By Alon Ben-Meir*
When a president confuses personal loyalty with public duty and self-glorification with leadership, democracy pays the price. Trump’s conduct reveals a disgusting and disturbing pattern: he put the presidency in service of his ego rather than the nation.
NEW YORK | 17 October 2026 (IDN) — The damage Trump has inflicted on this country and the world is incalculable. The irony is staggering: he emerged from the very America that led the world order after the Second World War. He has repeatedly inverted that obligation, treating public office as a platform for self-glorification, a tool for retaliation, and a means of demanding personal loyalty, at a time when the US presidency, in particular, demands judgment, restraint, and a commitment to something greater than oneself.
Trump’s behaviour and conduct emanate from his extraordinary narcissism that shapes every move or policy that he enunciates. What is deeply alarming is that it should have been obvious who this man is, having witnessed his narcissistic traits on full display during his first term. But that didn’t matter to the Republicans who put him back in office, believing he would deliver their agenda regardless of its extremely damaging national implications.
Now, two years into his second term, an overwhelming majority of the American people, including a growing number of Republicans, realise the unfathomable damage that he caused to America and the global order.
The following twelve traits of Trump’s narcissism are far from exhaustive or a clinical diagnosis; they are a portrait of observable conduct showing how his relentless preoccupation with himself has undermined the responsibilities of democratic leadership and unimaginably harmed the country and the world.
Relentless self-aggrandisement
Trump’s life support is self-aggrandisement; his narcissism is in his DNA; nothing stops him from displaying his ugly narcissistic traits. On 7 October, 2026, Trump again declared that he deserved the Nobel Peace Prize, citing María Corina Machado’s presentation of her medal to him and her praise of his worthiness. His remarks placed personal recognition at the centre of his account of international diplomacy.
Trump’s insatiable need for praise
On 2 May, 2025, Trump posted an AI-generated image of himself dressed as a pope shortly after attending Pope Francis’s funeral; the White House reposted it. Although he called it a joke, the episode appropriated a moment of religious mourning and succession for self-display, leaving an uncontested global impression of how dangerously delusional this man is.
Entitlement
Trump attempts to fill his hollow soul by claiming entitlement. Celebrating his administration’s attempt to terminate New York’s congestion pricing, on 19 February, 2025, Trump proclaimed, “LONG LIVE THE KING!” The White House circulated an image of him wearing a crown, framing an exercise of executive authority as a triumph of personal, monarchical power–another manifestation of the mental disorder of the so-called leader of the free world.
Exaggeration
Trump doubles down on his exaggeration until he creates a new reality. His habitual exaggeration showed itself glaringly in a 22 April, 2025 interview with Time, when he declared, “I’ve made 200 deals” on trade and, when pressed, affirmed, “100%.” Yet his administration had not announced a single completed trade agreement, and negotiations with major partners remained underway. He presented unfinished negotiations as accomplished victories, inflating his achievements to magnify his public stature, while losing international credibility central to America’s leadership.
Habitual dishonesty
On 18 February, 2025, Trump falsely blamed Ukraine for starting the war with Russia, declaring, “You should have never started it.” Yet Russia had launched the full-scale invasion on 24 February, 2022—a documented fact that even his former vice president, Mike Pence, publicly reiterated in response. Trump’s account reversed the roles of aggressor and victim, substituting a politically convenient narrative for the established record, leaving Putin cheering, while the Ukrainians are paying with their blood.
Disregard for truth
On 16 October, 2024, Trump defended his claim that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, were eating residents’ pets, despite local officials and police repeatedly stating that no credible reports supported the allegation. After a voter challenged him at a Univision town hall, he replied, “I was just saying what was reported.” Rather than acknowledge the correction, he invoked unspecified reports to keep a discredited accusation alive, losing whatever shred of trust he had left.
Takes no responsibility for failures
Trump is known for never taking responsibility when things go wrong and for quickly claiming credit when things go right, even when he had nothing to do with it. On 13 March, 2020, when asked about failures in coronavirus testing, Trump responded, “I don’t take responsibility at all.” He blamed inherited circumstances and regulations, distancing himself from a crucial public health failure under his administration.
Contempt for criticism
Trump’s intolerance of scrutiny surfaced repeatedly. On 14 November, 2025, when Bloomberg correspondent Catherine Lucey pressed him about the Jeffrey Epstein files aboard Air Force One with a follow-up question, he cut her off: “Quiet. Quiet, piggy.” Rather than address a legitimate question, he resorted to personal humiliation (and misogynistic degradation, another Trump favourite), treating journalistic scrutiny as an offence deserving abuse.
Vindictiveness toward perceived enemies
Trump’s vindictiveness took concrete form in September 2025, when he installed his former personal lawyer, Lindsey Halligan, to oversee prosecutions of former FBI director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James after her predecessor declined to pursue charges, citing insufficient evidence. Halligan secured indictments against both, turning Trump’s demands for punishment into criminal prosecutions. A federal judge dismissed the cases, ruling that Halligan had been unlawfully appointed.
Indifference to others’ suffering
On 1 July, 2025, before visiting Florida’s “Alligator Alcatraz” immigration detention centre, Trump joked about migrants encountering alligators if they escaped. “Don’t run in a straight line. Run like this,” he said, gesturing in a zigzag. “And you know what? Your chances go up about 1%.” He turned the prospect of terrified human beings fleeing predators into a punchline—a disturbing display of indifference to their vulnerability and a sickening performance for all to see.
Impulsiveness
On 9 April, 2025, Trump abruptly announced a 90-day pause on higher tariffs for most trading partners, only hours after those duties took effect. His reversal followed days of market turmoil that erased trillions of dollars in stock-market value. To explain the shift, he said people were getting “yippy” and “a little bit afraid”—a striking illustration of sweeping policy imposed first and reconsidered only after its consequences became impossible for US trade partners to ignore.
Divisiveness
Trump’s divisiveness was starkly evident on 2 December, 2025, when, during a televised Cabinet meeting, he called Somali immigrants “garbage,” declared that they “contribute nothing,” and said, “We don’t want them in our country.” His sweeping denunciation targeted an entire community rather than particular individuals or unlawful acts, casting people of Somali origin as inherently unwelcome and turning national identity into a weapon of exclusion.
Trump’s narcissism is not merely a personal failing; it threatens a republic whose survival depends on leaders, especially the president, who respect limits, accept accountability, and serve something greater than themselves. What makes matters worse is when Republican officeholders’ loyalty to one man supplants loyalty to the Constitution—truth becomes expendable, cruelty becomes permissible, and public power becomes an instrument of private revenge.
Republicans who continue to enable Trump cannot disown responsibility for the damage they help sustain. Their choice is not between Trump and the Democrats, but between submission to a man and fidelity to the republic. Trump’s narcissism is destroying America brick by brick. The Republicans do not seem to grasp that the presidency belongs to the American people—not to the ego of its occupant.
Defending that principle is not partisanship; it is patriotism. But the Republicans have long since lost that sense, mindlessly following a narcissist who is anything but an American patriot.
*Dr Alon Ben-Meir is President of the Institute for Humanitarian Conflict Resolution.
Email: alon@alonben-meir.com | Web: www.alonben-meir.com (IDN.InDepthNews)