.” Really? How many of them would gladly let their blonde, blue-eyed daughter go out with black men? Get married to a black man?

Not many, huh? Didn’t think so.

In the last six weeks of Trump’s term in office, we have to remember a fundamental truth: while he has undeniably been a royal S.O.B., worthy of criminal prosecution and eventual imprisonment, it was his base that put him into office, and it was his base that kept him there by intimidating the Senate Republicans who could have voted him out of office during his impeachment trial, but didn’t.

When we point the finger of blame at Trump for being a sick fuck, we have three fingers pointing back at his base for encouraging him to be that way, and for throwing us all, as a country, down the toilet of world affairs.

The question, then, is what we can do about the 73 million people who believe that Trump didn’t lose the election and should be kept in office. Will they ever come to their senses? Or do we simply have to patiently wait until they die off and America’s changing demographics bring us to a better society?