The Implications of Trump’s Need for Conflict on His Presidency

Our nation’s 45^th presidency is off to a rocky start as Donald Trump attacks “so called judges” for blocking his immigration order, Nordstrom for dropping his daughter’s line of clothing, and “the dishonest press” with its “fake news,” instead of focusing on policy issues. He appears quite un-presidential due to this combativeness, which is an integral part of his personality. Personalizing virtually every disagreement induces combativeness in others, resulting in unprecedentedly low approval ratings. Thus, as president

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it took him only eight days to achieve majority disapproval as compared to 1,205 for George W. Bush, 1,136 for George H. W. Bush, 936 for Barack Obama, 727 for Ronald Reagan, and 573 for Bill Clinton (William Jordan tweet, “Days until achieving MAJORITY disapproval from @Gallup,” January 29, 2017). President Trump’s intense need for conflict interferes with his ability to function effectively as leader of the world’s greatest superpower, which has maintained close alliances with countries around the world.

When a new occupant moves into the White House, allies need reassurance that the United States will be with them supporting the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), checking Chinese expansionism and North Korean nuclear threats, and generally being a stabilizing force. However Trump, “who likes [to] play to people’s fantasies” and “test people” (Donald Trump, The Art of the Deal, 1987, 58), is busy picking fights and then having to backtrack in many cases, as when he sharply criticized the Australian prime minister for carrying out a prior arrangement regarding refugees being transported to the U.S. in the first days of his presidency. In public, he shows evidence of not understanding proper boundaries, as when he told talk show host Howard Stern that it was all right to call his daughter Ivanka a “piece of ass.” All this is extraordinarily disruptive, not stabilizing, in America and to the world order. These disruptive tendencies may be traced back to Trump’s early childhood and are ultimately self-defeating for his policies and disruptive for our country.

Disruption as an Early and Basic Part of the President’s Personality

Donald John Trump’s need for disruptive conflict is an integral part of his personality and can be traced back to his childhood, including preschool, which like all his other schooling was private rather than public. As a child, he delighted in “being bad” and being the toughest kid on the block. To satisfy his craving for attention, Donnie Trump became the family troublemaker, even if it sometimes meant paddling with a wooden spoon, “time outs,” and ultimately being sent away to military school at age 13. As a “very aggressive” “troublemaker” (his own words), he disrupted school by testing the rules, throwing spitballs, talking without permission, passing notes, and even, so he claims, giving his second grade music teacher a black eye. Some classmates called detention “DT” since Donnie had it so often. At birthday parties he was in-

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clined to raise a ruckus by throwing cake and water balloons. When the neighboring kid’s ball landed in the walled yard of his 23-room house in Queens, instead of throwing it back, his response was to keep it and threaten to call the police.

He says he was growing into a “pretty tough kid” who “wanted to be the toughest kid in the neighborhood, and had a habit of mouthing off to everybody, while backing off to no one” (Donald Trump, Crippled America: How to Make America Great Again, 2015, 129). At summer camp he was described as “an ornery kid” who “figured out the angles” (Gwenda Blair, Donald Trump: Master Apprentice, 2005, 10). His eldest sister, inactive Federal Circuit Judge Maryanne Trump Barry, said “He was a brat” (Timothy O’Brien, TrumpNation: The Art of Being the Donald, 2005, 49). Talking tough as the bad boy of American politics worked for Trump in winning the 2016 election, but how it will work in the actual presidency is another matter. Before probing this issue, I will focus some more on the childhood of our 45^th occupant of the Oval Office to deepen the reader’s understanding about the development of his personality and worldview.

Donald idealized his father Fred, an ambitious workaholic businessman who made no time to play with his children, but would sometimes take them to work where Donnie could pick up bottles and cans for the deposit money. At some point, the boy also had a paper route and on rainy days he would be driven in the family limousine while making his deliveries. The first biographer of the Trump family reports that, like his father and grandfather, Donald would ultimately share the characteristics of being “energetic,” having “a range of solid, practical skills,” doing “almost anything to make a buck,” and having “a certain ruthlessness,” and “a free and easy way about the truth” (Gwenda Blair, The Trumps: Three Generations of Builders and a Presidential Candidate, 2015 [2000], 456). There is absolutely no question that Donald absorbed his father’s message that he should be a king, a winner, and “a killer” (Michael D’Antonio, Never Enough: Trump and the Pursuit of Success, 2015, 39). However, the bad reports from school, talking back, and his general rebelliousness strained Donald’s relationship with his parents. They decided drastic action had to be taken when they discovered that, with a wealthy playmate, he was secretly taking the subway to Manhattan and buying switchblade knives (Gwenda Blair, The Candidate, 10). Later in life Trump reported that, “I was very bad. That’s why my parents sent me to a military

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 academy” (O’Brien, TrumpNation, 5). Switchblades were a manifestation of his wanting to be seen as tough. Can you imagine how tough he may feel with the most powerful military and largest nuclear arsenal in the world?

Trump’s Splitting of the World into Good and Bad and Narcissism

Trump lives in a world of good and bad. Something that serves his purpose is good, such as leaks during his campaign, and bad when it impacts negatively on him, such as leaks once he became president. His splitting into good and bad turned out to be an advantage with his electoral base. Wherever he was at his rallies, he told people “I love you” since his supporters were the “good people” and lashed out at the “bad people”—the news media, any demonstrators who showed up, and of course, Hillary Clinton who was so bad that she “should be in jail.” At his rallies his adherents could feel his love and those he branded as his enemies could and can feel his contempt. At the beginning of his presidency it is the news media that is his primary enemy. This is the same media that made his rise in politics possible by their intense focus on him during the election, resulting in literally billions of dollars of free publicity. He lives in a world of walls that serve to split off the bad from the good. He sees bad Mexicans, Muslims, and terrorists behind those walls, while he as a good person can travel the world doing business wherever he sees the potential for a profit.

The narcissism of Donald John Trump is one of his most outstanding characteristics. While most reject labels such as narcissism, he embraces it, most explicitly in his first book The Art of the Deal (1987). In it he justifies this quality by quoting a psychoanalyst’s assertion that narcissism can be a useful quality when starting a business. Thus “a narcissist does not hear the naysayers. At the Trump organization, I listen to people, but my vison is my vision” (Michael Maccoby, The Productive Narcissist, the Promise and Peril of Visionary Leadership, 2003). Trump then proceeds to write that “Almost all successful alpha personalities display a single method determination to impose their vision on the world, and a rational belief in unreasonable goals, bordering at times on lunacy.” He then proclaims his own “alpha personality,” determination, and “very large ego” (Trump, Billionaire, xviii). This embrace of narcissism, near lunacy, and alpha male type leadership helps to explain why candidate Trump kept defying his advisers when they wanted him to sound more like a typical presidential aspirant.

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What it means for his actual presidency is yet to be determined, but it does not look promising.

However, at age 13 while in summer camp prior to his being exiled to military school, his sense of himself was seriously challenged. When feeling down he would sprawl on his bed staring at the words he painted on the inside of the cabin door—“Trump 59.” Donald’s answer to his early adolescent angst seems to have been to strengthen his grandiose self. Therein lies the genesis of Trump Atlantic City Casino, Trump Books, Trump’s Carousel, Trump’s Castle, Trump Classic Cars, Trump Drinks, Trump Education, Trump Ice, Trump Pageants, Trump Palace, Trump Parc, Trump Payroll, Trump Resorts, Trump Restaurants, Trump Steaks, Trump Tower, Trump Ties, Trump University, and everything he can get his name on. To my mind this represented a defense when feeling unloved and abandoned by his parents. He would be better than everyone else and in the process not let others get close to him.

At the New York Military Academy (NYMA), his narcissism would be challenged. An ex-combat soldier used physical, social, and psychological force to impose discipline on the young Trump and get him to literally stand tall—thus his excellent posture. Donald is reported to have “learned respect for other people […and…] self-discipline,” while still striving “to be number one, in everything” (D’Antonio, Never Enough: Donald Trump and the Pursuit of Success, 43). He would do anything to win.

Yet, buried deeply below Trump’s almost lifelong grandiosity, I suspect there is a sad and vulnerable boy who is terrified of being called a loser, a label he likes to project onto others including the war hero Senator John McCain. He is unable to make close friends because he is in need of the instant gratification of feeling superior to others. Trump is too competitive to allow anyone to be truly close to him emotionally, as described by his first year military academy roommate. While he took his father’s mantra to be a winner, king, and killer seriously, this striving covered over his vulnerability and neediness. Trump’s need for things and the applause of others is insatiable, which is why D’Antonio chose his title of Never Enough and writes “Donald Trump came to express a personality that was practically all id, all the time” (D’Antonio, 10).

Trump craves attention, which can be negative as well as positive. He is at war with his critics and this state of war is virtually lifelong. Trump calls himself a “counter-puncher,” thus he

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gets his energy from responding to the criticisms of others. More than most competitive people, Trump defines himself by his enemies. This reminds me of the discredited Richard Nixon declaring, according to Senator Bob Dole at Nixon’s funeral, “I just get up every morning to confound my enemies.”

The President’s insatiable need for adoration runs counter to his intense combativeness. While many conservatives and voters in red states clearly approve of his attacks on the political establishment, for all but his most devoted followers it is not easy to adore someone who is constantly picking fights with a wide variety of people and institutions. My impression is that much of the American establishment is now becoming a counter-puncher to the constant attacks emanating from him and his administration. When Trump tweets to his 24.7 million followers, he feels they are on his side. But for how long? When he issues a hiring freeze, those who voted for him and had hopes of bettering themselves now find that their path may be blocked. When his voters realize the extent to which the world fears and distrusts America under Trump’s leadership, their support for him will quite likely weaken. Ultimately, Trump’s behavior is unproductive and even self-defeating because the rule of celebrity which is that virtually all publicity, whether good or bad, helps your celebrity, no longer pertains when you are president. People want their president to lead them to a better place, rather than simply to be the center of attention as he was as a birther, candidate, beauty pageant owner, and TV personality.

The essence of being presidential is to have your own long-term objectives and long-term interests of the country as your main priorities. Being presidential requires prudence and forming alliances with disparate groups rather than a barrage of criticisms. Our 45^th occupant of the White House simply does not know how to do this because his need for adoration and constant turmoil get in the way.

In business Donald Trump, building on his father’s wealth and reputation, has had sufficient success to make billions; yet throughout his life, Trump has had more failures than successes. His failures include Trump Shuttle, Trump Vodka, Trump Mortgage, Trump Casinos, Trump Steaks, Trump Magazine, Trump Tower (Tampa), the United States Football League, Trump Atlantic City Casino,* Trump’s Castle,* Trump Classic Cars,* Trump Drinks,* Trump Education,* Trump Pageants,* and Trump Uni-

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versity* (an asterisk indicates that these appear to have gone out of existence). Yet he does not seem to have been daunted by these disappointed ambitions any more than by his two failed marriages. He has used a “shotgun” approach in starting many different things, some of which have been successful and most of which have spread like buckshot at a distance, missing their target. His attitude toward failure has been to deny it by claiming victory, blaming it on a system being rigged, or simply ignoring it. Ultimately, none of these methods is likely to be successful in the media hothouse of the presidency, where the eyes of the world are on him and American policies. This may be part of his reason for going to war against the media, calling it “the enemy of the American people.”

Is Trump a Self-Defeatist?

In 1978, as I was writing a chapter entitled “Jimmy Carter as a Self-Defeatist” as part of a book on our 39^th President, I became discouraged by my assessment of this idealistic, well-intentioned young president I voted for. It seemed to me that Carter was like the pilot of the plane on which I was a passenger and that it would not be helpful to write in this vein. His sister Gloria wrote me that the President had read my chapter in a 1977 book on him. As a somewhat insecure presidential psychobiographer, I put the project aside and turned my attention from self-defeatism to the innovators of the English Industrial Revolution, which did so much to transform our world. Subsequently, I wrote more about Carter, but never focused on his self-defeating tendencies and did not publish a book about him.

At the present time I am much more confident of my craft, as well as the limited impact of my analysis. I do not have any illusions that Donald Trump is interested in or would read anything that I wrote about him. Furthermore, I see the ship of state that he is at the helm of as being much more like an ocean liner than an aircraft. It is one that is either adrift or zig-zagging according the vagaries of politics, international relations, and his latest emotional outbursts and whims. We will be lucky if under Trump’s guidance we don’t hit a floating mine or nuclear iceberg. I see the country under Trump regressing to international chaos rather than progressing toward a safe harbor.

Trump’s America appears to have self-defeatist potential because it is insufficiently knowledgeable about the world and has chosen a leader who appears to be incapable of following a steady course for the betterment of the country and world. Despite his

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claim that his administration is like “a fine-tuned machine,” its first months’ governance was marked by chaos because he did not begin proper planning for the new administration, fired his transition team leader Chris Christie, and did not vet his nominees for cabinet offices as early as possible, while blaming the Democrats for obstructionism (they wanted to know about nominated officials’ backgrounds and viewpoints, as well as to obstruct some of them). In fact, his campaign and his transition team have been marked by the turnover of its staff at the highest level, as witnessed by Corey Lewandowski and Paul Manafort being forced to step down.

There is very little evidence for Trump’s personal self-destructive tendencies. When dealing with Carter I had clear evidence based partly on his deliberately and repeatedly cutting himself when severely hazed as a cadet at Annapolis and making some politically disastrous choices leading to and during the Iran Hostage Crisis. Am I saying that Trump is less likely a self-defeatist than a potentially dangerous, inexperienced, and unpredictable leader? Or am I saying that he is so inexperienced and mercurial that the country will be in danger of economic, nuclear, or political destruction? Certainly the latter is a possibility given that our out of touch President is ill-informed and overconfident—as President-elect he declared that he was so smart, he did not need daily intelligence briefings. Can the argument for Trump being a self-defeatist be based on his going into activities with inadequate knowledge and overconfidence? A significant reason why he did so poorly in Atlantic City was that he simply didn’t understand the business of gambling. Does overconfidence and insufficient knowledge represent self-defeatism? In the past he had to be bailed out by his family and then by the banks because he was too big to fail in Atlantic City. Will the U.S. have to bail out Donald J. Trump?

What is the difference between self-defeatism and overconfidence? He is overconfident because he knows he’ll be bailed out. Will he end up being impeached and convicted? This is unlikely because it would not serve the interest of his Congressional Republican allies nor ultimately of their party. Going to the DSM-III (revised—the only DSM to use this term to the best of my knowledge) for a definition of self-defeatism did not prove to be very helpful. There is no clear evidence for Trump being a self-defeatist.

Conclusion

The Great Disruptor Trump seems incapable of following a

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 steady course, except in his rhetoric, beyond what he perceives to be his personal self-interest. In choosing his cabinet, rather than draining the swamp of Washington and New York insiders as he promised, he has hired “the swamp”—including the Goldman Sachs financial leaders he condemned Clinton for associating with—that he expressed such contempt for during the campaign. His Republican allies with their domination of the House and Senate appear to be following a much steadier course in the name of a balanced budget, laissez faire economics, favoring their major wealthy donors, and supporting their reelection. There are indications that at some points they will clearly seek to put the brakes on Trump when his plans do not serve Republican interests. However, this leaves him with incredible leeway as Commander in Chief. As such he has chosen former generals, like James “Mad Dog” Mattis, to fill positions normally held by those with civilian backgrounds, to be key advisors.

One of the great dangers with Trump as President is that he will pick fights with other countries as a way of showing that he is in control. This is likely to especially manifest itself as his agenda and that of his Republican allies diverge. Foreign military action is an arena in which he can feel strong. It remains to be seen where the Great Disrupter will take our country.

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