Why I am pinning my hopes on Donald Trump's narcissism

As someone who constantly lies, deceives and contradicts himself, it's very hard to know who Donald Trump really is (other than a man who lies, deceives and contradicts himself of course). But over the past year, one label has come to my mind repeatedly and consistently to describe him. Trump is a narcissist. And as we have to accept the fact that he is the new American president, I can only hope that he isn't as disastrous a leader as his campaign promises would suggest. And it is to his narcissism that I pin my hopes. 

Psychologically speaking, narcissists, for all their self-importance, usually have at their core a very fragile ego that is easily wounded and a gaping void in self esteem which they attempt to fill through overcompensated efforts at (often aggressive) self aggrandizement. 

They're also often characterised by a lack of empathy and extreme selfishness. I believe this about Trump. I don't believe for one second that he cares about America or for the people who voted for him. I'm happy to be proved wrong but so far I don't even have evidence to suggest that he cares, really cares as a partner or parent should, about his wife and children. He only cares about himself. 

The things he cares about are to have power and be liked (possibly in that order of importance), and he's shown that he's willing to go to any length to get these. When the goals contradict one another, as his election campaign has shown, he was willing to behave in ways that engendered active dislike as long as it meant gaining power. 

Trump is many things- sexist, racist, brash, delusional- but stupid isn't one of them. In an article, Richard Pinter talks about how he must have had a modicum of intelligence to have the kind of success he has had in his career. I would agree, even if that intelligence is exploitative in nature and lacking a discernible moral/ethical dimension. For a narcissist, the desire to be liked often depends on a devious acumen to be able to gauge what a particular crowd wants, and to give it to them. To get elected, he said things that he thought would appeal to those who were likely to vote for him. He knew what monsters lay dormant and lurking in the hearts of many and how to poke them awake. He rightly surmised the sad truth that people would be willing to sacrifice certain core values of human decency on the altar of empty promises of economic development, nationalism and security. 

But now that he's in power, he needs to be liked by a wider audience - within and outside America. 

As shocking as his win was to many, his victory speech came as even bigger shock to me. In it I saw evidence of his willingness to say what he thinks he should (rather than how he really feels). I was completely surprised by it. If Trump won the election being misogynistic, racist, crude, petty and vengeful, why not stick to the winning formula in the victory speech? But it was probably the most inoffensive series of words to come out of his mouth since his campaign began. It was even what one might reasonably expect a president-elect to say (barring Trump's limited vocabulary that causes him not to stray beyond simple words like 'huge', 'great' and 'best').  

This suggests that despite his behaviour over the past year, he knows how to conduct himself according to the audience he's trying to capture. The verbal diarrhoea that we saw in the campaign may have been an act designed to attain the broader outcome of projecting enormous power- something he believed and perhaps rightly guessed a desperate people wanted in their new "leader". Lest people accuse me of being a Trump-apologist, I hasten to add that the calmer Trump delivering the victory speech was also putting on a calculated act. 

He's made no substantial comments about policy or strategy throughout his campaign, other than off-the-cuff ridiculous and offensive ideas about building walls and keeping millions of Muslims out of the USA. He pretends that this is a negotiating tactic to keep his adversaries (which in his mind includes the American people) in the dark. I suspect the truth is he knows on a subconscious or even a conscious but private level that he doesn't know the first thing about politics and government. 

I'm hoping that this narcissism and desire to be liked may be the silver lining that gently whispers in his ear that now that he's the president, he should listen to those who know what they're talking about. He wasn't afraid of making a fool of himself to get elected. He used it amazingly to his advantage because he somehow grasped, by the throat, what thousands of disenchanted voters so desperately wanted to hear. Here's hoping he'll be more afraid to make a fool of himself for a wider, more critical audience - the rest of the world. 

He calls himself a good negotiator. But when he was campaigning there was no need to negotiate really. There was no dialogue. He spoke, all of us listened and unfortunately, just enough Americans fell for it. 

He may be a good negotiator, but an essential part of being a negotiator involves knowing what the bottom line of the other party is. I'm keen to see what Trump will do when faced with a firm bottom line drawn by others with the courage, conviction and confidence to stand up to him. When he really does have to negotiate a give and take. 

For example, consider his denial of climate change and promise to withdraw from the Paris accord. He can say what he wants to but when he's attending meetings with leaders from other countries who are listening, judging and communicating that to believe that climate change isn't real is idiotic to say the least, I don't think Trump has the stomach to risk losing a place at the table for the sake of his principles- whatever they may be. A powerful place at the table is more important to him. Given how fickle he is, I can picture him reversing his position on climate change because doing so would be in his interest. 

Angela Merkel recently responded to Trump's victory and offered her cooperation whilst subtly reminding him of the conditions under which Germany would cooperate with USA. It is vital that international cooperation is conditional. More world leaders need to follow the example set by Merkel. We need world leaders to favour doing what is right over mere political correctness. The free press should hold his administration to account more harshly than they did his campaign. So should his fellow republicans. 

In a twisted way, I want to believe that his win has restored power to the people by bringing him into the largest spotlight there is on the world stage. 

Until now he could get away with his monologue. He had complete control. This is the bully's and narcissist's comfort zone. Now that he holds political office, a monologue won't suffice. He won't be able to have his say and walk off stage. He will have to engage in dialogue - with his advisers and his colleagues in Government, nationally and internationally. 

If this is just my delusional fantasy, so be it. I'll take whatever hope I can muster. 

I'd like to believe that we the audience he now needs to impress. He's managed to wrestle, whine, bully, insult and lie his way into convincing others to give him the lead role. Now that he's there, he actually has to perform. Let's show him we are watching very closely. 

How a woman's body-size is like an ATM PIN

A few days ago, this article from the Guardian popped up on my social media news feed. I wouldn’t have clicked on it were it not for this excerpt – “I don’t think it's important to return to the shape you were before. I think if your body grew a baby, that’s an amazing thing and you should be proud of that.”

On the face of it, this seems an important and empowering message. I clicked on the article and read it. The article itself was also undoubtedly important, as it highlighted how pressures to return to a pre-pregnancy body lead some women to taking risks with their health in order to stay slim. My only issue with the entire article was the idea of pride in oneself and accepting one’s body being linked to the fact of having grown a baby. The human body is amazing, and true, one of the amazing things about women’s bodies relate to how they prepare and change for childbirth and childrearing. But the pressure to conform to a certain body-type isn’t specific to pregnant women and mothers. The conditionality introduced into the sentiment – “if your body grew a baby- subtly disempowers and excludes women who aren’t mothers. This isn’t to say that health risks of wanting to be slim aren’t more pronounced in case of pregnant women. They are, and they’re vital issues to address from a health perspective. However, rather than justifying why it’s okay that we are “not the shape we were before”, the message we should be putting out there in response to societal pressures around body-size/ shape should be one of unconditional acceptance and choice (because I believe it’s important for women to be able to choose whether or not their bodily appearance is important to them, instead of telling them it “shouldn’t be”). Instead of empowering people to stand up for their rights unconditionally, the “because you had a baby” part is like giving someone a temporary crutch with which they can ward off societal pressures to conform to an externally imposed standard that shouldn’t be there in the first place.

I’ll segue into another example from a few months ago to illustrate my point. Sania Mirza, a tennis player was asked by an interviewer on Indian media why she hadn’t ‘settled down’ (the colloquial meaning of which is “why haven’t you had children yet?”). Sania’s response to the question was as follows:

“…that’s the question I face all the time as a woman, that all women have to face- the first is marriage and then it’s motherhood. Unfortunately, that’s when we’re settled, and no matter how many Wimbeldons we win or numbers ones in the world we become, we don’t become settled. But eventually it will happen, not right now. And when it does, I’ll be the first one to tell everybody when I plan to do that.”

This response went viral as ‘the perfect response’ on electronic and social media. I -and others with similar thoughts, such as my close friend TQ (who has appeared on this blog before)- thought that while it was good in that it addressed the fact that women are considered complete only once they’re married-mothers, it was just short of perfect.  This is because once again, there was an implication that she shouldn’t be asked this because she is a top tennis player. A society in which traditional, patriarchal expectations are shut down through justifications grounded in successful careers is desirable, but not perfect.  Perfection would be a society where people don’t have to justify their personal choices, period.

Returning to the article, I messaged TQ almost immediately (as I usually do, about most things) and shared my annoyance about the “because you had a baby….” part. I said that as a child-free woman, I resented the implication that the rest of us child-free or childless (because the two mean very different things, and I respect a person’s right to choose a term they identify with) shouldn’t be proud of our bodies just as they are. If mothers get the “you just had a baby” crutch, what legs do the rest of us have to stand on if the ideology itself-- that women should either conform to external standards of beauty or give solid reasons as to why they should be ‘exempt’-- goes unchallenged?

TQ agreed, and added “there is a lot written about pride when it comes to mothers. Whether it’s about body image or about work-life balance or many areas of life that all women, mothers or not, struggle with. As a pattern, it becomes excluding, and therefore problematic.”

This led to a discussion about other situations in which as non-parents, we have felt excluded, disregarded or dismissed. A classic example was offered by TQ, who found herself on the receiving end of much eye-rolling by someone in her neighbourhood concerned about the numbers of stray dogs in the area. A notice had been put up about this “menace” (I use the quotation marks ironically, because neither TQ nor I are the sort of people that would think of large numbers of dogs as a menace. Far from it. More the merrier, we say!). The notice supposedly came from the hearts and minds of concerned parents.

TQ told me how she and her partner got into an argument with one of the concerned parents when they asked if anyone had been harmed because of the dogs. “The guy stutters”, TQ went on, “and then says ‘well no one yet, but I am sure you wouldn’t want your kids to be the ones to be bitten first’. We replied that we aren’t parents…. The guy just rolled his eyes as if to say ‘That explains!’ and walked off.” 

I noted to TQ how the “concerned parents” line is often used to close arguments. Is there a respectable retort to that that won't make you look like an evil sociopath who wants the world-and-all-good-things-within-it to end? 

I often find myself pushing back against the notion that the child-free are just, oh I don't know, soul destroying scum who clearly don’t care about anything. We just guzzle fossil fuels from beer bongs, sit around in our underwear scratching our crotches with one hand while clutching a bottle of tequila with the other, watching trash on Netflix and you know, NOT calling our parents because of course we-are-not-parents-ourselves-so-how-could-we-possibly-know-that-parents-want-to-hear-from-their-kids. While we’re at it, we also like to have sleeping parties to celebrate all the sleep we clearly get (“Because you’re lucky you don’t know what it’s like to have a toddler waking you up in the middle of the night”) and like to roll around naked on all the wads of cash we have lying around (“Because you don’t have to worry about kids’ college fees”).

I can’t keep track of the number of times I’ve been told how I wouldn’t understand something because I don’t have kids. Whether it’s debates about vaccinations, climate change or organic food, casual conversations about being sleep deprived or Brexit (yeah, Brexit. Apparently the legitimacy of my socio-political views is directly linked to whether or not I’ve given birth. Sidebar: I #Remain terribly sad at the looming prospect of Brexit). 

The “you won’t understand because you don’t have kids” line is strange for several reasons. Let’s start with the fact that no one really understands – on an experiential level- what it’s like to BE another person. A lot can get in the way of this. The laws of physics, for one thing. Privilege, for another. All we can do is try to understand the other as much as possible.  Of course I don’t have experiential knowledge of being a parent. Just like I don’t have experiential knowledge of what it’s like to be a skydiver. Or a beetle. Doesn't mean I can't imagine the anguish the poor creature must feel when it's lying on its back, tiny legs flailing, trying to turn itself the right side up. Secondly, it implies that those who don’t have kids can’t empathise with being a parent – which is a very narrow and inaccurate view of the capacity for empathy. There are people who can’t empathise with challenges of parenthood. There are people who don’t have children. They don’t necessarily overlap completely. Plus, due to things like, say, PRIVILEGE, it’s not like some kind of magical shared understanding exists between all parents. A single parent from a low-income household doesn’t see the world the same way, or even see the same world as a parent with a  lot of financial and social support. If I were to represent the capacity for empathising with parents in the form of a basic Venn diagram, it would look like this:

So maybe it’s not just about some of the non-parents not being able to understand till we have kids of our own. Maybe it’s also a case of some parents not being able to see beyond their own experiences and imagine a scenario in which someone could care about principles, values and issues even in the absence of any direct offspring that may be affected by said issues. For instance, I don’t need to have children in order to be concerned about climate change. My love for polar bears and feeling of solidarity with people in the rapidly sinking pacific islands has that covered.

To this category of parents, I’d just like to say the following: I am pleased for you if you anchor your moral and ethical compass around your children. In some cases, maybe it took having kids in order for you to discover or strengthen your morals and ethics. But if you could please refrain from assuming moral, ethical and intellectual bankruptcy on the part of those of us that don’t have kids, that would be great.

As for challenging social pressures, when you start to justify yourself in response to ridiculous expectations, it gives them a legitimacy they don’t deserve. Worse, it does absolutely nothing to challenge the insidious ideology behind the expectations.

So I propose the following, alternative response. Here's how I'd like to see such conversations go-

Person A:  “When are you going to lose all that weight?”

Person B: “What’s your ATM PIN number?”

Person A: “That’s none of your business!”

Person B: “Exactly. Glad we clarified that.”