The trump playbook is an illusion
Narcissist psychology explains everything.
There is a very common misconception among the media, journalists and political commentators that trump has a political playbook, but the idea of a trump “playbook” is an illusion.
I can guess what many are thinking at the moment. “What is he talking about? Of course trump has a playbook. We see it in action all the time, and now have several other Republicans who have been following the trump playbook like Ron DeSantis and Vivek Ramaswamy.”
Does the following list match up with the trump playbook?
Have an unreasonably high sense of self-importance and require constant, excessive admiration.
Feel that they deserve privileges and special treatment.
Expect to be recognized as superior even without achievements.
Make achievements and talents seem bigger than they are.
Be preoccupied with fantasies about success, power, brilliance, beauty or the perfect mate.
Believe they are superior to others and can only spend time with or be understood by equally special people.
Be critical of and look down on people they feel are not important.
Expect special favors and expect other people to do what they want without questioning them.
Take advantage of others to get what they want.
Have an inability or unwillingness to recognize the needs and feelings of others.
Be envious of others and believe others envy them.
Behave in an arrogant way, brag a lot and come across as conceited.
Insist on having the best of everything — for instance, the best car or office.
Perhaps this list also sounds a lot like the trump playbook too?
Ignoring right and wrong.
Telling lies to take advantage of others.
Not being sensitive to or respectful of others.
Using charm or wit to manipulate others for personal gain or pleasure.
Having a sense of superiority and being extremely opinionated.
Having problems with the law, including criminal behavior.
Being hostile, aggressive, violent or threatening to others.
Feeling no guilt about harming others.
Doing dangerous things with no regard for the safety of self or others.
Being irresponsible and failing to fulfill work or financial responsibilities.
Aggression toward people and animals.
Here is the thing about both of these lists. They may look and sound a lot like a trump playbook but they are the symptoms used to determine if someone has a clinical personality disorder at the Mayo Clinic. The first is the list for Narcissistic Personality Disorder. A person is considered to have NPD if they have just five behaviors on the list. By my count since 2015, trump is a 10 out of 10 on all 13 symptoms listed. That is why I often refer to him as the poster-child for NPD.
The second list is for Antisocial Personality Disorder (sociopaths and psychopaths). The Mayo website does not give a number of symptoms needed to prove ASPD. It just states they happen “repeatedly,” but that is not an issue here because these are his daily patterns of abusive behavior, thus he is again 10 out of 10 on all symptoms listed.
In other words, the trump playbook is no playbook at all. All his words and actions coincidentally seem to align with all the symptoms and tells of an extremely pathologically disordered mind that should have never gotten close to sniffing the Presidency. Personally, I would be highly dubious of anyone in the psychological field who has stayed silent because the psychology should be obvious for anyone trained.
Worst of all, trump would not have gotten close to power if the American Psychiatric Association fulfilled its duty to protect the public instead of essentially putting a de facto gag order on everyone in the psychological, media and academic fields. You know, just the people best suited to educate the public about those with seemingly obvious personality disorders, like trump.
As you were reading the lists, did you also compare them to trump and think he is nearly a 10 out of 10 on every single item on both lists yourself? i.e. The trump playbook is “acting” exactly like someone who shows at least several symptoms of NPD and/or ASPD. Interestingly, the four pillars of malignant narcissism are NPD, ASPD, Paranoia and Sadism. If you accept that paranoia and sadism are foundational parts of trump’s personality too, it looks like we agree the evidence points to trump being a malignant narcissist, at a minimum.
This will hopefully clarify for you trump does not have any plays at all. Virtually everything he says and does is out of a malignant narcissist’s playbook, which in reality is almost all internal psychological pre-programmed reactions, compulsions and defense mechanisms to his inside traumas and/or outside stimuli.
That is why it is fascinating (and disappointing) when so many “experts” say someone in politics like Ron DeSantis or Vivek Ramaswamy is following the trump political playbook, when the trump playbook is nothing more than the manifestation of his grandiose and malignant narcissist behaviors acting themselves out on his imaginary version of the Reality TV show known as American politics.
Ergo, if anyone is said to be “following the trump playbook,” they are in fact revealing their own psychological disorder on the narcissism spectrum, or showing how good they are at impersonating most if not all the symptoms of someone negatively high up on the spectrum in pursuit of power, money, attention and/or fame. Coincidentally or not, these are the exact same things most narcissists, sociopaths and psychopaths shamelessly try to acquire, so in the end and to civil society, what is the difference?
That’s right. Despite all appearances, trump and virtually everyone who follows his “playbook” have no organizing principles beyond a thirst for power, wealth, attention and/or fame, and have no offensive or defensive strategies or beliefs in politics other than protecting themselves and advancing their own personal interests via narcissistic abuse, superficial charm, lies, love bombing or anything else that will get them what they want, need, desire or crave.
Virtually everything trump says or does is a narcissistic abuse or fear reaction based on his antisocial pathologies, which means that when it is said that anyone is following the trump playbook, that assessment is superficial, naive and misleading.
What is happening is they are acting out their own similar yet personalized antisocial versions of the narcissist’s default programing. This is a playbook that has existed since the dawn of humans, because there have always been a percentage of brains born without consciences (psychopaths) and even more who had childhood traumas so horrible it broke them, thus creating new generations of narcissists and sociopaths.
Indeed, DeSantis and Ramaswamy like trump follow the narcissist’s playbook, but there are no real plays in this book either. There only appears to be plays with all the patterns to recognize and predictable behaviors to observe.
We know this to be true because narcissists normally run on well-established, life-long cravings, needs, fears, insecurities, desires, compulsions and many other combinations of negative patterns of their pathological behaviors and emotions, or lack thereof, so what appears to be plays are in fact usually pre-programmed reactions.
Until this concept is fully processed, one does not really understand the depth of the various clinical narcissistic personality disorders that permeate every country’s politics and how compulsive reaction is at the core of how every narcissist, sociopath and psychopath primarily acts in every political, business and social situation.
Ramaswamy was just the latest new flavor and provider of an increased dose of narcissistic supply required to feed the bottomless cravings of the GOP/Fox News created, trump stolen, conservative cult of the most ignorant, grandiose and pathetic narcissism America has to offer.
DeSantis thought that he would be the new leader of this idiocracy of selfishness and cruelty but thankfully his microscopic charisma only works on the vapid, vacuous and nefarious “nattering nabobs of negativism” in Florida.
Sure there are those in the media who spout the semi-regular worthless comments of, “everyone who goes into politics is a bit of a narcissist,” or “it takes high levels of narcissism to succeed in politics,” but there is almost never any psychological follow-up or distinction made between healthy and unhealthy levels, or the malignant and benign forms of narcissism.
In the media, the word is practically a throw away line to imply “a little too much ego” which at this late date seems ridiculous given how much evidence trump and his pal Putin have given the world that they are clinically malignant narcissists incapable of caring about anyone or anything other than themselves. When has either sincerely shown they care about other humans?
However, to be clear it is certainly not commentators, journalists or the public’s fault that they do not understand narcissist psychology if they never experienced or studied it. Especially when the APA silences most public discussion, but are we not far past the point where we see at least a few courses on personality disorders need to be added to journalism and political science degrees before we elect another malignant narcissist President who tries to end democracy?
On the bright side, I recently saw John Heilemann on Nicole Wallace’s show use “pathological narcissism” as part of his description of trump’s behaviors and motivations, so progress is slowly coming.
A big step for everyone in the media and the public to take now is to truly understand there is no trump “playbook.” trump like every other person who seemingly aligns with one or more Cluster B personality disorders compulsively follows their own dysfunctional and reactionary version of the narcissist’s playbook. Their words and actions primarily consist of compulsive, malignant and self-serving behaviors, so clearly unfit for any kind of leadership that is supposed to be about “public service.”
Conclusion
Hopefully now you understand that, “following the trump playbook” is usually just being another reactionary, grandiose, pathological narcissist who is selfish, arrogant, entitled, wants to be treated as a superior, wants power, control, and is ready, willing and able to create any false public image that gets them what they want, because this is normally a well-practiced lifelong pathology.
This conscienceless willingness to manipulate and exploit others for their own personal gain is just who they are. This is why there are never any plays nor plans beyond being the compulsive malignant narcissists they have been most if not all of their lives.
So the next time someone mentions the trump “playbook,” please roll your eyes and know that almost always means someone is acting on their own selfish and/or sadistic cravings and paranoid insecure compulsions with no plans whatsoever beyond protecting themselves, illusion and “Gimme!”
The only exceptions for trump are the times someone gave him a play to follow and he did what they said out of fear and/or payment, because at the heart of almost every narcissist is a greedy, compromised, coward. This is why the totality of the trump “playbook” is going off into a narcissistic never-neverland fantasy world of primal predatory pathologies in the futile attempt to fill an empty bottomless hole inside themselves, where their humanity was supposed to be.
Reader challenge: If you think you know of a play in the trump playbook that is not from the narcissist’s playbook, feel free to post it in the comments and I will either show how it is fueled by pathology or admit you found an exception, but I am dubious an exception can be found, so bring it.
Sam Ray © 2023-2025 Counter-Narcissist Intelligence
Sam Ray © 2021-2025 Counter-Narcissist Intelligence
Thank you for this. I didn’t know enough about narcissism to use the word, but for eight years now I’ve been telling people Trump’s the most predictable person in American life. It’s either ‘gimme’ or ’not my fault’. There is no strategy; there is no plan. There’s just whatever gets him on TV or what gets him through the next 15 minutes.
There never has been a playbook as far as I’m concerned. Trump is basically reactive. He has his selfish goals/needs and uses his MN traits to achieve them while at the same time using ASPD methods to prevent any interference.