The War between the Conways

Just who does he think he is?

Poor Kellyanne Conway. Her husband is making a spectacle of himself. He is publicly declaring her boss to have Narcissistic Personality Disorder and Antisocial Behaviour Disorder. Aside from the visible attempt to destroy her career, he is subjecting her to huge public embarrassment.

Why do you suppose he would do that?

You hear often from other quarters too, of course, that Donald Trump is a narcissist. As it happens, however, George Conway was unreflective enough to actually post the symptoms of narcissism and antisocial personality disorder as listed in the DSM:

1. Grandiosity with expectations of superior treatment from other people

2. Fixation on fantasies of power, success, intelligence, attractiveness, etc.

3. Self-perception of being unique, superior, and associated with high-status people and institutions

4. Need for continual admiration from others

5. Sense of entitlement to special treatment and to obedience from others

6. Exploitation of others to achieve personal gain

7. Unwillingness to empathize with the feelings, wishes, and needs of other people

8. Intense envy of others, and the belief that others are equally envious of them

9. Pompous and arrogant demeanor

Leave aside for the moment the question of whether this properly describes a mental illness, as opposed to illegitimately psychologizing someone who simply does not follow the Golden Rule—a bad person, a person who indulges their vices. Someone guilty of what the pagan Greeks called hubris, taking themselves as their own idol. Leave aside the charge that Trump also has antisocial personality disorder, which is too patently absurd to be worth bothering with. Leave aside as well the real possibility that the current criteria given by the DSM do not do a good job of isolating or defining the underlying issue; after all, these diagnostic criteria change significantly with each new edition of the DSM. They still serve as an objective check on Conway’s assertion, one he has himself proposed.

And Trump simply does not fit the diagnosis. He conceivably might---who can say?--had he never been either President of the US, a billionaire CEO, or a TV celebrity. But if your situation in life is genuinely grand, it is impossible to charge you with delusions of grandeur for acting accordingly. You are not mad to imagine you are Napoleon, if you are Napoleon.

Napoleon. 

1. As president of the United States, and previously as a CEO, Trump has a right to expect superior treatment; it would be odd and probably a dereliction of duty if he did not.

2. Trump is in reality the most powerful man in the world. He has also been extremely financially successful. He is also very good-looking, or was in his youth; look at his children. It is not a fantasy.

3. Trump seems to demonstrate the opposite of this trait. Although born into the Manhattan upper class, he seems not to identify with them, but takes delight in violating their norms and associating with the working class. Laying on a White House banquet of Big Macs and pizza, for example.

4. Again, Trump’s personality seems to be the opposite of this. A narcissist is vitally concerned with how he appears to others: he oozes charm in public, then curses everyone in private. Trump does not seem to care, speaks his mind regardless of who is listening, and is remarkably thick-skinned.

He also seems quick to forgive those who have insulted him, Ted Cruz or Mitt Romney or Kim Jong Un. He does not take criticism personally or tend to fold under it. It seems to roll off. Narcissists tend to collapse into self-pity and feigned or imagined victimhood if challenged.

5. As president of the US, as a CEO, and as star of The Apprentice, Trump has a right and a duty to expect to be obeyed, and would not be doing his job if he did not demand it.

6. Given that narcissists do not as a rule have legitimate authority over their victims, how do they exploit? There are only a few options available to them, short of risking criminal charges: lying, backstabbing, calumniating, and making promises do not keep.

Trump is indeed often accused of lying. But if he does lie, it is plainly not in an attempt to manipulate. Because everyone knows he is yanking legs when he does. It is the sort of lie told by P.T. Barnum, not to deceive or control, but to entertain or show mettle. It is the American tradition of the tall tale.

All politicians are guilty of not keeping campaign promises, but Trump seems to have tried unusually hard to keep his. Witness the shutdown over a border wall. He actually seems better than par at keeping promises. A trait that many say is crucial to success in business as well, which he has had.

However one might feel about the boorishness of insulting your opponents to their face, or publicly, this is the opposite of calumniating or backstabbing; this is frontstabbing. This is Trump’s approach, and it actually waives any attempt at manipulation. It is again the very opposite of a narcissist’s approach. Nor does Trump ever seem to attack suddenly or without warning; his insults always seem to be reactive, defensive rather than aggressive.

7. Trump does seem cruel to underlings, firing people with abandon. But this too is surely a case of keeping campaign promises. This is the persona he presented on The Apprentice, and this is what people therefore implicitly elected him to do. To be tough on apprentices and to drain the swamp.

8. Envy? Does Trump show any envy of others?

Someone else obviously does.

George Conway. It could not be clearer that he is himself acting out of envy. And an envy that is pathological in scope.

He evidently envies Trump. He envies the latter’s greater success, and masks this by rebranding success itself as narcissism. Like blaming someone for being proud because they have achieved.

This is typical narcissism: Conway is the real narcissist. Typical again in scapegoating his victim, charging him with the very sin he is guilty of. A textbook narcissist move.

The wronged wife.

Conway is also obviously envy of his own wife’s public attention. This is why he must make a scene. Being a narcissist, he cannot bear that she is getting noticed instead of him. He is like a spoiled child shouting Look at me! Look at me!

In doing so he is showing an extreme unwillingness to empathize with the feelings, wishes, and needs of other people. His own poor wife, with whom you would expect some natural empathy. He will destroy her if possible to satisfy his own ego.

And, of course, he is trying to pull rank on the President of the United States.

George Conway shows us what narcissism really looks like.