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.
Showing posts with label narcism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label narcism. Show all posts
19/10/2016
Dutch lessons for all American friends that are struggling with the Trump-phenomen
Although this blog is intended to be about the amazing stuff happening in Dutch society and politics, it's now time to publish a feature for our friends in the United States of America.
The Trump turn of events is not unique
In the last year, you Americans have seen something happen that you wouldn't think possible. A strange guy, with strange hairdo and outspoken, politically incorrect behaviour, is appealing to the masses and making a run for Presidency. While at first you all thought this was extremely unlikely to ever lead to that guy being the Republican nominee, this did happen after all.
And while you think this is a unique turn of events, you may rest assured that it is not. What you are witnessing now is something we've seen happening here in the Netherlands already for quite some time now.
Even today we still have a blond loudmouth claiming to bring back the true Netherlands and true Freedom. And the guy ranks dangerously high in our polls. He even made it to become part of a condoning coalition but then ran away from this position of power, being afraid to be criticised by his followers.
Will you end up there as well in the US?
Well, it's up to you, and in order for you to get your bearings, let me provide some further background
The mechanics of narcist-populist leader
A Dutch scholar by the name of L D'Anjou has written a very solid piece of work about narcistic leaders and politicians. You can read it here and the summary is
In modern societies narcissists regularly enter the political arena to make their dreams of success and power come true. The dynamics of narcissism tend to propel these politicians into extreme behavior and radicalism - a process that is further intensified by the way the media operate. Moreover, a kind of ‘natural’ affinity exists between political narcissism and populism.
Narcissistic politicians, therefore, try to organise electoral support with a populist platform and seek support in populist movements. As the latter are invariably radical, this strengthens those politicians’ radicalism even further. The article analyzes the dynamics of political narcissism, its relation to populism and the conditions that determine the success or failure of narcissistic politicians.
As the article is in Dutch I would recommend you to learn Dutch and read it. Or else, you''ll have to do with this brief summary and reflection by yours truly.
Trump walks a clear narcist-populist walk
In essence the article outlines that the modern society -with all media around- provides a great stage for narcistic personalities and politicians to florish. In general, the media will reinforce the performance of narcist leaders, but first they must gain political ground.
D'Anjou states that this may be easier in open societies as the Dutch (with low barriers for new parties to be founded). For that reason our two main political narcists, Fortuyn and Wilders, have understandably come from a background where they founded their own party, rather than affiliated with an existing one.
While D'Anjou thought it unlikely for a narcist to pass through the hurdles of political parties, the interesting thing is that in the US, our blond loudmouth property-developing and loss-making cowboy did do so. This can be the result of the fact that rather than achieve media-exposure via the political party, the candidate had drummed up his own media-exposure.
Next up on the list of conditions is that other players in the political market provide the opportunity for the narcist to gain grounds. In general this can be easier in times of fast change and turmoil, as the narcist can play an opportunistic game against current politicians. So the narcist will combine his outlier position with a populist approach and plays on emotions like ('things were better in the past'). The use of the 'make America great again' slogan is therefore in line with this theory.
Most important success factor for these politicians is formed by the functioning of media. The media, with their great need for news, deviations, rows, incidents will jump on the narcists behaviour to provide him with a forum for his views. And quite interestingly, we can now also see US media, recognising this dynamic and reversing course. This would be a nice lesson for the Dutch media (who tend to still amplify the vision of our local loudmouth with little fact-checking to debunk his untruths).
Whereto next?
The author D'Anjou states, at the end of the article, that our societies effectively have to learn to live with these narcist-populist players in the political game. So that means we best learn and adapt from the experiences all over the world.
Here in the Netherlands we now have some more than 10 years experience with that and all along Europe other countries are also experiencing this fact. We can see a populist bang a simplistic drum and attract a lot of followers. Putting their words to consistent political action will however not be as easy, as our local history showed.
But even so, for us in the Netherlands the jury is still out. Next years elections may even see - despite all our experience in dealing with narcist politicians) our local loudmouth become the biggest party (which of course has only one member, chief, secretary and treasurer: the loudmouth himself).
What appears to be happening in the US now, is that the essential traits of the narcist (inability to lose, to be left alone) lead to an increase of his erratic behaviour. In combination with the media that take their responsibility to not just amplify the voice, but also check it, this may finally lead to a choice for capabilities rather than pomposity.
Still, it will be very interesting to see how, in the US, as an example of a democracy with a lot of checks and balances, the elections play out. So in determining your vote, I wish you all the wisdom you need.
The Trump turn of events is not unique
In the last year, you Americans have seen something happen that you wouldn't think possible. A strange guy, with strange hairdo and outspoken, politically incorrect behaviour, is appealing to the masses and making a run for Presidency. While at first you all thought this was extremely unlikely to ever lead to that guy being the Republican nominee, this did happen after all.
And while you think this is a unique turn of events, you may rest assured that it is not. What you are witnessing now is something we've seen happening here in the Netherlands already for quite some time now.
Even today we still have a blond loudmouth claiming to bring back the true Netherlands and true Freedom. And the guy ranks dangerously high in our polls. He even made it to become part of a condoning coalition but then ran away from this position of power, being afraid to be criticised by his followers.
Will you end up there as well in the US?
Well, it's up to you, and in order for you to get your bearings, let me provide some further background
The mechanics of narcist-populist leader
A Dutch scholar by the name of L D'Anjou has written a very solid piece of work about narcistic leaders and politicians. You can read it here and the summary is
In modern societies narcissists regularly enter the political arena to make their dreams of success and power come true. The dynamics of narcissism tend to propel these politicians into extreme behavior and radicalism - a process that is further intensified by the way the media operate. Moreover, a kind of ‘natural’ affinity exists between political narcissism and populism.
Narcissistic politicians, therefore, try to organise electoral support with a populist platform and seek support in populist movements. As the latter are invariably radical, this strengthens those politicians’ radicalism even further. The article analyzes the dynamics of political narcissism, its relation to populism and the conditions that determine the success or failure of narcissistic politicians.
As the article is in Dutch I would recommend you to learn Dutch and read it. Or else, you''ll have to do with this brief summary and reflection by yours truly.
Trump walks a clear narcist-populist walk
In essence the article outlines that the modern society -with all media around- provides a great stage for narcistic personalities and politicians to florish. In general, the media will reinforce the performance of narcist leaders, but first they must gain political ground.
D'Anjou states that this may be easier in open societies as the Dutch (with low barriers for new parties to be founded). For that reason our two main political narcists, Fortuyn and Wilders, have understandably come from a background where they founded their own party, rather than affiliated with an existing one.
While D'Anjou thought it unlikely for a narcist to pass through the hurdles of political parties, the interesting thing is that in the US, our blond loudmouth property-developing and loss-making cowboy did do so. This can be the result of the fact that rather than achieve media-exposure via the political party, the candidate had drummed up his own media-exposure.
Next up on the list of conditions is that other players in the political market provide the opportunity for the narcist to gain grounds. In general this can be easier in times of fast change and turmoil, as the narcist can play an opportunistic game against current politicians. So the narcist will combine his outlier position with a populist approach and plays on emotions like ('things were better in the past'). The use of the 'make America great again' slogan is therefore in line with this theory.
Most important success factor for these politicians is formed by the functioning of media. The media, with their great need for news, deviations, rows, incidents will jump on the narcists behaviour to provide him with a forum for his views. And quite interestingly, we can now also see US media, recognising this dynamic and reversing course. This would be a nice lesson for the Dutch media (who tend to still amplify the vision of our local loudmouth with little fact-checking to debunk his untruths).
Whereto next?
The author D'Anjou states, at the end of the article, that our societies effectively have to learn to live with these narcist-populist players in the political game. So that means we best learn and adapt from the experiences all over the world.
Here in the Netherlands we now have some more than 10 years experience with that and all along Europe other countries are also experiencing this fact. We can see a populist bang a simplistic drum and attract a lot of followers. Putting their words to consistent political action will however not be as easy, as our local history showed.
But even so, for us in the Netherlands the jury is still out. Next years elections may even see - despite all our experience in dealing with narcist politicians) our local loudmouth become the biggest party (which of course has only one member, chief, secretary and treasurer: the loudmouth himself).
What appears to be happening in the US now, is that the essential traits of the narcist (inability to lose, to be left alone) lead to an increase of his erratic behaviour. In combination with the media that take their responsibility to not just amplify the voice, but also check it, this may finally lead to a choice for capabilities rather than pomposity.
Still, it will be very interesting to see how, in the US, as an example of a democracy with a lot of checks and balances, the elections play out. So in determining your vote, I wish you all the wisdom you need.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)