Forget the flagrant insider trading taking place in Washington right now; once Donald J Trump figures out how to sell a memecoin backed by malignant narcissism, his self-dealing family will really be in the money.
It’ll be the “best coin ever”, the “smartest coin”, “something sleepy Joe never did” and the “only time that a president has had the vision to commemorate a future Nobel peace prize winner”.
This weekend Trump, with characteristic dignity, told Iran to “open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell”. He gave the country until Tuesday night to do so, failing which he would decimate every bridge and every power plant.
As retired air force Lt-Col Rachel VanLandingham says, this would be a war crime under US and international law, which “prohibits measures of intimidation against a civilian population”. Happily, Trump himself says he is “not at all” worried about that.
Namby-pamby woke concerns aside, it is odd that America’s Supreme Leader would feel the need to do this, since he has repeatedly declared the war already won.
A month ago, he said: “We’ve won,” and last week he declared Iran’s military “decimated”. “Never in the history of warfare has an enemy suffered such clear and devastating large-scale losses in a matter of weeks,” he said.
Forget Hiroshima in 1945 (80,000 Japanese dead), or Waterloo in 1815 (25,000 dead in a day), it’s Trump’s Iran foray (2,000 dead) that is the bigliest.
Yet Americans don’t seem to get how lucky they are to be led by this era’s Napoleon Bonaparte. Trump’s approval ratings are down to 36%, while 62% of the population disapproves — a blow to the man who promised no more “stupid wars”, before starting one that caused fuel prices to spike.
Even former members of his inner circle are carping. Ty Cobb, a lawyer in Trump’s first administration, described his former boss as a “demented narcissist” for his social media post saying he “was glad” that special counsel Robert Mueller had died.
Is this accurate, though? Helpfully, Harvard Business School professor Amy Edmondson outlined a series of red flags that your boss may be a narcissist.
First, “narcissistic bosses are likely to take credit for things that go well and dodge blame for things that don’t”, she said in an article carried by CNBC. (The article doesn’t expressly mention freakishly small hands or awful taste in documentaries about your spouse, but we can extrapolate.)
“They aren’t only threatened by the talent, but they want the employee to make them look good,” says Dr Ramani Durvasula, a clinical psychologist.
While we try to place who this reminds us of, consider this press conference on Monday night with John Ratcliffe, the head of the CIA, who gushed about the president’s wisdom in rescuing a US airman in Iran. “Mr President, I’ve had the privilege of seeing you act with political courage and in the best interest of the United States up close on a daily basis, and I’m grateful that this successful mission has given the American people a window into that as well.”
Aw, stop already, John, you’ve got the job. Though that didn’t help Kristi Noem or Pam Bondi keep their roles in Trump’s cabinet, so maybe over-the-top obsequious oral ministrations will only get you so far.
Later in that press conference, when Trump was asked about Iran, he replied: “I’m polling higher than anyone has ever polled in Venezuela, so after I’m finished with this, I can go to Venezuela — I will quickly learn Spanish, it won’t take too long because I’m good at language — and [run] for president.”
Fingers crossed.
Second, Edmondson said, malignant narcissists don’t listen, and “their thinking isn’t visibly altered by what others are saying”. And third, they constantly demand admiration.
How do you deal with such a pathology? Edmondson says that in a “vast majority of cases, the only way through is out”. With Trump, suspended animation for three years may be the only option.
Trump warns Iran to accept his ultimatum or face wrath of next ultimatum
— The Onion
El País, the 50-year-old Spanish newspaper, recently interrogated Trump’s mental health to answer the question: “Malignant narcissist or superhuman president?”
It’ll surprise you to learn that the consensus was largely the former, with the newspaper suggesting this is now tinged with dementia.
Frank George, a neuroscientist and psychologist, says Trump’s deterioration suggests he isn’t lying exactly, since he actually believes what he says, no matter how implausible. And, ominously, it has become worse.
“He has surrounded himself with people from whom he doesn’t want advice, but rather a ‘yes’. He acts without the barriers of the first term,” says George.
He also seems to act without the barriers of a deadline. Trump this week might well launch World War 3 by attacking Iran’s civilian infrastructure if it doesn’t meet his Tuesday deadline. Then again, he might not.
The Onion summed it up best with this headline: “Trump warns Iran to accept his ultimatum or face wrath of next ultimatum.” It’s their last chance, before their next last chance.
The satirical website frequently mocks Trump’s mental frailty, with another story on how a question on the Strait of Hormuz veered into ranking the films in the Pirates of the Caribbean movie franchise. “I have all the DVDs. I have the best DVDs. You know, it’s a shame they stopped after five movies.”
Traders, of course, have already found a way to monetise Trump’s narcissism.
The wild gyrations in stocks, oil, gold and platinum track precisely the flows of Trump’s “final ultimatums”, which are then peeled back. Bet on oil as the war ramps up, then trade on his soothing assurances that his brilliance has solved the impasse, then reverse course as mystified Iranians deny even discussing it. It’s the Taco trade — and it’s far from over.
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