Democrats, Republicans and Narcissists

Photo by Steve Gale on Unsplash

The 2020 presidential election is now only two weeks away. This time every four years is already politically fraught, but all the more so in the midst of a global pandemic, economic depression and widespread civil unrest. It’s the time we judge the president and his party for their record over the last four years.

Normally, a platform is adopted at the convention which articulates the policy priorities of each party. In 2020, the Republican Party has no platform. Instead, not wanting “a small contingent of delegates formulating a new platform without the breadth of perspectives within the ever-growing Republican movement” they merely re-adopted the 2016 platform, while reasserting “the Party’s strong support for President Donald Trump and his Administration.” In other words, in case there was any doubt, the Republican Party has become the Republican Person, Donald Trump.

Much has been written asserting Trump has contorted the traditional GOP agenda or has no agenda. But, personally, I see Trump’s policies as largely consistent with Republican orthodoxy. He wants to cut taxes, eliminate regulations, reduce the role of government, establish “law and order,” appoint conservative judges, increase military spending, protect gun ownership, repeal abortion rights and curtail immigration. From a strict policy standpoint, that’s pretty much exactly what Republicans have preached for decades. Though many conservatives may find the president’s behavior (such as extramarital affairs with porn stars) and certain policies (such as separating immigrant children from their parents) abhorrent, they excuse these shortcomings for the single issue they care about — abortion, judges, tax cuts, whatever that might be.

Where Trump has done irreparable harm to the Republican Party is less his policies, it’s the values, or lack thereof, that underly those policies. Arguably, the defining core value of the Republican Party has always been personal responsibility. Accountability, hard work and abiding by the rules are the very foundational principles of conservatives. The value of personal responsibility is the central belief from which all the party's major policy priorities flow. Reduce my taxes because I worked hard for my money. Eliminate abortion because responsible people abstain from sex. Let me keep my guns because I use them responsibly. And so on.

What makes so many true conservatives uncomfortable with Trump's leadership of their party is that, as a person, he is the exact opposite of personal responsibility. He takes accountability for nothing and credit for everything. Nothing negative is Trump’s fault, nothing his duty, nothing his responsibility. Everything is his entitlement. His grievance is perpetual. His expectation of sycophantic personal loyalty so complete that anything less is ridiculed as weak. Any criticism or opposition is conspiratorial, fake or evidence of the “deep state.” In a word, Trump is a narcissist.

Many clinical psychologists, muzzled by the tradition of their profession not to diagnose a patient from afar, believe Trump to be a malignant narcissist. John Gartner, Ph.D., a psychologist from Johns Hopkins University explains in his book Rocket Man: Nuclear Madness and the Mind of Donald Trump, “Trump suffers from malignant narcissism, a diagnosis far more toxic and dangerous than mere narcissistic personality disorder because it combines narcissism with three other severely pathological components: paranoia, sociopathy, and sadism.”

Since the day Trump came down the escalator, Republican leadership has had an uneasy alliance with his narcissism. Despite his lawless behavior, lack of personal ethics and autocratic tendencies that contradict everything true conservatives believe, Republicans have fallen in-line because they know Trump and his celebrity deliver a critical voting block: the Narcissists. Trump’s most loyal supporters love him not because of his policies, but because he’s Trump. It’s the very definition of a cult of personality.

In an excellent New York Times podcast about voters in Pennsylvania who switched from life-long Democrats to vote for Trump in 2016, one voter described his support for Trump with the simple phrase “Donald Trump makes me feel good about who I am.” He tells people what they want to hear. It’s not your father’s Republican Party with all their preachiness about personal responsibility, it’s a populist message that you’re great and everything is someone else’s fault. His “Make America Great Again” slogan might as well be “Tell Me I’m Great.”

Don’t tell me my job is obsolete and that I need better education and training to compete in a global employment market.

Just tell me I’m great.

Don’t tell me my diet and sedentary lifestyle puts me at risk of heart disease, diabetes and cancer that I’m more likely to die from because I don’t have healthcare.

Just tell me I’m great.

Don’t tell me my gas guzzling SUV is warming the planet and creating an existential threat for future generations.

Just tell me I’m great.

Don’t tell me that people are being systematically discriminated against and even killed because of their race, religion, gender, or sexual identity.

Just tell me I’m great.

Don’t tell me that gun-related homicides are 25 times higher in the United States than other first world countries and fueling militaristic hate groups.

Just tell me I’m great.

Don’t tell me there’s a global pandemic or that I can’t gather in groups or that I need to wear a mask.

JUST TELL ME I’M GREAT!!!

What makes this cult of narcissism so malignant is not just its self-adulation, but its obsessive need to blame others. Far from advocating for personal responsibility in the face of our nation’s most urgent societal challenges, the conservative media echo chamber preaches that everything is someone else’s fault — immigrants, the Chinese, Libs, Dems, coastal elites. It doesn’t really matter who, just know it’s not your responsibility and it’s someone else’s fault. If there is a core value to Trumpism, this is it — and it’s the opposite of traditional conservative values.

Fixing things is hard, especially big things like the economy, healthcare, education, and social inequality. Accountability is unpleasant. It requires hard work, discipline and self-awareness. Sticking your head in the sand and saying everything is going to be “great again” and blaming everyone but yourself may feel good for a while, but we know it doesn’t ultimately solve anything. It is empty and uninspired. It is devoid of substance, vapid and self-obsessed. And it has left the Republican Party as morally bankrupt as the man leading it.

What makes America great is precisely our sense of personal responsibility. That’s not just a core Republican value, but a defining American value. Our uncompromising belief that through hard work, diligence and sacrifice, we can have a better life not just for ourselves but for our fellow citizens. By setting aside this morally flawed president who has repeatedly exploited the Republican Party for his own gain, and returning to that core value, maybe the Republican Party can be great again.