Reading a book by FBI profiler Roy Hazelwood last night and was struck by this.

[Midnight Writer]

Last edited Sun Sep 4, 2022, 07:58 PM - Edit history (1)

He said narcissistic criminals are often caught because they cannot stop bragging about their crimes, even to police. They may be cutesy by dropping vague hints, or they may decide to send anonymous letters to the press, or taunting letters to police.

They are proud of their crimes and their ability to fool the authorities. They see a confrontation with the authorities as a game. They get excitement, a thrill, out of revealing details of their crimes to show how clever they are, how ruthless they are, how cruel they are. They can't help bragging, even obliquely. They revel in the concept that police know they are guilty, but that they are too smart to be convicted. They may even "confess" by concocting "if I did it" scenarios that give them an opportunity to detail how smart they are. It is a compulsion.

Of course, Ressler's evaluation is of serial killers and the like. But it does seem to translate to the behavior we are seeing from "Your Favorite President". Deep down, he wants everyone to know he "did it", but that he is too smart, too powerful to face consequences. He revels in the agitation, the fear, the destruction he is able to create.

[Joinfortmill]

1. It will be his downfall.

[2naSalit]

30. Hopefully before he destroys us!

[calimary]

33. But it's getting rather frustrating to have to wait for it.

Discouraging, too, when one considers the flagrant flouting of the law that’s being modeled here. Future criminals and cheaters are certainly making note. Every biography of this bastard will be like a how-to book.

[Irish_Dem]

2. I agree, Trump's narcissism is overtaking his sociopathy.

And will be his downfall.

If he had let his sociopathy call all the shots, and he was smarter, he could have gotten away with everything.
And I mean every single crime.

[vlyons]

3. He should never have run for POTUS.

He could have happily continued running scams and laundering Russian money. But no, he had to have revenge on Obama for ridiculing him at the correspondent's dinner. And of course get in the limelight and be the center of attention.

[albacore]

4. He could have taken the money he got from his father, put it an indexed stock-market fund...

...and done nothing but play golf and fuck around. His whole life.

But nooooooo.. he had to have all the attention and had to feel like a big wheel, and inflict himself on the rest of us...

Asshole!

[IbogaProject]

7. Index funds didn't exist then.

And that monster Dad forced him into the limelight. But yes, he'd have done better for us and himself if he'd just invested that loot. And his first Wife was a Russian linked spy. She played on his weakness.

[albacore]

23. I thought they came in around 1975? The old fart didn't die until the 1990's. nt

[IbogaProject]

26. Yes the first ones were in the 1970s

And they've grown over the years. But not until the 1990's did they get popular with individual investors.
I was nitpicking on that point. Yes he would have done better putting it with Vanguard or any of the few index funds of the late 80s early 90s.

[machoneman]

29. Yes, Vanguard over time became a killer fund. I'd advised many a fellow employee to invest near 100%

of their pre-tax 401K savings into the fund or into Magellan. Forget now exactly when Magellan took off but after big gains in Vanguard, I changed my advisements to Magellan. Wow, did that pay off over a 20+ year period.

[rurallib]

5. Trump even took it a step further and did some of his crimes

in broad daylight and basically dared authorities to do something.

Pelosi was about the only one who stood up to him immediately and got shut down by the cowards in the senate.

[Stuart G]

6. The FBI doesn't like these types, because these types think they ..."know it all"!! The FBI likes

to catch these types (I suspect, I have no inside info) as much as any criminals.

The FBI knows more than the ..."I know it all" criminals, and gets most of them.

Yes, they got most of them, but I can't name them here, I forgot them. Ok, have at it....

[CousinIT]

8. Fits right in with this...

...

"They want the fight. They thrive on the drama. They delight in seeing your pain. They need to feel in control. Yes – it’s totally nonsensical to normal people, but such is how twisted their rationalisation."

Narcopath TRUMP and his cult defined:

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100217120138

[Midnight Writer]

9. Thanks. I had not seen this. Interesting and on target.

[CousinIT]

11. Matthew Cooke addresses the damn gaslighting. . .

. . .which also is part of this picture of the party of abusers known as GOP/MAGA. Ignoring it, 'both-sidesing' it, walking away without a fight, is NOT an option with this political cult and their leader as it might be in a personal relationship. If we walk away, don't call it out, don't fight, we lose our country -- our Democracy, our Republic. Forever. Or, at least for all of our entire lifetimes.

[calimary]

10. Yep. They CRAVE it.

ANYTHING to stay on center stage.

[demtenjeep]

12. Dennis Rader Wichita's own BTK

Serial Killer

[kentuck]

13. Isn't that what he was doing when ...?

...he was talking about how they scattered all those files across his floor because they wanted people to think he was a "slob" when actually he is a very neat person.

He was bragging and mocking the FBI for their crime scene photo, as if he did not know what it was and the reason it was taken.

He was showing his brilliance at how he was able to turn any charge against him into a trivial matter and his people would believe him.

[live love laugh]

14. A recent post about the narcissistic BTK killer said the same.

He wanted attention so much he led the police to him.

[Midnight Writer]

15. Yep, he was in the clear until he sent cops a letter they were able to trace.

Then, when caught, he gave startlingly detailed confessions of the most sickening crimes imaginable. They couldn't shut him up.

He could not contain himself from bragging.

[Kablooie]

16. I hope that brings him down, but be aware that he's not down yet.

Many expect his indictment is inevitable, but we've been here before.
He's not president now which makes him much more vulnerable but I still am wary about predicting the future.
The fact he is a former president may still give him many unwarranted advantages that he might exploit.

I sit, hopeful that real consequences will take him out but to me it is not inevitable until it actually happens.

[hauckeye]

17. What is the name of the book?

[Midnight Writer]

22. Dark Dreams by Roy Hazelwood.

[UTUSN]

18. K&R

[OMGWTF]

19. THIS! THIS! THIS!

When I read the words "if I did it" I immediately thought of OJ Simpson, but this fits Traitor Tot to a tee. Have you ever seen him read that poem about the snake who bites the nice lady who saves it? It's so chilling. He is a narcopath (a new word I learned on DU today).

[Geechie]

20. It was Ana Sorokin's ticket to jail,

And several of the Proud Boys … can’t stop their Pride from trapping them. Over & over, pride precedes the fall.

[Warpy]

21. Malignant narcissists are well represented among serial killers

The other thing that trips them up is that they start feeling invincible and make mistakes.

But yeah, mostly they boast. That means likely dozens of people knew what he had and where he kept it. Siwss cheese security did the rest.

His intent was probably not espionage but the result most likely was.

[Rhiannon12866]

24. Well said. He never can stop talking about himself - and boasting about all his "accomplishments"

And right now he's focused on defending himself regarding the stolen classified documents, he can't shut up about it and just keeps digging himself in deeper.

[Martin68]

25. Excellent insight. A psychopath is known by what he does...

I always thought he was a sociopath, but I think he may be over the line.

[Better Days Ahoy]

28. The "Only I can do it" played out on the dark side

We saw it in everything the Orange Turd does and says. A diseased mind raised by bad parents and facilitated by everyone else.

[halfulglas]

31. You can see how he's progressed (regressed) over the years.

If you lived in the Northeast, especially the constant attention he got in the New York media market, you saw him as a bit of a buffoon, a media attention whore, in the early years when he constantly fluffed for the media attention as the "New York real estate tycoon." Then Barbara Walters gave him more national TV attention talking about him as "The Donald." She was often amused by him but didn't call out his obvious lying. When he was given much more national attention on The Apprentice he escalated even more, needing more and more attention, but his ego was so wounded by the being humiliated on national TV by Obama at the dinner, even though he started it with his Birther crap. I think his need for revenge was the real reason he ran for president.

His taste of power when he entered the White House escalated his narcissism to a whole new level. It was like a drug he couldn't give up. That's why he can't stop the rallies, his talk about his "ratings." It's what wounded him about being kicked off Twitter, his pitiful complaints about the way the FBI actually having the nerve to come and retrieve the documents. He had many reasons for keeping the documents close to him; besides money they were a manifestation of the power he had at his fingertips when he was President, being able to gather intelligence from all over the world. It's an addiction.

[Midnight Writer]

35. Another parallel. Many serial killers keep souvenirs of their crimes. Another compulsion.

Authorities often find scrapbooks of newspaper clippings about their crimes that the killer has stashed away.

They look at and handle this material and relive the excitement of their "glory".

I wonder if they will find The Donald's DNA on the recovered government documents?

[fightforfreedom]

32. I have been comparing Trump to the BTK killer.

They have so many things in common with the way they think. BTK left clues, sent letters to the police. He thought he was smarter than everybody. He mocked the police. In the end his narcissism got him caught.

[Heather MC]

34. I have no doubt that Donald Trump probably fantasizes about being a serial killer

But I think he knows he's got a too big of a mouth, to pull it off lol
But I wouldn't be surprised if there's some bodies under marlago🤷🏾?♀️