Leadership matters. But I think you can figure out that a narcissistic sociopath will never be able to provide either good leadership or good government.

And just when you thought things couldn’t get much worse…

Over the past six months, neither the President nor his party have shown any interest in leadership or government performance. I had not been planning to write  about narcissistic personality disorder. But after last Friday’s photo-op stunt, I realized it’s necessary to provide some context around Donald Trump’s bizarre behaviors.

Lots of people have written articles, sometimes in learned journals, about his mental problems and you can find these easily if you are interested.  But here is the point: you can evaluate mental disorders by observing ongoing behavior. You will see enough behavioral evidence to conclude Trump suffers from what psychologists call the Dark Triad: narcissism, psychopathy and Machiavellian-ism. Put aside Machiavelli for now – pretty much all politicians are manipulative. We will just focus on narcissistic and anti-social personality disorder.

Please don’t just take my word for it. Go to the Mayo Clinic and read their descriptions of narcissistic and antisocial personality disorders. Take a few minutes to read the symptoms of the illnesses and compare these with your own recollection of Trump’s behaviors. Anyone can see the problem if they care to look. You might also want to read information about the qualities of a narcissistic sociopath here.

As you list the symptoms, you can see a list of Trump behaviors: lack of empathy, exaggeration of self-importance and achievements, no sense of truth, impulsive and deceitful, preoccupation with power, etc.

Leadership Matters – Narcissistic Chinese Communist Party

So, folks, I am not trying to be funny, flippant or feckless. We have a serious problem with a President who – due to his mental condition – does not actually know how to govern. His game is reality-show politics, not real world governance. And without treatment, it will never actually get any better.

As I read the symptoms of narcissism and psychopathy, I realized these also describe the behavior of the Chinese Communist Party. Clearly, CCP will never be able to move beyond these limitation, just like Trump. CCP demonstrated its personality clearly in its early months of denials, lies and persecutions pertaining to Wuhan and COVID-19.

But then a strange thing happened. China discovered that there were enough rational adults in its national government to move past the CCP dogma and do some of the right things. Once this happened, the Chinese national response to COVID-19 has been what you would expect from a normal government. In the US, the only national response to the pandemic came from the state and local governments, if somewhat unevenly.

It’s a pretty sad day in leadership matters when China can overcome the dysfunctions of its 91 million member Communist Party, while the US can’t deal with its single narcissist-in-chief.