6. President Trump’s Narcissism Reconsidered

This chapter focuses on several key Trump psychological traits, all related to the dominant narrative and related memes of Trump’s narcissism and its political consequences. Simply assigning a name to a behavior without an understanding of the term used or fairly presenting the range of evidence needed to support claims associated with such analyses, reflects a lapse of professional ethics and personal integrity. It is also a recipe for substantively shallow analysis. The chapter then turns to a consideration of the difference between impatience and impulsiveness, and their relationship to Trump’s psychology and leadership style. We then examine the real nature of Trump’s narcissism, not only what that term really means, but its real role in Trump’s psychology. The chapter concludes with a detailed analysis of Trump’s motivation to seek the presidency, including several that have never before been examined.