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Warren J. Blumenfeld

Narcissists Like Trump Feel No Empathy & Are Threatened by Diversity

According to Greek legend, a young man was so fascinated, awestruck, and enraptured by his own image reflected on the surface of a pool that he sat lovingly gazing at water’s edge for so long that he succumbed to his own vanity and eventually drowned and transformed into a flower that carries his name, “Narcissus.”

In the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition, Text Revision, 2022, Narcissistic Personality Disorder is defined as comprising a pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), a constant need for admiration, and a lack of empathy, beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts as indicated by the presence of at least 5 of the following 9 criteria:

1. A grandiose sense of self-importance; 2. A preoccupation with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love; 3. A belief that he or she is special and unique and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or high-status people or institutions; 4. A need for excessive admiration; 5. A sense of entitlement; 6. Interpersonally exploitative behavior; 7. A lack of empathy; 8. Envy of others or a belief that others are envious of him or her; and 9. A demonstration of arrogant and haughty behaviors or attitudes.

Narcissistic Personality Disorder falls within the overall category of “sociopathology,” in which a person’s antisocial behavior demonstrates a lack of a sense of moral concern or responsibility or a deficit of social conscience. The American Psychiatric Association’s DSM classifies this condition as “Antisocial Personality Disorder” (APD), which it defines as “a pervasive pattern of disregard for, and violation of, the rights of others that begins in childhood or early adolescence and continues into adulthood.”

Psychologists diagnose individuals as having APD if they manifest three or more of these symptoms: repeatedly violating social norms related to established laws and performing acts that result in frequent arrests; deceitfulness, dishonesty, and lying; impulsivity; irritability and repeated aggressiveness; reckless disdain for personal safety or the safety of others; consistent irresponsibility in work settings and frequent failures in honoring financial commitments; or lacks sense of remorse.

While diversity of backgrounds and viewpoints in its citizenry have been foundational to a nation’s innovations and advancements, narcissistic sociopathic political leaders see this diversity as a challenge to their power, wealth, and prestige.

The group of psychiatrists published a book titled The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 27 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President, which the authors assert has clicked all the boxes for having a narcissistic sociopathic illness and, specifically Narcissistic Personality Disorder.

They warn of the dangers he poses enacted through his extreme power as president. Instead of retaining extreme power, Trump requires care and treatment so that he no longer poses so much danger to himself and the world.

Trump bases his entire political philosophy on being “a stable genius” and on his “art of the deal.” He embraces the term “nationalism” with his so-called “America first” policies, which center on a patriarchal Christian white supremacist agenda.

He blames all the nation’s problems on an “invasion” of “criminal” elements of brown and black people coming across our southern border, on Diversity Equity and Inclusion programs, and on a “radical gender ideology” perpetrated by Marxists Democrats who push for people to go under the knife to alter their sex.

Trump has proposed an U.S. expansionist policy by acquiring Greenland, Canada, and retaking the Panama Canal.

Trump’s emotional illness was on full display at a press conference he held in the press room at the White House hours following the tragic deadly collision and explosion between a regional American Airlines passenger plane and an Army Black Hawk helicopter over the Potomac River.

After Trump completed his brief remarks on the tragedy on the Potomac, he dove ego first into a murky diatribe. While providing no evidence, he blamed the Biden administration and other Democrats and their diversity initiatives for the crash that claimed approximately 67 lives.

“I put safety first. Obama, Biden and the Democrats put policy first,” Trump charged.

He targeted what he claimed was an “FAA [Federal Aviation Administration] diversity push [that] includes focus on hiring people with severe intellectual and psychiatric disabilities,” he ranted.

“That is amazing,” he continued, “and then it says FAA says people with severe disabilities are most underrepresented segment of the workforce, and they want them in, and they want them. They can be air traffic controllers. I don’t think so. Brilliant people have to be in those positions….And you need a very special talent, and a very special genius, to be able to do it.”

When a reporter asked him directly how he knew that diversity had something to do with the crash, Trump replied, “because I have common sense.”

Trump’s newly installed Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, pledged at the press conference that the department will have “the best and brightest in every position possible.” By figuratively kissing Trump’s ring, he declared, “The era of DEI is gone at the Defense Department.”

In his book, Hitler: A Biography, Ian Kershaw argued that Adolph Hitler possessed all nine criteria of Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Hitler believed that he was the finest artist, most brilliant person, much better than women, and that anyone who was different from him was inferior.

Hitler based his entire political philosophy on being an intellectually brilliant strategist. He embraced the term “German nationalist” and centered all his nation’s problems on his racist world view.

He believed that people could be categorized into a hierarchy of different races with the superior “Aryans” on top, and the “inferior” races down the ladder with Jews and Africans on the bottom.

Hitler and the Nazis considered Jews to be an inferior race of people, who were determined to weaken or “bastardize” other races as they controlled world economies and policies. Other so-called lower races of people also included disabled people, homosexuals, Roma and Sinti, and other minorities.

Hitler’s extreme nationalism dictated that the German “Aryan” race should dominate. His expansionist policies sought Lebensraum (“living space or room”) for the German people.

The Nazi Party and its leader, Adolph Hitler, blamed Jews for Germany’s defeat in World War I who had “stabbed Germany in the back,” even though they represented an extremely small minority, and many fought on the side of Germany.

Monoculturalism (Anti-Diversity) In Education

Trump has made eliminating DEI a central focus in the opening days of his second term. In addition, under the guise of “freedom” to determine “their children’s” education, though not a new phenomenon, we are seeing some parents, legislators, and school administrators attempting to place severe limits on the teaching of our nation’s past and the legacies of this history upon the lives of people and the functioning of institutions today.

Throughout his political career, Trump and his Departments of Education have attempted to roll back the clock on issues of racial justice and on LGBTQ topics.

During his first term, Trump lambasted The 1619 Project, a book and school curricular program that “is an ongoing initiative from The New York Times Magazine that began in August 2019, the 400th anniversary of the beginning of American slavery,” the organizers state. “It aims to reframe the country’s history by placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of black Americans at the very center of our national narrative.”

In his ongoing attempts to censor and delete racial justice and continue to bury the impact of systemic racism, Trump’s first administration published its “1776 Report. Designed to “restore patriotic” (read as a white male European American) “education in schools.” Its purpose was to demonize past and ongoing efforts on achieving civil rights for all.

Essentially, then, Trump’s educational policy is one of propaganda based on European American-centric viewpoints, and one that places white people as the real victims of U.S. history.

Trump’s ultimate aim is to privatize all educational institutions, and funnel public money into these institutions through a voucher system.

The Nazi government attempted to control the minds of the young, and it imposed Nazi beliefs into the school curriculum. A key part of biology classes became “race science,” as well as part of health education and physical training.

Geography class became the geopolitical study of the German homeland as fundamental. Physical education was mandated for all youth, as was community labor service. Young people were encouraged to join Hiter Youth groups.

They banned and burned all books they deemed as “un-German” including books by Jewish authors and books on sexuality.

[Not a] Conclusion

The United States has long been past the point in our history where making direct connections between the policies of Hitler and his Nazis and those of Trump and his MAGA movement are as clear and as relevant. These are two historical eras that were and are led by men with clear Sociopathic and Narcissistic Personality Disorders.

Hitler did and Trump is destined to drown by their narcissism. Hitler did not and Trump will not transform into a fragrant flower.

My hope is that the world has learned how to handle Trump from its mistakes in handling Hitler.

About the Author
Dr. Warren J. Blumenfeld is the author of God, Guns, Capitalism, and Hypermasculinity: Commentaries on the Culture of Firearms in the United States, Author of The What, The So What, and The Now What of Social Justice Education, Co-Editor of Readings for Diversity and Social Justice.