Currently, it is a strange sensation whenever any political expert or media person now says, “When trump tells you who he is, or what he is going to do, believe him.” They are not wrong in certain circumstances but to encourage the general public to ever believe the boy who cries witch-hunt and multitudes of other false victim-hoods every minute of every day without at least giving some psychological guidance in how to see a needle of truth in his haystack of lies seems foolish. This piece is meant to assist you in recognizing an occasional truth via psychology, when they are shrouded in a blizzard of narcissistic lies, but first some foundation is required.
While one of the world’s most blatantly obvious egomaniacs is being singled out because he is such a useful crash-test dummy for malignant narcissism due to being an extreme case, it is important to process that most of the traits, tells and symptoms mentioned in CNI psychological analysis do not just apply to extreme cases, but across the board to almost all forms of pathological narcissists to varying degrees, based on a number of factors.
Indeed, a sign of any tell may be nothing, but should set off a tiny little red flag that hints one should at least casually be on the lookout for larger warning signs and tells. If they keep getting closer to checking enough boxes to prove they are in the ballpark of someone exhibiting clinical levels of narcissism, you then know you should seriously consider taking appropriate measures to protect yourself, your family, your organization, business, free country and world from the damage they compulsively do and cause, or else.
As a psychological safety rule, it is best to “just get away” or “cut all ties” before any hooks get sunk in or further damage is done, but these predators instinctively use any available form of self-serving bait, guilt, fear, manipulation, lies and chaos to block all attempted escapes. Therefore, one must be firm and resolute but “don’t poke the crazy person” if you do not have to, and be very smart, subtle and strategic about it, or you could make things worse. Unfortunately, many options are off the table if a narcissist has great power, which is why they always crave and are drawn to all the power over others they can acquire by hook, crook or manipulative persuasion.
Of course, the best case scenario is a few small red flags are just a fairly normal person with a few personality traits associated with unhealthy narcissism but they respond well to reason, or is a generally decent person with empathy, but received grooming into a distorted narcissistic reality as a child. This means they can heal if they can escape from their trauma-triggering time-loops, via “cutting all ties,” highly-skilled therapy and/or being in a loving, supportive and understanding environment.
Sadly, it is often all too easy for dominated children of narcissists as adults to fall under a spell of an even smoother narcissist as a devil they know figure, because that is the dark type of personality they were groomed to serve, much like it appears sociopathic fathers did to Elon and an orange fascist clown we all know. It is also highly likely that the vast majority of the orange clown cult had a parent or two higher up on the narcissism spectrum, so they too were groomed to blindly follow, serve and empathize with narcissists and pathological narcissism.
It was so shocking to discover in late 2000s studies that this is a pattern that had often been repeated generation after generation via psychological trauma, grooming, brain structure and genetics (psychopathy can be hereditary). This seems to be a forgotten or hidden reality that has been true since the dawn of early humans, if not back even further, and these generational cycles of unhealthy narcissism continue in families until they are somehow broken.
The Background
A main reason this new message of telling people to believe trump seems so stunning, ironic and dangerous by itself is because starting back in 2015, it took an incredible amount of time, effort and fortitude by multitudes in the trump resistance to convince enough tricked, propagandized and/or mesmerized Americans, that despite trump’s overly self-confident showmanship, creepy charisma, and Reality TV myth of being a good businessman, almost every single word that has ever come out of his mouth was a lie, and he had to be defeated in 2020 to save American democracy.
Additionally, almost everything he has ever claimed to have done or accomplished beyond self-promotion consistently appears to have been a lemon, a con or a total failure. This is also a big part of why the Russians and other corrupt authoritarians own him, because he constantly needs bailing out from his consistently bad business decisions.
You don’t believe it? Think about how trump bragged how he would hire all the best people and yet now almost all who have worked for him are indicted, keeping mostly quiet, or have completely turned on him, and he has nothing but nastiness and blame for how almost all those “best people” failed him.
When it comes to being owned by Russia, if one cannot see that trump was literally checking off superior narcissist Putin’s wish list as “President,” they either have no understanding of Russia or are liars.
How sad it was and is that most trump voters don’t know, can’t see or don’t care that he has never been anything more than a carnival barking “used car” salesman, con man, fraudster, useful idiot and flying monkey to any dominant authoritarian (foreign or domestic) who pays, flatters or blackmails him.
Definitely never underestimate how low anyone without a conscience will go to enrich, glorify or save themselves. trump has never shown any sign of a conscience in his life, so the default of never believing him over believing him is a massively safer bet, putting you in the high 90s percentage range of being correct.
So how are most people to know when they should believe him? That is the question CNI now poses to every “expert” telling the public to believe trump without providing a psychological explanation of how, when and why to believe him. It is a goal of this piece to assist in that process but each situation is unique, so feel free to ask for confirmation in the comments on anything trump says that we are supposed to believe.
The New Awareness
In recent years, it has become a relief that more reality-based Americans and others have begun to better understand that almost everything trump and people like him have ever claimed is a lie (pathological or serial liars).
Even better, more people are also beginning to fully process the abstract yet easy concept that almost every single trump-style accusation is an unconscious confession (projection), because almost every time trump and narcissists like him accuse anyone of anything, it is almost always an admission of something they have done, are currently doing or want to do. Again, it is another fairly safe bet that almost everything a narcissist accuses others of doing is a confession, because most projection is done subconsciously, so they do not even realize they are confessing.
On the brighter side, we now finally have a fair amount of the better journalists and analysts at least pointing out how trump seems to be guilty of everything he accuses others of, but as noted, we also have far too many experts of various stripes with little psychological explanation telling us to believe and trust the self-serving words of your everyday, average, massively spoiled, entitled yet unloved rich kid, who never grew up, nor ever became a responsible or even civilized human. He can sometimes fake it for a while to get what he wants but like all malignant narcissists, it is just an illusion to project normalcy to acquire things he has not earned or deserves.
Unfortunately, it is still taking far too long for far too many politicians, political analysts, judges, police departments, the legal system and corporate media to see the obvious tells of the many malignant narcissists walking by them in the halls of power on a daily basis, thus consistently failing to protect our free societies from these predatory psychologies in any serious way. These people are usually identified by declaring trump has a political playbook that is in reality, pathology.
As previously explored, what often is called the trump political playbook is just an illusion, because his lifetime patterns of behavior appear to display virtually every known symptom of the clinical narcissism disorders, NPD and ASPD, on a daily basis.
American Psychiatric Association continues to fail democracy
Perhaps the largest contributor to the political, media and academic blindness, silence and blackouts on properly educating the public on these existential threat psychologies is the preeminent American Psychiatric Association’s antiquated and suicidal Goldwater Rule. By forbidding the public discussion of those with dangerous psychologies among us, they are cloaking, obscuring and hiding narcissists, sociopaths and psychopaths, as they compulsively attempt to destroy democracy piece by piece.
Now imagine if it gets so bad in your country that one of the two major political parties is owned and operated by these types of dangerous predators and the greatest arbiter of psychological ethics helps keep this knowledge from the public by silencing those who have the education and experience to inform you how to “protect and defend” your country from such threats.
Clearly, every democracy needs more original thinking on the effects of malignant narcissism in our politics and how to counter it because in our case, it was widely reported that the APA did trump’s bidding (under threat of federal funding cuts). In other words, they were ordered to make narcissistic disorders more hidden from the public by tightening the Goldwater rule with an even stricter “ethical” gag order that effectively forbids most people in the psychological, political, media or academic fields from having any serious discussion, being allowed a public comment or even giving warnings of obvious traits, tells and symptoms of any public narcissist, sociopath or psychopath’s personality disorder being weaponized against our freedoms and democracy.
It is not hard to understand how allowing people with predatory psychological disorders going after our democracy and freedoms with a vengeance due to their compulsion to acquire, control and dominate, is currently paving the path to our own destruction, yet somehow the APA comes down on protecting the privacy of malignant narcissists over protecting “we the people,” our society and democracy from these predators, as any decent guardian of society should do. They act as if their “Duty to Warn” does not exist.
Of course the new hope from the public’s increased awareness is that more of the media, academia and political experts are also starting to understand how to use narcissist psychology to see what most of them have missed for so many years, aka the true intentions beneath trump’s and many other’s avalanche of daily lies and nefarious deeds.
Unfortunately, as far as the MSM is concerned, I have yet to see much more than the usual experts such as Mary Trump, Dr. Bandy Lee and Thom Hartmann, get much if any MSM public exposure beyond what they generate themselves to explain the underlying psychology, or how to recognize when a narcissist reveals an important hidden truth about themselves or others from time to time. Ruth Ben-Ghait and Brian Klaas provide some peripheral psychology in the MSM, but most seems to understandably come from the prism of their main fields of academic study, rather than through the prism of the psychology itself.
However, I just saw Charlie Sykes and George Conway seem to have finally and fully crossed the Rubicon over on The Bulwark, by joining in and explaining some of the basics of trump’s narcissist psychology (NPD and ASPD) to their subscribers, which is definitely very pleasing. They still keep asking questions like, “What goes on in trump’s mind?” that CNI can easily answer, but The Bulwark correctly informing the public more about Cluster B and malignant narcissism is a big win for all who support more CNI in our politics and society.
Just a great and beautiful song to cleanse the mind.
The mistake that everyone makes is judging former President Trump based on the standards for a sane, rational person. He is actually quite easy to understand and predict once you come to the realization that this man is a PSYCHOPATH.
Don't believe me? Google "20 traits of a psychopath." https://www.cbc.ca/doczone/m_features/the-hare-psychotherapy-checklist • glib and superficial charm • grandiose (exaggeratedly high) estimation of self • need for stimulation • pathological lying • cunning and manipulativeness • lack of remorse or guilt • shallow affect (superficial emotional responsiveness) • callousness and lack of empathy • parasitic lifestyle • poor behavioral controls • sexual promiscuity • early behavior problems • lack of realistic long-term goals • impulsivity • irresponsibility • failure to accept responsibility for own actions • many short-term marital relationships • juvenile delinquency • criminal versatility.
Donald Trump is an insane cowardly bully, sadist, delusional, totally amoral, fraudulent PSYCHOPATH, narcissist, con artist, traitor, ignorant pathological liar, five-time draft-dodger, career tax-cheat, serial cheating husband, grifter, whoremonger, perverted serial rapist, incestuous father, fascist, terrorist, and would-be dictator. He is a clear and present danger to our republic. He must be held accountable under the law; or there will be no law. Long live the United States Constitution and the rule of law.
The Goldwater rule is clearly a societal problem. Created during a very different time in America’s continually changing, developing, and evolving general knowledge levels and understandings of mores looking back now it should be clear that the rule needs to be discarded and a more fitting model for how to best inform the public at large about individuals who pose genuine threats to society needs to be adopted.
In any event the most important change that can be made is to elevate and increase general awareness and understandings about mental health problems and educate people in ways that remove the stigmas and barriers created by them.