How to psychoanalyze Donald Trump

We in the media spend far too much time trying to drill into presidential candidates' brains, in an attempt to uncover the "real" person beneath the artifice of the campaign. The presumption is that if we can only discover what candidates are trying to hide deep within their psyches, then we'll know the most important things about them and be able to make a collective judgment on whether they should lead the country. But as worthwhile as it is to know as much as we can about these men and women, too often we pick the wrong characteristics to focus on, like whether a candidate is honest enough. Nobody wants a liar as president, of course, but in the end we might be better served by understanding the implications of their policy differences than familiarizing ourselves with the latest talmudic analysis of a candidate's interviews.

That's because, while personality is important, the basic policy divides between the parties will make a much greater difference in what they decide to do in office than whether one candidate resents his mother or another cheated on her biology final in 11th grade.

And yet... there's Donald Trump.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Presidential psychology does matter, and it may never have mattered more than it does for this potential president. Trump is so unconcerned with policy and so erratic that it's urgent for us to understand exactly how his mind works.

But that's always a relevant question, if we can ask it in the right way. For instance, Barack Obama is controlled and cautious. He worries a lot about the unintended consequences of the decisions we make. He doesn't want to let the emotions of the moment distract him from his long-term plans. He will take risks, but only when he feels the timing is absolutely perfect, and after a long period of preparation. These are features of his personal psychology that have had a real impact on what kind of president he has been, particularly in foreign affairs. You may think that his instincts in that arena have been exactly what we needed, or you may think that he has missed opportunities by not wanting to act in haste. But either way, who he is deep down mattered a great deal.

Contrast that with his predecessor, who was much more intuitive and impulsive, favoring the signals he got from his gut over what a bunch of pointy-headed experts might tell him. Again, in foreign affairs in particular, George W. Bush was ambitious, optimistic, and unconcerned about unintended consequences. We saw the results.

And Trump? We need to take special notice of how he deals with those who disagree with, criticize, or even question him. Because that could have a profound impact on his presidency.

We have had presidents before who nursed grudges or sought to punish their enemies. But we've never had a president who was as thin-skinned as Donald Trump. He displays a level of petty vindictiveness, of sensitivity to criticism, of a need for unanimous affirmation from everyone around him, that is positively pathological.

Consider the story of Trump's alleged $1 million contribution to veterans groups, which came out of a January event he held to raise money for that cause — because he was skipping a Fox News debate, on the grounds that the network had been "unfair" to him. Trump had been touting his contribution, so reporters tried to find out who he gave it to. It turned out that the contribution was a phantom — until Trump got word that reporters were asking about it. This Monday, Trump called a veterans group to tell them a contribution was on its way. When one reporter, The Washington Post's David Fahrenthold, asked Trump whether he gave the money only because journalists were asking about it — a tough question, but certainly the kind any candidate can expect — Trump responded, "You know, you're a nasty guy. You're a really nasty guy."

Try for a moment to imagine what would happen if Hillary Clinton responded to a reporter's question about, say, her email use, by saying, "You know, you're a nasty guy. You're a really nasty guy." Especially if the premise of the question seemed absolutely true! On every cable show you'd see people asking whether Clinton was having a nervous breakdown, and had shown herself to be such a vicious brute that she shouldn't be allowed within the city limits of Washington, D.C., let alone in the White House.

But this is a guy who once responded to a column he didn't like by mailing the columnist a copy of her column with her picture circled and the words "The face of a dog!" written alongside.

Or how about this one: On Tuesday, Trump told a crowd in New Mexico, "Your governor has got to do a better job. She's not doing the job. Hey! Maybe I'll run for governor of New Mexico. I'll get this place going. She's not doing the job." Which might be just an ordinary political jab, were it not for the fact that the state's governor, Susana Martinez, is a fellow Republican.

Trump was probably responding to criticisms Martinez has made of him in the past. But a politician with any modicum of skill or equanimity would say to himself, "OK, so I didn't like what she said about me a month ago. But I'm not going to strike back, because she's the governor of a swing state, not to mention the highest-ranking Latina Republican elected official in the country. It's better not to make things worse with her, at least in public." Donald Trump, however, is obviously completely lacking in the ability to put aside a personal slight in order to achieve a longer-term goal. It seems like everyone in the world is on permanent probationary status with him, no matter who you are or how he might need you. Donald Trump has no friends or allies, only enemies who haven't revealed themselves yet.

Perhaps Trump has spent decades of his life surrounded by sycophants, so he expects that everyone should scrape and crawl in his presence. Perhaps he is gripped by such spectacular insecurity that he can't tolerate even the barest of slights, and feels he has to lash out at anyone who offers him something other than effusive praise. But whatever the source of this propensity, it's obviously a core part of his character. This isn't a case of making a mountain out of a molehill, or taking one or two episodes as emblematic when they might not be — he does this sort of thing all the time. He's obsessed with being treated "fairly," i.e. being offered nothing but praise and support, and overreacts to even the mildest of criticisms.

Now think about having a president who acts that way. Nobody on Earth gets criticized as much as the president of the United States. Is President Trump going to stay up late at night penning Twitter burns at celebrities who mock him? Is he going to be able to work with members of Congress who might attack him one day and be ready to cooperate with him the next? What happens when there's an international crisis? When a foreign despot rattles his saber at President Trump, will he be able to resist the urge to strike back?

It's a bracing thought. And his inability to tolerate criticism or even tough questions is just one feature of Trump's personality that might give voters pause. I'm sure the last thing he wants is to be psychoanalyzed. But the public needs to know a lot more about how his mind works, if he's to become the most powerful person in the world.