Trump Unmasked

President Trump is showing symptoms of an addiction to power, evident in his compulsion to escalate claims of dominion over domestic and international adversaries. The size and scope of his targets for subjugation are spiraling ever upward.

Trump began his second term with his administration clamping down on law firms and universities. More recently he has focused his sights on an entire country, Venezuela, with Cuba, Colombia and Greenland also high on his current list — not to mention his claim to the Western Hemisphere in the 2025 National Security Strategy: “After years of neglect, the United States will reassert and enforce the Monroe Doctrine to restore American pre-eminence in the Western Hemisphere, and to protect our homeland and our access to key geographies throughout the region.”

“This ‘Trump Corollary’ to the Monroe Doctrine,” the report added, “is a common-sense and potent restoration of American power and priorities, consistent with American security interests.”

I asked Manfred Kets de Vries, a professor of leadership development and organizational change at Insead, an international business school, about Trump’s relationship with power.

Kets de Vries replied by email:

It is possible to become addicted to power — particularly for certain character structures. Individuals with pronounced narcissistic, paranoid or psychopathic tendencies are especially vulnerable. For them, power does not merely enable action; it regulates inner states that would otherwise feel unmanageable.

Donald Trump is an extreme illustration of this dynamic. From a psychoanalytic perspective, his narcissism is malignant in the sense that it is organized around a profound inner emptiness.

Malignant narcissism is a combination of narcissism and psychopathology. Because there is little internal capacity for self-soothing or self-valuation, he requires continuous external affirmation to feel real and intact. Power supplies that affirmation. Visibility, dominance and constant stimulation temporarily fill the void.

What makes this tragic and dangerous, Kets de Vries continued, “is that this dynamic is not playing out in the margins of political life but at its center. He is not the dictator of a small, contained state; he is occupying the most powerful position in the world, with consequences for all of us.”

It’s not just Trump. The compulsion to simultaneously project power and demean adversaries pervades the administration.