The Five Faces of Donald Trump - Trump's Mental Makeup

Trump: A Man of 5 Emotions | Psychology Today

Arash Emamzadeh, a psychologist writing in Psychology Today, believes he has observed five emotions that dominate Donald Trump's personality.

He points out firstly that:

Compared with the last US president, Barack Obama, Trump appears less emotionally in control and perhaps less capable of experiencing or expressing a "range of human emotions."

In other words, although Emamzadeh doesn't use the words, Trump appears to have a lack of self-control and the empathy of a psychopath.

The five emotions Trump expresses are:

1. Anger and rage

   Trump regularly expresses anger/rage especially during interviews or hostile questioning, coming across as disagreeable and malicious with a desire to dominate and win the adoration or others. Often, his anger is inflammatory and designed to appeal to "white rage" (the anxiety associated with a perceived loss of white privilege as minority groups gain civil rights once regarded as the preserve of white people, particularly white male Christians. It is a peculiar paranoia (see later) that regards others having the same rights as you, as somehow a loss of your own rights and privileges.



2. Pride

   In her book Take Pride: Why the Deadliest Sin Holds the Secret to Human Success, psychologist Jessica Tracy, points out examples of Trump's hubris pride in his regular boasting of his wealth, intelligence and business acumen. Obama too expressed pride in his achievements but his pride was directed towards, and came from, his assumption of equality, so sought to unify. Trump's pride comes from his hierarchical, stratified view of society, so is self-enhancing and seeks to inflame and divide. Trump is high in 'social dominace orientation' (SDO) so, as was pointed out in an earlier Psychology Today article:
   

   Those who view themselves as members of the socially dominant class can treat their “underlings” with a modicum of dignity as long as those people “know their place.” However, they also respond violently to any perceived challenge to their privileged status...
   
   A common characteristic of people high in social dominance orientation is self-enhancement, which is the tendency to see yourself in an overly favorable manner. Such people feel driven to engage in acts that support their superiority or protect their delicate but overinflated egos. For example, although many such people are quite ignorant of history, science, or even the basic facts of the world, they’re unwilling to admit what they don’t know. As a result, they’re highly susceptible to the “false facts” of government propaganda and entertainment media masquerading as news networks. They also tend to engage in overclaiming, that is, asserting that they know certain patently false concepts to be true.

   It is no coincidence, therefore that Donald Trump readily subscribes to wackadoodle conspiracy theories, especially if his paranoia (see later) causes him to assume they are directed at him and are trying to deprive him of the privileges he assumes are rightfully his.



3. Humiliation

   In his article, The Art of Masculine Manhood: Donald Trump’s Demagoguery, Paul Elliot Johnson points out Trump's:
   

   ...repeated invocations of disturbing concepts and images, such as death, destruction, humiliation, submission, and rape, appeal to the audience’s fascination with threatened marginalization.

   Trumps political policies are informed by his obsession with avoiding humiliation, especially in the field of foreign affairs. His "America First" policy is principally aimed at avoiding defeat by more successful economies such as that of China, while he sees immigration as a humiliation as 'undeserving' people seeking to take advantage of American wealth and opportunities.



4. Disgust

   Trump's 'disgust', whether real or feigned, is usually directed at people he regards as socially beneath him or opposed to him in some way and is designed to appeal to some assumed moral foundations in his white privileged Christian fundamentalist following. During the 2016 campaign he expressed disgust at Hilary Clinton needing to take a comfort break (and so humiliated her in the process) and at Miss Universe, Alicia Machado’s, supposed weight gain. In reference to a political 'elite' he assumed were oposed to him so disgusted him, he pledged to 'drain the swamp' once elected. His disgust at Muslims was behind his ban on their travel to the USA and his disgust at Mexicans motivated his attacks on them and campaign pledges to 'Build a Wall', again appealing to his base's intolerant Christian, English-speaking white supremacist nationalism.



5. Paranoia

   As noted above, Trump's high level of SDO makes him susceptible to all manner of wackadoodle conspiracy theories, such as those being promulgated by QAnon and wingnut evangelicals in his support. Prior to the 2016 election campaign, Trump himself had been responsible for the 'Birther' conspiracy theory which argued that Barak Obama was not eligible to be US president, not just because he wasn't white but because he was 'born in Kenya'. The conspiracy extended to the claim that his birth certificate, despite proving he was born in the US state of Hawaii, was itself a forgery carried out by some secretive 'deep state' agency in league with Democrats.
   
   He was also a vociferous campaigner against measure to prevent global warming on the grounds that climate change was a hoax being orchestrated by NASA [sic}, and carried this into government where one of his first acts was to abrogate the Paris Accord and neuter the American environment protection agencies.
   
   The currently popular conspiracy theory is that Bill and Hilary Clinton and Barak Obama are part of a secret Satanic paedophile ring which involves child sacrifice and cannibalism. No matter how unlikely or ludicrous the conspiracy, Trump will fall for it, especially if it feeds his paranoia that secretive forces are out to deprive him of the power that is rightfully his as a rich, white, entitled male.

So we can see in these five, very unpleasant, faces of Donald Trump, the reasons for his mishandling of the coronavirus pandemic and the consequent deaths of over 229,000 Americans, the highest new cases rate in the world at well over 1.1 million and the constant proclamations that the virus is mild (despite needing intensive medical intervention himself due to catching it by his arrogant rejection of safe-distancing measures.

1. His quickness to anger and rage when faced with advice he didn't want to accept discouraged others from telling him the truth.
2. His pride prevented him accepting that he didn't know better than the experts.
3. His fear of hummiliation prevented him accepting that he was wrong on a number of important details, and reversing obviously bad decisions and failing policies.
4. His disgust at those who disagreed with him caused him to reject expert advice, publicly criticise, denounce and threaten the advisers and supress the agencies that were providing it.
5. And his paranoia predisposed him to see it all as a hoax and part of a big conspiracy to undermine, him, the economy and the nation, probably emanating from China in alliance with his 'deep state' enemies and the Democrat Party.

All in all, a person totally unfitted to hold public office at any level because his narcissism and personality disorder means he always puts himself and his needs above those of everyone else, whilst regarding another few tens of thousands of Covid-19 victims as of little consequence by comparison. A thoroughly unpleasant little man who needs to be removed from office and made to answer for the damage he did while in office.

---

Tweet Link