He’s really doing it. He really is doing more rallies, even though the election is over – because that’s where he gets the instant gratification of people cheering him right in his face. It’s all he wants, along with the many many opportunities to boost his profits.

Donald Trump will once more feel the love that unexpectedly propelled him to victory over Hillary Clinton three weeks ago with a so-called ‘Thank You Tour’ of public appearances starting with a giant rally in Cincinnati, Ohio, on Thursday night.

While there is so far no published tour schedule, the director of Mr Trump’s advance planning team, George Gigicos, has said that that the president-elect will be traveling “obviously to the states that we won and the swing states we flipped over”.

This…isn’t a thing. This isn’t something presidents do right after they are elected. They have too much other stuff to do, for one thing, and it’s probably a tad too obviously self-gratifying for people with an ounce of adult awareness. It takes a case of narcissism as severe as Trump’s to think this is an ok and reasonable thing for a president-elect to do.

While some will see it as Mr Trump looking to indulge in a victory lap around the country, Mr Gigicos insisted that it was about giving thanks to those voters who helped him on his way to his Electoral College victory on 8 November, against the expectations of nearly all the main polling organisations and of the Clinton campaign as well.

Yeah that doesn’t change anything, because “giving thanks” isn’t part of the routine. It’s like when the local public radio station thanks me for listening – I don’t do it as a favor, I do it when and because there’s something I want to hear. But even the local public radio station doesn’t set up rallies to thank the listeners.

Certainly it is an unusual project. Mr Trump already has a full plate completing his choices for his cabinet and other top positions in Washington and keeping his transition from descending into chaos, as it has already threatened to in recent days, not least the tug of war that has erupted over his courtship of Mitt Romney as a possible Secretary of State.

And learning the basics of the job, and indeed learning the basics of American history and world affairs. Oh he has a lot he could usefully be doing.

And even if Mr Trump believes he can spare the time to return to the hustings even though the election is over, it is unclear who would be paying the costs of renting spaces as large as the US Bank Arena and covering all the other associated costs of major rallies.

I’m sure he’ll just send us the bill.

N Ziehl on coping with an apparent narcissist in the White House.

I want to talk a little about narcissistic personality disorder. I’ve unfortunately had a great deal of experience with it, and I’m feeling badly for those of you who are trying to grapple with it for the first time because of our president-elect, who almost certainly suffers from it or a similar disorder. If I am correct, it has some very particular implications for the office. Here are a few things to keep in mind:

1) It’s not curable and it’s barely treatable. He is who he is. There is no getting better, or learning, or adapting. He’s not going to “rise to the occasion” for more than maybe a couple hours. So just put that out of your mind.

I should probably pay attention to that. I’ve never expected him to rise to the occasion, but I suppose I have been thinking he might realize what a fucking fool he is if everyone told him so. I should just put that out of my mind.

2) He will say whatever feels most comfortable or good to him at any given time. He will lie a lot, and say totally different things to different people. Stop being surprised by this. While it’s important to pretend “good faith” and remind him of promises, as Bernie Sanders and others are doing, that’s for his supporters, so they can see the inconsistency as it comes. He won’t care. So if you’re trying to reconcile or analyze his words, don’t. It’s 100% not worth your time. Only pay attention to and address his actions.

Well I’m not doing it because he will care but because others care. We have to keep track – for the prosecution if nothing else. Plus it’s a kind of coping mechanism itself. Decline and fall sort of thing.

4) Entitlement is a key aspect of the disorder. As we are already seeing, he will likely not observe traditional boundaries of the office. He has already stated that rules don’t apply to him. This particular attribute has huge implications for the presidency and it will be important for everyone who can to hold him to the same standards as previous presidents.

So that’s another reason we should keep track.

5) We should expect that he only cares about himself and those he views as extensions of himself, like his children. (People with NPD often can’t understand others as fully human or distinct.) He desires accumulation of wealth and power because it fills a hole. (Melania is probably an acquired item, not an extension.) He will have no qualms at all about stealing everything he can from the country, and he’ll be happy to help others do so, if they make him feel good. He won’t view it as stealing but rather as something he’s entitled to do. This is likely the only thing he will intentionally accomplish.

I have suspected as much. Good to have it spelled out.

There’s a thing called the Goldwater Rule which applies to members of the American Psychiatric Association; it says they can’t diagnose someone they haven’t personally evaluated.

The Goldwater Rule is published as an annotation in the Principles of Medical Ethics with Annotations Especially Applicable to Psychiatry. I encourage you all to read the full text of the rule below, and keep it in mind during this election cycle, and other events of similarly intense public interest.

The “Goldwater Rule:”

On occasion psychiatrists are asked for an opinion about an individual who is in the light of public attention or who has disclosed information about himself/herself through public media. In such circumstances, a psychiatrist may share with the public his or her expertise about psychiatric issues in general. However, it is unethical for a psychiatrist to offer a professional opinion unless he or she has conducted an examination and has been granted proper authorization for such a statement.”

Principles of Medical Ethics with Annotations Especially Applicable to Psychiatry

The Washington Post asked in late July Is Trump a textbook narcissist?

For the four days of the Republican convention, the word “narcissism” was never more in vogue, but what does the word actually mean? More importantly, what would it mean for America if one of the nominees for president of the United States is a narcissist? Aren’t all politicians?

The way Trump is? No, certainly not.

Arguably they can’t be, because politics doesn’t work that way. Trump’s election is an anomaly. People who put their own ego ahead of everything else are going to put people off, and their political careers won’t get off the ground. Trump is an “outsider,” which means he didn’t do any political work to get to this point. He’s always been at the top of his own ladder, giving orders, so he’s never had to learn to get along with people, so he’s never been forced to stop putting himself first.

A simple narcissist is someone who is self-absorbed, says Peter Freed, a psychiatrist at the Personality Studies Institute in New York City. On the other hand, people with narcissistic personality disorder are so self-absorbed that they are indifferent, even oblivious, to how they appear to others.

That’s our boy, wouldn’t you say?

Pathological narcissism is not, strictly speaking, a mental illness. Rather, it is classified as a personality disorder, afflicting someone whose behavior and beliefs lie far outside the norm. Unlike many mental illnesses, the origins of personality disorders are generally considered more familial and environmental than genetic.

Freed thinks narcissism is the “great, undiagnosed character pa­thol­ogy of the modern age,” even though few in psychiatry want to even use the word narcissism, he says, because of its pejorative connotation. The American public “is hampered by a lack of education about a syndrome that is real” and causes “real suffering.”

Ultimately, he said, regarding highly successful people, narcissism works — until it doesn’t. Usually those who suffer most are not the narcissists, Freed says, but those around them, the people who have to cope with the “mood swings, walking on egg shells, the demand to be sycophantic.”

“Right now Trump is not having a hard time” he said. “The hard time will come if he loses.”

Or, it turns out, if he wins but many people continue to say he’s a terrible human being.

Trump has lit up social media again.

In addition to winning the Electoral College in a landslide, I won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 27, 2016

In addition to winning the Electoral College in a landslide, I won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally.

I offered him my quick thought on the subject:

What if we add the millions of people whose votes were suppressed in defiance of the Voting Rights Act? You lying bastard. https://t.co/YpiveYrCoW

— Ophelia Benson (@OpheliaBenson) November 27, 2016

What if we add the millions of people whose votes were suppressed in defiance of the Voting Rights Act? You lying bastard.

Ezra Klein points out that he can’t keep track of his own arguments.

Trump has lost the thread of his own argument. The point of Trump’s tweets was to dismiss those questioning the legitimacy of the vote.

Yes but that’s true only if you regard his tweets as an argument. I consider them blurts, instead; it saves a lot of time.

This perhaps goes without saying, but it’s unnerving that the president-elect can’t restrain himself from making a bad situation worse on Twitter, or even hold himself to the logic of the argument he intended to make and the outcome he wanted to achieve.

Yes. Yes it is. It’s very unnerving that he is that stupid, and undisciplined, and narcissistic, and impulsive. It’s shocking that someone like that can get elected to such a powerful office. I’m unnerved by it multiple times every day. It’s hard to say enough about how terrible it is.

This tweet is an example of Trump’s most dangerous quality: his tendency to mobilize against a threatening, sometimes imaginary Other whenever he himself is under siege.

Most dangerous and possibly most disgusting. His constant lashing out is a revolting thing to see in a head of state.

This tweet is an example of one of Trump’s other dangerous qualities: his tendency to believe what he wants to believe about the world, facts be damned.

To believe it and to try to force it on everyone else. Another bad quality in a head of state.

It has been weeks since Donald Trump won the presidential election, and here is what we can say: he is still just himself. He is governing like he promised. He is appointing the loyalists, lackeys, and extremists he surrounded himself with during the campaign. He is tweeting the same strange, crazed missives, pursuing the same odd and counterproductive vendettas. His conflicts of interest have proven, if anything, worse than expected, and he has shown no shame, restraint, or interest in addressing them.

He will always be just himself. That’s painfully clear. Nothing can shift him.