Trump's tweets are a royal road to his unconscious, by Hal M. Brown

As usual Trump was up tweeting last night. Psychoanalysts gain insight into someone's unconscious, and the way their mind works by analyzing their dreams. Trump doesn't tell us his actual dreams, but he does tell us what is going on in his mind when we're asleep and he's awake.

You can see above what was on his mind last night. His tweet about Elon Musk was featured in this MSNBC article.

What this tweet tells me, a retired psychoanalyically oriented therapist, is that all the publicity Musk is getting and his being called "President Musk" is getting to Trump. Instead of tweeting about himself being in charge of Musk, he is building Musk up. I suppose he sees this as brilliant reverse psychology.

We know Trump is an avid poll watcher and takes them very seriously. Since the polls are showing that he is tanking, instead of attacking them as inaccurate he used the primitive defense of simply lying and saying that they are the highest ever when the opposite is true.

The tweet that struck me as interesting enough to make the above illustration was about MSNBC. There has been a lot of reporting about Trump's percipitious drop in approval as shown in all major polls on the station. If Trump was smart he'd never mention MSNBC but he can't restrain himself. I am sure that our friends over there take satisfacton in knowing he is watching their shows. I am waiting to see one of them say directly "President Trump, if you're watching this, I want you to answer this question." I wonder which MSNBC host's show is must-see TV for him. This would give bragging rights to the evening host who he called out by name. My bet would be on Rachel. The other night she went over every poll Trump was in free fall on.

The next to the last tweet he throws out is "the southern border is closed." This is a piece of unprovable and inaccurate braggadocio. Obviously saying that the border is closed doesn't mean that people have stopped making it across the border between the points of entry.

His final tweet is about the sixth hostage being released. Of course he wants to take credit for this. Any past president would have written something that showed compassion for the hostages and have sent them his best wishes.

Trump may not realize, or want to admit that this is a victory for Hamas because they are getting 600 Palestinian prisoners back, including one serviing a life sentence for killing an Israeli solder. I doubt Israel wants the public to see it this way.

It was 2017 but it seems to be an eternity ago that my friend Dr. John D. Gartner, the founder of the Duty to Warn movement and the first mental health professional to publish an article saying Trump was a “toxic malignant narcissist” (USA Today, 2017), published the book

All I Ever Wanted to Know about Donald Trump I Learned From His Tweets: A Psychological Exploration of the President via Twitter.

From Amazon:

We had to figure that by electing a decidedly non-career-politician, that things would be… different. But is this any way to run a country? Many opinions have been shared about Donald Trump, but we can learn so much more about the man via what he himself says – in 140 characters or less. Trump has tweeted nearly 35,000 times since launching @realDonaldTrump in March 2009, commenting on everything from immigration to policy climate change to even pop culture. As President, Trump tweets without ceasing, sometimes a dozen times a day, seemingly during important events and meetings. Apparently he believes that twitter is an effective tool for him to drive his agenda. But it’s one thing to be a brash, bold, and outspoken, maverick businessman, it’s quite another when the leader of the most powerful country in the world is talking politics as stream of consciousness.

Here you see something else from psychoanalysis. In addtion to dream interpretation, which Freud called the royal road to the unconscious, analysts encourage there patients to say whatever comes into their mind in a stream of consciousness.

By tweeting in the wee hours of the morning Trump has put himself on the psychoanalyst’s couch. In fact, this is the name of another book;

You can read excepts here.

Gartner introduced me to the concept of malignant narcissim. Understanding it is the best way to grasp what motivates Trump’s behavior, as well as the behavior of many of his cadre. I have written about the subject for years. If you Google search my name and Trump malignant narcissm this is what comes up.

This is the best site to read my essays on.

Trump and MAGA cohorts don't lack empathy. As sadists, they have perverse empathy, by Hal M. Brown, MSW

 

I wasn't sure which word to use in the title of this Substack to describe the unique kind of empathy Trump and his MAGA cohorts have. The other terms I considered were obscene, meaing offensive to moral principles, and repugnant. I settled on "perverse" because it was less judgmental.  It decribes a person or their actions showing a deliberate and obstinate desire to behave in a way that is unreasonable or unacceptable.

People who understand, and care about, emotions know that empathy is a deeper human experience than sympathy. It means that one can temporarily put themselves inside of another person's experiential world and get a profound sense of what they are feeling. It is as if they are feeling another's feelings themselves. When someone is empathizing, their feelings can be said to be resonating with the other person's feelings. These individuals are called empathetic (sometimes empathic, meaning the same thing).

Trump has been called a malignant narcissist. He fits the definition on Wikipedia and on many other websites. 

All of the definitions address the lack of empathy. This is from Wikipedia:

Because traits of antisocial personality disorder are present in malignant narcissism, the "malignant narcissist" has a more pervasive lack of empathy than someone with NPD (narcissstic personality disorder) alone and will lack feelings of guilt or remorse for the damage they cause.

Definitions also include a sadist element:

Psychologist Keith Campbell has defined malignant narcissism specifically as the rare but dangerous combination of narcissism and sadism.

In thinking about Trump and some of the people he is relying on to advance his agenda like Stephen Miller, I've concluded that they have a unique kind of empathy. I am calling it perverse empathy. Because they are sadists they enjoy being able to make their enemies suffer. They want them to be scared. They take pleasure in knowing that they can make millions of migrants, even children, frightened about being deported. They want trans people to be miserable. They want DEI hires to worry themselves sick about where their next paycheck is coming from. They want political enemies to be anxious about their personal safety. They want people like us to be worried sick about the country becoming a dictatorship. As Trump and his minions find more groups to demonize and terrorize the list will grow.

I've been posting the illustration above on my Substacks about Trump lately, but on the bottom of the page. Today it is the main illustration. This is because unless Trump sees the cruelty he unleashes he doesn't enjoy it. He not only wants to know how much he is hurting people, he wants as many other people to know this as possible. For example, he wants immigrant roundups, like the one happening today in Chicago, to get as much publicity as possible.

Here's why I suggest that Trump and his ilk have a particular kind of empathy. 

To really enjoy hurting someone a person has to be able to have a good sense of how they, the victims, are feeling. Here's where sympathy and empathy diverge. They actually get into that person's skin and are able to get a glimpse of how they feel, of their fear or terror. 

Bishop Budde said directly to Trump that she hoped he would show mercy, as if he was capable of this.

People like Trump take pleasure in inflicting pain. They certainly don't sympathize with their victims. Asking Trump to show mercy is like asking the same of Hannibal Lector. 

An empathetic therapist empathizes with their client during a session and often when thinking about them. They learn to pull back emotionally lest they become overwhelmed with what is referred to as caregiver fatigue or burnout. People in all healthcare professions have to learn what is referred to as controlled emotional involvement. 

The perversely empathetic person empathizes with their victims because it enhances their own pleasure. Obviously, it never bothers them so they certainly don't need to learn controlled emotional involvement. They really want to know how much the people they injure are suffering. 

Trump is on a crusade of cruelty. In this respect he is like Hitler. I expect we will see editorial cartoons about Trump similar to these about Hitler:

Cartoon by British artist David Low.

How much Hitler personally enjoyed the pain he inflicted is, as far as I can tell, unknown. He was a psychopath and may or may not have been a sadist. We don't know if he enjoyed thinking about what was happening in the death camps. Of course, he didn't care about how many people he had killed. Killing was a means to achieve an ends.

Trump has many traits of being a psychopathic personality. While not killing people, he is on a path to hurting millions of people, and he is enjoying this.

Using Trump and "having empathy" in the same sentence may seem like an oxymoron. My premise it that he does have empathy, but it is a unique loathsome kind of empathy.

Addendum:

Practical Examples of Empathy (Reference)

To further illustrate the practical use of these terms, consider the following examples:

• Everyday Language: “His empathetic nature made him a great friend, always knowing how to console others in times of need.”
• Clinical Setting: “The therapist used an empathic approach to build trust and understanding with her patients.”
• Literary Context: “The novel’s protagonist had an empathic connection with animals, sensing their emotions as if they were her own.”
• Social Interaction: “Being empathetic towards others can significantly improve your relationships and social connections.”

I post my Substacks (formerly blogs) on several platforms. They are on Substack where, if you want to submit your email, you can be notified of all new blog posts. They are on HalBrown.org. They are also on Stressline.org I also post them on Medium because this enables them to be easily found on internet searches.

You can take the bully out of the schoolyard, but you can't take the bully out of the boy, by Hal M. Brown

 

When Trump finally falls asleep at night he may dream of vanquishing a group of attacking thugs or being in a boxing ring intimidating his opponent with his snarling face and rippling muscles. He may also have dreams about leading a SWAT team raid against undocumented immigrants.

He didn't need to be dreaming when he pretended to beat up Vince McMahan and shave his heard.

You've probably seen the video of Trump knocking Vince McMahon down, sucker punching him, and then shaving his head. Click here to see it again. Here's an article about it.

Here are some screenshots: 

I knew two or three schoolyard bullies in grade school. They literally pushed kids around or even punched them so hard they fell down. This gained them their status as rulers of the playground with their own posse of bully wannabes. 

They were what you'd call tough kids. They weren't among the popular kids, some of whom were athletic and played sports and the bullies didn't mess with them. Others were outgoing and had a clever sense of humor. Some drew other kids to them because of their empathy.

Few of the victims of the bullies fought back because the bullies rarely attacked people they thought could to put up a credible fight.

I don't see the young Trump as having had the personality to be popular with other kids. He was probably egotistical and was driven to prove himself and stand out among his classmates. Not having the disposition or social skills to be popular be turned to bullying.

Accounts of Trump's childhood say he was a bully when he was growing up. 

Trump can't literally beat up or push people to the ground anymore. Still, he wants to do this in other ways. 

Of course he did engage in faking it when he body slammed and sucker punched Vince McMahon and pretended to humilate him by shaving his head. It is worth watching him do this to consider he's about to be president again. His fake fighting meets a deep need in him for being like Bruce Lee taking on and beating multiple opponents at once.

I won't bother posting a collection of his absurdly priced NFT images depicting him as a muscle bound superhero. With him it's been about image and posturing over the past four years using words and intimidation to bend people to his will. 

Trump has revealed his fantasies about how he sees himself. He's old. He's out of shape. He has a lot of unhealthy execss fat. All this is relevant because as president he has effective ways to be a bully without getting down and dirty in a schoolyard fight.

He only wishes he could look like Pete Hegseth. It takes work to have a muscle-bound body like his, or Marjorie Taylor Greene's for that matter. Maybe it's naive on my part to think he'd be less malevolently dangerous if he actually was still reasonably physically fit. To compensate for this he now will be able to take vicarious satisfaction in expressing his cruelty by the deceptively benign sounding term "executive orders."

You can bet that if Trump looked like Putin with his shirt off, you'd have seen photos of him like these of Putin's famous shirtless horseback riding photos.  Still, Putin's physical fitness along with his martial arts expertise (he may or may not have a black belt) has the ability to beat up rivals if he needed to. This hasn't made him less of a ruthless despot, so there's this to consider.

I view Trump as someone whose insecurity is deeply buried in his unconscious. This is what Mary Trump said about him:

The deeper cause is his insecurity. This is a man who knows on an unconscious level that he is absolutely nothing of what he claims to be.” (Reference)

According to reports, by the time Trump was in the military academy he maneged to pull off becoming a bully:

One popular narrative about Donald Trump's early years, though, is that his stern workaholic father essentially rejected him when he was a young boy. When he was just 12 years old, the behavior issues of the boy who would become president prompted his father to send him away to the New York Military Academy in Upstate New York. There, as Trump biographer Michael D'Antonio wrote for Politico last year, the boy would be confronted with "an aggressive and isolate subculture that prized physical toughness and defined manhood in the basest terms" until he graduated and went to college.

By all accounts, Trump excelled in this environment, taking on leadership roles and playing baseball and basketball. Still, the boy he was before he enrolled at the military academy — often described by people who knew him as a bully — closely resembles the man he is today. Except for the fact that, now, Donald Trump arguably wields more power and influence than anyone else in the world as the president of the United States. Reference

Trump became more of a bully when his wealth enabled him to do this. Before he entered politics he bullied his way to becoming a billionaire. "The Art of the Deal" shows some of this. In addition in recommending using hyperbole and deception he reveals how he liked to be aggressive.  Here are examples:

On fighting back: "[W]hen people treat me badly or unfairly or try to take advantage of me, my general attitude, all my life, has been to fight back very hard. The risk is you'll make a bad situation worse, and I certainly don't recommend this approach to everyone. But my experience is that if you're fighting for something you believe in — even if it means alienating some people along the way — things usually work out for the best in the end."

On competing: "I'm the first to admit that I am very competitive and that I'll do nearly anything within legal bounds to win. Sometimes, part of making a deal is denigrating your competition." Reference.

You can see some of this bullying in this collection of clips from The Apprentice.

Like everyone, Trump's personality was shaped by his childhood experiences. Today the country is paying a price for the man whose father never gave him the unconditional love any child needs. I see him as wanting to please his bullying father. What better way to do this than become a bully himself. This backfired as a young child since he was sent away to boarding school when he was 12. 

Here's what Trump biographer Michael D'Antonio wrote:

Fred Trump was a fiercely ambitious man who worked seven days a week and devoted few waking hours to his role as a parent. Although he pushed his son Donald to prevail in every arena—to be a "killer" and a "king"—Fred didn’t actually tell the young man how to achieve this destiny. His way of paying attention to his children was to let them watch him at work. Reference.

This is what he wrote about Trump's bullying:

While Fred Trump was busy scheming and manipulating, his son developed into a bullying and out-of-control little boy. As Donald recalled to me, he loved to fight—“all kinds of fights, even physical”—and the teachers and administrators at the private school he attended in Queens, New York, couldn’t manage him. The situation was quite embarrassing to Donald’s father, who was a major benefactor for the school. In exasperation, he abruptly removed his son from the family home, which was a mansion attended by servants, and handed him over to the New York Military Academy in Upstate New York. Upon arrival, twelve-year-old Donald was put into uniform and assigned a tiny cell-like room. In the days, weeks and years to come he would have to cope with an all-male culture of competition and hierarchy where physical abuse, carried out by the students and the adults who supervised them, was part of the routine.

This is the man who will soon be president. Instead of a schoolyard posse to stroke his ego if he gets his way with his nominations he will have people like Kash Patel, Thomas Homan, and Pete Hegseth there to assist him in his bullying. His has his Congressional sycophants and the oligarchs beholden to him. They will be partners in his bullying.

The Trump we see today is someone whose personality was shaped growing up in dysfunctional family. 

For more about this read "Making the man: to understand Trump, look at his relationship with his dad" from the Guardian.

Update: Compare the 2017 photo of the smiling Trump which was selcted for the official photo with the one selected for 2025. It is similar to the defiant glaring mugshot photo. He seems to be saying like a bully would "mess with me at your own peril."

My version:

Personal story: My own experience with a bully was in eight grade when one of them got me in a bear hug and was squeezing me so hard I could barely breathe. Out of a need to survive, without any forethought, I instinctively kneed him in the groin as hard as I could. He crumbled to the ground in pain curled in a fetal position. A group of the most popular girls saw all this. I discovered from one who was a good friend that they were really impressed. That is until I got so frightened he'd get up and beat the crap out of me and then I started to cry. That ruined my chance of being the underestimated Mighty Mouse of the school. Long story short - he never messed around with me again. I only wish I could have restrained my tears.

  ----------------------------------------

I post my blogs on Stressline.org where you can subscribe (for free everywhere) and on Substack where, if you want to submit your email, you can be notified of all new blog posts. I also post them on Medium because this enables them to be easily found on internet searches.

The halbrown.org platform includes a Disquis comment section. To use it you have to register on Disquis.

Trump is like an insecure bully trying to scare everyone by doing a cannonball into a crowded swimming pool, by Hal M. Brown

 

Below is the article in RawStory by Travis Getty that inspired me to put together this AI illustrated blog:

'Red meat for MAGA': Trump said to be prepping 'early shock-and-awe campaign' in new term.

Yesterday I wrote about deadcatting and how Turmp is throwing dead cats on the table to distract from all the publicity Elon Musk is getting and squash the speculation about who really is the president.

Making sure everyone knows he is president rather than Elon Musk is only part of what is motivating him to want to take headline grabbing action on his first day in office and then what he will do during his first days and weeks as president.

If you were lucky enough to go to swimming pools with your friends when you were a kid you probably watched some big bully try to show off by doing a cannon ball in the the midst of everyone in the pool and frighten the smaller children.

I think this is akin to what Trump is doing. He wants to be cheered on by MAGA and instill fear in his enemies.

He thinks he can emerge from the pool as some kind of superhero.

Thanks to AI I could offer you the images which show how Trump would really look if he did this rather than how he wishes he could look.

We actually have a president who sees himself as reincarnation of Superman (as if he'd adhere to The Man of Steel's credo with truth, justice, and the American way actually meaning what it was supposed to mean). 

You don't need to be his psychoanalyst to know that Trump imagines himself to be a masculine superhero with extraordinary powers. He has sold his digital cards depicting himself as a muscle bound Superman.

That so many people could vote for someone who has these delusions is an insult to the intelligence of millions of Americans. Trump also insulted voters by not keeping these fantasies to himself but by sharing them. 

Lots of kids have fantasies about being a superhero. When I was young I used to fantasize about being Mighty Mouse. (His theme song tells about his credo. Click here to hear it and watch a 20 minute episode.) This no doubt says a lot about me. 

These are people who might even buy the AI images below:

All of Trump's current blustering is an attempt to to show the country, and the world, how powerful he is and that he is not someone anyone should consider messing with. Below on the left is how he sees himself and on the right is how I and many others see him.

I post my blogs on Stressline.org where you can subscribe (for free everywhere) and on Substack where, if you want to submit your email, you can be notified of all new blog posts. I also post them on Medium because this enables them to be easily found on internet searches.

The halbrown.org platform includes a Disquis comment section. To use it you have to register on Disquis. 

What''s the deal with Trump wanting the Panama Canal back and Canada to be a state. It's all about his being threatened by the President Musk meme. By Hal M.Brown

How long before Trump starts wearing the MAGA Panama hat? I want bragging rights for predicting this if he does.

President Theodore Roosevelt wore a Panama hat when he visited the Panama Canal. Will Turmp wear his own version when he goes there if he can take it back? My hunch is that Trump felt he needed an issue to change the subject from people saying Musk was really the president. Maybe we'll see Trump wearing a MAGA Panama hat.

Just as I was starting to write this Jonathan LeMire said this on MSNBC - "when the Time Magazine cover drops" about a Time cover about Elon being president. I was going to write that I really hope they have a snarky cover showing President Musk. Trump pays attention to Time Magazine covers! I made this to post on X using the X logo to cover Trump's face.

I don't follow X having moved to BlueSky (here) but being able to do things like this is the only reason I use it.

Back to the Panama Canal story...

Trump's bringing this up pretty much out of nowhere except the convoluted recesses of his warped mind demonstrates that even though he is about to be sworn in as president he is still deeply insecure. The bloviating macho man has always had an Achille's Heel and it is having a superior macho man take the limelight away from him.

Another Trump weakness is having a woman make the news like Stormy Daniels did by mocking his masculinity and E. Jean Carroll did by forcing him to endure day after day in court. I think that every minute he spent in court he was seething inside and was plotting his revenge.

People make fun of Trump's dancing and although I haven't seen Musk dance at a Trump rally, he does dance in his own energetic odd way. Here's a video

He also can enthusiatically leap quite high, apparently, as shown below, not pleasing Trump.

Musk often wears his black Colonize Mars t-shirt and in this photo he looks like he could be using levitating powers to actually start the journey.

As far as who the real macho man is, Musk is the richest man in the world. Trump is rich and just got back on the Forbes 400 list, but he's nowhere near as rich as Musk who is worth 10 times as much as he is. As far as another common, albeit phallocentric, measure of masculine prowess, Musk has 12 children. Critics question whether Trump and Melania even share a bedroom. Musk just had a baby.

Trump wants to round up undocumented people who want to live here and be productive members of our society.  He wants to depict them as evil so he can be say he vanquished them and saved innocent true Americans from being victims of horrific crimes. Musk wants the immigration problem to be resolved but his focues is on how much it costs.

Musk wants to be known for DOGE and saving the goverment and Americans billions, but he also is passionate about sending people to inhabit another planet. Instead of wanting to be known for helping to cure cancer he tried to cut funding for children's cancer research. Wanting to rocket off to Mars just isn't as glamorous and manly an accomplishment as curing cancer. This is why you won't see Trump making this an focus of his presidency.

Trump has made many promises he is unlikely to be able to keep. People are not particulary patient. They want to see lower grocery prices as soon as he takes office. Trump has to make good on his Hitlerian rhetoric about rounding up immigrants and deporting them. He wants this to happen overnight. Of course it won't and the endeavor which will be marked by ineptitude will be met with a lot of blowback and bad publicity. Trump is setting himself up for failure. So what does he do? He decides to take the Panama Canal back.

On top of this he has also once again brought up the idea of buying Greenland.

There is something so utterly self-defeating about Trump interjecting Panama and Greenland into the news coverage that I can only clincally explain it by positing that the viral President Musk meme has hit his Achille's Heel and hobbled him so he is totally off balance. He is desperate for a diversion. He want to show how powerful he is. He's decided that one way to do this is to pull a Putin. He wants to annex land, in this case a canal, and Greenland, and even the entire country of Canada making it our 51st state. 

He tried unsuccessfully to antagonize Prime Minister of Canada so perhaps this is why he took on the president of Panama. He's trying to sell this idea on Truth Social:

I can't keep up with the images about President Musk that I see posted in social media. Below are just a few of them.

These are mine:

I doubt very much that Trump sees any of these. I admit I enjoy making them and in all modesty think his wearing the "I'm the boss" t-shirt is one of the best I used AI to create. 

To say it is all over the news is an understatement. Consider this simple Google News search for President Musk.

Click above to enlarge image

Trump is that he's the most transparently self-revealing president in my lifetime. This sounds like a complement considering that he has also lied more than any president or presidential candidate this needs some explanation. Most of his lies reveal something about the inner workings of his mind. This goes for many of the words he types on social media and utters when he goes off the teleprompter when he speaks. 

There was a time when mental health professionals were criticized for trying to diagnose Trump without assessing him in person. By now I hope those who lambasted us realize that we have so much information about his psychopathogy it would be a kind of malpractice not to diagnose him. 

Trump is a malignant narcissist who is a dangerous to our democracy. In addtion he meets every critera for being an examplar for the Dark Triad.

Trump, who lacks a semblence of empathy, has a sadistic streak. So do others like Stephen Miller and his choice to head the immigration round up Tom Homan. Like with Trump, the cruelty is the point. Being cruel makes them feel tough and manly.

Related:

Trump adviser Corey Lewandowski on plot to take Greenland: 'We have not expanded our country in 70 years'

"Corey, what do you make of Trump's threat about the Panama Canal?" Newsmax host Logan Ratick asked the Trump adviser.

"Yeah, once again, this is President Trump focused on America first," Lewandowski explained. "We sold it for a dollar, which was just the most ridiculous thing that anybody has ever seen."

"And so it's time to make sure that our independence and our dominance on the world stage is back in play," he continued. "He's talking about maybe Greenland from a historic perspective coming as part of the United States, taking back the Panama Canal so that China doesn't have its influence there."

"This is a president who is making outside-the-box announcements to put the world on notice that, once again, the United States is the dominant world superpower."

I post my blogs on Stressline.org where you can subscribe (for free everywhere) and on Substack where, if you want to submit your email, you can be notified of all new blog posts. I also post them on Medium because this enables them to be easily found on internet searches.

The halbrown.org platform includes a Disquis comment section. To use it you have to register on Disquis. Go to bottom of blogs and click sign up with Disquis.