Donald Trump's Real Ambition

[Rollo]

Excellent analysis of what makes Trump tick like a watch with a broken mainspring.

Donald Trump's Real Ambition

I normally stay clear of psychologically profiling public figures. But when the writing is so clearly on the wall, when the stakes are so high, and when the data is so consistent, I am inclined to comment. With Trump, what I see is so clearly a textbook case of a metaphorical computer program running amok, that I feel its my imperative to reveal the source code. Hopefully by making Trump’s ambition open-source, we can clearly see where it is headed, and we can take action to halt the program before it reaches its ultimate conclusion.

What is this program? There are many ways to frame it. Some therapists prefer to couch it in terms of “narcissism“. “Oh look at that Trump, he’s such a grandiose narcissist!” But I believe this is not a helpful description for several reasons. For one, it perpetuates an us vs. them mentality. After all, we are all narcissists in varying degrees. The computer program that Trump is running is a grossly exaggerated version of a program, but it’s still a variation on a potentiality that lies deep within all of us. The other reason why this is unsatisfactory is that it doesn’t actually explain anything. Trump obviously has extreme narcissistic tendencies (a high sense of superiority and entitlement). To say he is a “narcissist” is merely saying that he consistently displays an abundance of narcissistic behaviors: not all that revealing.

No, I believe we need to look deeper at the underlying motivation behind virtually everything Trump does, from his choice of teammates to his tweets to his private and public statements. In my estimation, Trump is driven by one thing and one thing only: the search for glory. Everything stems from this one simple fact, and everything falls into place in a predicable fashion once we fully understand the operation of this fundamentally human drive....

As you can see, Horney’s descriptions of the search for glory are just as relevant to today’s politics as ever. The reality is that Trump is human. Just like the rest of us, he strives for admiration and respect. However, I genuinely fear that his search for glory is so extreme– compounded and made stronger through many years of having his idealized self reaffirmed by the media– that a presidency would result in a complete disaster. Taken to its ultimate conclusion, the search for glory inevitably leads in one direction: self-idealization. In my view, what this country needs is not further idealization of Trump, but nation-wide growth. I very rarely write about politics, but I hope by making clearer the operation of Trump’s primary motivation, it can help us all more clearly see where this is heading if we don’t vote against it. I’ll leave the last note to Horney:

“We have reason to wonder whether more human lives– literally and figuratively– are not sacrificed on the altar of glory than for any other reason.”

[KT2000]

1. War and Glory

this is exactly why he is so frightening. All of America is his path to glory and the shortcut is war.

[captain_democratic]

2. ego

his supporter fuel his ego that's what he wants lots of attention.