Making Sense of POTUS: Part VI--Traits 8 and 9

I started this post over five years ago, about the time I stopped adding to my blog. Having resurrected the blog, I finally finished the post. I trust you’ll enjoy it. 

This is the last in a six part series about Donald Trump's publicly visible traits. The final two are:
8--In his worldview, people are tools and not intrinsically valuable
9--For the former POTUS, history, precedent, and protocol are irrelevant

As in preceding parts of the series, the elements of the final two traits will be treated individually.

People Are Tools and Not Intrinsically Valuable 

It has been obvious for decades -even to the casual observer- that Mr. Trump values people only if, and only to the extent that, they fit into the current form of his pursuit of power and adulation. 

One oft seen form of this pursuit and objectification is his use of media surrogates. If well managed, surrogates can play a central role in effectively manipulating the media and electorate by acting at multiple levels, even simultaneously. For Trump, I’d guess the calculation is ‘more is better’. That is, until a surrogate criticizes him, or until a skilled journalist, and/or a surrogate’s grandiosity, forces the surrogate into admitting a truth uncomfortable for Trump. 

Chris Christie is the best-known example because he serially publicly criticized and exposed Mr. Trump at the same time. The former New Jersey Governor is also the best-known example of a Trump surrogate who fell out of grace because of the repeated, massive, public humiliations he endured as Trump slowly took his revenge. Here’s an excerpt from Musings on 11/28: Multitasking while Cabinet Building, with some details. After a series of critical comments about Trump’s public statements and comportment, some in real time, Trump’s vengeance came in the form of giving Christie a series of bones (for instance, allowing him to act as a surrogate, run the transition early on, and be interviewed for a cabinet position) without, in my opinion, any intention of ultimately giving him a position in the new government. Christie was dismissed from his transition job and finally seem[ed] to understand that he ha[d] nowhere to go in Trump-land.

Donald Trump views and reacts to being publicly contradicted -even if he’s lying- in the same way that he views and reacts to being criticized.  He views public contradiction as interrupting his receipt of all the power and adulation to which he’s entitled. Interrupters are disloyal. To him. Then they are publicly maligned, undermined, and discarded to balance the scales. To get them back. I give you as examples the end of the congressional careers of Senator Liz Cheney, as well as Representative Adam Kinzinger and seven other House members who voted to impeach then-President Trump for the Big Lie. Republicans all. 

History, Precedent, and Protocol Are Irrelevant

Donald Trump eschews history, precedent, and protocol for many reasons. Of course, bucking the system shows strength. Conversely, demurring to the system would put him in a relatively weak position. A position that, to Trump, threatens his ability to suck on the teats of his supporters to produce more power and adulation, his substitutes for a sense of self. 

Demurring would also require him to have stopped defending against becoming aware of the psychological abuse he suffered at his father’s hand. Defenses here take the forms of compulsively repeated reenactments of the interpersonal aspects of the abuse, and of identifying with his aggressive father in these reenactments. They also take the forms of denial, rationalization, and his well-known affinity for the projection of his inadequacies, toxicity, immorality, and misdeeds onto others. 

Simply said, Donald Trump is unable to threaten the source of his sense of self or to deconstruct his defensive constellation. Even if he had sufficient insight to pursue the habituation of decades of conditioned patterns of cognition, emotion, and behavior, he’d never do it. It is unconsciously avoided by Trump because it would be completely intolerable and psychologically overwhelming.

Finally, there is a multitude of examples of the former president rejecting precedent, protocol, ritual, and rules. The most frequently occurring example is Trump ignoring the moral, ethical, religious, social, and legal dictates that demand honesty. The best-known example is, of course, The Big Lie. That is, Donald Trump’s incessant lying about the outcome of the 2020 presidential election.

For a scholarly dive into the topic, I commend to you Donald Trump and the Norms of the Presidency. https://pfiffner.gmu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Donald-Trump-and-the-Norms-of-the-Presidency-Jim-Pfiffner.pdf

This essay was written in 2022 by James P. Pfiffner, Professor emeritus in the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University. In it, three categories of norms flouted by Mr. Trump are explicated in detail. They are

• Ignoring Norms of the Presidency and Common Civility
• Undermining Governance Institutions
• Abusing National Security Institutions

Sadly, there will be more of the same if Donald Trump is elected in 2024. In all likelihood, he will continue all of the atrocious behavior recounted by Professor Pfiffner because the former president is unable to change. To do so would require him to deconstruct his defensive structure and disconnect from his source of a (false) self. This is instinctively prohibitive to the former president because it would be unbearable. Trump would be unable to cope; it would break him.

If voters give Trump the nod, surf’s gonna get real choppy again. 

Post Modern Political Honesty: Part V--The Rest of the Hacking Denial Story

In my last post, I detailed one of the central reasons why Donald Trump is denying that the Russians hacked the DNC's network during the election. Specifically, he appears to have adopted a neo-post World War II foreign relations approach. However, as is usually the case in seeking to understand the Donald, the explanation is multi-factorial. The other factors are that the President is:

• Apathetic about the potential implications of such a declaration, and 
• Subject to dramatically narcissistic perceptions about the 2016 election and Vladimir Putin

Mr. Trump appears to both believe that no Russian hack of the DNC occurred, and not care about the possible consequences of saying so. Of course he should care, considering what those consequences could be. For instance, in Part IV of this series, I argued that the combination of Putin reading this sort of conciliatory gesture by POTUS-and there have been several-as a green light to expansionism, and Trump's disengagement from NATO, is a recipe for a third world war. But, even taking off the table the calamity of an unbridled Russia starting a global conflagration, we are left with unacceptable sequelae like the spread of communism, the restoration of the Soviet Union, and a bilateral nuclear war. 

The final piece of the explanation of Trump's denial that the DNC hacking was done by the Russians is that he is subject to dramatically narcissistic perceptions about the 2016 election and Vladimir Putin. [For a more general discussion of his public narcissism, see my post on 02/20/16: To be, or not to be (surprised by Trump): Part II--On the Couch.] 

Vis a' vis the elections, were the President to admit that his campaign was helped by the dissemination of the information that came from the hack, he would also be implicitly admitting that his win was not gained by his effort alone. The Donald is just not capable of this; examples are ubiquitous. To him, success is an imperative as well as a zero-sum achievement. He can not share the spotlight with anyone but a subordinate; and even Trump doesn't see Putin as a subordinate. 

Mr. Putin is, however, serving another vital function for POTUS. That is, the Russian President is flattering him. Given that there is nothing more important to Mr. Trump than being successful and admired (see Nine Consistent Things About Donald Trump for more), positive commentary from one of the world's most important heads of state surely carries great weight in this regard. Otherwise put, President Putin's flattery is providing the perpetual adulation that the Donald's requires in order to maintain consistency in his ever-fragmenting self concept. As such, it would be inconceivable to him that Putin's praise was disingenuous. 


It'll be a cold day in hell before Trump ponies up this one.

To be, or not to be (surprised by Trump): Part VII--Trump, Daddy Issues & The Brave New World of Campaigning

Metaphorically, one might say that what Trump is "putting on" his supporters is a mirror. "I'm one of the guys" is the constant meta-and sometimes explicit-message. This facilitates two things. It prevents Trumpsters from feeling threatened which, in turn, enables their basic identification with him. Adding some substance (and I use the term loosely here), the Donald has unequivocally and repeatedly declared that he is pissed off, providing more tangible material with which his furious followers can identify. From a logician's point of view, the argument is, "You are strong. You are one of us. Therefore we are strong". Or, symbolically, "A=B. A=C. Therefore B=C".

All would agree that a fifty-something who's long been out of work, and has exhausted the limited vocational benefits of a high school diploma, is likely to be highly frustrated and quite angry. But, showing anger is generally socially proscribed. [Many psychologists have decried "venting" anger since he late 1970s when it was shown to be self-reinforcing. Indeed, the psychotherapy highway is littered with the casualties of earlier days. Primal Scream Therapy, of John Lennon-fame, is the most absurd example.] Instead, it grows internally because-as is the case with ire-the related thoughts are repeated so often. And it is the intensity of this anger that enhances Trumpsters' identification the most, supporting their wish to share his power to solve their problems. The hopefulness that this wish produces, even if unconscious, acts as a reward that reinforces the identification.

In summary, Trump projects power as a rule. This projection is being amplified by his symbiosis with his political supporters. As a group, Trumpsters desperately want relief both from their plights and the consequent rage. Their reinforced identification with the Donald supports the unconscious desire to partake of his power, bringing respite into view.

On a conscious level, Trump's supporters see him as an honest change agent, hardly enough to warrant forgiveness for his vaunted venomous verbage. Nor can they easily explain their exoneration of him. That is, of course, because the answer lies inaccessibly wedged deep in the unconscious. It is the place that this identification calls home. From another perspective, the presence of identification means-by definition-that Trumpsters' criticism of the Donald would also be self reflexive. That makes refraining from such critique a method of protecting oneself from the related pain, albeit unconscious.

So, they support him despite his unreserved contemptuousness because they are moved by profound and powerfully conditioned identification; and because they are utterly oblivious to it.