(Writer's note : I am mainly writing this piece as a counterpoint to the Huffington's post "Trump and Narcissistic Personality Disorder" article published on July 31st. Yes, I am a random faceless nobody blogger and I'm willing to tackle HuffPo head-on. That's how low my esteem of them is.)
Without going into too much detail about the clinical definition of what an acutal "Narcissist" is, because none of us have medical degrees or expertise, I will be content to use the layman's definition of the word, which is:
"Narcissism: a mental disorder in which people have an inflated sense of their own importance, a deep need for admiration and a lack of empathy for others. But behind this mask of ultraconfidence lies a fragile self-esteem that's vulnerable to the slightest criticism. Something something guy looking at his own reflection blabbity-blah."
Because anyway, that's what people mean when they call someone that. I do not consider Trump to fit the mold at all. He does manifest some of the behaviour associated with the word, but I think it's mostly for show. He's a very colorful speaker and he likes to remind us every 15 minutes or so how successful he is or how popular he is; however there's nothing worrying about that, it's just campagin self-promotion.
Need for admiration? Who doesn't have that? Next!
His reaction to criticism is actually very sane in my opinion. First of all he never attacks anyone gratuitously; he only retorts when he feels attacked. He uses social media in a very effective manner, putting people in their place and making it clear that it's not a good idea to trash him. He never (?) apologizes, but again to me it's pretty clearly just campaigning strategy.
As for lack of empathy for others, well...the man is five years past the legal retirement age; he's got a numerous and loving family; he's worth ten freaking billion dollars. With that kind of money, he could be layin' on his ass on his private island somewhere sipping Margarita's; he could be grabbing all the pussy he wanted on a tropical beach without a care in the world. Instead of that, he gets up a 4 AM every morning to attend meetings, prepare and give speeches and go on tours, all of that with the ultimate goal of serving his country for a dollar a year. He believes so strongly in a better America for everyone that he's willing to put in an amount of effort that you or I could never put in no matter how much you paid us.
So.....is Donald Trump a narcissist?
I'm gonna have to say no.
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