Drawing the Full Object-Relational Implication of Rubin’s Trump (response article)

Jeffrey B. Rubin’s paper skillfully presents evidence of Trump’s narcissistic injuries and unmet needs to be “seen,” which he can’t acknowledge and acts out repeatedly. Trump’s personality was shaped in part by his standing up to the father he strongly identified with to avoid the fate of his older brother, whose torture by their father he witnessed. However, the full object-relational implication is not drawn: If we grow up in an environment where there is no one we can really trust, we are forced to try to meet our needs stealthily, but any developing closeness also becomes a threat.

Sadistic strategies are often employed to maintain an unsatisfying but “safe-enough” distance. Trump’s compulsive torture of his younger brother hints at this type of pattern (M. Trump, 2020, p. 44). The malevolent effect of his father’s injunction to be a “killer” and a “king” (denying any admission or vulnerability) is emphasized appropriately as a danger to our democratic institutions. But it doesn’t go far enough. The pattern is not identified as a basic part of training into sociopathy where naturally compassionate impulses to comfort others are suppressed and vulnerability is condemned as “weakness.” An increased emphasis on this would make the threat to our political institutions stronger, in my opinion.

Although the analysis of Fred Trump’s impact on Donald is correct, I believe it could have benefitted from being extended because the sociopathic patterns are evident over multiple generations. Surprisingly, this was not done, although Mary Trump’s book on her uncle is listed in the references, and she provides highly relevant information: A milder sociopathic pattern is evident in Donald Trump’s grandfather, Friedrich, who left his native Germany to evade military service (M. Trump, 2020, p. 28) and was not

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allowed to return for this reason—and he made some of his money with brothels in Canada.

There is also something of a parallel between Donald Trump’s early psychological loss of his mother and his father’s history. Donald’s grandfather died when Fred was a minor, and despite their assets, their mother was not able to provide a safe family environment, pushing Fred to join her in business as a minor. This is a subtle but important violation of generational boundaries; it’s slightly incestuous. I had a patient years ago whose mother tolerated/encouraged his parentification to make up for an alcoholic father. He proceeded to (non-violently) rape his stepdaughter in a repetition of the collapse of generational boundaries, which was the reason for his referral. It is an interesting case study of how accidental challenges, like the early loss of a father without adequate psychological support, turn into outright pathology, i.e., the denial and projection of loss (see M. Trump, 2020, p. 41). Fred still had one asset, his apparently genuine interest in building, but this inheritance was not passed on to his children.

The question remains if, apart from his strict injunction for Donald to be a “king,” Fred also acted out some other unresolved issues of his own in Donald by artificially propping him up without allowing any real competence to develop, making Donald, in a way, more vulnerable than even he himself had been as a fatherless boy. Although Donald assiduously avoided alcohol, it would seem fair to describe him as addicted to his father. This is important because I believe it can explain some of the tenacity of Donald’s success despite his repeated failures—he learned from the best to create and maintain an addictive pseudo-reality and has maintained a cultish base (with religious overtones). In this context, I also don’t think it is an accident that George Bush struggled with addiction, having been indoctrinated into deceptive narratives (propaganda) from childhood on (see also compulsive womanizing in the Kennedys and Clintons). We can further state that our Western culture, which has a strong, individualistic, dominating predatory streak, over time would be expected to produce an overabundance of sociopathic leaders because the toxic domination is ego-syntonic.

Unfortunately, our society has been made more vulnerable to these manipulations with industrialization and other factors, especially since WWII. Industrialization is an addiction-generating practice in itself because to work, the needs of the machinery have to take a high priority and don’t allow for easy change if the eco-

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nomic contingencies change and the whole enterprise becomes a “bad deal.” Capitalism was not satisfied with the gradual saturation of a market and started to develop artificial demand (e.g., leading to the shift away from the economical Ford automobile to the cosmetic changes of General Motors). This trend was put on steroids after WWII when Edward Bernays used his uncle’s discoveries for public relations to increase consumption, inserting corporations between customers and their local merchants.

With mass communication techniques, our evolved mechanisms to develop trust realistically fell more and more into disuse, leading to increased alienation and paranoia. This is an ancient trend: Agriculture, which allowed for specialization, also led to increased hierarchies, and the classes stopped identifying with each other. Similar trends can even be observed in animals. The complexity and alienation of our society make it easier to build narratives that serve special interests that are hard and also economically dangerous to check, keeping the average citizen vulnerable to regression.

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