How will Donald Trump Cope with Being a Loser?

How does someone who has a severe case of narcissistic personality disorder deal with humiliation? I think we will know much more about this around November 10^th – 15^th when Donald J Trump loses badly the US Presidential election.

He is already preparing the ground for coping. His argument that the election is “rigged” is focused on ensuring that he himself cannot be blamed for the loss. It is everyone else’s fault – the “corrupt media”, “spineless losers” leading the GOP, the “criminal” Clinton campaign, poor advice. He was fine, it’s just everyone around him and those against him that cause the problem.

As recently as this week, after a very poor showing in the third Presidential debate in Las Vegas, he was still telling his faithful followers that he was going to win and that the polls are part of the conspiracy against him. [Whatever happened to the rule that what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas - if there was ever a time this should have applied, it was to this debate!]. Rudi Giuliani, now his prime surrogate given that Governor Christie has backed away, tries to sell a line that there is massive voter fraud at the election and that some 1.8 million “dead” people will vote for Clinton.  This is all part of the plan to explain away the loss and why Trump is not to blame.

Let us remind ourselves of the clinical conditions for narcissistic personality disorder (NPD). The Mayo Clinic’s definition of NPD is:

“A mental disorder in which people have an inflated sense of their own importance, a deep need for admiration, and a lack of empathy for others. Behind this mask of ultra-confidence lies a fragile self-esteem that is vulnerable to the slightest criticism. If you have NPD, you may come across as conceited, boastful or pretentious, you often monopolize conversations, you may belittle or look down on people you perceive as inferior, and you may feel a sense of entitlement (when you don’t receive special treatment, you may become impatient or angry). At the same time, you have trouble handling anything that may be perceived as criticism. You may have secret feelings of insecurity, shame, vulnerability and humiliation. To feel better, you may react with rage or contempt and try to belittle the other person to make yourself appear superior.” 

The Diagnostic State Manual version 5 (DSM-5) criteria for NPD includes these features:

• Expecting to be recognized as superior.
• Having an exaggerated sense of self-importance.
• Exaggerating your achievements and talents.
• Being preoccupied with fantasies about success, power, brilliance, beauty or the perfect mate.
• Believing that you are superior and can only be understood by or associate with equally special people.
• Requiring constant admiration.
• Having a sense of entitlement.
• Expecting special favors and unquestioning compliance with your expectations.
• Taking advantage of others to get what you want.
• Having an inability or unwillingness to recognize the needs and feelings of others.
• Being envious of others and believing others envy you.
• Behaving in an arrogant or haughty manner.

 Narcissistic personality disorder crosses the border of healthy confidence into thinking so highly of yourself that you put yourself on a pedestal and value yourself more than you value others.

Psychologists may dispute that all of these features have been seen in the behaviour of Trump since he entered the Presidential race, but these features have been seen and observed by many. Several were on show at his exceptionally poor performance at the Alfred E. Smith Memorial Catholic charity dinner this week.

But he still thinks he has a chance of winning, despite most of the serious analysts giving him no chance at all. His thinking – fantastical though it may seem – is that he was written off so many times in the primaries and look at what happened there. What he is discounting is that the way the US system works is not about the popular vote, but where these votes are and their impact on the electoral college. Hilary needs 270 college votes to win. The betting is on her getting closer to 350. Nate Silver – who has the strongest forecasting record of any analyst – suggests that she is 87% sure of getting 341. There are 538 votes in the college – Silver sees Trump getting no more than 196.

The bad news is not likely to be just that Trump loses. There is also a 73% chance that the Democrats will take the senate, given Hilary a fantastic opportunity to stack the Supreme Court, push through major tax changes and improve Obamacare. Meantime, the combination of both a Presidential loss (the third in a row for the GOP) and a senate loss, should it occur, would be devastating for the GOP. The party would dump all over Trump as the “cause”, despite the fact that they were his enablers throughout the process.

But let’s return to the question: how would someone with a severe case of NDP react to such a massive loss of face?

Trump will experience Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), which is often confused with NDP. But for him, PTSD will be severe:

• There will be more angry outbursts – his twitter account will go wild with accusations.
• He will lash out at people by name and cause a pile of lawsuits, either filed by him (defamation, libel) or filed against him.
• He will be abusive to those who advised him, especially those closest to him.
• He will seek revenge on those “who did this to him”, not accepting that he did “this” to himself.
• He will be even more distant in relationships, especially with family members.
• He will tell even more lies and untruths based on his version of events, many of which come from his “alternative universe”.
• He will relentlessly pursue conspiracy theories about who “was out to get him”.

He will be more difficult to live with, so his wife and children will need support and help in coping with the “tiger in the tank” ready to explode.

This will especially be true if cases of sexual assault are pursued and if he loses the Trump University lawsuit.

It will not be pretty. There is talk of him pursuing a new avenue of interests – Trump TV (which might be better named Deplorable’s TV). This would provide an outlet for all this anger, but will probably not be a wise investment for him (or anyone else) to make. It will likely go the same way as his Casino investments, which ended in one of the many Trump business bankruptcies.

What will make all of this even worse is that the Trump business will also suffer, as it is doing now, from the scrutiny it will receive. Trump hotels are losing customers and his staff in some hotels have unionized. He would be smart to sell the empire and retire – he is 70 after all.

As a psychologist, I can also pretty well guarantee that he will not seek help for his PTSD/ NPD conditions. He doesn’t “do advice”, as his several campaign managers will attest. Nor does he follow advice, once given, as his performances on tour and on the debates show.

I wouldn’t like to be around him come November 10^th when it will be clearly all over, bar the shouting.

The Eternal Sunshine of the Thoughtless Mind

November 8^th 2016 will be a critical day in the history of our times. This is the day the United States will elect its next President. Barack Obama finishes his second four year term on January 20^th 2017. Will it be Trump or Clinton?

As of today - the second day of August 2016 – Hilary Clinton has a marginal lead in the opinion polls. But it is still too soon to tell. Michael Moore, the filmmaker, is pretty sure Trump will win and he presents a solid case for his thinking. Clinton is part of the old school – the establishment – and this election is, in part at least, about rejecting the establishment. Clinton will not win by rational argument when Trump is appealing to emotions – fear, anxiety, frustration, anger, despair. Clinton, to win, must also respond to the anxieties and fear by an appeal to emotions – hope, courage, ambition, audacity. I am not sure she has any emotions left to share.

Some think that Trump, given his behavior, doesn't want to win. That coming second is all he needs, assuming that his basic purpose is to strengthen the Trump brand. The real agenda being legacy and building the family business. Don't buy into this. Trump wants to win and doesn't like to loose. While he hasn't a clue about what the work of President is, what the issues are and what actions he will need to engage in – or of how hard he is going to have to work – he really does want the job.

He would be a disaster for three reasons. First, he has the attention span of a gnat. Most of the challenges faced by the US require deep and sustained analysis and persistence. Second, he has the hide of a mosquito – easily squashed. Clinton was right – 140 character tweets are enough to raise his blood pressure to dangerous levels. Finally, he is basically both ignorant and stupid. Just look at how quickly he confused the DNC Vice Presidential choice with a former Governor of New Jersey - when he was the Governor of Vermont. He is ignorant about science, NATO, the law, Mexico, Islam and the nature of the law of contract. He insults everyone, often for no reason. He has no idea about foreign policy - wasn't even sure if Putin had walked into the Crimea. 

But he might win. Clinton is the establishment candidate; Trump is the entertainment tonight candidate. Right now, Trump could win, despite connecting his mouth with his foot on a daily basis. While the current "spat" with the Khan family is an obvious sign of his inability to shut up when all around him tell him to, his own voter base doesn't seem to mind. Hence the best joke of the week: the new Trump sandwich - all white bread filled with loads of baloney then smothered with Russian dressing.

As a Canadian, all I can do is draw attention to my American friends to the dangers they face. But they already know. Many of them greatly distrust Clinton, and with good reason. She and Bill have played the game for so long and made millions doing so that people no longer have confidence in her, despite the fact that she is one smart lady. They see her as duplicitous, dangerous and devious. She is. It is called being a politician for a long time.

Clinton has to win. A Trump win will be disastrous for the US and the world. The time to call a Trump a Trump is now – he is a liar, cheat,incredibly  ignorant, vicious and dangerous man. A total narcissist, vain and deceitful man. Trump is just too dangerous to be President of the United States.

So, friends, think. Look eight years from now and ask what will happen is either Clinton or Trump wins – not just for the US but for the world. Now worry.

The Manufacture of the Math Crisis in Alberta

Let’s be clear from the start: Alberta does not have a crisis in the teaching of mathematics or in the ability of students to achieve success in mathematics. Full stop.

What we do have is a clever politically motivated trick. Using standardized test data – PISA and Provincial Achievement Tests – we can see changes in results in mathematics when one period of time is compared to another. Math PISA scores for Alberta are down slightly between the last two test periods. If this is a crisis, then the forest fires in Northern Alberta are Armageddon.

Let us understand two things:

• First, the key thing that standardized test scores measures is poverty and social class. Teachers have almost no significant impact on the test scores of students on such tests. Anyone who claims that they do is being disingenuous – we have known what they measure for over thirty years.
• Second, Alberta’s student population is changing very quickly. Indeed, according to the OECD data, Alberta has classrooms which are among the most complex in the developed world – a range of cultures, skill levels, literacy skills and social backgrounds that require differentiated instruction. Between one set of measures and another, this demography gets more complex.

So we are measuring poverty with different cohorts. Makes little sense.

What the manufacturers of this crisis have done is looked at changes in outcome measures over time and “guessed” at why this has occurred, without taking account of these two statements of fact. It's rather like saying that there is a correlation between the films in which Nicolas Cage appears in and deaths by drowning or the age of Miss America and the number of murders by steam or vapours (these are actual correlations). They suggest that the “cause” of the crisis is “modern maths” and “constructivist teaching”. This is said in the complete absence of evidence – one of the things we might teach through modern mathematics is that evidence is the starting point for exploring understanding.

The idea of current teaching is not to be able to remember and recite tables, formulae, and solutions but to understand mathematics as a language and means for problem-solving. What the purpose of this work can be said to be is to enable students to look at a problem and use a mathematical understanding and language to solve that problem.

Think for a moment. If I were to say that I spoke six languages but didn't understand any of them, what would you think? You wouldn't ask me to do anything like translate a document or guide you through Puglia or the Ardeche. Equally, if I said I knew my times table but I had no idea why these multiplications were useful or what I could do with this knowledge, you would think me equally inept. But this is what the “back to basics” movement is all about. They want our students to test better, not to know how to think like a mathematician.

So the “math crisis” (sic) is an invention based on a half truth (a very nonmathematical way of thinking). But there is more.

When we ask who benefits from this manufactured crisis the answer soon becomes clear. The first group are government bureaucrats who can extend their control by focusing on testing, curriculum management and harassing teachers with new reporting mechanisms. They love a crisis. It makes them feel important. It also gives them something to do.

The second are commercial vendors of tests, textbooks, curriculum materials, technology and “apps”. They like stirring this crisis up since it helps sell product. With all of these kind of issues – follow the money. Who will win the money prize here? You can bet it will not be teachers.

A side benefit of the manufactured crisis is that it provides some – notably those infected by the neo-liberal GERM – with an opportunity to demoralize and belittle teachers. One might think that this would be wholly inappropriate kind of behaviour, but it is actually relished by some, especially neo-liberals with investments in the commercial entities who stand to benefit from the “crisis”. The maths crisis, they claim, is the fault of teachers who do not know enough mathematics using progressive methods to confuse students. Not only is this insulting (which is a part of their intention), it is not based on substantial evidence.

So let us stop seeing the performance of students on tests as anything more than what they are: a snapshot of the implications of inequality.