Will Trump Followers Ever Realize How Insecure and Dangerous Their Idol Is?

   I read many business-oriented email newsletters, including one from Fast Company which had the following attention-grabbing headline this week: “How to spot the warning signs of an insecure leader.”

The subhead went further: “We humans aren’t very good at assessing true leadership qualities and gravitate towards arrogant confidence in those in charge. Unfortunately, that is often a sign of weakness, and the fallout can be tough on teams.”

The article -- click here to read it in full -- was written about business (hence the reference to teams) by a professor of leadership and management at Harvard Business School and a professor of business psychology at Columbia, but it encapsulates the tragedy of the Trump era. It’s bad enough when a business is dragged down by a leader who has deceived both himself and others that he is competent, but it’s tragic when a whole country is victimized by him.

Here are some key excerpts from that article, which will resonate for those of us who recognized Donald Trump as an arrogant, narcissistic incompetent from day one. Try to remember that this was written about business leadership:

We are so seduced by confidence that we habitually end up with overconfident, arrogant leaders.... 

   According to the authors of one study: “Those with limited knowledge…suffer a dual burden: Not only do they reach mistaken conclusions and make regrettable errors, but their incompetence robs them of the ability to realize it”... 

    What drives educated, rational people...to select people who seem unaware of their limitations and unjustifiably pleased with themselves, as if being your own greatest fan was indicative of talent or...a useful skill in leading others?….

Imagine you aspire to leadership or power and you have managed to delude yourself into thinking that you are amazing when in fact you lack critical skills. Although this delusion makes you a liability, a risk for others..., it can make you more popular. People will gravitate towards you, thinking your certainty is indicative of skill and talent rather than delusion….

We get distracted by irrelevant information provided in the form of confidence, bravado and aggression, which pertain to style rather than substance. Sadly, we live in a world where style without substance will get you farther than substance without style….

Arrogant leaders are more likely to be insecure than competent. Recent academic research conceptualizes narcissism not as self-love but as self-loathing in disguise. The reason is unsurprising. Arrogance is defined as exaggerating one’s own worth or importance. This takes effort and can be seen as a cover for something that one wishes not to be discovered. It’s a deliberate attempt to compensate for self-perceived deficits or flaws….

Research on narcissism further finds that arrogance and entitlement are often a desperate call for validation and affirmation from others. Bragging about talents that are actually lacking is a strategy for fooling oneself by fooling others and suggests insecurity. This is why narcissists get defensive and aggressive when challenged or belittled. 

This is exactly what Donald Trump’s niece, psychologist Mary Trump, described in her analysis of Trump based on her personal knowledge of his upbringing. The title says it all: Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man. I can picture this book becoming a textbook in future classes about the Trump era.

Regarding those who continue to resonate with Trump’s rhetoric, I can’t urge you enough to read White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide, by historian Carol Anderson. While the events of Ferguson, Missouri in 2014 got people talking about “black rage,” she wrote in a Washington Post op-ed that this was instead “white rage at work. With so much attention on the flames, everyone had ignored the kindling.”

The legacy of Donald Trump will be that by emboldening white supremacists with his rhetoric, he lit the kindling, bringing to the surface what had always been there: continued systemic racism.

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On a personal note, I want to express my humble appreciation for the support my writing has garnered. Not only have readers donated over $15,000 to my GoFundMe campaign (which you can find at www.FundTalkingTurkey.com), and sent me over $3,000 in checks, they continue to give my broker associates and me their real estate business.  Thank you so much!

 

It Couldn’t Be Clearer Now: It Was Always ‘Trump First,’ not ‘America First’

  Since this is Thanksgiving week, I have to say two things — first, that I am thankful that Joe Biden is our President-Elect; and second, that “Talking Turkey” is not related to the Butterball Turkey hotline. You’re on your own, friends!

On a personal note, I am thankful for those readers who pushed my GoFundMe campaign to $11,931. That is less than the $17,000+ I paid to print this column in the Denver Post each week starting in March, but I would have gladly spent the entire amount myself if I had to, and I’m happy if this column somehow contributed to Joe Biden’s landslide win in Colorado and gave some comfort to my fellow progressives that they were not outnumbered by members of Cult 45.

Now, as Joe Biden said in his Thanksgiving address, we need to turn our attention to healing the partisan divide. But how do we do that when the president himself is sowing disbelief in our American electoral system? How will his supporters, egged on as they are by Trump, the Fox News opinionistas, OAN, Newsmax and QAnon, ever accept President Biden and Vice President Harris as legitimately elected leaders?

   In 2009, the Republican leadership in Congress committed themselves to being the “Party of No” and making President Obama a one-term president. With only 2 years of Democratic control in both the House and Senate, it’s impressive that the 44th President accomplished as much as he did.

I have donated to the Democratic Senatorial campaigns in Georgia in hopes that Joe Biden will have the same advantage for at least his first two years as president.

As Chris Christie put it on Sunday, Trump’s fight to overturn the election, led so appropriately by Rudy Giuliani, is a “national embarrassment,” but more to the point, it demonstrates even to his supporters who claim to love America and the constitution, that Donald Trump has never put our country first. As John Bolton expressed in his best-selling book, every decision and every action that this president took was predicated on what was best for Donald Trump, not for the country. Click here to read psychiatrist Vincent Greenwood’s treatise demonstrating how Donald Trump exceeds the criteria of a narcissist and meets the criteria of a psychopath. Read it and weep — but weep tears of joy that he will be put out of pasture in January, ready to face $400 million in debts and countless criminal charges, especially in the Southern District of New York.

As I predicted in the past, once the man reaches the end of his “I won” rope, I believe that he will resign for two reasons. First, he can then be pardoned by Pres. Mike Pence, protecting him from federal prosecution, and, second, his fragile ego will not permit him to attend the inauguration of President Biden. He’s such an insecure child — but we already knew that, didn’t we?

From the picture of Donald Trump painted by Mary Trump, John Bolton, Anonymous and so many others, it’s so in character for Donald Trump to be acting the way he is. His supporters haven’t grasped that picture yet, but maybe this current behavior, once it has run its course, will enlighten even them.

At a closed door meeting  on April 16, 2016, Trump told Republican leaders, in effect, that the “act” he was putting on during his campaign would change once he became president. The same day, at a Pennsylvania rally, he told the crowd, “I’m going to be so presidential that you people will be so bored.”

“Promises made, promises kept”? Not that one! And the reason is simple. Immediately after his inauguration, he announced his re-election campaign and continued his “act” at rallies throughout his time in office.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

unpresidential term. .

 

Trump’s Worst Legacy May Be Modeling His Communication Style to His Followers

Actually, President Trump will have many “worst legacies,” but the one that’s most present for me at this time is how he has emboldened ordinary people to think it’s okay to communicate like him. That’s what presidents do, after all. They become role models for Americans who look up to them.

Let’s look at the role model being demonstrated day in and day out by our current president.

I received a hand-written letter just this week from a reader, who wrote as follows:

Dear Mr. Smith,

I enjoy your column and wanted to say my piece.

Being 89½ years old and a retired R.N., I’ve seen much in my lifetime but nothing like Mr. T. His Narcissistic Personality Disorder disturbs me most. Each time he speaks, all the symptoms come forth: Profound arrogance, hypercritical, public ridicule, no sympathy, a bully.

It is a mental illness and is untreatable. Were he my child, he would have been put in time-out long ago. As you said, his supporters are unreachable and that is baffling. Look forward to reading your thoughts. 

Sincerely, Mrs. Vivian S.

Yes, Vivian, one wonders whether his supporters would tolerate those same “symptoms” in anyone else. Who among them would like a person displaying “profound arrogance," being hypercritical, using public ridicule, evidencing no sympathy, and being a bully?  I doubt any of his supporters like those traits in another human being — any human being — but they accept them in Donald Trump. Worse, they are adopting those traits for themselves.

    Unless your circle of friends includes Trump supporters, you may not witness those behaviors much, but, thanks to this column, I receive emails every day from them, evidencing such language.

    Here’s a recent email from Steve M.:

    “You are a lousy journalist.  You cant even spell my name correctly.  No wonder you cant earn a living doing journalism. So you resort to petty name calling and a completely lame attempt to sell real estate.  You or your parents wasted a lot of money at MIT.” (The writer went on at length -- too long to share here.)

Trump supporters, while they admit he’s crude and rude (“but gets things done!”), they deny those symptoms.  One, however, admitted the narcissism this way:

The potus is a narcissist?  Not really startling news! Btw, bho’s picture is featured in the DSM-5 manual in the section defining a narcissistic personality? Trump simply took a page from bho’s book? Why doesn’t bho’s narcissism bother you?

(“bho” is Obama, referred to by another Trump supporter in emails only as “B. Hussein O.”) 

The president also is a role model for lying — even when it’s not necessary. While he said, metaphorically, that he could shoot someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue and not lose any supporters, it’s just as likely that he could say the earth was flat (okay, metaphorically) and his supporters would accept it as the truth — and Fox News would promote it! 

It’s one thing that supporters don’t think Trump lies, despite repeated evidence of it, but, worse, he’s made bending the truth acceptable by modeling it.

Parents of bullies and the bullied alike have decried bullying in our schools, yet millions of American have learned from “Mr. T.” that bullying is acceptable in adults. This is nothing less than hypocrisy, unless they now accept bullying among school children.

The same for ridicule. Who thinks that ridiculing others is acceptable discourse? Again, it’s being normalized by this president in virtually every tweet. I expect to receive emails ridiculing Vivian S. for her letter above. That’s what they've been taught — by example.

Would Trump's supporters like anyone other than Trump criticizing and ridiculing a newly deceased war hero, as Trump did Sen. John McCain because he opposed Trump politically?

Maybe the tide will turn, now that we are seeing the generals speaking up. And what will we learn from Steve Bannon’s book, due this month or next?

Speaking of books, I’m currently reading A Warning by “Anonymous, A Senior Trump Administration Official,” available for as little as $3.99 on eBay with free shipping. It’s an insightful and scary look inside the Trump White House.  I consider it a must-read!

Why Are Trump Supporters So Unwavering? They Have Given Me Some Answers.

Last week’s column generated a lot of emails and phone calls — mostly from readers thanking me for my “courage” and speaking out about what one reader called our “Moron-in-Chief.”  But it also drew the ire of many readers who were offended by the psychological analysis I presented of Trump supporters.

Mind you, it was not my analysis. I was publishing what psychologists near and far have written about Trump and some of his supporters. It’s a fascinating area of academic study these days.

I really appreciated (and responded to) all the emails I received, because they gave me additional insight into this phenomenon we know as Donald J. Trump.

It reminded me of my days as a bicycle activist in New York City, organizing a demonstration to create bike lanes on the 59th Street Bridge. It was so satisfying to see demonstrators on TV parroting the talking points which I had given them prior to the event. Donald Trump and his tribe at Fox News would be similarly gratified to see the president’s fans parroting a kaleidoscope of mistruths which are laid out for them. Some of them were new to me. Obviously I need to watch more of Fox News, especially the evening opinion broadcasts. 

By the way, have you noticed that what Trump calls the “lame-stream media” — NBC, ABC and CBS — don’t have any opinion shows during the evening? While Fox News Channel fills its prime time with pro-Trump, anti-Democratic rabble-rousers, the broadcast channels have nothing but entertainment programs — sitcoms, police shows, reality shows, and the like. There is virtually no opinion programing at any time of any day. All the president has to attack are the straight news reports of the evening news program and the Sunday programs which include guests with their opinions for and against the president.

But I digress. Back to the negative emails I received. More than one described Joe Biden as a “fantasizing senile plagiarist,” a picture being painted by Fox News. A woman I’ll call “Mary” was my favorite, diagnosing Trump with Aspergers Syndrome  (is Trump a savant?) with no mention of narcissism. She compared Trump to Einstein, saying “you will notice that geniuses generally are socially challenged and have unusual behaviors. Trump definitely is challenged and has unusual behaviors.”

She and I had begun to have a conversation via email, but she went silent after I wrote the following:

“So you believe that Trump is a genius – a stable genius, as he says?  This genius said yesterday that we should look into injection of disinfectants! He was touting hydroxychloroquine, so much that it was tried on veterans in VA hospitals. The results, reported today? Nine percent of veterans who were given standard treatment died, but 28% of those who got standard treatment plus hydroxychloroquine died. Because of his promotion of the drug, Trump actually caused the death of many veterans. And today his own FDA came out opposing the drug because of its failure to help and proven causing of death!

“This stable genius promotes coal, while the power industry itself is closing coal plants left and right in favor of cleaner, cheaper natural gas, wind and solar. You know the president only ‘digs coal’ for the votes it gets him in the Midwest.  He pulled us out of the Paris climate accord, making us the only nation in the world not to commit to reducing greenhouse gases. He ordered the EPA to remove the phrase ‘climate change’ from its website and all documents. This is a genius?  Geniuses [like Einstein] believe in the value of science.  If he were smart instead of narcissistic, he would leave the daily briefings to the scientists instead of using them to get screen time and make statements that appeal to his base and then require walking-back by the scientists at the very same briefings! This man is a walking disaster.  No I don’t ‘hate’ him, I see him for what he is.  And it’s scary for this country and this planet.”

If you’d like to write me, too, my email address is jimsmith@ecentral.com. I answer every email.

Many thanks for the additional donations received since last week’s column to help pay for this ad. The donation site is www.FundTalkingTurkey.com.

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