When Northwestern University psychologist Dan P. McAdams first wrote about Donald Trump’s psyche for “The Atlantic” in 2016, he knew his subject was not your average politician. He just couldn’t nail down why.
His new book, “The Strange Case of Donald J. Trump: A Psychological Reckoning” (Oxford University Press, March 2020), provides some surprising answers. Trump, McAdams asserts, may be the rare person who lacks any inner story, something most people develop to give their lives unity, meaning and purpose.
McAdams is something called a “narrative psychologist.”
Trump, McAdams argues, can’t form a meaningful life story because he is the “episodic man” who sees life as a series of battles to be won. There is no connection between the moments, no reflection and no potential for growth when one is compulsively in the present.
It has certainly seemed to me all along that Trump is your classic “just one thing after another” guy. It’s all random, all disjointed, all arbitrary; nothing leads anywhere.
Donald Trump is a “truly authentic fake,” writes McAdams, professor of human development and social policy at the School of Education and Social Policy. “Trump is always acting, always on stage — but that is who he really is, and that is all he really is. He is not introspective, retrospective or prospective. He does not go deep into his mind; he does not travel back to the past; he does not project far into the future. He is always on the surface, always right now.”
Shorter: he doesn’t think.
“Truth for Donald Trump is whatever works to win in the moment,” McAdams writes. “He moves through life episode by episode, from one battle to the next, striving in turn, to win each one. The episodes don’t add up or form a narrative arc.”
It’s no wonder he’s so bored, then; no wonder he does little but watch Fox and blurt tweets.
“The features of Trump’s strange personality — his orientation to love, his proclivity for untruth, his narcissistic goal agenda, his authoritarian sentiments — can be fully appreciated and understood only if we realize that they revolve around the empty narrative core, the hollow inner space where the story should be, but never was,” McAdams says.
“Empty” is one of the best words for him.
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12 responses to “The episodic man”
I have argued for some time that Trump is what is called in the software world, stateless. He processes information only from the here and now with no regard (or possibly even awareness) of events – even those only minutes in the past. He creates a narrative and attack strategy that fits with his immediate needs. Five minutes later he starts over even if it contradicts his earlier strategy. He is a reality TV personality – alliances, assertions, beliefs are tailored to fill the vignette in front of him. The only constant is his strange notion of his superior intellect and litmus test that any and all actions must benefit him. Any who argues otherwise are simply nitpickers, liars or nerds,
His bluster and bullying also resonates perfectly with that segment of American society that is fiercely anti-intellectual since he berates anyone with real credentials using the same level of dialogue that would be familiar to anyone who peaked in high school after harassing all those weak eggheads and nerds – ie all those people who actually make the world work after high school.
Paradoxically, he’s both empty andfull of shit.
I think it was Ed Brayton who remarked that though he lies, Trump is not a pathological liar.
A liar must care for the truth, to be able to lie.
For Trump, thruths or lies are of no significance. What matters to him is what helps him the most right now.
Meanwhile, some member of the Norwegian Parliament has nominated Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize.
No, really! Admittedly, he (Christian Tybring Gjedde) belongs to the right wing party confusingly named the Progress Party, and I am not easily surprised by their antics. But still … it is a useful reminder about what can be expected from this party. It’s not all wine and roses, even here in Norway.
At least, we can remain reasonably sure that the prize committee will not take the nomination very seriously. I think.
Mike Daisey is a performance artist/comedian who does stage shows about famous people. He did one on Donald Trump before the 2016 election. The Stranger interviewed him at https://www.thestranger.com/slog/2016/09/22/24576419/hes-not-smart-at-all-hes-just-very-good-at-performing-talking-trump-with-mike-daisey
After a long discussion of Trump, he concludes
*****
I saw headlines about the Nobel Prize thing. Put off reading about it until…some undetermined time. Lordy lordy.
How long before Trump tweets that he’s actually been nominated for reals?
It’s the same man who nominated him last year (for a different reason). He says he doesn’t even like Trump.
Luckily, the nomination itself is meaningless. That said, there are still going to be a ton of people crowing about how Trump’s nomination proves how amazing the guy is and that every detractor has now been shown to be a liar. Or whatever.
It is for this reason (Trump’s “emptiness”) that I am reluctant to give much credence to some of Woodward’s “Trump knew” claims. It’s difficult to say what Trump actually knows about anything. We can see what he says at any moment, but not what he actually understands.
It’s on tape though. I listened to it.
He could still have forgotten it 5 minutes later, I guess, but…he did grasp it long enough to say it.