“Be prepared for a brutal spectacle because we are about to see Trump unleash his venom and rage like never before.” So says psychology professor Dan P. McAdams, author of The Strange Case of Donald J. Trumpa reference work on the psychological “case” of Donald Trump, which predicts an imminent “rise to fury” of the Republican candidate. We would therefore have not yet seen anything of the extreme limits that the ex-president is capable of crossing!
According to the American researcher, the former president, who received the support of independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Friday, is in a state of unprecedented stress and despair since Kamala Harris stole the spotlight by becoming the Democratic Party’s replacement candidate. This intolerable situation in his eyes calls for a reaction that, predicts the expert on the Trumpian psyche, risks surpassing all his attacks of verbal violence and bad faith observed over the past ten years.
Since July 21, in fact, the man McAdams describes as “one of the most narcissistic people on the planet” has no longer been the center of daily media attention. “Yet his all-consuming narcissism is his only driving force,” explains the expert. “Seeing himself, promoting himself, making sure that other people are watching him, being at the center of the action comes before everything else. For Trump, there is no before or after; there is just the present moment. Trump lives to win the battle of the moment, with incendiary statements, without projecting himself into the future or reflecting on the past. He is neither forward-looking nor introspective. Every day is a new episode, in the sense of a reality TV show. Every day is like a football match, which you have to win to qualify for the next match.”
A scenario turned upside down
Since the official launch of his campaign in November 2022, he has managed to continuously monopolize attention even though he was only an opponent. His countless run-ins with the law have helped him do so. He knows that, according to the adage, “even bad publicity is publicity” – which essentially means: any publicity, even negative, is better than no publicity at all. For several months, the election seemed a foregone conclusion against an aging Joe Biden. The assassination attempt from which he miraculously survived on July 15 further reinforced this feeling, making him a survivor, a hero, or even a superman.
U.S. Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate for 2024 Kamala Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, attend a campaign rally in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S., August 6, 2024.
© / afp.com/MATTHEW HATCHER
Alas for Trump, the renunciation in extremis Biden’s speech turned this scenario upside down. In an instant, the media stopped focusing on him and turned their microphones to Kamala Harris. Twenty days later, she managed to assert herself by making her first successful decision as a candidate: the nomination, on August 6, of Tim Walz as her running mate. The governor of Minnesota immediately proved to be complementary to the candidate, much more than JD Vance is to Donald Trump. An excellent speaker, popular and likeable, Walz knows how to capture the attention of journalists. A former sports coach and high school teacher, the former member of the US Army Reserve also has the appeal of novelty. And this, at a time when the negative rhetoric of Trump – who has become the oldest candidate since Biden’s withdrawal – seems to be running out of steam.
This is how, over the summer, Kamala Harris gained about ten points in the popularity polls and narrowly overtook Donald Trump, while the latter was ahead of Joe Biden a month earlier. In short, the Democratic Party and the “Harris-Walz” ticket were at the heart of the “narrative” from the end of July to the end of August. Euphoric, the Democrats held their convention from August 19 to 22, which prolonged the interest of the press a little more, which, once again, turned away from Trump. Unbearable for someone who seeks the spotlight at all costs.
To remedy this frustrating situation, the person concerned went to the Mexican border in Arizona on Thursday to appear with families recently bereaved by the violent, even savage, murders of loved ones perpetrated by migrants from neighboring Mexico. Worthy of the vilest reality TV shows, this despicable television “moment” had only one goal: to pollute the speech of Kamala Harris who was preparing to speak in public for the final apotheosis of the Democratic Party convention in Chicago. It didn’t really work. Above all, Trump neglects to say that he had publicly called on Republicans to vote against the Biden administration’s immigration bill so that the flow of illegal immigrants (at least 2.5 million in 2023, a historic record) would not dry up and so that he could thus accuse the Democratic camp of incompetence in this matter. We know that Trump has more than one trick up his sleeve and will redouble his efforts to put an end to the media cycle that pushes him into the shadows.
His distress and panic can be read on his face.
“When he’s not the center of attention, Trump experiences enormous distress,” says psychology professor McAdams of Northwestern University near Chicago. “But that’s not the only reason,” he adds. “His current fight for the presidency is, in fact, a fight for his life and liberty. If he loses the election, which seemed unthinkable three weeks ago, he could lose his freedom as a result of possible criminal convictions. The stakes are high. So his current distress and panic are not just about being out of the spotlight. They’re also about the fear of losing and ending up in prison.”
It is true that his recent public appearances betray a lack of confidence, discomfort, and uncharacteristic expressions of despondency. “He is increasingly emotional, angry, and belligerent,” says Washington analyst Jacob Heilbrunn. “He jumps from one topic to another without a coherent message. I think he knows he is losing while Kamala Harris publicly beats him up like a pinata“, adds the author of America Lasta recent book on the American far right’s strange fascination with European dictators. According to Heilbrunn, this explains the new Trumpist rhetoric that is emerging: the candidate accuses Harris of fomenting a putsch against Biden in order to take his place. “He wants to instill the idea that she is a putschist because, since he sees himself losing in November, he is already considering contesting the election using this argument. If she cheated against Biden, he will say, then she can cheat against Trump. Which would justify, in his eyes, contesting the election.”
In any case, if Trump loses the November 5 presidential election, history may record that the election was decided in July and August 2024 when the former president seemed to lose his footing. Three decades ago, Queen Elizabeth II of England declared the year 1992 Annus horribilis because of three separations or divorces in the royal family and a serious fire at Windsor Castle. The expression had flourished. At a time when everything seems to be going wrong for him, a question arises: is Donald Trump not living his summer horribilis?
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