Trump goes beyond narcissism

Donald Trump, the man who defied every political rule and prevailed to win his party’s nomination, last week took on perhaps the most sacred political rule of all: Never attack a Gold Star family.

Not just because it alienates a vital constituency but because it reveals a shocking absence of elementary decency and of natural empathy for the most profound of human sorrows – parental grief.

Why did Trump do it? It wasn’t a mistake. It was a revelation.

It’s that he can’t help himself. His governing rule in life is to strike back when attacked, disrespected or even slighted.

To understand Trump, you have to grasp the General Theory: He judges every action, every pronouncement, every person by a single criterion – whether or not it/he is “nice” to Trump.

Vladimir Putin calls him brilliant (in fact, he didn’t, but that’s another matter) and a bromance is born. A “Mexican” judge rules against Trump, which makes him a bad person governed by prejudiced racial instincts.

House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., criticizes Trump’s attack on the Gold Star mother – so Trump mocks Ryan and praises his primary opponent. On what grounds? That the opponent is an experienced legislator? Is a tested leader?

Not at all. He’s “a big fan of what I’m saying, big fan,” attests Trump.

You’re a fan of his, he’s a fan of yours. And vice versa. Treat him “unfairly” and you will pay. House speaker, Gold Star mother, it matters not.

Of course we all try to protect our own dignity and command respect. But Trump’s hypersensitivity and unedited, untempered Pavlovian responses are, shall we say, unusual in both ferocity and predictability.

This is beyond narcissism. I used to think Trump was an 11-year-old, an undeveloped school-yard bully. I was off by about 10 years. His needs are more primitive, an infantile hunger for approval and praise, a craving that can never be satisfied. He lives in a cocoon of solipsism where the world outside himself has value – indeed exists – only insofar as it sustains and inflates him.

Most politicians seek approval. But Trump lives for the adoration. He doesn’t even try to hide it, boasting incessantly about his crowds, his standing ovations, his TV ratings, his poll numbers, his primary victories. The last are most prized because they offer empirical evidence of how loved and admired he is.

Prized also because, in our politics, success is self-validating.

A candidacy that started out as a joke, as a self-aggrandizing exercise in xenophobia, struck a chord in a certain constituency and took off. The joke was on those who believed that he was not a serious man and therefore would not be taken seriously.

They – myself emphatically included – were wrong.

This story was originally published August 5, 2016 at 3:52 PM with the headline "Trump goes beyond narcissism."