Counter-Narcissist Cheat Codes: The Media

How and why serious journalists normalize trump’s malignant narcissism.

It often feels like “beating a dead horse” when pointing out how clueless the vast majority of the media seems to be when it comes to understanding and accurately portraying trump and all the other toxic yet relevant narcissists from a psychological perspective.

Sadly, for years I have seen most of those dead horses reanimate every morning with some fresh new useless trash that continues to hide and protect every society’s malignant narcissists, sociopaths and psychopaths, by making it appear that they do not exist, except as serial killers or some other form of extremely rare human aberration.

The truth is when you start adding up the numbers, a fair amount of scientific research tells us that those who would classify as Cluster B (aka a pathological narcissist) if they were tested could reach as high as 15% or more in every nation’s population. Obviously, in nations with long histories of trauma, a great current trauma, or both, whatever the most accurate percentage is, empirical psychology indicates their clinical narcissist percentages would almost certainly be dramatically higher.

Global perspective: Russia, Israel and Palestine seem to come to mind to varying degrees. What the peoples of these three proud cultures have in common is they have a long history and memory of societal trauma and are also currently experiencing enormous stress and trauma, regardless of who is to blame.

As human history tells us over and over, when narcissists lead, it is always the people who pay the egomaniacs bills in pain, suffering and death. We recently experienced that here when 100s of thousands more than necessary died of Covid because it was not convenient for the re-election lies that an orange clown narcissist who played a president on TV wanted to trick people into believing.

As discussed in how the news is psychologically broken and how to fix it, the amount of trauma porn in the MSM does tell us that some of the reason why the news is psychologically broken is due to the quests for cheap ratings, profits and not just the worst of all, authoritarian grooming and conditioning.

Additionally, a well established data point in CNI philosophy is that almost all of the best journalists and most other experts across every field consistently reveal they exist in a space somewhere in-between complete ignorance of pathological narcissism and the inability to accurately and confidently incorporate even the most basic empirical narcissist psychology into their areas of expertise.

The reason I know this truth so clearly is because I too used to exist in the same psychologically ignorant space until forced to figure it out, to rescue a friend from a sociopath’s web. Thankfully, that experience has made trump completely transparent since he arrived on the political scene in 2015 and brings a lot of clarity on how to get America and the world out of the sociopathic and psychopathic webs we find ourselves in.

On the bright side, many more Americans have woken up to the destructive nature of most corporate news and are speaking out about how too much mainstream media is often nothing more than a waste of time, unless you are into trauma porn that triggers, you enjoy self-gaslighting, you fanboy or fangirl the most narcissistic Reality TV melodrama, or you like other forms of poisonous clickbait idiocy that agenda driven corporate media still falsely portrays as “news” on a daily basis.

CNI Warning: If we as societies cannot get accurate and nuanced “news and information” we can trust very soon, malignant narcissists, sociopaths and psychopaths will end up killing us all, or will turn our societies into idiocracies, thus putting humans well on our way to extinction.

Of course if you can support the CNI think tank and other publications that do their best to counter the corporate media’s selling of their self-serving fascism and authoritarianism to America and the world, we can all certainly use the help, and thus greatly appreciate any kind of support you can give.

To be fair, the societal inability to merge expertise with empirical narcissist psychology is a primary contributor to our global narcissism epidemic, and as regular readers know, CNI holds the APA institutionally responsible for the sad psychological state we are in. This is most of the answer to “why” journalists and most other “experts” consciously or unconsciously normalize almost all of the existentially dangerous and disordered minds threatening every free society and the future of humanity itself. Few have the knowledge to do so accurately and confidently enough to defend themselves against partisan attacks on their conclusions or any APA backlash accusing them of going unethically out of their lane.

The proof is in the fact that instead of educating the public about how trump has one of the most transparently weak and obviously malignantly narcissistic brains the world has ever seen and how he is clearly psychologically unfit to run anything except maybe his Spotify playlist, nearly the entire media continues to send out more trash into the world that normalizes him, thus enabling a demented toxic abuser to continue to gaslight, scam, fool, trick and prey on the people they claim to be ethically informing. Worst of all, this inability of journalists to articulate the psychological truth may very well cost us global democracy, but no pressure.

Blah, blah, blah. I’m a genius. I’m rich. Everyone loves me. Go MAGA!

The trigger

As you can imagine, when I checked Axios recently, I got a bit excited when I saw the headline of the top Axios story, “Behind the Curtain - How Trump's Mind Works” by two journalists I have respected for at least two decades. Unfortunately, my excitement quickly turned to dust and immediately triggered the visceral responses and questions: Really Mike Allen and Jim VandeHei? I have always thought of you guys as top-level journalists. WTF is this trash about “How trump's mind works?”

The journalists

For those who do not know them, VandeHei built a strong career that led to him being a national reporter and White House correspondent for the Washington Post. In 2006, he co-founded Politico. Allen was Politico’s long established chief political reporter and ran their highly successful “Playbook.” They left Politico in 2016 to start the Axios news site.

In a bit of fact-checking irony for this commentary about an unworthy Axios article, Wikipedia states “The site's name is based on the Greek: ἄξιος, meaning ‘worthy.’” Do not get me wrong. Although I have not seen them often the last few years, they have always seemed like skilled, honest and intuitive journalists, so it pains me to identify any of their work as being unworthy. Indeed the contradiction between such a piece of normalizing trash and the reputations of those who put it out triggered the desire to call out this and all other ways the MSM normalizes trump and many other malignantly disordered minds.

WTF is this trash?

To establish what a great cheat code CNI can be, it only took the first two sentences of their article to completely reveal that these top-notch journalists have little to no knowledge of how narcissist psychology works or like the APA, seems to be pretending these "clear and present danger" existential threats to humanity’s future do not exist. Either way, what folly!

“Former President Trump thinks, talks and acts like no other politician in our lifetime.”

While I personally would debate it, let us move forward and just accept that it can be reasonably argued that no other politician in our lifetime talks and acts the way trump does from a certain point of view. However, to say that no other politician “in our lifetime” “thinks” like trump is where this superficial house of cards fluff-piece psychologically falls apart and immediately turns to trash from a CNI perspective.

As covered in the trump playbook is an illusion, a similar mistake is made every time the MSM calls something trump says or does as part of his “playbook.” Seemingly by every measure, virtually everything trump has ever said or done has perfectly mirrored the traits, tells, symptoms and pathologies of an individual that has the comorbidity of Narcissistic Personality Disorder (clinical narcissists) and Antisocial Personality Disorder (sociopaths and psychopaths). It is all pretty obvious once you can recognize that trump and many around him are running on what are various forms of fairly textbook malignantly narcissistic default programming.

Predatory narcissists should come with this warning.

As was just covered in The Most Fundamental Misunderstanding About Narcissists, it seems most of the world really does not understand that there are a-holes who can change and grow and then there are pathological narcissists who have a psychological disorder that causes them to be selfish, shameless, and relentlessly toxic predators who are remorseless in lying, cheating and stealing to help themselves, no matter who or what it hurts.

In other words, just like most journalists ignorantly assume trump’s words and actions are part of a playbook instead of recognizing them as the empirical narcissist symptoms and pathologies of NPD and ASPD that they almost certainly are, Allen and VandeHei are clearly missing that we have had plenty of malignant narcissist, sociopath and psychopath politicians in our lifetime, who “think” and act almost exactly like trump.

It is only the highly practiced superficial public persona of a narcissist that makes them seem like very different people, when they really are very similar in their traits, tells, behaviors, symptoms and lack of prospects for serious improvement. Despite appearances and nuance, those who have spent a lifetime pathologically serving themselves usually all end up in the same kinds of predictable destinations.

At their core, “It is all about me” - 24 / 7 / 365. For the most part, trump and those like him do not go any deeper than that. They will all present facades that make them appear different, but again the way they all think at their core is, I want and deserve everything in the whole world I want, or at least in my world I control, because I am the greatest at everything and I must dominate or I will be dominated. It is circular BS but it is how most of them think and why no one can usually penetrate it.

You know the type. It is all about me and I will shamelessly do anything to help myself and make money. Two words, Rod Blagojevich. Nine more words, Sarah Palin, Matt Gaetz, Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert, to name but a few. Indeed most to all people like these think mostly in the same narcissistic ways as trump, which is why narcissists of a feather have flocked together under the Republican banner. Yes, trump’s narcissistic behaviors and like-mindedness (aka symptoms in clinical pathology) are why it was so ridiculous and in complete factual error for VandeHei and Allen to say “no other politician in our lifetime” thinks like trump.

How the media normalizes trump’s obvious malignant narcissism

We need go no further than the second sentence of the piece to remarkably reveal two more examples of narcissist psychology ignorance.

“There's a Rosetta stone that demystifies how his mind works, his closest friends tell us: his Mar-a-Lago Spotify playlist.”

This line is ridiculous because like all malignant narcissists, trump has no close friends. Malignant-types of narcissists like trump do not see other humans as humans. They see us all as tools to use, so it is completely ignorant on its face to claim trump has “close friends.” Too much?

Who are trump’s closest friends and do they really count as “close friends” or merely very familiar transactional creatures? Roger Stone, Rudy Giuliani, Steve Bannon, Stephen Miller? Sure seems like a bunch malignantly narcissistic lunatics one and all, right?

Certainly a narcissist’s minions, flying monkeys and co-conspirators want to believe they are or will claim to be close friends with their master or partner in crime, but empirical psychology says that is almost always a lie or delusion.

This fallacy is also humanizing the inhuman trump by helping him create the illusion he has friends let alone close friends, which is why this second line like the first line is a psychologically incorrect dumpster fire. As for his maralago Spotify playlist being a “Rosetta stone that demystifies how his mind works” for Axios readers, what a load of crap.

I suppose when the first line of an article establishes that the writers have no idea what trump’s narcissist psychology is, it is pretty much expected that they would continue to arrive at old information, logical fallacies and deep inaccuracies, in their attempt to claim to understand trump, when they so clearly do not.

Indeed it is not surprising but yes disappointing that these two smart journalists have apparently still not figured out trump consistently does perfect impressions of malignant narcissists, sociopaths and sometimes psychopaths after all these years, every minute of every day. More importantly, they reveal how narcissist psychology disappointingly played no part in even guiding their reporting of, “how trump’s mind works.”

Remember, trump is the man who early in his presidential campaign said, "I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn't lose any voters, OK?", a man who’s inauguration speech was about “American Carnage” and now he is working his way up to grooming his cult for an American “blood bath.”

Does this sound like someone whose mind can be understood by the general public via his Spotify list behavior? Ridiculous!

Musical psychology? Really?

Even if we go to the article’s named songs, they tell us nothing new nor demystify trump’s mind by one iota more than what we already know about him, from his big mouth and his years of toxic clownhood in the public eye.

Without going too deep to match the article’s lack of depth, when viewing the playlist through trump’s most obvious narcissist pathologies, limited brain power and a very basic CNI primal filter, trump seems to be telling us and everyone he thinks he is "Jesus Christ Superstar,” but subconsciously he knows he is much more the creepy Phantom of the Opera.”

”Nothing Compares 2 U,” is of course the narcissist thinking of himself while also telling us about his very obsessive thoughts on women, what he tells every one of them and how he wants what he wants, because nothing compares to “the precious,” himself. There is more but why ruin a good song and connect any more trump ickiness to my beloved Gen X warrior for truth Sinead O’Conner, because there is no doubt she would hate trump with the burning hellfire of a billion suns.

"Suspicious Minds" is probably the song he always plays to trick the women he cheats on. From his POV, he also seems to be telling us that since he is a predator who has likely never been faithful to anyone including his three wives, he has his own very suspicious mind that never trusts anyone to be faithful to him either, unless he can somehow have power over them. However, since "It's A Man's Man's Man's World,” and he has been a spoiled brat rich kid who never faced any responsibility his entire life, as he confessed on audio tape, he thinks he is entitled to do whatever he wants because he is a “star.”

Back to “how trump’s mind works” is trash

In yet more old, obvious, unhelpful information and nonsense being reported, they say, “His campaign rallies and interviews are no different. The playlist rarely shifts: The election was stolen ... The "deep state" hates him ... Build the wall ... Biden is senile ... and true oldies: "Lock her up!" Unlike other politicians, he doesn't pivot or mix up his speech topics very much. That's why his rallies often feel like reruns.”

Really? We had no idea trump never changes and gets excited when he is in control of something. By definition, one could call this behavior pathological, or as my lifelong friend Ken A. once put it, “he’s a one-trick pony.” Back in 2016, I disagreed with Ken and said, “no, he’s a narcissist.”

On a positive note, I suppose this article does help prove that we were both right. trump has never shown any indication he is not a narcissist and like all narcissists, he keeps using the same tricks over and over until someone or some other kind of firm barrier like the law stops him. Gee, what a surprise the constantly criming trump is trying to attain “absolute immunity.”

The reason his songs and political routines almost always remain the same is because by definition, the pathological are compulsively driven to do the same things over and over, unless forced to stop or change by a firm barrier.

The reason “the music is always big names…people recognize" is because predatory narcissists learn what tools help them trick and seduce their prey into thinking they are “normal” humans and not psychic vampires only out for themselves, and good music in a place “with a warm wind blowing the stars around” certainly seduces.

If a pathological narcissist helps you, it is pretty much the rule that the only reason they are doing it is because it benefits them in some way, such as winning your trust to set you up for a future betrayal. Narcissists are the kings and queens of virtue signaling, because of course how else are they going to get people to trust them other than by tricking them into thinking they are trustworthy. Otherwise, people might figure out that despite virtue signaling, they will always compulsively put their dysfunctional needs and wants first, second, last and always.

Indeed the entire Axios article is another rerun that teases insight, yet in the end, a tease is all it was. There was no substantive “behind the curtain” or any new and useful information at all about “how trump’s mind works.” Sadly, I went from excitement to realizing there was virtually nothing new or insightful I was able to take away from this superficial claptrap, other than it being a prime example of how even top players in the media are failing us psychologically.

Worse still, this nothingness gave all the Axios readers a false normalized impression of how trump’s mind works.

The article claims, “Why it matters: To those who know him best, Trump spinning through his golden oldies provides a telling lens into his style on much bigger stages. It captures his obsession with a few familiar hits — controlling the volume, never changing.”

I truly do not understand why these two intelligent guys think it is OK to call what we have all been seeing for at least eight years, taking us “behind the curtain.” Everybody knows trump is going to be control-freak trump. Clearly what most journalists do not know or pretend not to know is that, “you gotta let trump be trump” because of his narcissist pathology.

It is pretty simple. Just as they noted, he gets excited every time he is in control of his playlist, but on the flip side, CNI dictates that every time he cannot do what he wants to, he cannot stop himself from throwing a tantrum, no matter what it costs him (See E. Jean Carroll). If you really look behind the narcissist’s curtain, you will learn that “how trump’s mind works” is pathologically (maladaptively and compulsively).

MSM continues to fail us psychologically

Did VandeHei and Allen even use the word “narcissist?” Of course not. If they had, I would have likely let this fluff piece go and given them an A for effort, for trying to do the right thing and being on the free and brave path.

At this inflection point in human history, every time anyone in the media claims they are taking their readers, listeners or viewers “Behind the Curtain” of “how trump's mind works,” but does not even use the word “narcissist,” they are failing America and global democracy itself. Too much?

Axios’ big insights in April 2024 are that trump wants to control everything, has the same playlist no matter the stage, he defaults to his favorite golden oldies, he sticks with them, and never changes. Seriously, how is any of this new or insightful?

Gee, what a surprise this describes what everyone who has paid attention to trump already knows. Coincidentally, Axios described just about every other pathological narcissist ever as well without knowing it, because of course pretty much every pathological narcissist also wants to control everything and never changes unless forced. Wow, everything about trump makes sense now. Not!

Sincerely, I have no idea what they were trying to do or accomplish with, “Behind the Curtain: How Trump's mind works.” It makes psychologically ignorant assumptions that I want to believe were unintentionally misleading at best, or clickbait trash at worst, because their piece is a complete waste of time other than being a prime example of how our top journalists are blind to trump’s obvious narcissist psychology. How disappointing!

Conclusions

Because Allen and VandeHei are normally very good journalists, it was shocking to me that in a piece called “How Trump's mind works,” there is virtually nothing useful about how trump's mind works in it. It literally gives zero new useful insight to me or likely anyone because they never connected trump’s behaviors and supposed insights to any deeper psychology whatsoever. If you really want to understand how trump’s mind works, the Dr. Bandy X. Lee approved trumpism is narcissism and CNI’s the trump playbook is an illusion are strong places to start.

Yes, over the years I have come to respect VandeHei and Allen as upper echelon journalists, but in a way that is the point. These highly educated, skilled and experienced media figures like almost all the others show us they are either naively or purposely in the dark about the current cabal of global narcissists who will compulsively end up destroying us all, unless we bring an end to their tyranny.

While I despise it when journalists say “we must take them at their word,” because there are millions of narcissists who think very much like trump and have proven repeatedly that they should never be taken at their word, since I have observed Allen and Vandehei being generally honest, insightful, accurate and successful journalists for a very long time, I am willing to assume their worst possible motive was doing the Maggie Haberman, aka fluff pieces for continued access to trumpworld. If they did do this piece for access, it is weak, pathetic and it may cost us our democracy in November, and the same goes for clickbait profit motives, but hey, it must be a good short-term business decision.

In yet another bit of irony, per Wikipedia, “In early 2016, it was announced that VandeHei was leaving Politico after the presidential election. In April he abruptly left…and penned a piece in The Information about the current vapid state of media, the downward spiral of chasing clicks, and the media's future.”

Again, it is not the end of the world that they put out this trash, but it contributes to pushing us towards the end of the world by a complete failure to accomplish the article’s stated goal. To normalize what are now obvious telltale signs of a demented lunatic’s compulsive psychological disorder, is frankly very poor journalism.

Even worse, after all these years of access to insider insights and top experts in psychology, they still don’t see the need to really go behind the real psychological curtain to help the voters better understand trump’s lifelong pattern of malignant narcissism, and how he appears to check every single box for clinical level narcissistic personality disorder and antisocial personality disorder. That is how one really goes behind the curtain to show how trump’s mind works. Whatever their reasoning or innocent mistake, let us hope VandeHei and Allen will make Axios “worthy” again.

Unfortunately, ever since becoming fairly proficient in understanding empirical narcissist psychology in the late 2000s, the pattern I have consistently seen throughout the media from almost all of my favorite journalists, pundits, commentators, subject-matter experts and everyone I have trusted to get my news and expert information from for decades, has seemingly out of fear, ignorance or misguided ethics, been following the Goldwater rule, or all of the above.

I know this because just like VandeHei and Allen did, I have witnessed almost all my favorites also consistently self-identify in their spoken and written words that they are either unwilling or unable to have or use any serious psychological knowledge or insights, which obviously makes for a severely lacking and incomplete analysis. Because of this inability to act regardless of reason, the media contributes almost nothing in helping to inform the public about what they need to know to protect themselves from predatory narcissists like trump.

By making the choice to avoid connecting humanity’s darkest psychology disorders of narcissism, sociopathy and psychopathy with the authoritarian forces trying to destroy lives and democracies, the MSM are unwittingly helping dark forces to remain hidden until they are ready to attempt another insurrection after their practice run of January 6th 2021. Obviously, this is an even bigger problem if you have narcissists, sociopaths and psychopaths trying to steal your democracy while controlling one of your country’s two major political parties.

The hope is these smart, clever and well-known reporter/pundits and all serious journalists will see sooner rather than later that they need to add a narcissist psychology perspective to their toolbox when reporting on trump and his party of flying monkeys, so they no longer mislead the public in “how trump’s mind works,” and what we need to do about it as a free society. Nothing less than the first amendment, America and the future of global democracy depends on it. Again, no pressure MSM, unless you love free speech or your job depends on it.

Ladies and gentleman of the free press and every other relevant industry, if you want us all to stay free, you need to learn about and report on the existentially dangerous narcissist psychology present in many of those you are currently reporting on, or you are just aiding and abetting the programming of your fellow Americans and global citizens by those who want to destroy democracy, make us all submit to their “dominance,” and take over the world, unless we stop them. Tick tock. No pressure.

Definitely check out the cult classic “They Live” if you have not.