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Reflections on Post-Trumpening Narcissism

narcissus-close-up
“Echo and Narcissus” (detail) by John William Waterhouse (1903).

President-Elect Trump’s new era quickly spawned many written reflections and memes focused on forgotten Americans tired of being told what to do. The long foretold “monster vote” arose, and, by the thinnest of margins, told the forces of globalism to halt their advance. Yet Trump’s opponents seem unwilling or unable to learn from their loss, choosing instead to continue feeding their insatiable narcissism through conspicuous displays of emotion.

Nothing unites the Clintonians so much as arrogance of personal opinion—“we know what’s best for you” is their mantra and constant inner monologue. This approach unites them with 1960s-era radicalism, a sense that our nation’s sinful past must be shunned and our future modernized to help us feel better about ourselves. The Wikileaks-published emails between Podesta, Mook, Abedin, and other DNC co-conspirators revealed within their campaign an unsurprising disdain for the nation, religious believers, Sanders voters, and any journalist unwilling to serve their candidate. Now that Trump’s voters have defeated them, the same proud cabal mourn and weep in the open, with funeral pall and floral sympathy. How can these confident insiders, heroes of their own story, become so seemingly despondent?

Wayne Madsen poses that their prominent grief is part of the kayfabe. Their malignant narcissism prevents them from expressing genuine human emotion, so instead they keep scheming and plotting a “purple revolution.” They still know what’s best for us, so they fabricate the meme that America should be purple (a progressive blend of red, white, and blue). This “purple” meme proposes even more false unity—a hasty derivative of the same “we’re better than this / that’s not who we are any more / wrong side of history” rhetoric that cost them this election.

Her strongest supporters are taking their sorrow to social networks and the streets, making sure everyone can see their rent garments. They are rallying in major cities without goals or purpose. These marchers do not aspire beyond complaining about their loss, though they definitely seek to inspire guilt within and concession from the victors.

Their urge to manipulate the weak cannot be satisfied through mere protest, so they have enlisted children to spread their message. Most examples involve the grooming of children to parrot the political agendas of adults who seek weaker American families, unlimited illegal immigration, and further protections for adult homosexual behavior (“love is love”). In one of the most horrifying examples of this narcissistic manipulation, a mother in Texas filmed herself kicking her elementary school-age son out of the house because he voted for Trump in a mock election (the mother is now under investigation).

Those too forlorn to leave the house for a protest rally have invented a new way to feed their outrage. Their DIY solution: 1) put on a safety pin; 2) establish an imaginary safe space for the “marginalized”; 3) brag about it on social media with a selfie or a profile pic.

safety pinSome of the more grounded, dedicated leftists seem to realize that this sort of safety pin “slacktivism” is all about the wearer, not those who they claim to protect. We must at least respect the commitment of our enemies who can look beyond themselves and focus on their real goal: Making White people feel better.

And make no mistake, that’s what the safety pins are for. They’ll do little or nothing to reassure the marginalized populations they are allegedly there to reassure; marginalized people know full well the long history of white people calling themselves allies while doing nothing to help, or even inflicting harm on, non-white Americans.

Luckily, others urge a less radicalized sense of perspective. When a New York Magazine writer proclaimed, “This is the worst thing that has happened in my life,” a Federalist writer was there to correct him:

Lest I leave myself open to obvious criticism, I will concede that President-Elect Trump himself is a narcissist. Yes, he is certainly a rich and powerful billionaire who waged an effective political campaign partially by urging the media pay undue attention to him. Yes, he had several outbursts during the campaign where he seemed to obsess over his aggrieved pride, punching back against his opponents harder than would become a man seeking executive office. Yet, when I attended his rally in Orlando earlier this year, I was pleasantly shocked to hear such a wealthy man describe his motives for spending his time, money, talent, and emotion on a seemingly impossible campaign filled with hate and attacks:

My whole life has been a life of accumulation, money money money, I want more money, I don’t even know why, it’s just like ‘keep going’, money money, I want to build more buildings . . . And I said sometimes ‘I want to be greedy’ — now, I want to be greedy for the United States of America! . . . we have to be rich before we can be great again!”

Now we behold a 70-year-old Trump who, after attaining the highest office in the land, gave a calm, gracious victory speech. He appeared in a major TV interview with his family, relaxed yet confident, patiently deflecting the questions of a hostile interviewer.

When asked about what will happen to his beloved companies, he humbly retorted, “It’s peanuts compared to what we’re doing. Health care, making people better. It’s unfair what’s happened to the people of our country and we’re going to change it.”

This is a man who no longer needs to feed his narcissism; the title of “President” is all the nutrition any ego would need in a hundred lifetimes. Though I expect him to make mistakes, I think we may have seen the last of a man who continues petty feuds and grudges. His only future jabs will be on behalf of the American nation, to break her free from the grips of a self-serving ideology that has so harmed her people.

For years, we endured a thin-skinned president whose self-obsessed oration and curated cult of personality helped foster division and ram through destructive policies. A greater America is undoubtedly a nation where we are still able to express ourselves without constantly projecting arrogant self-obsession.

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About Scott Broadway

Scott Broadway is a husband and father from Florida who assisted with several social media initiatives during the Trump campaign. By day, he is a database, cloud, and enterprise software geek.