Psychoanalytic and Historical Perspectives on the Leadership of Donald Trump

Narcissism and Marketing in an Age of Anxiety and Distrust

Michael Maccoby, Ken Fuchsman

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781000061116
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Political Campaigns & Elections
• Index: Politics & International Relations

What is Donald Trump's personality? Is he mentally ill? What in American culture and history enabled him to become president? How does his personality shape his policies and leadership?

In this fascinating and highly relevant new book, these questions are answered by a selection of expert contributors, including psychoanalysts, historians, and a sociologist. Narcissism is defined and applied to Donald Trump, his personal history and style of leadership, and the relationship between Trump and his base is explored as a symptom of his needs and the needs of his followers. U.S. culture andU.S. politics are put under the lens, as chapters draw on contemporary academic and journalistic analysis, continuing discussions around gaslighting, demagoguery, and fascism in terms of their validity in application to Trump.

Psychoanalytic and Historical Perspectives on the Leadership of Donald Trump refutes many of the mental health expertswho label Trump as suffering from a narcissistic personality disorder and makes the case that Trump's personality combines a marketing and narcissistic orientation that determines his behavior and policies. The authors also assert that to understand Trump's rise and his followers, it is valuable to combine psychoanalytic, historical, and sociological perspectives.This book will therefore be of great interest to academics in those fields and all those with an interest in contemporary American politics.

Part I

Who is Donald Trump and why do people follow him?

Chapter 1

Trump’s marketing narcissistic leadership in an age of anxiety

Michael Maccoby

Leadership is a relationship between a leader and followers that takes place in a particular context. Someone may gain followers in one context but not in another. Donald Trump’s personality, his combination of marketing and narcissistic traits have connected with many voters in this particular historical time.

We are living in an age of anxiety, with fears that are political, social, and individual. We are anxious knowing that weapons of mass destruction are primed to kill millions of people, that climate change and viruses threaten human life, that terrorists can suddenly turn a pleasant outing in places like Paris, London, Barcelona, New York City, and El Paso, Texas, into a bloodbath, that children at school, concert goers, and worshippers in a church or a synagogue can suddenly be murdered by a fanatic.

There are other causes of anxiety. Decades of rapid transition from a bureaucratic-industrial culture to a culture based on information and knowledge have widened the financial and power gap between those able to adapt and those remaining rooted in a vanishing culture. Threats to livelihood and self-esteem have triggered anxiety in people left behind who have been losing industrial jobs due to global competition and automation, and fear they will never catch up.

After Joan C. Williams wrote an article about the white working class in the Harvard Business Review, a reader wrote to her:

Your article deeply articulated the view of my family in a way they never could … They’re mostly afraid. Afraid of the brown skin people. Afraid of the day they can’t live in their home anymore. Afraid of global economics. Afraid of those who claim their God is not real. Afraid of sexually empowered women. Afraid of the scientific utterances they don’t understand related to climate change, so they just reject it outright. Fear manifests itself in many ways, but it’s the same route.

(Williams, 2017, 65)

The white working class is not the only anxious group. African Americans (Bahrampour, 2017) and Latinos, including high school students (Rogers et al., 2017). worry about the policies of the Trump administration. A Pew study (Horowitz & Graf, 2019) published in February 2019 reported about 70 percent of U.S. teens see anxiety and depression as a major problem among their peers. Even professionals in the knowledge economy, the so-called elite, are not free of anxiety. Both at work and socially, they are constantly being evaluated as employees and social partners. According to studies by Jean M. Twenge, their children are afraid to grow up in this dangerous world. Twenge also cites reports that increasing numbers of undergraduates suffer overwhelming anxiety (Twenge, 2017). Rather than focusing on living a purposeful life, these young people worry they will become a have-not rather than a have. They worry about paying for education, taking student loans and being saddled with debt, and they worry about getting a job that would make their education a good investment.

The causes vary for different people, but to some degree we are all experiencing chronic and existential anxiety. Because living with extreme anxiety can be unbearable, many people repress it and some escape into drugs, entertainment, and social media. Mechanisms of escape become pathological addictions. Some of the people left behind have joined tribalistic political groups that are vulnerable to demagogues, narcissistic leaders who project power and certainty. These leaders stimulate a regressive transference in their followers. They feed the group’s narcissism, blame others for their problems, and promise magical solutions to the causes of their anxiety. This dynamic threatens all of us, the unity of our society, and our ability to work together to address the threats to our wellbeing. It was a key factor in the election of Donald Trump, a leader whose marketing narcissistic behavior increases the fragmentation of society and our existential anxiety. To better understand our national condition, it will help to analyze how the threats to life and livelihood tend to increase narcissism and favor narcissistic leaders.

Narcissism

The concept of narcissism has strayed far from its mythic origin, the story of Narcissus, a beautiful hunter who rejects the love of Echo and is punished by Nemesis who leads him to a pool where he falls in love with his own image and stares at his reflection until he dies. Narcissism has become a household term for all kinds of egoism, arrogance, vanity, and bloated self-esteem. The use of the term has become so broad that the concept has almost lost its value.

The narcissistic personality disorder is well known. It lists symptoms such as entitlement, grandiosity, and paranoia, but doesn’t describe their causes. I’ve thought about the causes and have focused on three different aspects of narcissism other than the narcissistic personality disorder:

1. Narcissism essentially combines the survival drive common to all species with specifically human needs for dignity and self-esteem, recognition, and validation as persons. We all are somewhat narcissistic. If we weren’t concerned about ourselves more than others, we’d have less chance of surviving physically and emotionally. Clearly, existential anxiety triggers the narcissistic survival drive. Exaggerated concerns about survival can expand into paranoia, seeing threats everywhere. For the individual as well as for government, overinvesting our energy in defense and security short-changes health, education, and welfare. The extreme need for dignity and self-esteem, recognition, and validation can be a reaction to feelings of humiliation and insignificance. These needs can expand into grandiosity and a pathological need for praise. When the drives for survival and self-esteem dominate the personality, the result is the narcissistic personality disorder. When this is combined with destructive sadism, the result is malignant narcissism.
2. Group narcissism. Throughout human history, the group or tribe that shared an identity has been more cohesive, better able to survive against enemies or natural threats. When people with shared identities feel attacked, they are likely to band together. Shared identities can become group narcissism that supports cooperation rather than intra-group rivalry. Cults are a form of group narcissism where people are connected by their identification with a charismatic leader. Malignant group narcissism fuels feelings of group or racial superiority and, in the extreme, results in dehumanization of other groups, leading to violence or even genocide. But group narcissism can also be more benign when it is based on positive shared values. It can motivate people in teams and in companies to collaborate and work harder to prove their superiority.
3. The narcissistic personality. Psychiatry focuses on psychopathology, and psychiatrists typically view the narcissistic personality as the narcissistic personality disorder. Psychiatric diagnostic categories describe illness, not personality, and there is no personality disorder without a normal personality which is not described by psychiatrists. Like other personality types, the narcissistic type has strengths and weaknesses. Narcissists can be more or less productive.

In Chapter 2, Otto Kernberg, a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who is well known for his study and treatment of narcissists, describes a continuum from normal narcissism to extreme narcissistic personality disorders.

The narcissistic personality is one of three normal personality types proposed by Sigmund Freud (Freud, [1931] 1961). They are the erotic, obsessive, and narcissistic types. Erich Fromm added a fourth type, the marketing personality. Both Freud and Fromm proposed that we all express combinations of these types, but that one is usually dominant. Fromm pointed out that each type can be either positive and productive, or negative and unproductive. Erotics can be caring or dependent. Obsessives can be conscientious and reliable or nit-picking and anal. Narcissists can be visionary or just grandiose. Marketing personalities can be adaptive or centerless in need of constant affirmation of their worth. I have added names to these types that indicate their positive qualities: caring (erotic), exacting (obsessive), visionary (narcissistic), and adaptive (marketing). (I have supportive data for these types based on the factor analysis of results of a questionnaire I developed and have tested with hundreds of professionals (Maccoby, 2015)).

Freud, who once described himself as a narcissist to Sandor Ferenczi, describes this type as follows:

The third type [is] justly called the narcissistic type … There is no tension between ego and super-ego (indeed, on the strength of this type one would scarcely have arrived at the hypothesis of a super-ego), and there is no preponderance of erotic needs. The subject’s main interest is directed to self-preservation: he is independent and not open to intimidation. His ego has a large amount of aggressiveness at its disposal, which also manifests itself in a readiness for activity. In his erotic life loving is preferred above being loved. People belonging to this type impress others as being “personalities”; they are especially suited to act as support for others, to take on the role of leaders and to give a fresh stimulus to cultural development or to damage the established state of affairs.

Most of the successful narcissistic leaders I’ve studied, coached, and treated in analysis shared a developmental pattern. They were men who in childhood did not identify with their fathers either because he was absent (FDR, Barack Obama, Frank Lloyd Wright, Bill Clinton, Steve Jobs), weak (Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan), or abusive (Abraham Lincoln). Most had strong, supporting mothers. Instead of a strong superego, they developed a demanding ego ideal, an ideal self they strived to become. They felt little or no guilt even when they acted in unethical or immoral ways, but they felt shame when they failed to live up to their ideal self-image. Lacking a strong superego, they could be ruthless in their striving to realize their ambitions, attacking those who threatened their self-image.

But those who were gifted not only broke rules, they changed the world in both positive and negative ways, such as FDR’s New Deal and Adolf Hitler’s Thousand Year Reich. Narcissists have created great companies like Ford, Apple, and Amazon or have destroyed companies like Enron and WorldCom.

Narcissistic leaders are most likely to emerge in times of disruptive change, either in politics, the economy, or technology that transforms society. Their inventions revolutionize the economy, and the narcissistic leader’s promise to solve people’s problems can inspire hope and dampen anxiety. Because narcissists present their inspiring visions with total confidence, they gain followers who either end up participating in their success or drinking their Kool-Aid.

Erich Fromm, in Escape from Freedom (Fromm, 1941) described the dynamic of anxious and depressed people becoming vulnerable to the promises of a narcissistic leader. The German lower middle class had a shared social character, a syndrome of character traits that developed as an adaptation to the economic, social, and cultural conditions common to the group. They were hard-working, frugal, patriotic, and submissive to authority. After World War I when Germany fell into a deep depression, these attitudes no longer led to economic success. Inflation made their hard-earned savings worthless. They felt humiliated and resentful. They lost trust in the leaders who had failed them. Hitler promised a return to prosperity and national glory, to make Germany great again. He blamed the people’s problems on the Jews, communists, and enemies of Germany. Their obsessive and submissive social character made these people especially vulnerable to Hitler’s authoritarian appeal. Hitler also gained support from business leaders who feared the alternative to Hitler was communism.

President Trump

Of course, Trump voters have not experienced the extreme loss suffered by Germans after World War I, but many of them are currently experiencing the results of technological, economic, and cultural changes that have had far-reaching consequences. Some Americans, especially a group that felt dispossessed by cultural and economic changes, supported Donald Trump for president, believing his promises to improve their lives and regain their self-esteem (others supported him for different reasons).¹

Rather than address the real causes of anxiety due to culture change and threats to life, Trump has encouraged the group narcissism of his base of mainly whites who felt that their culture and livelihood were threatened. He has affirmed their distrust of elites and their prejudices against immigrants and Muslims.² Rather than alleviating anxiety, as FDR did when he said, “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself,” Trump has increased our anxiety by feeding the flames of political conflict.

What is the difference between Trump’s personality and the personalities of visionary narcissists who inspire collaboration for productive goals?

A cottage industry has emerged of mental health experts and commentators diagnosing Donald Trump as suffering from a narcissistic personality disorder. But Trump’s personality doesn’t fit into a narrow diagnostic category of a narcissistic personality disorder. He is not suffering from a delusion that he is president. He is not disabled. His personality is a variation of a normal narcissistic personality type. Trump has some of the narcissistic traits Freud described, including large amounts of aggressive energy and a weak superego, so he lacks internalized rules to keep his ego in check. He is combative, defensive, and grandiose. He needs constant praise. He makes up stories and facts. He feels no guilt about lying. He can also be seductive, using people and discarding them when they are no longer useful to him.

In Trump’s book Think Like a Billionaire (Trump, 2004) he claims that the description in my book The Productive Narcissist (Maccoby, 2003) (republished as Narcissistic Leaders (Maccoby 2007a)) of productive narcissists like Steve Jobs and Jeff Bezos fits him:

Michael Maccoby, a psychoanalyst and consultant, believes that billionaires like Jeff Bezos, Steve Jobs, and Ted Turner are successful in part because they are narcissists who devote their talent with unrelenting focus to achieving their dreams, even if it’s sometimes at the expense of those around them. Maccoby’s book The Productive Narcissist makes a convincing argument that narcissism can be a useful quality if you’re trying to start a business. A narcissist does not hear the naysayers. At the Trump Organization, I listen to people, but my vision is my vision.

(Trump with McIver, 2005, xvi)

Trump boasts that he also is a visionary leader, but his type of narcissism and his visions of buildings, gambling emporiums, and golf courses are significantly different from that of Jobs, Bezos, and other productive narcissists in business and politics. So is his relationship to others.

Jobs and Bezos envisioned and produced products and services that have improved the way we live. Subordinates who suffered their demands and insults believed in their visions with almost religious fervor and were rewarded for their devotion. These leaders combined narcissism with a productive obsessive-exacting drive to realize their visions. Unlike Trump, they didn’t con people like those who enrolled in Trump University or clip lenders for millions with a series of bankruptcies. Unlike Trump, they didn’t demand that their subordinates constantly praise them. They sought competent collaborators, not flattering toadies.

I have puzzled over Trump’s variation of the narcissistic personality. How much did he both resent and identify with his jungle-fighting and demanding father who told him he could be either a killer or a loser? Did he both copy and compete with his father, trying to surpass him in riches and prestige? Does he still feel like a victim of paternal abuse who has to continually prove he is not a loser? Unlike his father who tried to avoid publicity, Trump sought the spotlight from an early age. He seems to combine narcissism with a marketing personality. People of this type shape themselves and their products to gain the approval of others. Their sense of self-worth is based not on their human qualities such as caring for others and integrity, but on their perceived value on the market of public opinion. Trump is an extreme example. His marketing orientation makes him vulnerable because he needs constant approval. His grandiose bluff and bluster are parts of a fragile narcissistic self-i...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of contributors
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• PART I: Who is Donald Trump and why do people follow him?
• PART II: How Trump leads
• PART III: Social and historical factors in the rise of Trump
• PART IV: Presidential personality and performance
• Index