If he’s that out of control
The Washington Post edges up to the task of discussing Trump’s pathological narcissism.
Trump’s frustration that he’ll be inaugurated despite having less demonstrated support than his opponent is the most likely explanation for his tweets. He’s clearly annoyed that Clinton agreed to participate in Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein’s efforts to review balloting in Wisconsin and other Midwestern states (an annoyance also made clear on Twitter). It’s remarkably similar to what happened when he lost the Iowa caucuses to Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.): At first, he accepted the result as it was. Within a day or two, though, he began lashing out at Cruz, accusing him of stealing the vote in the state.
Of course, there’s no evidence that Cruz did anything that could be identified as “stealing” the election. But that wasn’t the point. The point was that Trump was mad. (Incidentally, this was also the genesis of “Lyin’ Ted.”)
There has been some social-media speculation that Trump is laying the groundwork for federal efforts to curtail voting access. That’s probably backward. It’s more likely that Trump is leveraging long-standing, unfounded murmurs of rampant voter fraud as a way to assuage his ego, just as he claimed that Cruz stole the election to save face.
This has to be carefully explained to us, because it’s (still) so hard to believe that a grown man who has just been elected president of the US has that little self-control and discipline. It’s hard to believe and it’s also terrifying to believe. If he’s that out of control, maybe he’ll send a pilot to drop a nuclear weapon on our house because we sent him a rude tweet. If he’s that out of control, maybe he’ll speed up climate change even more out of sheer spite. If he’s that out of control, maybe there’s nothing we can do to limit the destruction.
I’m sorry to say I’ve have intimate personal experience with someone with a Cluster B personality disorder. I recognized Trump as having the same traits immediately. Frankly, I am terrified.
If you want to understand Trump and what he will do and is capable of read up on NPD. He is a textbook case. These types are very predictable and follow a pattern. However, they keep other people confused because they don’t have the same motivations as normal people. As we can see in the press there is an awful lot of trying to ‘figure him out.’ There’s nothing to figure out. He is disordered. There is no cure for this and it often worsens as people age. His ego must be fed at all costs. It’s always all about winning. He had no shame, no conscience and is incapable of empathy. His tactic is to confuse his critics while he goes about getting what he wants. He will never do anything for the greater good.
There must be many things that could be done. Not all of them quite legal or morally straightforward, probably.
Ask someone who was raised by narcissists, or had a relationship with someone with NPD. They won’t be surprised at all.
I know. I have friends who, like Noele, have intimate personal experience with someone with a Cluster B personality disorder, and they say the same thing. This is Trump and it’s all the explanation there is.
It’s so fucking terrifying.
It’s like my childhood nightmare, written so large it’s consuming the entire country.
I second what others here say. I grew up with “Trump”, and there is no limit to the ego, and the person I know has even been known to take potentially self-destructive actions in order to maintain his ego in the face of evidence that doesn’t support his view of himself.
He is the most dangerous Cluster B I’ve ever seen with my own eyes. As Ophelia knows, I was abused by a Cluster B mother my entire life until I finally cut her off this year because I was legitimately afraid of dying from my exacerbated heart disease, or by suicide.
Noele, I’m sitting here in horror. People do not understand what Cluster Bs are. They don’t get how deadly, literally deadly, this situation is. It’s a nightmares scape come to life.
We have a very good chance of not surviving Trump.
I’m not even American, and I don’t feel safe anywhere while this raving lunatic remains in power. Most of the people I know seem to think that national boundaries means he’s not our problem (as if climate change or nuclear war had ever heard of such boundaries). I keep coming back to the metaphor of an airplane that’s been taken over by a lunatic who doesn’t believe in gravity or aerodynamics, except that in this case the “airplane” is the Earth, and there is no possibility of escape.