Dutch insight for the US: how to understand Trump best

Hi there all you US Citizens,

It's been a remarkable couple of months, hasn't it?

Your democracy, known for its delicate set of checks and balances, has unbalanced itself into a situation where a Presidential candidate that wins the popular vote by 3 million is not becoming President. Instead an extreme narcissist has now entered the White House and everybody is wondering how to read and understand his 'politics'.

Let me try and help you, the US public, in understanding how to deal with this new President. Because over here in the Netherlands we already have (had) some similar politicans running around and that has provided us with sufficient learning material.

It's always and exclusively about inflated self-esteem
The major rule for understanding narcissist is not to listen to their talk. It's never about the things they say. Narcissist have an intrinsic lack of self-esteem which they want to compensate by getting attention and compliments. As deep as their lack of self-esteem, as high is their need for compliments and admiration.

Narcissist lie by definition. They adapt their stance to make sure one thing is constant: their own image in the mirror of a reputable, God-like human being who can and will get all they want. And in order to preserve this image, they will manipulate their environment with a psychopathic lack of conscience.

When caught in the act (of lying), narcissist will deny and manipulate for so long that in the end people stop calling them out. We've heard footage of denigrating talk about the treatment of women and even that has not stopped a large chunk of US citizens from denying this erratic person entry into their most important public office.

How to understand their inside thinking: reverse their statements and accusations
The best way to understand what's going on in the mind of narcissist is to fully reverse all statements that they make. So when a narcissist says his opponent is rigging the elections, this explains exactly what he is doing at that moment. Or when he says that the press is lying about the turnout for inaguration day, you can bet that he is lying himself about it.

The one thing not to do is to expect continuity in thinking. A narcissist will never be caught in being consistent. They refrase, ly and don't care about being inconsistent. Trying to construct this consistence from the outside is of no use: there is none. The only consistent thing happening is that the narcissist is playing the power stadium just as long as he gets what he wants: attention and compliments.

For the current US president it is quite obvious that he has had a youth with a cold, ambitious father who never really cared about his own kids. The closest thing to true fathers that Trump ever came in contact with are the generals and corporals in the army. This explains his high ratio of former military among his staff. He tries to assemble support from fatherly figures.

The eternal tragedy of all this is that as hard as one can try, you can never end up with the so much desired self-esteem this way. Self-esteem is something gained from within and no manipulation or even US Presidency will help you get it.

How to end this: neglect the attention seeker or overcompliment into oblivion
The essential way out of an unhealthy narcist relation is to not share anything personal and try and cut all ties. In doing so one either fully neglects the narcissists or overcompliments them into oblivion. Alas to say that both strategies may be hard to execute when the person in question holds such an important office.

Yet, it could well be the case that the other players in the world game of power recognize Trump for what he is and seek more stable alliances with each other rather than deal with the erratic treats of Trump. Which gets you exactly where you don't want to be.

How this will end for the US?
I am sorry to say, but the end of a narccisist is always somewhat destructive. If we summarize Trump his whole business consists of lying, constructing an image, selling the image and moving forward to a next adventure before anyone discovers that his previous adventure was a full fail and financial disaster. The tiny info that was provided on his tax deductions already shows this.

Given that he is now playing his game on a national level, you may expect the US to spend more than it can, to alienate all international stakeholders until some geopolitical or health incident happens. When all the dust settles, the US will discover that Trump has only worked towards a greater image of himself and funds for his children. But the country itself will be worse off, unless perhaps for some costly highways, built by former business friends of the president.

The so called angry Americans that have voted for him, will then discover that he was indeed a con artist that robbed them not only of their vote, but also of their self-esteem as well as their health care. All that the US will have left is nice pictures, selfies of Trump golfing at Balmoral castle, a golden plated and redecorated White House and - god forbid - most likely an extra Trump face carved out in Mount Rushmore.



This beautiful country of yours will thus experience the reversed American Dream. Trumps reign will send you from a millionaires position into an isolated newspaper delivery boy (with a big mouth).

Hope?
I just hope for your sake that there won't be time enough during this 45th President's reign to ruin all the good things of the US. And I very much hope you will be able to see and live the next years as an intermediary phase, needed to learn a costly lesson about democracy.

The British royal wedding discloses that the abdication of Queen Beatrix is at hand... !

All right, I must confess, I watched most of the wedding on the BBC-channel, so I can't really give the complete Dutch picture. But there's one thing that I found remarkable today and yesterday. It appears that most people 'buy' the reasoning that Beatrix was unable to make it to the royal wedding, as she had to be back for the Queens Day celebrations, next day. Well, we're happily celebrating it now and oh surprise: we can see both Beatrix and Crown Prince Willem-Alexander and his wife Maxima. So, there must be magic technology that has warped them back over the small pond from London to the Netherlands. Which underlines that the official argument was a fake placeholder. So what may have been happening really?

In my view, the absence of Queen Beatrix is significant because she is the kind of royal to be present and to recognize the relevance of these occasions. The only reason why she wouldn't visit the wedding has to do with her job as a Queen and her ambition (and achievement) to do that job in an excellent way. And that can only mean one thing. She understands that it is important for Willem-Alexander and Maxima to step to the forefront and get the formal attention of the Windsors and their guests, without being burdened by the presence of their superior in hierarchy. So we must be nearing the date of her abdication.

In fact, the current moment(um) for abdication appears to be quite good. RTL nieuws today released the outcome of research that showes that 69% of the public find Crown Prince Willem-Alexander ready for the throne. 57 % are of the opinion that the Queen should remain part of government. 73 % finds that the Queen should remain head of state to symbolize national unity, with 65% outlining that the Queen also should stick to that role to facilitate international commerce. And asked for the best year of abdication, the preferences are: this jear (20,5%), 2012 (39%), 2013 (15,1%), later than 2013 (25,4%).

It is interesting by the way to note the current popularity for the Dutch royal family. I think, one of the reasons that it appears to increase, is the fact that we have a minority cabinet and an uncertain and unstable future with respect to our democracy and government. So the public seek the stability that the role of the Royal Family brings, while some MP's are still riding the older wave of removing the Dutch Royal Family from government.

As for the actual date of abdication, my guess is that Beatrix is a long term planner. So I would put my money on 2013 (or 2018), when she reaches the age of 75 (or 80).

PS. I just heard an interview on Amsterdam TV with a movie director who was shooting in 2009 in Amsterdam. He had heard from his network of camera/sound buddies that a special studio had to be set up in the Royal Palace that day, so that he prepared for the announcement of abdication (to be included in his filming). But it never came to that as one deranged mind conceived the idea to try and drive his car into the Royal Family bus. All of which makes 2013 more likely than 2018.