The United States has never had a president quite like Donald J. Trump. And, it is highly unlikely that there will be another one like him again.
He has been called, with good reason, “the most unorthodox president of modern times,”1 and a “president unlike any other.”2 He is in many respects the Black Swan of the modern American presidency,3 unique and unexpected, but also disproportionally consequential. And being consequential is Trump’s presidential purpose—all in the service of what I argue in this analysis is an effort at American Restoration.
The fact that Trump’s presidency is unprecedented, unexpected, and has already had substantial political and policy consequences does not necessarily mean that it will ultimately be successful. Mr. Trump’s presidential ambitions are to reformulate, reform, and where necessary replace a number of the dominant policy and political paradigms that have governed American political life for the last half-century. His presidential purposes are essentially transformative, as well as reformist and restorative.
Trump’s primary vehicles for successfully reaching those politically difficult and historically rare goals are his clearly observable and very distinctive presidential leadership style and equally unorthodox thinking patterns. Their foundations are a set of character traits and capacities along with habits of mind that go well beyond the narrow, hackneyed assertions that his narcissism is his only defining character trait.
Yet, while his leadership style may be unique, its half-life and transferability may very well be limited.4 Arguments have already been made by Trump’s allies that even if he is successful during his presidency, “the real danger with Mr. Trump is that he may end up changing little.”5 It remains to be seen, given the substantial array for forces mobilized against his presidency, his own avoidable mistakes,6 the unprecedented Coronavirus pandemic, the traumatic impact of the tragic death of George Floyd during a police stop and the peaceful demonstrations and riots that followed, and Trump’s response to them both, along the magnitude of the tasks that he has set for himself and the country, whether President Trump will be “successful,” and if so, how.
It has been clear from the president’s first days in office that7:
President Trump is moving at an unprecedented pace to change the direction of the country and reset America’s place in the world. …If successful in making good on his vision, his presidency would be described as one of the most important and controversial of modern times—and no doubt one of the most contentious.
If.
Developing a Theory of Mr. Trump and His Presidency
This analysis is not an exploration that attempts to fit Trump’s particular traits into a pre-existing a priori theoretical framework and typology of “presidential character.”8 That most well known of these theories has many demonstrated problems of conceptualization, evidence, and inference.9 In any event, in Mr. Trump’s case, there is so little examination of the real range of elements that comprise his psychology in reality that simply taking the reductionist singular characterizations of Trump’s psychology and leadership style and putting them into a pre-existing theory would be a disservice.
The purpose of this analysis is theory building by uncovering core psychological elements in a deductive case study approach,10 and to assess the evidence both for and against the tentative theories developed to understand and explain Mr. Trump and his presidency. It would then be possible to assemble the particular elements that comprise this president’s psychology, ask how they are related, and examine how they affect the core elements of presidential performance—leadership and the judgment reflected in his choices.11
Ordinary social science addresses and builds on the “literature.” Biographically based case studies like this one, using ordinary social science approaches to theory development and evidence, also build on the “literature,” when available or relevant. Thus we examine in some detail notions of political time as they relate to Trump’s presidential performance. We also delve quite deeply into the literature on the motivations of Trump supporters (see Chapter 10). We draw on diverse clinical theories of narcissism, both normal and pathological, to assess one major element of Trump’s psychology (see Chapter 6) and use those theories to assess his psychological and political fitness for office (see Chapter 7). We also obviously draw on, throughout this analysis, studies of past presidencies and the theories of presidential leadership associated with them.
However, it is worth emphasizing that the primary “literature” available for an analysis of the Trump presidency is the enormous wealth of data generated by the Trump presidency itself. This effort then relies on assembling diverse data to inductively build a “theory of Trump and the Trump presidency.” Those provisional formulations can then be used to gauge their utility in understanding the patterns of an unfolding presidency.
These efforts are meant to provide explanatory power and understanding of what we see President Trump doing as his presidency unfolds. They make use of a large range of data. One advantage of that approach is that when there are available facts that don’t fit with an initial understanding, we are required make sense of them. These research strategies are likely to bring us closer to understanding the real man and his presidency. However, it is true that however much effort we put into developing and clarifying our theories and understandings, they will still remain provisional to some degree.
Analyzing President Trump While He Is Still in Office
This book is an “initial” analysis of Mr. Trump’s presidency written as he completes almost four years in office, but not quite yet a full term. He may or may not serve another. His historical record and materials for the Trump archives and library are in the process of being enacted in real time. It is true that historical perspective and archival records can be grounds for revised understandings of any president, including Mr. Trump, and they are obviously not available to scholars yet. Still, for reasons to be explained shortly, it is possible to reach some firmer more substantively based understanding of this complex man and presidency without waiting for his presidential library to open its doors.
This analysis breaks new ground in both its time frame and its conceptual framework. It does more than examine Mr. Trump’s time in office at six months,12 one,13 or even two years,14 highlighting the “highs” and “lows.” It does that to some degree with its use of “event data” (see Chapter 2). However, this analysis spans Trump’s life and personal development in search for patterns that can help us understand the man and his presidency.
Finding Core Patterns in a Kaleidoscopic Presidency
The framework of analysis that follows is made possible by the fact Mr. Trump is unusual in having governed with a leadership style that was entirely evident during both his presidential campaign and throughout his very public career as a business entrepreneur and empire builder. Not surprisingly, he has carried his unusual and unorthodox style into his presidency.
That is to be expected because these patterns and their underlying psychology have been developed and consolidated over a lifetime as a unique, singular CEO, and mostly successful career building an international business empire. As a result, his style and the psychological elements that support it have become firmly rooted and consolidated in this seventy-four year old president. They are key ingredients of his presidency, and likely to remain so.
Early in the Trump presidency the most informed observers could legitimately argue that “Trump Governs as He Campaigned: Unconventionally and Unpredictably.”15 Almost four years into Trump’s first term, it is unclear if Trump’s unpredictability is still as much of a shock and surprise as it was at the start of his campaign for the Republican nomination. Certainly, part of Trump’s “unpredictability” is related to the fact that he ignored conventional rules in gaining the nomination and the presidency and continues to do so as president. Yet that does not mean there were no patterns in his behavior.
Policy and News at Trump Speed
One of the ways in which President Trump is unlike any previous American president is the way that he dominates the news cycle on a daily and almost an hourly basis. The president is the center of so many policy developments and news stories and analysis about them—the myriad debates regarding his handling of the Coronavirus,16 his policy musings on homelessness,17 the latest installment of Trump’s first term long conflict with multiple Democratic investigations—including one dealing as the pandemic is unfolding with a focus on how the administration responded to the crisis,18 his impeachment and acquittal,19 the latest fight with his own party,20 the latest firing of someone in his administration,21 or a casual Christmas-eve conversation with a seven-year-old girl about whether she believes i...