https://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/opinion/123918113/its-not-over-trumps-psyche-cant-accept-defeat
OPINION: It ain't over yet. Trump's not finished. He's like the nightmare of folk stories, the revenant, the vampire, that isn't done with until a stake's been driven through its heart.
It isn't that Trump has superhuman qualities. It's that he has subhuman ones. It's his pathetic little psyche. He is it, and it is he, and neither's going to change.
That psyche cannot accept defeat. It literally can't. So when Trump lost the election he had to pretend he didn't. He had no choice. And then he had to try to bend reality to fit the lie. If that meant more lies, fine. If that meant crimes, fine. If that meant inciting a mob to overthrow democracy, fine. Nothing matters except his ego. That's the whole of him.
As power is taken from him, watch out. If he can't have it, no-one else must be allowed to have it. He's the toddler who's losing the board game and kicks the table over. He'll seek to destroy everything on his way out. Because that's who he is.
I've been saying all this for four years now, but I was only quoting the psychologists. And they in turn were only quoting history. History has shown us that there's a type of person, almost always male, who craves power for power's sake, who has no conscience, knows no restraint, is loyal to no-one, requires loyalty from everyone, feigns love for his country but loves only himself. It's a psychosis: malignant narcissism.
Malignant narcissists dot the historical record in every country, every continent – from Pol Pot to Stalin, from Amin to Ceausescu. They present themselves as national saviours. They simplify things and promise the world. They tell people only what they want to hear. They create a cult of dupes and gulls who believe they've found a chosen one who cares for them.
But alongside the dupes and gulls there are always the cynics and opportunists, the fellow-travellers, the ones who can know what's happening, but who go along with it in hope of reward. They're worse than the dupes and gulls because they know what they're doing. And they're cowards. When the tide turns they're the first to run back up the beach.
They're edging away already this lot, the smug and oily senators, the spokespeople, the genuflecting cabinet ministers. But they have shown the world who they are. And they are all complicit.
A few are already getting a degree of come-uppance. The mob that stormed the Capitol went looking for Mike Pence. They wanted to lynch him for betraying the president. Yes, that Mike Pence, the pious Christian and wife's-hand-holder, who's spent the last four years standing mutely at Trump's shoulder, nodding and clapping while Trump told lies. And now the crowd Trump lied to wants to kill him. While you're hiding from the mob, little Mikey, the mob you helped to spawn, try the Book of Hosea, Chapter 8, Verse 7: “For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind.” Good luck.
If the USA wants to survive it will need to take action. It will need to seek out all who have broken its laws, especially the rich, especially the powerful, especially the president, and punish them according to those laws.
Because if they don't, if they brush this off as something that will never happen again, it will happen again. History says so. They must drive that stake.
OPINION: It ain't over yet. Trump's not finished. He's like the nightmare of folk stories, the revenant, the vampire, that isn't done with until a stake's been driven through its heart.
It isn't that Trump has superhuman qualities. It's that he has subhuman ones. It's his pathetic little psyche. He is it, and it is he, and neither's going to change.
That psyche cannot accept defeat. It literally can't. So when Trump lost the election he had to pretend he didn't. He had no choice. And then he had to try to bend reality to fit the lie. If that meant more lies, fine. If that meant crimes, fine. If that meant inciting a mob to overthrow democracy, fine. Nothing matters except his ego. That's the whole of him.
As power is taken from him, watch out. If he can't have it, no-one else must be allowed to have it. He's the toddler who's losing the board game and kicks the table over. He'll seek to destroy everything on his way out. Because that's who he is.
I've been saying all this for four years now, but I was only quoting the psychologists. And they in turn were only quoting history. History has shown us that there's a type of person, almost always male, who craves power for power's sake, who has no conscience, knows no restraint, is loyal to no-one, requires loyalty from everyone, feigns love for his country but loves only himself. It's a psychosis: malignant narcissism.
Malignant narcissists dot the historical record in every country, every continent – from Pol Pot to Stalin, from Amin to Ceausescu. They present themselves as national saviours. They simplify things and promise the world. They tell people only what they want to hear. They create a cult of dupes and gulls who believe they've found a chosen one who cares for them.
But alongside the dupes and gulls there are always the cynics and opportunists, the fellow-travellers, the ones who can know what's happening, but who go along with it in hope of reward. They're worse than the dupes and gulls because they know what they're doing. And they're cowards. When the tide turns they're the first to run back up the beach.
They're edging away already this lot, the smug and oily senators, the spokespeople, the genuflecting cabinet ministers. But they have shown the world who they are. And they are all complicit.
A few are already getting a degree of come-uppance. The mob that stormed the Capitol went looking for Mike Pence. They wanted to lynch him for betraying the president. Yes, that Mike Pence, the pious Christian and wife's-hand-holder, who's spent the last four years standing mutely at Trump's shoulder, nodding and clapping while Trump told lies. And now the crowd Trump lied to wants to kill him. While you're hiding from the mob, little Mikey, the mob you helped to spawn, try the Book of Hosea, Chapter 8, Verse 7: “For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind.” Good luck.
If the USA wants to survive it will need to take action. It will need to seek out all who have broken its laws, especially the rich, especially the powerful, especially the president, and punish them according to those laws.
Because if they don't, if they brush this off as something that will never happen again, it will happen again. History says so. They must drive that stake.
