The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump

by Bandy X. Lee

  Individuals with such a history often exhibit insecurities that can lead to all kinds of compensatory behaviors. However, no matter how successful a person is at alleviating the associated anxiety, fear usually still exists unconsciously and can be uncovered at times of stress. Trump’s sensitivity to being seen as weak or vulnerable along with his need to exaggerate and distort the truth are signs of his deep-seated insecurity. His confabulation protects his fragile ego. Meanwhile, his blustering becomes fodder for comedians and the media. Watching reporters try to address the “alternative facts” and Trump’s impulsive tweets with his press secretary staff is comically surreal.

  In simplified fashion, in order for Trump to avoid feeling the effects of his insecurities, and to feed his narcissistic needs, he appears to compensate by trying to be seen as powerful and special with the hope that he will indeed feel powerful and special. Only he knows the truth about how successful he is at this. The human brain has a unique ability to work in the background, using past beliefs as if we were living in the times when those beliefs were birthed. From a survivalist standpoint, our brains work off the assumption that we are safer to believe that situations will most likely repeat themselves. We don’t challenge those beliefs unless something drastic occurs that overwhelms our defenses. We have learned through research on trauma survivors that early events that stimulate our fight-or-flight response have long-lasting effects. It usually directs us to create a negative belief about ourselves, which in turn leads to the counterbalancing behaviors that try to minimize the deleterious effects of those negative beliefs. Therefore, President Trump will most likely change his way of being only if reality throws him a large enough curveball to which he is unable to respond using the signature defensive measures he has grown accustomed to.

  The beliefs and compensatory mechanisms that young Donald created to help steward him through the turbulent waters of his childhood are probably still in effect today. They were reinforced during his years working with his father, and later as a successful businessman. As the owner of his own company, he was able to exact control and demand loyalty in ways that he cannot as president. Transferring his strategies and expectations to the culture of government has been frustrating for him, and his responses to that frustration have been eye-opening. He doesn’t appear to have the flexibility to switch gears in order to deal with the function of his job as president. His handling of FBI director James Comey is a good example. Conversations about loyalty appear to have contributed to his firing. Trump’s befuddlement regarding all the fireworks that ensued makes it appear that he is either limited in understanding the impact of his behavior or insensitive to it. Either way, his leadership leaves a large segment of the population feeling insecure and fearful about what to expect next.

  Fred Trump’s competitiveness was quite apparent near the end of his life, when he was quoted as saying that his thrice-divorced son would never beat him in the “marital department,” since he had been married to the same woman for sixty years. In addition, when Donald Trump was asked in 2016 while he was running for office what his father would have said about him running for president, he said, “He would have absolutely allowed me to have done it.” Allowed?? Despite being seventy years old, Trump answered as if he were an adolescent in an oedipal battle with his father who had died seventeen years earlier.

  In August of 2016, I was speaking with my father on the phone about the presidential election, and he was addressing his confusion as to why Trump was acting so erratically. This was at a time when there were several articles being written about how Trump’s advisers were having difficulty getting him to stop tweeting his aggressive thoughts and feelings. I was surprised when my father asked me what my understanding as a psychiatrist was regarding Trump’s behavior. Usually, my father has his own ideas about why things are the way they are and enjoys teaching me what he feels the truth is. Although I had strong feelings and ideas about why Trump was acting the way he was, my father’s inquiry felt like an easy path to receiving some of the attention and respect that I continue to look for. It felt powerful and invigorating to be asked by my father what my thoughts were.

  As I proceeded to describe my hypothesis of what was happening with Trump, I confidently and proudly told my father that I believed that Trump was unconsciously sabotaging his chances of winning the election because a part of him probably recognized he wasn’t worthy and/or capable of being successful in that position. I went on to say that Trump appeared to be more comfortable complaining about, and fighting against, the system that he believed was conspiring against his bid to be elected. In response, my father said, “Well, whatever’s going on, I wish he would just shut up because if Hillary wins, it’ll be horrible for Israel.” Despite giving my father what I felt was my intellectual gold, he only commented on what was important to him.

  Since Trump has taken office, I have tried to engage my father, and others within my family and in the Orthodox Jewish community, about my concerns with Trump’s exaggerations and lying, along with his xenophobia, all of which appear to be playing on the fears and insecurities of his support base. Almost invariably I hear, “Yeah, he’s a little crazy, but he’ll be better than Obama ever was,” or something like, “Don’t be such a bad sport. You guys lost; deal with it!” And when people were protesting peacefully around the country, I would hear, “When Obama won, we never acted this way.” When I explained that it’s a wonderful thing that we live in a place where we have the right to protest, my words usually fell on deaf ears. I couldn’t believe that Trump’s behavior was being downplayed. By questioning it, I was automatically labeled by some as having drunk the liberal Kool-Aid. Some inferred that I must believe that Israel wasn’t without sin in its fight to live in peace with the Palestinians. Others accused me of wanting a socialist state. It became clear that, in parts of my family and within the wider community of Orthodox Jews, there was an “us-versus-them” mentality. It’s frustrating to be told that my thoughts and clinical ideas about unfolding events are really just politically motivated.

  It is especially difficult for me to be thrown into a category where family and friends wrongly assume that I must not care about Israel enough, or that I am more sympathetic to the plight of Syrian refugees than to the safety of Israelis and Americans. I try to explain that my love for Israel is separate from my feelings for anybody who is being trampled on by Trump’s process. No lives should be dismissed as unimportant. All this feels surreal as I try to emphasize that any end, even Israel’s security, that follows an inappropriate process is dangerously fragile and not worth depending on.

  The online environment of Facebook has taken center stage as the arena of choice for many Jews to fight about politics in general and about Trump specifically. I had a “friend” on Facebook say that in continuing to attack Trump’s behavior, I was forgetting the Holocaust. I was told that Trump’s policies were protecting Americans by keeping “dangerous” people outside our borders. The fact that innocent people were being harmed, they said, was an unfortunate but necessary side effect. Conversely, a few Jewish patients I treat who are children of Holocaust survivors fear that another Holocaust is more likely because of Trump’s policies and his association with the likes of Steve Bannon. They are afraid that those in bed with white nationalists send a message to anti-Semitic people that it is safe to act out their racist and prejudiced agendas.

  I recently spent the Jewish holiday of Passover with my family at a resort where a conservative political writer had been hired to speak. My family and I attended the talk, which I assumed would be pro-Trump. I sat with my father while the speaker made clear that he was not happy with Trump and, furthermore, he felt that Trump’s leadership style was dangerous. I almost laughed out loud as I watched my father’s mouth drop open. During the question-and-answer session, I asked about the impact on Orthodox Jews voting for a man who has such a flawed process of leading, yet who strongly supports the State of Israel. The speaker validated my concerns by resp
onding that the ends do not justify the means, stating emphatically, “President Trump needs to shut up and just let those he has selected for his Cabinet do their jobs and push their conservative agenda forward.” Afterward, my father minimized what he had heard as if acknowledging the speaker’s full message would leave him too vulnerable. In the end, I felt as if I had won a battle. Perhaps, more importantly, this situation illustrates the dance my father and I often fall into when we unknowingly work out where we stand in relationship to each other.

  My father and I, like Donald and his father, are men with unique flavors of insecurity. Unwittingly, we use each other to make a case for the verdict we already believe about ourselves. Donald and I are expert at putting our fathers on pedestals while at the same time trying to knock them off in order to make room for us to have our time being seen as special. A part of us believes this will lead to feeling special, but it’s fleeting. It only lasts long enough to make us keep wishing for it again and again. Unfortunately, since it’s a cover for our true negative beliefs about ourselves, we often sabotage and cut short our stay on this shaky pedestal. It’s a precarious perch for us. A lonely view from a place we actually don’t feel we fully deserve.

  On the night that Donald Trump won the election, he couldn’t be found for a number of hours for comment on his momentous victory. In Leslie Stahl’s 60 Minutes interview aired three days later, he was asked where he had been during those hours. He soberly responded, “I realized this is a whole different life for me.” It was as if the president-elect had never imagined actually winning. He seemed stunned that he had knocked out his formidable opponent and now would be expected to put his angry fighter persona on the shelf and go to work as the next president. Is that what he really wanted? One wonders if he even had a victory speech prepared at all.

  As with all adults, Donald Trump’s early development created who we are witnessing. Children need to receive love and attention in order to feel secure, but they receive only the love and attention that their parents are capable of providing. Indeed, his father’s intensity left its mark on the entire family. Donald’s oldest brother essentially killed himself under his father’s rule. This tragedy must have played a prominent role in the formation of Donald’s identity and left minimal room to rebel against his father’s authority, except through competition in the realm of business success. Despite their appreciation for each other, the tension between father and son caused Donald psychological wounds that still fester. To compensate, Donald Trump puffs himself up to project a macho image that appeals to many of his followers. But it’s empty, a defense against his fear of seeming weak and ineffectual like his brother. Before being elected, Trump could treat people as he wished, using his wealth and status as a means to achieve his goals. As the president of the United States, he is expected to handle issues more delicately and follow the checks and balances that make up our democratic society. Unfortunately for him and possibly the nation, his strengths that got him elected president don’t ensure success in that position.

  Trump’s base of support saw in him the strength to be powerful in ways they didn’t see in themselves and/or in past leadership. What they may not be aware of is that President Trump appears to question his own ability to deliver what they are seeking. Evidence of this can be seen in his use of lying, distortion, marginalization, and the firing of those he fears are disloyal. Our fathers did the best they could with the resources they had, and our unique connection with them helps fill the gaps where we feel deficient. Despite the moments of contention, and maybe even because of them, I feel fortunate to have a relationship with a father who continues to do his part to help our relationship become closer. I’m also grateful for the insight I’ve received through psychotherapy to address those parts of myself that are either stuck or confused by my past. It’s unfortunate that our president has not figured out how to heal himself or at least learn how to do his job without being defensive and aggressive with those that disagree with him. I feel for the young parts of the president that are trying desperately to help him swim through rough waters despite fear of drowning. What most concerns me is whether we Americans can tread water long enough to come together and avoid being pulled under.

  Steve Wruble, M.D., is an accomplished singer-songwriter and storyteller. He has won the Moth StorySLAM, for which he uses a pseudonym in SLAM competitions. Dr. Wruble is also a board-certified child and adult psychiatrist in private practice in Manhattan and Ridgewood, New Jersey, at the Venn Center. He specializes in anxiety disorders, trauma, and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorders. He attended medical school in his hometown of Memphis, Tennessee, and did his general psychiatry residency at Northwestern University. He did his child psychiatry fellowship at the Institute for Juvenile Research at the University of Illinois at Chicago, where he was chief fellow.

  References

  Dean, Michelle. 2016. “Making the Man: To Understand Trump, Look at His Relationship with his Dad.” The Guardian, March 26. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/mar/26/donald-trump-fred-trump-father-relationship-business-real-estate-art-of-deal.

  Horowitz, Jason. 2016. “Fred Trump Taught His Son the Essentials of ShowBoating Self-Promotion.” New York Times, August 12. www.nytimes.com/2016/08/13/us/politics/fred-donald-trump-father.html?_r=0.

  TRUMP AND THE AMERICAN COLLECTIVE PSYCHE1

  THOMAS SINGER, M.D.

  While I join those who believe that we need to question Donald Trump’s psychological fitness to be president, my focus is less on individual psychopathology than on the interface between Trump and the American collective psyche. There are ways in which Trump mirrors, even amplifies, our collective attention deficit disorder, our sociopathy, and our narcissism. Therefore, this is less about diagnosing a public figure than about recognizing our own pathology.

  Trump has mesmerized our national psyche like no other public figure in recent memory. There is no doubt that his appeal (his wealth, power, celebrity status, and his brash willingness to shoot from the hip) resonates powerfully with the collective psyche of many Americans, while these same qualities are repulsive to many others. The more vulgar, bullying, impulsive, and self-congratulatory Trump’s behavior and rhetoric, the more some people worship him, while others fervently denounce him as a grave danger to our republic. To probe the profound collective disturbance that Trump activates and symbolizes, I draw on my experience as a psychiatrist and Jungian psychoanalyst.

  A Psychological Theory About Trump’s Appeal: A Marriage of the Shadow, Archetypal Defenses, and the Self at the Group Level of the Psyche to Form a Cultural Complex

  You don’t need to be a psychologist or psychiatrist to see that Donald Trump has a problem of narcissism. Ted Cruz announced on May 3, 2016, the day of the Indiana Republican presidential primary, that Trump was “a pathological liar, utterly amoral, a narcissist at a level I don’t think this country’s ever seen and a serial philanderer” (Wright, Kopan, and Winchester 2016). In a series of papers and books written over the past decade, I have developed a working model of the theory of cultural complexes that may be useful for understanding Trumpism. I will be talking about the psyche of the group—what lives inside each of us as individual carriers of the group psyche and what lives between us in our shared group psyche. The group psyche engages with themes and conflicts that are not the same as our more personal psychological struggles.

  I hypothesize a direct link between Trump’s personal narcissism and the collective psyche of those American citizens who embrace his perception of America and who feel that he understands and speaks to them. This is not a political analysis. It is a psychological analysis of what we can think of as the group psyche, which contributes enormously to and fuels political processes. This analysis is based on the notion that there are certain psychological energies, even structures, at the level of the cultural or group psyche that are activated at times of heightened threats to the core identity of the group—what we might think of as the group Self. Three of these mos
t important energies/structures are (1) the shadow, (2) archetypal defenses of the group Self, and (3) the group Self itself. These energies/structures take shape around social, political, economic, geographic, and religious themes that are alive in specific contexts and with particular contents. This same type of analysis may currently apply in the Brexit crisis in Great Britain, or in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, with very different contexts and contents in which various groups can be seen as protecting their threatened or wounded Self from being further injured by pursuing a defensive, aggressive attack against imagined or real, dangerous enemies.

  * * *

  What is it about Trump that acts as an irresistible magnet with ferocious attraction or repulsion? Is Trump the end product of our culture of narcissism? Is he what we get and deserve because he epitomizes the god or gods we currently worship in our mindless, consumerist, hyperindulged cult of continuous stimulation and entertainment? Here is how Christopher Hedges states it in Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle:

  An image-based culture communicates through narratives, pictures, and pseudo-drama. Scandalous affairs, hurricanes, untimely deaths, train wrecks—these events play well on computer screens and television. International diplomacy, labor union negotiations, and convoluted bailout packages do not yield exciting personal narratives or stimulating images … Reality is complicated. Reality is boring. We are incapable or unwilling to handle its confusion … We become trapped in the linguistic prison of incessant repetition. We are fed words and phrases like war on terror or pro-life or change, and within these narrow parameters, all complex thought, ambiguity, and self-criticism vanish. (Hedges 2009)