The incredible narcissism of Donald Trump


I know, I know, and water is wet, right? But I was struck by something he said in his news conference today that was widely reported as reaching new levels of incoherence and rambling. Read the transcript and see for yourself. Here’s a bit of it.

He was asked about the many reports of anti-Semitic incidents following his election.

“What do you say to those among the Jewish community in the states and in Israel and maybe around the world who believe and feel that your administration is playing with xenophobia and maybe racist tones?”

He did not say what should have come instinctively, that these were wrong and that he condemned them wholeheartedly and would tell the law enforcement authorities to investigate and prosecute those who did them. Instead, he made it about himself as he always does, first talking about his electoral college win before saying, “Number one, I am the least anti- Semitic person that you’ve ever seen in your entire life. Number two, racism, the least racist person.” That this is obviously false does not faze him in the least. He seems to be trying to convince himself that he is the best.

He also described his obviously faltering administration as a ‘fine-tuned machine’.

Then take his response to a question about Russia.

We had Hillary Clinton give Russia 20 percent of the uranium in our country. You know what uranium is, right? This thing called nuclear weapons like lots of things are done with uranium including some bad things. Nobody talks about that.

Who talks like this? We used to laugh at George W. Bush because of his juvenile way of speaking. With Trump we are going all the way back to grade school.

Trump desperately needs adulation as a sign of personal validation and as the criticisms of him rise he will increasingly retreat to organized rallies like the one scheduled for Saturday in Florida where crowds will cheer him and he can feel loved again. When presidents hold rallies, it is to usually to gin up public support for some proposal. But this rally seems to be designed just to make Trump feel loved. But how long will crowds keep turning up? True, he has a loyal base of fans and the party can beat the bushes and round up people for a time but the enthusiasm that accompanies an election is gone and people have their own lives to live. What will he do when the roar of the crowd gets muted?

What will he do when he organizes a rally and no one comes?

Comments

  1. sonofrojblake says

    He’s near unsatirisable. Peter Serafinowicz (comedian, actor, impressionist and voice over artist, the voice of Darth Maul, but don’t hold that against him) has been doing comedy Youtube videos where he revoices Trump speeches. The twist is he doesn’t rewrite the speech, doesn’t do a bad lipreading, doesn’t exaggerate or otherwise alter in any way the actual words. He just does the speech, word for word, in a comedy voice. It’s horrible.

  2. hyphenman says

    Mano,

    I listened to much of the speech while driving to see one of my students today and I almost ditched the student because I simply couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

    Words escape me.

    Jeff

  3. jrkrideau says

    I did not read the transcript but, quite honestly he sounded more sensible than usual when discussing the Russian affair. One may not agree with him although I am sympathetic to his point but he was quite reasonable and coherent.

    He is clearly being stabbed in the back by an intelligence community, the same one that stabbed Hilary Clinton in the back. Given that it’s Trump he may well deserve it but the fact is that the intelligence community (presumably public servants) are taking very drastic political positions. Shades of Hoover.

    He only started the weird bombast when he moved to race issues. And then the narcissism was in full bloom.

  4. kestrel says

    What will he do? Simple. Same thing he always does: lie. This is a person who can claim the sun is shining when it’s raining. This is a person who can claim anything at all at any moment, just to make himself feel better.

    It’s very eery but when I hear him talk it’s like a dead family member, who was diagnosed with NPD (Narcissitic Personality Disorder) has come back to life. He uses many of the exact same phrases. I learned the hard way that NPDs don’t really have the same reality that the rest of us do; it’s like, to them, that life is a play, starring them, and all about them. The rest of us are merely props to be used or discarded according to the script, which can change at a moment’s notice. Our family member had no compassion or concern about other people. Discarding someone was like throwing out the trash. You sure don’t worry about hurting your trash’s feelings, do you? You don’t care if your trash burns, or dies or whatever. You don’t need it anymore, so who cares?

    One thing about NPDs -- you can not predict what they will do next. Living with one is like walking through a mine field; you have no idea when a mine will go off and you don’t know what will cause it, so you are hyper-alert just waiting for the next explosion. All I can say is, it’s even less fun when it’s the president. And it was bad enough having a family member like this.

  5. says

    This thing called nuclear weapons like lots of things are done with uranium including some bad things. Nobody talks about that.

    Well, yeah, there’s not much that someone can say to that.

    It’s a good thing he didn’t realize bad things are mostly done with plutonium. Or he’d be calling up Disneyland and telling them to put Pluto on ice for the duration, or something.

    And what’s the point anyway? He likes Russia, right? So maybe be “we had Hillary send…” means he’s using the imperial “We”?

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