Vol. 156: ‘Look at me! Look at me!’

Trump's next three years

I was shocked— shocked!— to read in the January 2 New York Times that President Trump “has relentlessly pursued the public’s attention each day of his second term in office.” According to an exhaustive Times study, Trump “has pursued a raft of innovative methods to force himself into the public consciousness on a daily, and sometimes hourly, basis.”

On average, the Times reports, Trump has interacted with journalists roughly twice a day, doubling his rate from the first year of his first term. And of course, his relations with journalists are just the tip of the iceberg.

“He regularly aired his opinions– on social media, and discursive asides at rallies– about idiosyncratic subjects that range widely across the zeitgeist,” the Times reports, “from Sydney Sweeney’s sexy denim ads to the redesigned logo of the Cracker Barrel restaurant chain to the mysterious fate of the aviator Amelia Earhart, who vanished over the Pacific Ocean in 1937.”

And, of course, that Times report appeared before Trump seized Nicolas Maduro, took over Venezuela without Congressional approval, and threatened Iran, Colombia, Mexico, Cuba, and even Greenland with similar actions.

The result, the Times says, is “a president whose not-so-inner monologue is injected into our daily lives in myriad ways, when we are watching TV on the weekend or idly scrolling the web– a Greek chorus for a national narrative.”

One simple explanation

The Times declined to speculate on why Trump’s self-absorption has increased so sharply since his first term, other than suggesting that Trump’s “knack for amplifying wacky memes and pop culture curios” and his “late night social media posts” (more than 5,000 Truth Social posts or reposts) are a way of “flooding the zone”— pursuing so many policies and ideas as to overwhelm the system. Or they’re a way of distracting attention from embarrassments, such as his relationship to the sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein.

But faithful readers of this column won’t be surprised to know that I harbor a different explanation. Having observed Trump since my days as a financial journalist in 1978, I concluded long ago that Trump suffers from Narcissistic Personality Disorder.

“In any given situation,” I wrote in September 2017 (his first year in office), “Trump will take the action that makes waves or creates headlines, even if it makes no moral, political, or practical sense. How else to explain his withdrawal from the Paris Climate Accord, his decision to exclude transgender citizens from the military, his singular refusal to condemn white racists in Charlottesville, and his current attempt to deport 800,000 children of undocumented immigrants? From a narcissist’s perspective, how can you attract attention if you simply endorse conventional wisdom?”

According to the Mayo Clinic, “Narcissistic Personality Disorder is a mental health condition in which people have an unreasonably high sense of their own importance. They need and seek too much attention and want people to admire them. People with this disorder may lack the ability to understand or care about the feelings of others. But behind this mask of extreme confidence, they are not sure of their self-worth and are easily upset by the slightest criticism.”

Hmm. Does this remind you of anyone?

Those rational pundits

Respected commentators who should know better continue to suggest that Trump is a strategist, or an autocrat, or a conservative, or a neoconservative, or a fascist, or a racist, or an oligarch, or a sexist. They assume he craves money or power, when all he really wants is attention.

Consider one of my favorite foreign affairs columnists, Trudy Rubin of the Philadelphia Inquirer. Last Friday (Jan. 9) she dissected Trump’s Venezuela takeover in strictly rational terms.

“Contrary to prior White House claims,” she wrote, “the removal of Maduro had nothing to do with drug cartels, terrorism, or threats to U.S. security. Nor was it meant to restore democracy to Venezuela (as Trump stiffs exiled opposition leaders and stifles talk of future elections).

“Instead, based on the president’s own words, this monthslong exercise was aimed at taking control of Venezuela’s oil. It was also aimed at reinforcing Trump’s personal role as virtual emperor of the Western Hemisphere (and expediting the collapse of Cuba).”

Ya think?

“In truth,” Rubin went on, “Trump is himself acting like a strongman, insisting he will ‘run’ Venezuela indefinitely. He seems to believe that by enforcing U.S. (and his personal) control of all Venezuelan oil sales and revenues, in a cockamamie scheme that appears both illegal and unmanageable, the repressive regime in Caracas can be forced to do U.S. bidding.”

The unspoken message here is: If enough people call Trump out for his cockamamie behavior, he will adjust his behavior. That’s what most of us would do. But a narcissist, in such a situation, is likely to double down.

Or consider Thomas Friedman in the New York Times (Jan. 9): “Trump probably hopes that if he can bring Venezuela’s massive, untapped oil reserves to market, he will be able to drive down the price of gasoline at the pump toward one dollar a gallon, and win the midterms.”

But a narcissist doesn’t think that far ahead, because narcissists never acknowledge error or failure. Nor do they ever apologize for anything. More likely, Venezuela will be forgotten in a month, and Trump will come up with some other attention-getting disruption.

Next: the papacy?

When I became a grandfather, more than 20 years ago, I used to take my twin grandchildren to the playground. Upon arrival, these two kids invariably ran to opposite ends of the playground and commenced shouting, “Look at me! Look at me!” I stress that they were only four years old at the time and competing for my attention. Trump is 79 and already commands the world’s attention. The explanation for his behavior must be found somewhere other than in his age and occupation.

Of course, I could be wrong about Trump’s narcissism. You are free to reject my analysis if you feel so inclined. But if I’m right, the implications of that Times report are frightening. Narcissism is a condition for which there is no known cure. It can’t be satisfied, even in the White House with its 24-hour spotlight. Trump’s hunger for that spotlight, if the Times report is to be believed, is now double what it was in his first year of his first term. What, then, can we expect over the next three years?

Following the death of Pope Francis last April, Trump was asked who should become the next pope. “I’d like to be pope,” Trump replied. “That would be my number one choice.” Last week, Trump said he would accept the Nobel Peace Prize if this year’s Prize winner, Maria Corina Machado, offered it to him when she meets with him this week. (Of course, the Nobel Prize cannot be shared or transferred.) And in a wide -ranging interview with four Times reporters on January 7, Trump was asked if there were any constraints on his global powers. He replied: “Yeah, there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”

Well, we do have a Supreme Court and a Congress. Or we used to.

A word to the wise: Fasten your seatbelts.

Enjoy Dan Rottenberg’s new memoir, The Education of a Journalist: My Seventy Years on the Frontiers of Free Speech. You can also visit his website at www.danrottenberg.com