After reviewing the psychologically useless piece, Behind the Curtain - How Trump's Mind Works a few months ago by Axios’ star reporters and founders Mike Allen and Jim VandeHei in Counter-Narcissist Cheat Codes: The Media, it is still shocking and disappointing that these highly respected pros would so normalize and conflate trump’s malignant narcissism into nothing more than some non-psychological superficial clickbait. It’s not as if the free press and global democracy are hanging in the balance. Oh, wait!
With the lost opportunity of that Axios piece in mind, and with constantly being told by corporate media that the polls are slightly favoring the malignant narcissist seemingly suffering from dementia over the competent, experienced, decent guy capable of empathy, and thus not a malignant narcissist, it seemed time to check in with the media’s psychological status again. Obviously, from a CNI perspective, so much more media utilizing counter-narcissist psychology is needed to help remove the existential narcissist blindfold that clearly exists over most of America and the world, to save our democracies.
Ironically or not, it is primarily the former Republican Never-trumpers who have consistently been the most unafraid to recognize the need to call a lie a lie and a malignant narcissist a malignant narcissist. Indeed they almost seem to be the only part of the media who somewhat consistently, fairly, and accurately speak in narcissist psychology terms about trump and the Christofascist clown show currently known as the Republican party. Remember, when it comes to narcissists, since reality is rarely on their side, reporting fairly and accurately about them is being mean and nasty to them in their dystopian inner life.
Of course there are a fair amount of liberals and progressives who do not like or trust Never-trump operations like the Bulwark, the Republican Accountability Project or the Lincoln Project for good and bad reasons, but from a CNI perspective, we must applaud and encourage them because we need them. We need everyone on Team Democracy standing up to this madness, and then we can go back to exercising our free speech rights in a free country to disagree on actual principled beliefs after.
As virtually the only pro-democracy political/media organizations who sometimes publicly utilize a more professional understanding of trump’s narcissist psychology and the psychology of what trumpism is really about in their reporting and commentary, they all get CNI A+ ratings in the saving democracy sliding psychological scale department, despite any past, present or future political differences.
Therefore, upon seeing the trump labeled “renegade Jew” Bill Kristol’s similarly titled Bulwark piece, Reading Trump's Mind, I was of course amused and curious to see if he utilized the narcissist psychology required to truly analyze trump’s “mind.” I was of course dubious as well, but hopeful.
Love him or hate him, Kristol is a very smart, well-educated, well-traveled, long-tenured, well-connected and happy conservative political animal, operative, writer, warrior, thought leader and commentator, so obviously reviewing his article about “reading trump’s mind” would at least be an update on how the Bulwark was doing in embracing the psychology.
Again, love him or hate him, the Lincoln Project’s George Conway is one of the very few politicos on TV who can speak fairly, eloquently and accurately about malignant narcissists, sociopaths and psychopaths in our midst, and since he is often interviewed on the Bulwark, the hope has been he would teach them how to incorporate more narcissist psychology into their reporting, since they seem eager and willing to go there from time to time.
Connective Note: Based on years of his ex-wife’s “alternative facts” trump supporting behaviors, it is hard not to suspect George arrived at his intuitive narcissist psychology certainty via the experience of being married to a narcissist, because he observed the behaviors up close, just as I was able to do with my friend’s sociopathic abuser.
However per Wikipedia, prior to marrying KellyAnne, he dated Laura Ingraham and he asked Ann Coulter to introduce him to KellyAnne, so with friends like those, Conway’s experiences with narcissists likely go back much farther than just being married to one, because they were apparently his type.
As much of the CNI community can attest, the vast majority of those with expertise on narcissists, sociopaths and psychopaths are those who have survived them, but that is also what makes CNI an outlier, because the knowledge gathered was in defense of others, in contrast to the necessity to save the self.
Not that one experience covers all experiences but obviously if you see something happen yourself, you know with certainty it happens and how it worked in your case.
That is part of why the CNI philosophy values few things more than honest certainty when strategizing how to successfully avoid, deflect, fight off and/or defeat narcissists, because we know narcissists are always certain they are right no matter how wrong they are.
Survivors also greatly need some certainty that there is hope, healing, and that they are on or can find the right path towards freedom, eventual happiness and perhaps even some justice along the way.
Connective Note: Perhaps the biggest part of recognizing the trauma, torment and classic gaslighting my friend had been going through, was they had lost all hope things could get better. This obviously made one of the biggest challenges be helping them get hope back, which is partly why CNI finds true certainties to hold onto to be so priceless in the endeavor.
“Reading Trump's Mind”
So after skimming a few paragraphs, I stopped and initially dismissed that Kristol would understand the true nature of trump’s narcissist psychology, like almost every other well-known American political analyst I have observed.
However, after a few minutes went by, as noted I realized it could be a good gauge of where former Republican Never-trumpers like the ones at the Bulwark are at in developing their own Counter-Narcissist Intelligence and awareness. I was certainly hoping for at least a palate cleanser after discovering the Axios stars went full corporate media, and were lost in some useless and enabling psychological universe, at least as far as warning about trump’s narcissism was concerned.
Here we go!
OK, I just read Kristol’s piece and the entire plan for this challenge shifted. The initial thought was to go point by point through his imagining of what is going on in trump’s brain and show where the psychology was being missed, misunderstood or just plain wrong, but that plan has been turned on its head, because the piece is far more political than psychological.
The good news is the plan went up in flames because with a political lens, Kristol’s piece makes some very good points and from a CNI perspective, I really didn’t notice any major psychological flaws, other than giving trump way too much credit for the depth of his thinking. However, adding higher levels of thinking to trump had a fairly effective political purpose so can’t really be faulted much either.
Therefore we can just give it a quick run through to cover the useful aspects and add a few key notes, addendums and corollaries, but overall the Bulwark gets a very positive CNI review of this piece of political and quasi-psychological intelligence, despite lacking any actual narcissist psychology.
Note: This piece is quite long due to being about a second article psychologically reviewed, so the way to cut the read time almost in half is to skip the block quotes and just read the notes, but be sure not to skip Sarah Longwell’s epic pulled quote.
Reading Trump’s Mind: ‘I’m Winning’ by William Kristol
“I gotta say this very strongly: I’m still winning.
All the crap they’ve tried—hasn’t changed a thing.
They got their conviction in their rigged trial in New York. Tony gave me a memo yesterday with poll results from that 528 website, or whatever it’s called. (Why do they call it that? A wacky name.) The trial made almost no difference. The day it began, I was up by 0.8 percent. The day before the verdict, I was ahead by 1.2 percent. Today it’s 1.1 percent. So I’m fine.”
As with almost every clinical-level narcissist, practically by definition they must constantly tell themselves they are winning and always a genius because they cannot psychologically handle anything other than believing they are the best at everything and are never wrong. Know anyone like that?
Of course they lose and are wrong a lot because reality is usually not on their side and they often vastly overestimate their capabilities due to their megalomania. That is why they at least subconsciously know they must believe in plausible “alternative facts” and realities, such as every time they lose they were cheated, and if they are ever wrong, it is always someone else’s fault.
In their minds, they are always let down and “victimized” by other people when they fail, and never get any help when they succeed, when almost always the opposite is true.
Narcissists are normally the incompetent losers who fail everyone, and in successes, they are usually the talentless anchors and cancers that hold greatness back. Perhaps many of you are familiar with these types of behaviors being prevalent in at least orange colored humans and their attached sucker fish.
As for trump’s thoughts on his felony conviction affecting the poll percentages, remember he is always winning in his mind, so psychology would indicate Kristol is giving trump too much credit for depth of thought, but it all seems very accurate regarding the thinking of the slightly more self-aware narcissists who are currently handling the trump psy-op.
Normally, giving trump too much credit for this kind of strategizing could be problematic but because trump is nearly the malignant narcissist avatar being sold to the real “losers and suckers” and not in any way the brains of the operation to destroy American democracy, revealing what those who function as trump’s brain are thinking can be useful, so no psychological complaints there either.
“There’s still the sentencing, on July 11. But if that horrible judge only gives me a slap on the wrist, we’ll say it proves that what I did was no big deal. And if he sentences me to prison—POLITICAL PERSECUTION! Can you imagine the energy at the Republican convention the next week?
So I think I’ve dodged that bullet. And the Supremes and Judge Cannon have done their job delaying everything else. All that legal crap has been a pain—but no real damage. Pretty goddamn amazing.”
Again, it is too much detail for trump’s mind and likely what GOP minions are saying and/or Kristol is thinking. For trump himself, everything is either total exoneration or total victimhood, or most likely vacillating between both. That is why his raw nerve ego must be psychologically maintained with the certainty that he will win, even after he loses, again.
Remember how his people in the White House gave him only good news to avoid his temper tantrums? Yep, it will be total victory and/or total victimhood, all over again.
Indeed delay is another narcissist standard procedure, but it will have never worked better in history than if this criminal, traitor, narcissist and demented lunatic gets saved from the lifetime in prison he deserves and instead gets to try to make himself king of America for life, if he and the Republicans get away with stealing the Presidency he is completely unfit for, again.
“I was also a little worried after Biden’s State of the Union three months ago. He did pretty well, I gotta admit. What drugs was he on? I gotta get some.”
This is very on-brand for trump in the sense that he does subconsciously project his own feebleness, dementia and likely amphetamine use onto Biden. trump’s ego requires him to believe that the only way Biden can do well in a speech like the State of the Union he knocked out of the park or in a debate against him, is with the assistance of amphetamines, just like his subconscious seems to know is true for him.
“Anyway, our guys were worried he’d capitalize on that with some consistent campaign themes, some catchy slogans, and some good gimmicks. Nope. No themes, no slogans, no gimmicks. Politics is slogans and gimmicks. They don’t seem to get that.”
Once again this is far deeper than trump’s feeble mind goes. This is however Kristol rightly sending a message to the Dem Presidential communications teams to get their act together. Ever since Reagan, it has been established the public does not really focus on more than three main themes at a time, which seems to be a lesson the Democrats as a party all too often forget, and get scattershot.
Today more than ever, thanks to the Republicans living in a corrupt, authoritarian alternate reality and our mainstream media and Supreme Court seemingly captured by self-serving right-wing billionaires who have no loyalty to America or our democracy, our politics, media, courts and divisions have indeed become little more than themes, slogans and gimmicks over substance to win elections, and will only get worse if not psychologically addressed and countered immediately.
“Our guys were worried about their money advantage for a while. And I guess Biden did spend tens of millions on ads in swing states. But no effect. And then thanks to the marks contributing after the trial verdict, and to the rich guys capitulating as I knew they would, we’re now okay on the money side.”
This also seems likely to be more of Kristol criticizing Dem swing-state spending, but perhaps also what trump’s people are saying, as if political people working for a demented narcissist should ever be trusted to tell the truth. No idea what is going on here but based on the polls, Dems definitely need to do a better job, and getting out three specific main themes or issues and sticking to them, would certainly be more memorable and much better marketing than what has been done.
In that spirit, the term may be out of fashion now but Bulwark publisher Sarah Longwell just dropped a nuclear truth bomb on the subject on a podcast the other day, that Dems really need to take to heart. Nobody is saying fight dirty like the GOP. What we keep saying is when one is fighting a completely dishonest narcissistic fire, one must fight that sinister fire with righteous fire, or we will be the only ones who get burned.
“The thing that gets me discombobulated in these moments is that I come from a Republican comms background. And the extent to which Republicans are able to create their own echo chamber, drive a narrative, make everybody live in their reality, is like part of the way Republicans do communications.
And, I think when I sit here and I watch Democrats wring their hands about whether or not they like go on offense about donald trump being convicted of a felony, and they’re like, “I don’t know, should we? Wouldn’t want to politicize this.” I’m like, “What are you guys doing? What are you doing? What do you mean? What do you mean you’re like not sure? And OK fine don’t have Joe Biden do it. Have every other Democratic surrogate do it. I don’t care.” But you know this is one of my big complaints, that there’s not nearly enough of a surrogate game.
If the roles were reversed, if Biden was convicted of a felony, if Hunter Biden is convicted of a felony, like game over Republicans will never stop and they won’t just do it for a couple days. They have the discipline to be relentless about their narrative, for a long period of time. Democrats sort of can’t seem to hold it for just like long stretches, and keep the stories maintained.” - Sarah Longwell - Bulwark podcast - 6/8/24
“Biden’s guys had chances. Nikki stayed in for a while and caused some trouble. It’s amazing Biden didn’t even reach out to her and try to keep her neutral, like that creep Pence. And then the really bad guys, like Christie and Cheney and John Kelly and Romney—I guess Biden’s guys don’t have time for them? Great.”
This is likely Kristol’s own bias and going a bit too far in thinking that Dems would benefit from reaching out to former trumpers, You know, people who only realized after working for him that he is a completely unfit demented narcissist whose loyalty is only a one-way street.
What were the Dems or the pro-democracy / anti-trump coalition going to effectively reach out to Nikki Haley with? A person with so little conviction that after she verbally destroyed trump’s fitness to be president on the Republican primary campaign trail, she endorsed him shortly after dropping out. The negatives of allying with such a horrible person seem to far outweigh the positives. Seriously Bill, who and what is there to reach out to?
Then of course there is the sometimes sane, sometimes kleptocrat, often clownish limp biscuit Mitt Romney, who recently said Biden should pardon trump. Really Mittens? And what value is there in reaching out to Chris Christie or John Kelly. If they are the patriots they claim to be, they will work to save our democracy like the rest of us because it is the right thing any good American should do, regardless of whether the Dems reached out to stroke our egos or not.
“So here we are. I’m still ahead by a point. But I bet I’m really up more than that. In 2016 and 2020 I ran a few percent ahead of the final polls on election day.
And I lost to Biden in 2020 by four and half points. (Yes, I lost. Can you believe how many people went along with that Stop the Steal bullshit?) So I’m running more than five points ahead of 2020.
Which means I can win all the swing states, including Nevada. I was there yesterday. Man, it was hot. But the crowd was good. They loved that thing about how we’re not going to let the IRS tax income from tips when we get back in. Let’s see how Biden does with restaurant and hotel employees after this—and not just in Nevada.
I can also win Minnesota. They showed me some story about some pro-Hamas guy being appointed head of Holocaust studies at the university there. Can you believe it? Even that liberal Norm guy who loves the Swamp and hates me attacked them on that. Gotta schedule another rally up there.”
Déjà vu, this seems more like Kristol is giving trump too much credit for caring about or even understanding the nuances of polls. Again, it is likely what trump’s people are saying or what Kristol is thinking.
Every moment a pathological narcissist like trump is polling himself to see if he can make it to the next moment, hour or day without narcissistically raging at someone or something, because if they are not winning in reality, they at least must be winning in their own minds, or else…
Hence, trump has to constantly tell himself he is always winning hugely in the polls and in everything, no matter the reality. One very important fact and detail too many fail to realize and/or process is that as much as trump lies to everyone else, he lies to himself even more, as do all malignant and grandiose narcissists, by definition.
You know, I was worried when summer came and the idiot students went home, the colleges wouldn’t be as good an issue for me. But they’re keeping the idiocy going. I do need to talk to the guys about intensifying the attack on the colleges. Thank God for college lefties: When I was a kid, they elected Reagan in 1966 and Nixon in 1968. They can do it again.
Per pattern, this thinking is too deep for trump and is likely what Kristol is understandably concerned about.
“I’ve got two decisions to make over the next month.
The debate’s scheduled for June 27. Of course I can beat Joe in the debate. And it’s only on CNN, not like those debates in the past that were on all the stations.
So maybe I should do it? But I don’t think so. Why risk it? I’m ahead, he’s got no real cards left to play—and what if they drug him up and he looks energetic and capable? What if I have an off night? If I get out of it, he has no national stage until the Democratic convention in August—and that will be a shitshow even if Roger wasn’t already working on making it even more of one.
So I think I’ll just keep on talking about how Joe has to take a drug test before the debate, and say that of course I’m willing to take one. The media will ridicule this, but the idea that Joe is dependent on drugs will sink in some. And I’ll pull out of the debate a couple of days before, after Biden’s wasted a week studying up for it, and it won’t happen. I won’t pay a price.”
It’s simple. If trump is convinced he doesn’t need the debate he likely won’t do it, but if he subconsciously knows his polls are slipping, he probably will. The key to the latter part of this question is how functional he really is, because with the constant gibberish that comes out of his mouth, sometimes the answer is not at all.
However, it will also be almost impossible for the grandiose narcissist to give up so much attention and not be totally certain he will win, because of his arrogance. In fact, it is a step too far to think any doubt of his imagined debating greatness would creep into his conscious mind for more than a millisecond. Remember, a narcissist must always be winning in their own mind, or it may trigger a psychological collapse.
“Then there’s my VP pick. I’ll torture Rubio and Scott some more, but I’m not taking them. Burgum would be safe. But Vance has been a hell of an attack dog the last few weeks. And he’s a veteran, which could help. Maybe Cotton combines a little bit of the best of Burgum and Vance? Dunno, but I’ll keep the suspense going. Maybe I’ll announce the pick on the day of the sentencing in New York, the Thursday before the convention? Leave the courtroom to go straight to Trump Tower to unveil the nominee? Wonder if that would be a good idea?
Well, I’ve got plenty of time to decide that. But anyway, like I said last time I dictated my thoughts for Morning Shots (which is kind of fun, maybe I’ll do it more often):”
trump is most likely thinking, “Why do I need a VP? When I’m the Furor, I’ll eliminate that useless job and name Ivanka Crown Princess, because she is the only person in the world I can half stand or trust.”
“Screw them all. Revenge and retribution are gonna be sweet. I’m gonna do it.”
Like all good writers, Kristol sticks the landing.
Conclusions
As noted in the intro there is really very little of Kristol’s reading of trump’s mind to criticize because his only real psychological errors are giving demented narcissist trump too much credit for nuanced and coherent thought, but there is purpose behind it.
While there is little to no reference to narcissist psychology itself, politically he seems to have pretty much nailed it, because what it all does sound like is either what trump’s handlers are saying, or are Kristol’s own very understandable worries and efforts to try to shame soft Democratic strategists into bringing some big guns and toughness to this upcoming gunfight at the OK (for democracy to survive) Corral.
Sadly, it is hard to argue against this sentiment because many Democratic institutionalists still do not seem to be giving Biden enough help via surrogates with righteous fire, or do not truly understand that the now non-reality-based, morally fake, sadistic, Christofascist Republican Party led by a brainless egomaniac, are going in for the authoritarian kill. Indeed they are far closer to that possibility than they should have ever been allowed to be, and Biden needs our help. CNI joins Bill Kristol, Sarah Longwell, the Bulwark and many more in saying pretty please…
As is often noted, one of the most fundamental misunderstandings about narcissists is that most people do not really understand their hidden obsessive compulsive nature that drives narcissists every moment of every day, to protect their counter-intuitively oh so fragile psyches, egos and shockingly low levels of self-esteem, beyond the superficial signaling of the opposite.
This kind of lifelong personality disorder is an endless feedback loop and alternate reality that the vast majority of pathological narcissists can never admit is a problem to anyone, but especially themselves.
In the end, most are stuck trying to fill the emptiness inside themselves with shiny objects like money, wealth, gaudy homes, high fashion, flashy jewelry, fast cars, beautiful people and power, but since happiness comes from within, few if any narcissists ever seem to find it for more than a few fleeting moments, even when they seem to have it all.
If you really want to “read trump’s mind,” CNI’s most popular piece, the trump playbook is an illusion will take you there in a psychologically educational way we need to see much more of in the mainstream and corporate media, if our democracies and individual rights are going to survive the narcissistic, sociopathic and psychopathic onslaught every free person is currently facing.
In the meantime, if you could use a laugh from a splash of reality, here is a live look inside trump’s brain and how his total mental processing power is two fireflies in a jar.
At the end of the day: "And what value is there in reaching out to Chris Christie or John Kelly. If they are the patriots they claim to be, they will work to save our democracy like the rest of us because it is the right thing any good American should do, regardless of whether the Dems reached out to stroke our egos or not."
Well, his skull is full of bats, so there IS NO BRAIN...but this is still an excellent essay.