I would like to draw a line, or at least a distinction, between Max and myself, though. I'm not just more tempered than Max, I'm saying something somewhat different, which is why I've tried (and apparently failed) to make a particular point.
Part of my point is precisely that my claim
is extraordinary, that it
should make you uncomfortable. If I tell you that Donald Trump is not human and you do not shiver when I say that, that's a problem. I could (and perhaps should) make the case that dehumanization and many of my other arguments are essential to so many of the violence and oppression of the past and present: that there is an "other" which is not like you and I, and how this leads inexorably to the argument that violence is acceptable in an era where human rights are predicated on the brotherhood and commonality of Man. This is why I draw my issue with Max. In fact my issue is two-fold: First, to link them together is inherently inflammatory, and second, that to do so really undermines the central thesis of my argument that Donald Trump is an exceptional case.
In a sense, to link people with Trump not only undermines the point that he is exceptional, but also really underestimates precisely how convincing a narcissist is. You really can't know, you can't understand unless you have been on both sides of it. It's like the difference between learning a language and not: before you know a language you can't possibly help seeing anything but meaningless squiggles, and after you learn that language you can't possibly
not see the words. It's that line about the same man who made Roko's Basillisk: in order to argue that people could not keep a super-intelligient AI in a "box" connected by a text terminal, he put himself in a box, with a terminal, with someone paid to communicate with him but not let him out under any circumstances. They still let him out, and Roko refused to explain how he had done it, saying that if he did explain how he did it, people would scoff and think "I'd never fall for that." That reminds me of an exchange from a book I read as a child,
The Wrinkle in Time.
Meg sighed and sat. "I don't think we should eat this
stuff, but if you're going to, I'd better, too." She took a
mouthful. "It tastes all right. Try some of mine, Charles."
She held out a forkful of turkey.
Charles Wallace took it, made another face, but managed
to swallow. "Still tastes like sand," he said- He looked at
the man. "Why?"
"You know perfectly well why. You've shut your mind
entirely to me. The other two can't. I can get in through the
chinks. Not all the way in, but enough to give them a turkey
dinner. You see, I'm really just a kind, Jolly old gentleman."
I like this exchange because it really does illustrate what it takes to see through a narcissist Setting your mind against them entirely. Or. in a less flattering way of putting it, prejudice. It only seems trivial and obvious that Trump is wrong because polarized politics naturally create those condition (indeed, it has), and Trump is not a skilled politician, he is a celebrity. I'll be quite honest: I did not give Donald Trump a chance. I had already heard everything I needed to know about him before I ever heard him directly, and there was little he could say that could convince me otherwise. The fact is, however, after you do that it really does become clear that Donald Trump is an unrepentantly horrible person, not only because nothing he says will convince you otherwise, but because an unbiased look at the facts will make it clear that Donald Trump is not who he presents himself to be. But you only look at the facts unbiasedly when a Narcissist cannot refute them, either because they have tripped up (rare, but it happens) or because you have some moment away from them, allowing you to draw conclusions without allowing them to derail you.
I'd argue that the only reason Donald Trump is not actually much more popular is because most of the country gained their opinion of him from the news and third-parties, who were already skeptical of him due to the "Birther" movement and opening his campaign with "And some, I assume, are good people". If he had a chance to present himself for the first time (in a way a celebrity really can't, which is one advantage someone like my father has over Trump), I think he'd be terrifyingly popular, but still very much the same person. Look at how the media loved him after his recent speech! "Oh look at him, he's so great." As if a single freaking speech that isn't terrible is enough to make you doubt everything he said before! Look at how Trump abuses the media
to their faces, and they were positively ecstatic listening to him go on! It didn't matter that none of his policy positions changed or that he was any more competent at being President, but it shows that with a little more self-control than his narcissism allows him to have, Donald Trump could argue terrible ideas and the media would not only report him seriously, but trip-over-each-other to fawn over it!
You see that's just it. Donald Trump could have entirely moderate and reasonable political positions and he'd still be who is he is: fundamentally reprehensible (although he probably would have had less political success, althougb it's not impossible). He could have liberal political positions and still be who he is (and in the past, he was!). He could be a cheap knock-off of Bernie Sanders and he would still be who he is. Really, part of the point (and perhaps part of the solution?) is the fact that Donald Trump is not an ideology. There's been a lot of talk about "Trumpism", but the simple fact is that there is no such thing. As such the people who support him are, at worst, guilty of enabling him, but that is true of all democratic politicians; they cannot
participate in his narcissism because it's by definition a one-man show: as a matter of fact, my narcissist father is not a supporter of Trump, and was rather neutral despite being very politically aware. Their sin is being tricked; and not tricked because they are stupid, but because he is so seductive.
And yes, I am aware my language sounds almost McCarthyist. In fact, if you haven't made the connections, I strongly suggest looking at it: I really do sound like a 40k inquisitor. saying "An open mind is like a fortress with its gates unbarred and unguarded." But that's because Narcissism really is the sort of coercive, seductive lie that ideologies are often claimed to be: educating yourself about any ideology does run a risk of learning to believe in it, but if you believe in it, it's presumably because there is something
good in it that convinced you; with Narcissism there is no
there there. It's just lies, and listening to them is a waste of your time at best. There really is nothing valuable in it. It's just whatever the narcissist wants you to believe at that particular moment.
I say all this because
his supporters really aren't bad people, and saying what I say will piss them off as an attack on them, frighten neutrals who don't see what's wrong, and worst of all lead people who oppose him to adopt that very same language, but directed at his supporters. Why? Because it is a subtle distinction. See how I've been confused already. It really is hard for us to say "X is bad, except in Y case". People want universal rules. When you break them, people feel like it has to be a grand break and not a small one. It's not easy to draw a line and say "Oh well he is bad, but all the people who enable and support him are not." It doesn't make sense to us in the modern, democratic age.
So I'll put it a different way. A much more personal way. During my lifetime I've seen my father convince entirely good and decent people to do things which are completely and totally opposite to their interests. He's convinced an administrator at my highschool to contact me and tell me that he has a message for me,
while there is an active no-contact order that legally bars them from doing so. I've seen him convince police (who arrived after a violent episode) that my mother, bleeding on the ground, was a threat to her children and arrest her. He has convinced a judge that he is poor and cannot afford to send his children more than $100 dollars in Child Support ($50 each), while having a Park-Avenue lawyer. He's convinced my mother's friends to lend him money,
even as mother was, herself, telling them not to do so. He's convinced Mandated Reporters to keep silent after hearing me report violence (which he followed up on by starving my family, making sure to point out to me that this was
my fault), while my mother has been investigated and hounded for trivial reasons on the word of these very same people (my sister received a vaccine once, and these useless fucks at her school believed my sister when she said she was "stabbed by her mother"). Mind, he could never have done half the terrible things he has done if there did not exist people willing to help him while aware that he is a pretty shitty person, but while those people are bad people, they are still people, just shitty people; and they are far outnumbered by decent people who just believe him. He's convinced therapists, psychologists, teachers, principals, social workers, cops, lawyers, judges, store-clerks, doormen, all sorts of people to believe things which are almost self-evidently untrue and to go against their own interests. How does he do it? I have no fucking clue. I've seen him do it for years and still can't emulate it. He has even deigned occasionally to give me tips, but I can't for the life of me distinguish what the difference is between what he does and regular gladhanding; As far as I can tell, it's just a combination of being tremendously brazen, and really sounding like you believe every single word that you say. But the fact is that he does it, and if you out there ever happen to meet my father, you'll probably never know, because he'll sound perfectly normal to you. Better, even: Charming, sociable, friendly. And if you aren't careful he would talk you into the most horrible things, if he didn't just swindle you outright.
And this isn't because you are a bad person, or a stupid person, or an insufficiently moral or watchful or clever person, but simply because human beings are trained to treat social interactions a certain way and to look for violations of those rules in a certain place: no expects a truly audacious violation of social rules, so they don't see them when they happen unless they are already aware of and prepared for the possibility (which is where the polarization comes in).
So here is where the problem lies. The people who would ordinarily attempt to defuse a situation by arguing that we all share certain things in common will fail, because the people who oppose Trump really
are seeing something that the others aren't seeing, and Trump really is a level too unacceptable to be calm towards. And yet their reaction will bother anyone who does not see it, because A) it is a really fundamentally disquieting claim, and B) many of the people who oppose Trump will then spread their arguments onto his supporters because people in the real world do make that mistake and argue like that (which is why the people who defuse things are needed). And the people who support him will see him (and they will suspect (and sometimes rightly!) that they themselves are a target! The damage a single "basketful of deplorables" can do) being attacked ever more vehemently by people they don't like and that will just make him more popular.
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