October 26, 2024

I just read an article blasting Trump for wearing more makeup than Kamala and was reminded about how Jennifer Senior first called him a preening narcissist, by Hal M. Brown, MSW


I just read this in RawStory: 

'He's not actually masculine': Trump blasted for 'wearing more make-up' than Kamala Harris


That article begins:

Donald Trump isn't actually masculine, but he is using men's fears against them in his presidential campaign, an expert said.

Liz Plank, the author of the book For the Love of Men: A Vision for Mindful Masculinity, appeared on MSNBC on Saturday to discuss the gender gap in the current presidential election and how men are looking at the candidates.

It goes on to say:

"Can we talk about masculinity, right? Trump is putting on a performance of masculinity. Because he's not actually masculine. This is a guy who spends more time with his make-up artists than with his own advisors. But even setting aside that he probably wears more make-up than Kamala Harris, masculine men aren't afraid of women. They're not afraid to debate women. Masculine men don't have meltdowns on stage because a woman that they didn't like asked them a question that they didn't like. Masculine men aren't manipulated by people who give them compliments." 

This reminded me of Jennifer Senior writing a column on April 5, 2020 when she was still at The New York Times. She's now at The Atlantic.

I added Bart and Homer to the illiustration below. Read on to see why.


“That news conference was, to me, the most frightening moment of the Trump presidency. His preening narcissism, his compulsive lying, his vindictiveness, his terror of germs and his terrifying inability to grasp basic science — all of it eclipsed his primary responsibilities to us as Americans, which was to provide urgent care, namely in the form of leadership.

Screenshot2020-04-06at6.04.36AM.png

She begins with a link to the website started by Dr. John Gartner, the founder of Duty to Warn who was producing a documentary about Trump (right) at the time.

Since the early days of the Trump administration, an impassioned group of mental health professionals have warned the public about the president’s cramped and disordered mind, a darkened attic of fluttering bats. Their assessments have been controversial. The American Psychiatric Association’s code of ethics expressly forbids its members from diagnosing a public figure from afar.

Here are the excerpts specifically addressing how Trump’s psychopathology manifests itself and is endangering human life and the institutions of society. I’ve bullet-pointed them:

  • First: Narcissistic personalities like Trump harbor skyscraping delusions about their own capabilities. They exaggerate their accomplishments, focus obsessively on projecting power, and wish desperately to win.
  • Second: The grandiosity of narcissist personalities belies an extreme fragility, their egos as delicate as foam. They live in terror of being upstaged. They’re too thin skinned to be told they’re wrong.
  • What that means, during this pandemic: Narcissistic leaders never have, as Trump likes to say, the best people. They have galleries of sycophants. With the exceptions of Drs. Anthony Fauci and Deborah Birx, Trump has surrounded himself with a Z-team of dangerously inexperienced toadies and flunkies — the bargain-bin rejects from Filene’s Basement — at a time when we require the brightest and most imaginative minds in the country.
  • Meanwhile, Fauci and Birx measure every word they say like old-time apothecaries, hoping not to humiliate the narcissist — never humiliate a narcissist — while discreetly correcting his false hopes and falsehoods.

That OpEd was the second time Jennifer Senior used a reference to Trump’s narcissism in a title: President Trump Is Unfit for This Crisis. Period. His narcissism is a grave danger to our health.

  • But every aspect of Trump’s crisis management has been annexed by his psychopathology. 
  • But it is true that all eyes are on him. He’s got a captive audience, an attention-addict’s dream come to life. It’s just that he, like all narcissistic personalities, has no clue how disgracefully — how shamefully, how deplorably — he’ll be enshrined in memory.

Jennifer Senior came up with another gem which applies to Donald Trump’s personality.

Unfortunately she had to demean the bumbling but basically good hearted Homer Simpson who is nothing like the evil malignant narcissist Donald Trump by referencing one of his classic aphorisms. 

This (blaming others) sounds an awful lot like one of the three sentences that Homer Simpson swears will get you through life: “It was like that when I got here.”

Not all pathological grandiose narcissists are preening narcissists obsessed with how physically attractive they are, or want to believe they are and think others envy them for their good looks. This is more like Narcissus from the Greek myth. Trump combines the characteristics of Narcissus being obsessed with his appearance with believing he is not only the best looking but the greatest in everything he does.

Earlier today I posted this blog:

LA Times and Wash. Post endorsement of Harris would have made no difference, their non-endorsement helps Trump,

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