Whether it’s Larry David, Robert DeNiro, or on a recent Econtalk podcast, Megan McArdle, I have to laugh when they hate on Trump.
Why?
The worst criticism they come up with is that they think Trump is a malignant narcissist.
They might be right.
I laugh because it seems they haven’t figured out that the alternatives to Trump are also malignant narcissists.
I assume Larry David and Robert DeNiro are malignant narcissists, too. Malignant narcissists tend to hate other malignant narcissists. The planet is only so big, after all. There’s not enough room for all of their inflated egos.
I operate with a base assumption that all famous people are malignant narcissists. This includes politicians, celebrities, sports stars, business leaders, your local TV new personalities and more.
You almost have to be a malignant narcissist to shine through at that level. We call them ‘stars’ for a reason. There are a lot of celestial bodies out in space that we can’t see, because they don’t give off enough light. But, stars are special. You can see them from billions of light years away.
If you’ve ever been to a hotbed of talent like LA or Nashville, you may have noticed that there are lots of extremely talented folks performing on the streets. These are the celestial bodies we can’t see. To breakthrough all that, it takes an exceptional level — well, uh — self interest. Sometimes a lucky break, but a lot of time the truth is that the stars are often willing to do things others won’t and sometimes not good things.
I categorize top famous folks as Class A narcissists. I’ve encountered plenty of Class B and C narcissists in my career. Class B tend to occupy C-suite and Board of Directors positions in bureaucracies. Class C are Class A or B narcissists-in-training, going back and forth on how much they are willing to sell out to get what they want.
I could be wrong. I haven’t met and spent time with any top famous people.
But that’s just it, most of us haven’t.
How they seem to us is their public persona. We confuse that with thinking we know them like how we know our friends and family.
They know we make this mistake and exploit it by creating faux public personas that are just the sort of folks we’d like to hang out with or aspire to be, by design. Many attributes of those personas come straight from their market research and focus groups, and age old tales of heroism.
Usually, their public personas aren’t whole fabrications, they are in the realm of ‘based on a true story,’ sort of like how a movie like The Dolphin Tale is based on a true story. Then you visit the Clearwater Marine Aquarium, like I did with my family, where the movie was based, and learn that there were only a few elements of the movie that wasn’t made up and you realize there is a lot of leeway in the word “based.” The real story wouldn’t be all that interesting, after all. It might have made a nice blurb in a magazine. But, to make a movie that people want to watch, we have to add basic elements like a protagonist and antagonist, a couple of key, time bound challenges, interesting characters and a few story arcs.
So, if I assume all these folks are narcissists, then why is it that many folks perceive Trump to be one and don’t realize the others are, too?
I think there’s a few reasons for this.
One, a large part of the public personas are shaped by media and if media is on your side, they play along and help reinforce the good guy image. If they aren’t, they can twist just about any little thing to reinforce a bad guy image. A lot of folks fall for this, unfortunately.
Another is that business people, like Trump, haven’t spent their careers creating false public personas. They don’t know the game as well. Maybe they don’t even think they need to play it. Part of the game, unfortunately, is getting the media on your side. But, they may also require some selling out that folks like Trump aren’t willing to do.
Finally, people are morons and they fall for it. They believe what they want to believe.
So, I laugh when I hear people talk about how much of a malignant narcissist Trump is because that tells me more about them than Trump.
Assuming all the top famous people are all Class A narcissists helps me in a couple ways.
First, it keeps me from trying to judge their characters, which is pointless since all I know about them is what has come through the media filters.
Unfortunately, so much of political debate is character judgement, by design, because it keeps us from thinking about policies and issues.
Second, it allows me to focus more on their policies and actions and see how well they align with what I believe the government should do.
That brings us to another problem, most folks don’t know what they think the government should do which is why they revert to judging character.
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