I either missed this article in the days before the election, or else decided I didn't need to read some sort of armchair psychologist evaluation (of I guy I was sure was going to lose anyway, dagnabbit).
But the article is actually based on lengthy interviews with Trump during the preparation of a 2014 biography of him. And they point out trends that have become so much more clear in the days since the election:
He doesn't like introspection, or contemplation.
He thinks the greatest sin is losing face, losing status, humiliation, being disrespected, being made a fool of.
He loves to fight, to struggle, to not back down.
He loves being mentioned by the media.
He fears no longer being a celebrity.
He loves being the center of attention.
Just going through his Twitter feed on a daily basis points these things up. He toots his own horn. He not only brags about how cool he is, but how important other people think he is. And not only that, how folks he doesn't like or who disagree with him aren't cool and important and admired. He lashes out at criticism, at anything he thinks is disrespectful toward him.
And while most people have some or most of these tendencies, Trump seems to have them to … well, "pathological" is an armchair psychology term, so I'll just say he has them to a degree I find disturbing — both because they are weaknesses that can be exploited, and he's already shown how quick on the (rhetorical) trigger he is.
And in three weeks he'll be President of the United States.
What Drives Donald Trump? Fear of Losing Status, Tapes Show – The New York Times
In more than five hours of conversations — the last extensive biographical interviews he granted before running for president — Mr. Trump makes clear how difficult it is for him to imagine, let alone accept, defeat.
Out of all the things that bother me, the fact that he doesn't like to contemplate anything bothers me the absolute most.
+Lauchlin MacGregor It is certainly possible to be too contemplative — that's a flaw that some have attributed to Obama. But Trump comes across as someone with next to zero impulse control, no filters between emotion and mouth (and actions), no inclination (and, in fact, an aversion) to introspection and thinking about things that leads him barreling from one zany situation to another.
Which is entertaining in a celebrity, much less so with the executive leader of the nation.
+Dave Hill I would agree with that assessment of Obama to some degree. But giving a thought before hitting enter seems a stretch for the President-elect. And he seems to not care that it takes a large amount of damage control, already, to clean things up.
+Lauchlin MacGregor Well, if you look at his priorities, there's nothing there that he'd consider a negative (at least as far as his Tweeting is concerned): he gets media coverage, he gets readers (and Likes!), he drags down his opponents, he puffs up his accomplishments, and all the things that people criticize him for — lack of decorum, violating precedent, erratic politeness, arrogance — are all things he values as plusses, and thus he's not embarrassed about.
+Dave Hill all of which are fantastic qualities of the highest representative of us. :/