Sunday, March 13, 2016

Donald Trump, Alpha Victim

Donald Trump’s supporters like to think of him as an alpha male. He represents strength and confidence, two of the traits that are often associated with the informal characterizations of the alpha wolf among men. While he definitely possesses some of those traits, they’re completely wiped away once one digs beneath the surface to reveal the extreme level of insecurity that make him lash out less like a “man’s man” and more like the weak person at his core.

Inside, Donald Trump is a victim. He’s carefully crafted a facade of strength to cover up intense neediness and the weaknesses that point to what he would have been had he not been born into a real estate empire. This is why he plays the “victim card” at nearly every turn. It’s why he points at every criticism and cries out that people are being unfair to him. It’s why those who give him compliments are A-okay in his book even if those people are corrupt Russian dictators or hateful bigots.

Frank Bruni at the New York Times wrote a piece that everyone should read. It details the neediness that many of us have been seeing for a while but that nobody until now has had the guts to point out. Like Bruni, I never looked at his choice to ask his supporters to raise their right hand and pledge allegiance to him as akin to Adolf Hitler or Nazism. To the Nazis, the gesture was an affirmation of their domination and a sign designed to strike fear into their foes. For Trump, the gesture embodied his desperate need and insatiable appetite for positive affirmation.

He needs to be liked. He craves recognition. It grinds at him when anyone is critical of him and he’s completely unwilling to acknowledge mistakes. This last part is the only thing that gives me hope that he’s actually a Christian; it might just be a weakness in his psyche that prevents him from asking God for forgiveness and not a willful disobedience to the Bible. I doubt it, but there’s at least a chance he might just be a very weak person and not an atheist or agnostic as his actions imply.

There’s another story I read tonight that inadvertently calls out Trump as anything but an alpha male. It comes from Ask Men, a publication I would normally never read but it popped up first in Google while I was researching this topic.

While their intention was not to call out Trump, they do so within their 10 points very nicely. Here are some of the highlights that point to the idea that Trump is absolutely not an alpha male:

  • 9. You’re not an alpha male if you never apologize, even when you’re wrong
  • 8. You’re not an alpha male if you suck up to leaders and seek their approval (Putin)
  • 7. You’re not an alpha male if you gossip
  • 5. You’re not an alpha male if you act before you think
  • 4. You’re not an alpha male if you blame others
  • 3. You’re not an alpha male if you lie
  • 2. You’re not an alpha male if you betray others to get ahead
  • 1. You’re not an alpha male if you bully people

Trump only passes two points in their top ten list. I’m not insinuating that Ask Men is a realm of political punditry, but they do spend an awful lot of time writing about men’s issues and when it comes to Trump, they seem to be pointing to my assertion that he’s less of an alpha male and more of an alpha victim. To an alpha victim, everyone else is wrong, strength should be wielded to point out fallacies in others, and at no point will they ever take responsibility for their actions. An alpha victim cries foul whenever they’re called out and believes that they can accomplish things by putting everyone else down. This is an extremely effective tactic in business. It’s the destruction of our nation if used by a President.

A man that craves adoration, bullies others, tries so hard to be the strongman even if his ideas are weak, and calls everyone who criticizes him “unfair” is not the alpha male that he pretends to be. Voters who see him as strong need to realize that this insecure man has no core and would be nothing today if he wasn’t born into a life of privilege.



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