As you no doubt have heard by now, next year’s G -7 summit will not be held at the Trump National Doral Miami.
In a disastrous press conference, Mick Mulvaney, acting chief of staff — emphasis on acting — defiantly made the announcement that the project had been put out to bid and, surprise, surprise, the Trump Doral, late of a bedbugs loss suit, was deemed the best choice. Oh, and there was a quid pro quo on Ukraine support and investigating the Bidens, but it wasn’t wrong because elections have consequences and, anyway, “deal with it.”
After that stunning display — and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi saying in effect that the summit would be held at the Doral when pigs fly — coupled with the shockingly sudden withdrawal of troops from Syria that left the Kurds there hung out to dry, President Donald J. Trump and his hapless aide de camp were forced to walk back the talk, even as El Presidente noted that he was only trying to do the country a favor by offering up one of his golf resorts “at cost” amid the three “Hs” of Miami in June — heat, humidity and hurricane threats. (No worries on the last. Trumpet could always sharpie a hurricane on over to Alabama.)
Since then, it’s been a Cat. 5 Twitstorm of anger and self-pity — the seeming paradox of the narcissist. On the one hand, everything the narcissist does and has is the best. Everyone and everything else is inferior.
But on the other hand, no one is more aggrieved, more misunderstood, more burdened than the narcissist. This is but two sides of the same self-absorption coin. It’s like singers warming up — me, me, me, me, me all the time.
Which brings us to the new “N” word. Heretofore, columnists and commentators — most of whom lack psychological degrees — have been reluctant to label Trump a narcissist since they’re not qualified to make what is ultimately medical diagnosis. But the press has apparently decided it’s time to give up the ghost and that if it walks and quacks like a duck, it must be a duck.
Writing in The New York Times, columnist Michelle Goldberg describes Trump as “a malignant narcissist.” But she is right to move on to his supporters — in this case, Gordon Sondland, hotelier turned inexperienced U.S. ambassador to the European Union — who’s now trying to walk back his role in the Ukrainian scandal. Why do they stick with someone who wouldn’t hesitate to throw them under the bus?
First, we must understand that there are two types of Trump supporters. The first, like Sondland, have a lot and want not only to keep it but to aggrandize it. They love low taxes for the rich and deregulation for Wall Street. Many of these people are small business owners in blue states. As one told me recently, “We need to hold on to Trump for a little while longer” — in other words, till these supporters wring everything they can out of him regardless of what he does to others or the country as a whole. They reflect the “I’m the best” aspect of Trumpian narcissism. “I’m important and others are less significant, so what they want doesn’t matter and, anyway, you can’t help everyone,” they say. Unlike Trump, who wouldn’t know the Kurds from curds and whey, these people are aware of others in the world. They just don’t care.
If one type of Trump supporter belongs to the haves or the have mores, the other type is in the have not camp. These are the people in so-called flyover country — mostly white, mostly working class — who represent the ignorant grievance side of Trumpian narcissism. Everyone else has it better, they grouse: Immigrants are just criminals trying to game the system; Hispanics don’t want to learn English and are just sending money “home”; black people are lazy murderers and crackheads; women are sluts who just want you to pay for their birth control and abortions. They’re against big government and thus, the Dems, unless, of course, they need help.
Most important, perhaps, they, like Trump, believe that life is a zero-sum game. If you have or are getting ahead, they somehow are diminished. So they must not only win but you must lose. They’re like the crabs in a bucket I saw on a recent nature show. When one tries to crawl out, the others pull it back in. Hence the hatred of these Trumpettes for anything aspirational, especially education, classical culture, self-improvement — the so-called “elitism.” They see it as a reproach to themselves.
Trump may not be intellectually astute but he is sly enough to understand how to appeal to both groups. Fifth Avenue Trump talks taxes and deregulation with the rich (and fellow Republicans) while carnival barker Trump talks grievances with the people at his rallies, whom he wouldn’t have spent five minutes with in his New York life.
So far, it’s been a winning combination for him, because narcissists may not be right, but they’re never wrong. Trump’s supporters would hate to admit they backed the wrong horse. But as the Syria conflict demonstrates, there’s a line that some supporters won’t cross — not even for their favorite narcissist.