Everywhere I go, people are asking each other, “What will happen next?” They ask in a tone that indicates they do not like what just happened. Absent an unforeseen miracle, we are talking about a paradigmatic shift, a change in what America will be and who we will be as Americans. So now what?
If we were people watching our house burn, we would save as much as we could, cede as little ground as possible, help one another as much as possible, coax and comfort. We would encourage folks to act—put out the fire and rebuild. Comfort them with a smile and a hopeful word.
Anticipation
People find comfort in anticipation. Like most things, anticipation has positives and negatives. For example, anticipating can help us prepare for future events—if, of course, we anticipate correctly. Equally, anticipating can paralyze us if it scares us out of acting. Anticipation can ease anxiety: It releases dopamine and makes us relaxed and happy. Of course, it does so without improving the condition that caused the anxiety. So, is that a good thing or bad? If we mistake our anticipation for an absolute, it may prevent us from trying to effect change.
Claiming to have anticipated seems to have an equally calming effect. Newscasters love to tell us what happened and say, “I am disappointed but not surprised.” One wonders who cares, as the bridge collapses, if the reporter is surprised or not surprised. However, rest assured the reporter feels better for anticipating or claiming to have anticipated the calamity. Why? It implies a sense of control over events we have no control over at all.
So, if we are going to do a lot of anticipating, release dopamine, relax, and prepare ourselves, we had better get it right. Bad predictions are just plain bad. The question is: Which way to accurate anticipation? Aside from claiming after the fact that you knew it would happen, is there a way to anticipate accurately?
Anticipating our leader
Twice, in 2015 and 2020, my colleagues in the mental health community took their hearts in their hands and did the unthinkable, the unadvisable, and the unethical. Why? To help us. Did it help us? No, and the reason is that we didn’t understand what they were saying.
Think of analysis as the big dig and diagnosis as the cost estimate. So, what did my colleagues do? They diagnosed a person they had never met and who had never agreed to be examined. They did not keep the diagnosis confidential, they told us, “Trump clearly exhibits four key symptoms of malignant narcissism: paranoia, self-love, antisocial personality disorder, and sadism.” They told us, baldly, that malignant narcissism is the single most dangerous personality type.
That was excellent, useful, predictive information that might have prepared us for what was coming and directed our actions. However, as so many things that are reduced into near nonsense by pop culture, by movies, TV, the internet, and comics, the words no longer had much meaning.
Narcissist? Oh yeah, the guy looking at himself in the pool, immobile and thrilled with his own good looks? That is not the clinical diagnosis of narcissism; nor is it helpful. And since we thought it was, we weren’t helped. We did it anyway.
We elected a truly dangerous personality type to a powerful position. The only thing we can do with the diagnosis now is use it for educated anticipation. Most narcissists, 90 percent, are male, and all are captivated by and interested only in themselves. Do not overlook the word only. Sadly, they are not caught by a reflection and rendered immobile. They are, as my Gran always said, “up and doing.”
One positive is that they are fewer than five percent of the population. Another is that they are predictable. Predictability is determined by the same behavior across many individuals with the same diagnosis. It makes anticipation easier and could ease our anxiety. Anyway, it is easy—they tell what they are going to do next. Let me say, however, that since they tell you everything rather than hiding it and since they are only five percent of the population, you may not believe them. That is the very, very bad news.
So here is narcissism—use it, understand it, believe it. Base your anticipation on hard, knobby facts, not wishes. Here is what you are looking at when you are watching Trump. (Musk is, as my Gran would say, a horse of an entirely different color.)
Base anticipation on the truth
A narcissist doesn’t care—at all. Nope, he does not feel guilt. He uses emotions, usually those of other people. The emotions he feels are very limited. He can be deeply upset. When reality clashes with his fantasies and cannot be denied, he can become depressed and immobile or furious and moved to incite violence. He will feel the correctness of the destructive response to any who dare stomp on his dream. He doesn’t act; the poor saps around him who want to please him—Michael Flinn, Manfort, Bannon, some sad Proud Boy—do his bidding.
Example? Losing an election. Why? He lives in a world of his creation. In that world, he cannot lose. When he did, his world tilted until he could make up a story that would right it. Does he believe he won? Absolutely. Did he? Absolutely not.
Does that mean he is crazy? As a bed bug. First thing to swallow: We as a nation elected a nutcase to be our leader, and not a nice, nutty nutcase—a malignant one. You want to anticipate what is next? Anticipate that.
What explains his behavior is that he actually believes he is the best, smartest person in the room. He believes he alone can fix it (if he chooses to). He will choose to if you make it worth his while. All interactions are transactional. Money works best. He does not love anyone, period. There is never enough. He wants to own and control everything. Even if he doesn’t know how it works or what it could be used for; if someone else wants it, that is reason enough for him to have it.
Narcissists must always be the center of attention. They always need adulation, and there is no such thing as too much. They are perfectionists. They know how it should be—exactly, precisely, absolutely. Logic, truth, facts take a back seat to his opinion (or perhaps locked in the truck). Remember the path of a tornado that did not follow the path he predicted? Remember the black magic marker. Sad? Silly? Yup the silliness of it all helps him get away with it, helps excuse malignancy with thinking it is stupidity. It is not.
In that world he made up and lives in, he is never accountable. He can deflect and make it sound plausible if he were caught holding the smoking gun. If you can hold him to account, the clash of reality and his fantasy world would destroy him. Like the end of World War II, the bunker, the gun, and Hitler.
There are no boundaries, no rules, only he and his will control. He feels no one else’s pain—not a hungry infant’s, not his wife’s, not his ailing mother, and certainly not the people.
Finally, since his personal danger is excuse for any violent or illegal act, it is chilling that narcissists are paranoid. Narcissists perceive everything as a threat.
How do we anticipate that? Expect the worst. Imagine what no sane person would do and wait for it—it is on its way. Do not expect him to change, “see the light,” or relent. The biggest problem is us.
We are confused by such a personality, muddled by constantly contradictory opinions, and flatly incredulous behavior. Once you accept who he is and what he isn’t, a narcissist can be seen through, easily understood, and predicted. First, we must accept that everything about him is counter intuitive. Moreover, we want to reject the idea that he feels no guilt and is not bothered by hurting others.
