Is it possible that Trump has convinced himself that he won the election so as not to admit he is a loser?

Keen observer of American culture and politics for 40 years.March 6

“Is it possible that Trump has convinced himself …”

This actually mischaracterizes the way that Trump has always worked. He has a narcissistic personality disorder.

One of the thinks that a narcissist like Trump cannot possibly do is to be a loser. To have to acknowledge that he had lost, even worse lost to a senile, barely competent old man hiding in the basement, would have been something Trump simply could not contemplate

But narcissists often have a particular symptom (or perhaps ability):

Since reality doesn’t support their grandiose view of themselves, narcissists live in a fantasy world propped up by distortion, self-deception, and magical thinking.

So, in contemplating what could happen in the 2020 election, Trump is aware enough that he could lose – even though he will tell his people to only show him the “good polls”. He knows that he can never accept being a loser so he creates his alternative world “fantasy” of massive fraud and stolen election. Whatever the initial motivation. this serves not only to deceive his supporters (on whom he will later rely on to defend the “big lie”) but achieves a “self-deception”.

For “normal” people, it would be, and is, very difficult to hold in your mind a factual knowledge and a non-factual belief of this type. But not for Trump. I would suggest, for instance, that he absolutely believes that his inauguration crowd was bigger than Obama’s (and it is important to him that it be so). I imagine, when he first looked out across the crowd in the Mall, that was the reality that he decided was true, and there was absolutely no way that facts would get in the way of that.

It is similar with the “If I lose, the election was rigged” fantasy. That is so deeply embedded, he probably believes it. Or at least, it is the only truth of relevance to him. And his acolytes and court followers gather round to feed him fatuous, imaginary and disproven “evidence” that fits his fantasy. And this same “evidence” is sufficient to “maintain the faith” for his supporters. Not such a demanding task, of course, as faith is belief not requiring evidence. All the supporters need is a few dot points to wave around like fig leaves, such as “but the suitcase full of ballots under the table”, ”but the statistical anomalies, the counting pauses, the sudden jumps”. They can roll out their top ten greatest hits and, even when you clearly show them the fallacy of the claim, they refuse to change their belief, going back to “well you haven’t disproved that there was fraud” and “but Trump was so much more popular”.

So it has been a fantasist populist leader, inspiring absolute faith from his supporters in a “big lie” fantasy.

The Disgusting Truth About Why Trump Jr ‘s Girlfriend Was Fired From Fox Has Been Revealed

According to a bombshell new report this week, the reason that Kimberly Guilfoyle was let go from Fox News was because she was a lewd and vile person to her staff. The report says that Guilfoyle made a staffer massage her bare thighs and that would talk nonstop about her sexual exploits which made her entire staff very uncomfortable. Ring of Fire’s Farron Cousins discusses this.

All the President’s Insecurities

Donald Trump is his own whistle-blower.

 During his 2016 bid, Donald Trump would sometimes pause from bashing elites and the media to speak with awe about a phone call he had with a Very Important Journalist.

Trump puffed up with pride as he told the story to bemused rallygoers, who only moments before had been jeering at the press.

It was, to say the least, a mixed message from the phony populist.

During an interview in June 2016 at Trump Tower, Trump bragged to me about the call with the journalist, who turned out to be Tom Friedman. Lately, Trump has been boasting about Tom’s praise for the White House’s Israel-United Arab Emirates peace plan.

Like Stella Dallas standing in the rain outside the gates of the mansion where her daughter is getting married, Donald Trump has always had his nose pressed up against the window of the elites.

“For a man who has risen to the highest office on the planet, President Trump radiates insecurity,” former Ambassador Kim Darroch wrote to his colleagues in London, in a leaked cable.

Steve Bannon once told me that Trump was much more concerned about CNN’s coverage than Fox’s. Trump was not seeking affirmation from the nighttime slate of Fox knuckleheads; they were in the bag. Unserious though he may be, Trump covets praise from serious people. And serious Sean Hannity is not.

Fresh off his win in 2016, he was eager to come talk to The New York Times. I’ve never seen Trump happier than in that hour with the “failing” New York Times. (He even got to upbraid me in front of my boss.) As we wrapped up, he told the assembled editors, reporters and Times brass: “It’s a great honor. I will say, The Times is, it’s a great, great American jewel. A world jewel. And I hope we can all get along.”

That same eager tone was echoed in the audio of Bob Woodward’s tapes with Trump, as the president warmly spoke the name “Bob” again and again, yearning for acceptance from the very establishment that he had denounced to win the Oval Office.

Even though Woodward keeps writing books about Trump with titles that sound like Hitchcock horror flicks — first “Fear” and now “Rage” — Trump somehow thought he could win over the pillar of the Washington establishment.

“I brought something that I’ve never shown to anybody,” the president told the writer in December 2019. “I’m going to show it to you. I’ll get you something that’s sort of cool.”

He had an aide bring photos of him with Kim Jong-un, including some capturing the moment when the two leaders stepped over the line between North and South Korea.

“Pretty cool,” Trump gushed. “You know? Pretty cool. Right?” He added, “I mean, they’re cool pictures when you — you know, when you talk about iconic pictures, how about that?”

In a later interview, he gave Woodward a poster-size picture of himself and Kim, saying: “I don’t even know why I’m giving it to you. That’s my only one.” He trumpeted about Kim: “He never smiled before. I’m the only one he smiles with.”

Trump also bragged to the man who helped break the Watergate story, which sparked an impeachment inquiry, that he handled impeachment with more aplomb than his predecessors.

“Nixon was in a corner with his thumb in his mouth,” Trump said. “Bill Clinton took it very, very hard. I don’t.”

Woodward once told me that every president gets the psychoanalyst he deserves.

But at least with Nixon, Woodward had to follow the money to expose the venality. With Donald Trump, he simply had to turn on a recorder.

Trump is his own whistle-blower.

As The Times’s Nick Confessore put it on MSNBC: “Trump is the first candidate for president to launch an October surprise against himself. It’s as if Nixon sent the Nixon tapes to Woodward in an envelope by FedEx.”

Trump fiends for legitimacy even as he undercuts any chance of being seen as legitimate. He is fact-based and cogent on the Woodward tape talking in early February about how the coronavirus is airborne and deadly and dangerous for young people. But he vitiated that by publicly downplaying the vital information for his own political advantage.

For more than a week, instead of focusing on his peace deals and his nomination for the “Noble Prize,” as a Trump campaign ad spelled it, everyone has been focused on a story that contends he called Americans who died in war “suckers” and “losers.”

Trump desperately wants approval even as he seems relentlessly driven to prove he’s not worthy of it.

He may be ludicrously un-self-aware, but even he sensed that his tango with Woodward would end badly. It was fun for a while, bro-ing out in the Oval with his fellow septuagenarian big shot, batting around the finer points of white privilege. But it could not last.

“You’re probably going to screw me,” the president told the writer. “You know, because that’s the way it goes.”

Even so, the unreflective Narcissus will never drag himself away from his reflecting pool. You know, because that’s the way it goes.