This is a post that asks – Does a Narcissist KNOW he’s a Narcissist? It’s about the Awareness or rather Un-Awareness of Donald Trump. It was written by someone who feels threatened by the vindictiveness of Trump and his big tech allies, so I am cited as the author though this piece is not by me.
Rather as Trump himself might say – I appear to be a cool old guy in control of the world – but – it’s all a persona, a front. Like the kid afraid of being bullied who desperately tries to gain popularity as the class comedian… Here’s what my friend actually wrote:
“Trump is a clown, but no one is laughing.
What follows is not necessarily fact. It is merely my sincerely held opinion. Moreover, I am not a psychologist, merely someone who has an interest in politics and in personal motivation.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/oct/24/trump-nyt-ad-george-conway-pac
I think that Trump is a symptom not a cause. He is what happens when a society becomes “willingly” divided against itself. Where “othering” and denigrating the other side is more emotionally fulfilling than engaging in intellectual evaluation of political options with your fellow countrymen. And where, by now, absolute loyalty to the MAGA tribe outweighs all other considerations.
Does a Narcissist know he’s a Narcissist?
Amongst his many other failures, Trump is a convicted felon, a publicly self-confessed sexual abuser and a multiple bankrupt. But for a significant (and by implication similarly morally degenerate) section of USA society, he is THEIR felon, abuser and bankrupt. And so, he is given their loyalty, whatever his actions. Even when it is to their clear disadvantage.
Needless to say, such social polarisation has proved a godsend for the billionaires, including Trump and Trump’s Epstein-class friends, who have been able to exploit the juicy media diversion provided by the culture wars to slip through lucrative tax-cuts and install anti-democratic superPACs.
Trump’s policies have enabled them to grab more and more political power and wealth for themselves and their corporations. They are laughing all the way to the banks they own.
I’m not saying Trump is personally irrelevant. He is, in my opinion, a fundamentally damaged human being, and his capricious personal choices have profound political implications for us all.
Does a Narcissist know he’s a Narcissist?
I believe that Trump’s personality is built around many unpleasant and undesirable aspects. First and foremost, he is a classic malignant narcissist and this aspect has grown with his financial power and political success to the extent that it now dominates his entire ego. That malignant narcissism is dangerous for the world and for everyone around him, especially given its known correlation with sadism and with delight in seeing others pain.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/5-types-people-who-can-ruin-your-life/201903/malignant-narcissism-does-the-president-really
In this regard Trump’s vindictiveness and his cruel delight in ruining the lives of his adversaries (and former supporters!) is well-known. I believe that the fact that his activities are responsible for untold death and misery around the world worries him not one jot. There is so little empathy left in the remaining dregs of his humanity. Everything is about him. Only him. His narcissism pins him like a butterfly to the need for public adulation and validation.
Of course Trump is not a ‘stable genius’ nor a great negotiator. He is an old man with declining health and intellect, maybe somewhere around average intelligence, and with stunningly little knowledge and erudition for someone in his position.
His negotiating stance is to bully from power, to ignore the law and never to seek a win/win scenario. Up until now he has always had the wealth to make that strategy work, by legal actions which his opponents could not afford to match. But national and international politics are not simply business transactions as he has now found out in Ukraine and the Middle East.
Inevitably, therefore, his malignant narcissism sets up a conflict between his longed-for grandiosity and the raw reality of his situation. To preserve his vulnerable self-image he resorts to ridiculously false claims of knowledge and expertise, to blatant lies and to whines of persecution when his real situation is exposed.
The false knowledge claims taken together with the narcissism ensure that he cannot learn from experience, whilst the lies and self-deceit protect his oh-so-sensitive ego from recognising failure and accepting valid criticism.
Does a Narcissist know he’s a Narcissist?
In short, he is stuck, and the remaining ways for him to maintain his shaky self-image are historically to cosy up to supposed strong-men, and convince himself he is one of them. Of course, they despise him and take advantage of his obvious political ineptitude and psychological weaknesses, as with Putin over Ukraine and more recently with Netanyahu over Iran.
In his second term he has chosen the route of surrounding himself with self-seeking sycophants who will constantly feed his ego with the most absurd flattery and will tell the naked little emperor that his clothes are so very very grand.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/feb/08/donald-trump-media-coverage
The damage that this wannabe king has caused to the world will certainly outlast him, as will the opprobrium. The damage his thuggery and bombast has done to trust in the USA and to the reputation of the American people will take decades to reverse, if they ever are. After all he was elected twice!
I predict that he will be seen by history as the foolish un-self-aware person that he is. No one will build triumphal arches to him, nor will they honour him with public centres as they did for Kennedy. Moreover, he knows it. The last testament to his ‘overARCHing’ narcissism is his recent sad attempts to build monuments to himself.