John R MacArthur writes:

Two weeks into the Trump administration, I’m still being asked by foreigners about the new president’s “political vision”.

Some of them, especially the French and the British, might be excused for excessive politeness toward a country that in many respects they still envy and admire. But on most of the news programs and podcasts to which I’ve been invited, I’m still encountering earnest interviewers struggling to understand Trump from a conventional political perspective, no matter how contradictory, irrational, or stupid his statements and actions may be. How can this be and what does it augur?

The investigative psychiatrist Robert J Lifton once explained to me that Trump is a solipsist, as distinct from the narcissist that he’s often accused of being.

A narcissist, while deeply self-infatuated, nevertheless seeks the approval of others and will occasionally attempt seduction to get what he wants (I think of the French president, Emmanuel Macron). For Trump the solipsist, the only point of reference is himself, so he makes no attempt even at faking interest in other people, since he can’t really see them from his self-centered position.

Trump’s absence of external connection is self-evident: his treatment of the “other” – from his own family to his tenants, his political rivals, the victims of the Los Angeles fires or the displaced people of Gaza – displays not only a lack of empathy, but also an emotional blindness. [Continue reading…]