Sniper inoculations #1: Trump's revenge

David Corn of Mother Jones, at https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/03/beyond-narcissism-trumps-other-personality-flaws-are-putting-americans-at-risk/, describes “two other fundamental elements of Trump’s character” besides his Narcissism, one being his “obsession with revenge.”

In fact, Trump's revenge need is a facet of Narcissism, which also features contemp­tu­ous anger toward people (including even Putin, if it came down to a two-man compe­ti­tion). After all, a Narcissist is a solipsist: The world is only mirrors, he sees only himself as real and meaningful. Therefore no one else's opinion can possibly have any validity. As a Narcissist has no "real self" (a time-honored psychological concept) and exists only as a mental self-concept of self-regard (his sense of superiority is just his sense of being the “only” actual person*),** any meaningless person's questioning of him is the questioning of an idea, the denial of it, the disintegration of his identity. He must then strike back five times,*** ten times,**** fifteen times harder,***** literally to save his life.

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* A Narcissist doesn’t think he is merely superior to other people. Essentially, he is not comparing himself to other people at all. He is differentiating himself from all others. He is alone. He is the One, the rest are Zero. That’s in the nature of Narcissism.

** A mental self-concept and the ‘chemicals of emotion’ that associate with it: https://pessimisticshrink.blogspot.com/2019/05/trump-chemistry-of-bad.html.

The following quotes are from the above-referenced David Corn article.

*** From a 2012 Trump speech: “If somebody hits you, you’ve got to hit ’em back five times harder than they ever thought possible.”

**** Trump’s 2011 speech to the National Achievers Conference in Sydney, Australia: “Get even with people. If they screw you, screw them back 10 times as hard. I really believe that.”

***** Trump’s 2007 speech: “It’s called ‘Get Even.’ Get even. This isn’t your typical business speech. Get even. What this is is a real business speech. You know in all fairness to Wharton, I love ’em, but they teach you some stuff that’s a lot of bullshit. When you’re in business, you get even with people that screw you. And you screw them 15 times harder.”