How stupid is Trump?

Right about now, something pretty remarkable’s happening. Trump’s melting down. Day after day. And each day, it gets a little worse.

His hold on culture’s slipping. His grasp on politics is weakening. His power is turning to dust.

You can feel it. I can feel it. He can feel it.

And as he does, he grows more and more desperate.

The desperation turns into humiliating stunts, embarrassing spectacles, made-for-headlines maneuvers that backfire.

Because the last thing that a strongman should ever be seen as is…desperate.

That’s the vicious cycle, at least in simple form, and it’s delicious to behold. I don’t mean in an overtly political way, just in the way of “we should all be against authoritarianism, whatever our everyday politics in a democracy might be.”

I want to explore this more deeply, because as it’s all slipping away from Trump, we should all take heed of how a demagogue’s power begins to fade.

The Vicious Spiral Trump’s Trapped In

What’s really happening here is a vicious cycle of narcissistic injury.

Trump is no ordinary narcissist. He’s at the outer limits. His narcissism is infantile, meaning that he thinks of himself as the center of the universe, and you can see that in the literally infantile way he speaks, rambles, demands, screams. Trump is also a dark empath, meaning that he’s quite good at picking up on emotions, and then manipulating them for his own ends, taking him beyond a garden variety sociopath.

For this kind of personality, narcissistic injury is everything. All of us are narcissists to some degree. Somebody looks at us funny, hesitates when they speak to us—we feel the sting of disapproval. We wonder: was I just imagining that? Am I being paranoid? For the kind of outer limits narcissist Trump is, this sort of inner process doesn’t really happen. Every perceived slight registers at an acute level.

Aside: it must be hellish to exist that way. Think about it: every little thing is about you, in grandiose ways, it has to fulfill the expectations of you as a kind of all-powerful super-baby, and yet…how can that always be? If you surround yourself with a slavish inner circle, maybe you can exist that way for a while. But nobody’s reality in the adult world is that simple.

When a narcissist at this degree is injured, a kind of fury results. And we can all see that in Trump’s increasingly unhinged responses.

Which led to the recent event at Arlington Cemetery. His staff literally got physical with the folks there. Even the Army’s come out and condemned this.

So: for a personality this extreme, narcissistic injury leads to increasingly violent, erratic reactions. Uncontrollable ones, really, because the injury feels so severe. And the only way it can be corrected, a mind like this imagines, is to shout it all into line, to exert control, to coerce, to dominate the world back into “loving” you.

But to the world? This increasingly violent set of reactions looks very different. Suddenly, it can feel like we’re seeing the truth of who this person was all along, for the first time.

Has that ever happened in your life? You’re dating someone, or you’re friends with someone. And as they react violently to a perceived slight, not even from you, just from one—you think to yourself: wow, I’m seeing this person for the first time.

What Happens to Narcissists When The Mask Slips

In other words, the mask begins to slip.

Narcissistic personalities like Trump easily gain followers—that’s true in all walks of life, even for everyday influencers. But for a narcissist, the mask must never slip, if they wish to continue to have a hold over their followers.

Only strategically can the mask slip—exposing calculated vulnerability, for example, to win sympathy, in pitiable moments, a classic ploy.

What should never happen is that the mask begins to slip, and then slips further and further.

When that happens, the relationship between narcissists and followers begins to change. Followers look up to narcissists because narcissists promise something magical: that they have superhuman powers, which they can endow and bestow on them.

But when the mask slips, all this comes undone. The narcissist is revealed as…just another person. Just like the rest of us. Not superhuman. No superpowers. Just a limited, fragile human being. Hey, why are they getting so mad? Why didn’t they get their way in the first place? Look—they couldn’t bend this situation and everyone in it to their will.

Maybe they’re not super-people, after all.

And as that realization dawns, the demagogue’s spell begins to lift. This has happened throughout history, only often too late. Think of Hitler in the last year of the war. Think of any number of demagogues in their latter years, revealed to be all too human.

Today, what this vicious spiral means, the one that we can all see Trump’s trapped in, is that his spell is finally breaking.

Escalation, Narcissistic Injury, and Impotent Rage, or How Demagoguery’s Spell Breaks

Lashing out in impotent rage. We’ve all done it. And it’s all too human. But not like personalities of this sort do—relentlessly, violently, escalating.

The difference for an extreme narcissist is that the outsized, perpetual rage must never be impotent. Those who have caused the narcissistic injury must be punished—and more, shown to be punished. They must be made examples of, in order to prove the narcissist’s superpowers to their followers, and keep the spell of magical thinking alive.

But when rage turns impotent, then a demagogue is in real trouble.

In Trump’s case, as so often, personalities like this respond by escalating.

Escalation, though, while it might work on the inner circle, which is used to showing absolute fealty, doesn’t work nearly as well in the real world. It’s more likely to fail, unless you actually are a dictator, because of course the more extreme the demands get, the less likely they are to be obeyed to the letter.

In this case, did Trump and his team really think the Army would back them? You see what I mean.

Impotent rage is something that’s unforgivable in a demagogue. That’s the second part of the vicious cycle. The more it erupts, the more followers shake their heads, and see clearly for the first time. And the more that people who aren’t followers begin to laugh and point—hey, look at this clown—all of which…reinforces the vicious cycle, causing…

Even more narcissist injury.

So let me break all that down now, the vicious cycle.

Narcissistic injury leads to impotent rage. Impotent rage breaks the bond between narcissist and followers. While it ends up making the rest of us laugh in delight, or maybe frown in contempt, like at the disgraceful events at Arlington Cemetery. That causes even more narcissistic injury, which leads to more impotent rage

…And so on.

That’s the vicious spiral Trump’s trapped in. A wiser, more mature personality might take a moment to recognize it. But I think we can all rest safe in the assurance that that ain’t gonna happen.

So sit back, make some popcorn, and prepare yourself. The next few weeks, I’d guess, are going to be nothing but this vicious cycle of meltdown, accelerating every day, straight into…oblivion. We should be so lucky, you’re probably saying.

Hey, is that Trump melting down…again?

Rolling into the Labor Day weekend, Donald Trump was able to relax a little on Friday night with a ballroom of smitten women in downtown Washington.

He began the week with a controversy over Arlington National Cemetery and ended the week with what smelled like flip-flop on Florida’s abortion referendum. Mr. Trump needs votes from women, and the Arlington and abortion story lines aren’t exactly winners in that regard. So it was interesting to watch him working to firm up a part of his base, at the third annual convention of Moms for Liberty, a conservative group devoted to “parental rights.” He took a stab at addressing the Arlington mess, telling his cleaned-up version of events and whining about how persecuted he is. But mostly, he tried to offer what he thinks women want — Trump unfiltered. Which is, in his head, the ultimate winning strategy.

No doubt, everyone was in a partying mood. Everywhere you looked, there were women rocking Trump T-shirts and cocktail dresses, cowboy boots and stilettos, ponytails and MAGA hats. But Mr. Trump’s appearance raised the same question as his recent string of North Carolina rallies: If he’s spending time in safe spaces and once-safe states, when will he start trying to win over on-the-fence women and others who may decide the election?

Forgoing his usual rallies, the former president had agreed to a special “fireside chat” with Moms for Liberty. To signal how cozy and Oprah-esque this was going to be, a vase of red roses sat on a small table beside his large white armchair and the one occupied by Tiffany Justice, a co-founder of the group.

Before the event, Ms. Justice shared with me her hopes for the encounter. She wanted Mr. Trump to talk parental rights, of course, but she also wanted folks to see a softer side of him: “He’s a dad. He’s a grandfather. He loves his family. We’ve seen him working with his family in politics and business, right? I hope the American people get to know Donald Trump in a little bit of a different way. He’ll get to express his love for his family. I think that’s going to resonate with American voters.”

In theory, this was a brilliant opportunity for Team Trump, which is desperate to humanize the candidate and get him to talk policy rather than simply slag his political enemies.

In practice, the evening kept veering off course precisely as you’d expect.

Ms. Justice pitched plenty of softballs. Asserting that it was “obvious” Mr. Trump loves “being a father and grandfather,” she invited him to share why he continues ”to choose to work with your children in business and politics.”

Great time to talk about legacy or family bonds or what a crackerjack attack dog Don Jr. is, right? Wrong!

“I’ve always liked it. I don’t think that I’ll be doing it very much politically,” he says, noting how “unfair” it has been to the kids. Especially Ivanka. “Great student. Beautiful girl.” But everyone was mean to her when she was in the White House. She even gave up her superprofitable women’s wear line! And it’s not as though she wanted to be the “United Nations secretary” or ambassador — which he said he wanted her to do. But according to him, she said, “Daddy, I don’t want to do that. I just want to help people get jobs.” He rambled on about how she hired “millions of people during the course of her stay,” before grumpily concluding, “Nothing ever good. It was just very tough.”

Ms. Justice also invited Mr. Trump to talk about his mother.

“She was obviously a very strong woman. Was she hard on you with school?” she asked.

“No, she wasn’t,” said Mr. Trump. “I had a great mother, a great father.”

“Very different people,” he added, but they had a “great” marriage that lasted more than 60 years. “I said, Pop, I’m not going to be able to beat you with that,” he said, laughing.

One might assume that at a Moms for Liberty love-in, Mr. Trump would at least pay extra attention to parental rights. One would be mistaken. Now, to be fair, that phrase has become a bloated term applied to pretty much anything that happens around a school that conservatives dislike, from vaccine mandates to discussions of race to a book about the sexuality of sea horses. One member from California told me she had so far gotten 20 books pulled from the schools in her district.

But these days, trans issues are what really juice the faithful, and Mr. Trump nodded to that a few times. Asked about the power of the presidency to combat wokeness — “Well, you can do everything!” he crowed — he noted how “incredible” it is that “your kid goes to school and comes home a few days later with an operation.” Um, what? That said, he spent most of his time on the topic talking about Olympic athletes who had “transgendered” — spending extra energy smearing that Algerian boxer, who does not, in fact, identify as trans.

Details. Shmetails.

At one point, Mr. Trump went on a disjointed reminiscence about the many presidential debates he had participated in, culminating with the infamous face-off with President Biden this past June. “How did he do? He was sharp as a tack,” cracked the former president.

Quick as a bunny, Ms. Justice jumped in to head off his extended mockery. Many Americans know the pain of watching “as their family members have aged and experienced dementia,” she observed, heaping praise on Mr. Trump for handling the awkward moment with “such grace.”

Clearly at a loss, Mr. Trump babbled that he had been “surprised by a lot of things” and recalled that he had looked at Mr. Biden “for a brief moment” — which he hadn’t wanted to do, mind you, because he’s “angry at him” for doing such a “horrible job.” Then he was off and ranting about the awfulness of Kamala Harris and how unfair it is that, after spending so much time and money attacking Mr. Biden, he had to shift to her. “Turned out she didn’t work at McDonald’s!” he griped. (I’ll let you look up that faux outrage yourself.)

Now, Ms. Justice is no shrinking violet. During our talk, she dismissed and dodged any questions she disliked — such as her concerns about JD Vance’s penchant for insulting women — or tried to divert us onto more comfortable ground. Asked about the gender gap in the presidential race, she claimed not to understand what I meant. Then, as I started to explain, she interrupted: “So you mean ‘sex.’ Because there’s no such thing as gender,” she quipped, looking to draw me into a back-and-forth on gender identity rather than Mr. Trump’s lousy electoral track record with women.

It will surprise no one that in Ms. Justice’s tête-à-tête with Mr. Trump, the topic of abortion was avoided like … well, like the former president’s mention of any of his kids not named Ivanka.

Still, there was little Ms. Justice could do to keep Mr. Trump on track. Not that it mattered to anyone in the room. At evening’s end, the crowd inching toward the escalators was buzzing, and I chatted with some women thrilled simply to have been in the same room with their idol.

But as for the rest of America — all those women and men not already sold on the MAGA king — it’s hard to imagine they saw much of anything different in his fireside chattiness. At least not in a reassuring or humanizing direction.

Per The Daily Beast, Scaramucci recently appeared on the Meidas Touch podcast in which he discussed what he believed were Melania Trump's real feelings about the 2024 presidential campaign.

This sounds somewhat dubious. But I would love it to be verified true.
Melania 'hates' her husband and secretly hopes Kamala Harris wins: Ex-Trump official

Quote:

Per The Daily Beast, Scaramucci recently appeared on the Meidas Touch podcast in which he discussed what he believed were Melania Trump's real feelings about the 2024 presidential campaign.