United for Democracy

Explanation based on the four phases of a narcissistic relationship

Phase 2 and 3: Isolation and conditioning

From the idealization phase, the narcissist slowly becomes more demanding. He has high expectations. You are on his pedestal and you have to live up to that. Because your relationship is so perfect, and he is so perfect, you have to keep doing your best. Failure is not an option. In the beginning of a relationship, everyone shows the best of themselves. But one day everyone’s less pleasant qualities become visible. A narcissist can’t handle that.

Alienation
The narcissist does not recognize the weaknesses and unpleasant behavior which emerges in him. For example, if someone looks at his partner and he is reacting jealously, he blames that competitor. He can argue with him, but then the monkey comes out of his sleeve. In his view, it is mainly because his partner gave rise to it. She acted too friendly or gave the competitor too much attention. Two things happen at that moment. The narcissist teaches his partner to behave a certain way or not. And he creates conditions for contact with people outside the relationship. The partner is conditioned and isolated. This happens simultaneously.

If you are in a narcissistic relationship, friends and family will become alienated from you. He criticizes or praises the people closest to you to let you know how sorry he is that you can’t do something or don’t have something. So to condition you. And he quarrels with the people who are dear to you or would be supportive of you as long as you don’t let them go. In the end, you only know his friends. These are people he admires or who admire him or fear him. Without your own circle, he can manipulate you more easily because you have no sounding board. There is no one who can reflect, criticize your partner and relationship and help you put things into perspective.

Narcissistic tactics
You notice that when you do something right, the narcissist says that “we can be proud of this achievement” but when you make a mistake, that is your sole responsibility, you are reprimanded. If he makes a mistake, it is always someone else’s fault. And don’t dare to see it differently because then you will be bombarded with emotion. He’s acting like you’ve failed him horribly or he’s throwing a narcissistic tantrum. In addition, he throws all kinds of accusations about what you have done wrong or how wrong it is to stand up for the other scapegoat. He attacks you for your “poor” judgment. In a narcissistic fit of rage, all your buttons are pushed and you are left confused. If you have caught him behaving in a way that he himself would condemn, say flirting with someone else, then you can expect a word salad. That is an incoherent account with fragments of explanations, accusations against you and very deliberately a few buttons that touch your emotions. The unreasonableness is so absurd that you start to doubt yourself. He makes you doubt your own sanity instead of realizing he’s acting crazy, that’s what we call gaslighting.

One of the maddening tactics of a narcissist is to arbitrarily change rules, agreements, opinions and even his personal values. What he is fine with first, he can reproach you for the next day. What he defended tooth and nail yesterday, he detests today and how dare you accuse him of ever finding such a thing. For example, according to Donald Trump one day, European countries must contribute more to NATO to defend Ukraine and the next day he declared that Ukraine is guilty of starting that war. The narcissist then claims that your memory is poor, or that you did not hear or understand him correctly. No, you are the one trying to confuse him (because a narcissist turns everything around) or you are mentally unwell. The twisting of his attitude and the roles are an essential part of the confusing and gaslighting he exposes you to.

If a narcissist only behaved negatively, you would soon be gone. However, he has a very good sense of when to idealize you and the relationship again, to romance you for a dopamine shot, and when to have a narcissistic tantrum. He can switch the emotions on and off at will. You are thoughtfully molded into the desired character to be his partner. You have to work hard to get things done. He can get the best out of you. Only in the end you will never have done well enough and an achievement is all to his credit. In this way, the narcissist steals your good qualities, stands on your pedestal and kicks you off with narcissistic tactics such as making demands, criticizing and exposing you to narcissistic rages, word salads and gaslighting.

Immunity
When Donald J. Trump was elected in 2016, it was quite unexpected, including for himself. He was insufficiently prepared for a position for which he was certainly not suitable. He is not someone who comes up with something useful for the country and knows how to motivate people to make it a law. A narcissistic leader has no place in a democracy. He wants everything that comes to his mind to be implemented immediately. He can only function in an autocracy where his will is law, he is admired and no one is allowed to criticize him.

The first term was disastrous. Yet Trump managed to increase his support and be elected president in 2024 after Joe Biden cleaned up the havoc of Trump’s first term and the pandemic. He’s been smart. First of all, he had ensured that the majority in the Supreme Court was in his power. He had committed some crimes and could only get away with them if the judiciary would keep their hands above his head. They saved him from going to jail and also got him immunity from prosecution as a presidential candidate in 2024.

Rhetoric
Donald Trump has maintained at all times that he won the 2020 election and that victory was stolen from him as a plot by the left-wing/communist elite. His political opponents became the enemy. A large portion of Americans came to believe that the election had been stolen, that a plot had indeed been hatched against Trump and the ordinary hard working citizens he wanted to save.

According to Trump, other democratic countries in the world were also governed by the dangerous elite. This story about an “angry outside world” comes from Putin. It also became Trump’s narrative. To sow division and isolate his supporters. We call a narrative to achieve a political goal rhetoric. Trump admires dictators like Putin and Kim Yong Un of North Korea. He has learned from the latter that it is possible to hold an entire country captive by declaring yourself a hero and even distributing pictures of yourself as a kind of comic book hero. You come up with the story that you have liberated your people from an enemy, whether imaginary or an invented story about an opponent.

Conditioning of the people
Narcissistic leaders fear empathetic, intelligent people. Empathetic people can see through the divide and rule policy and criticize it moralistically. Scientists can intellectually criticize policies aimed at breaking down the rule of law, access to medical care and stripping social security. Trump must be considered the most intelligent and best person in the US. Scientists and highly educated women are slandered, demonized, denounced, and declared witches. In this day and age it is still possible to declare a woman a witch so that she is persecuted by the narcissist’s supporters. The people are isolated from people who think differently, scientific knowledge, possible sounding boards that can help put things into perspective and other (mental) resources. From the outside world and (the enemy) within.

Being in a relationship with narcissistic leader Donald Trump his supporters are also conditioned. The people immediately around him, who carry out his wishes, must perform better and better, must not fail and never criticize him. The successes are inflated or fabricated and attributed to Trump while he does nothing but intimidate opponents, especially on X, flattering other dictators and enjoy himself on the golf course. Elon Musk has been tasked with destroying the system of the American democracy, halting subsidies and firing civil servants so they cannot obstruct. As a reward, he can give orders to his own companies from which he earns billions.

Critical media are no longer allowed to attend press conferences. There are people appointed by Trump in his government who will blindly do what fits into the agenda of Project 2025. If something goes wrong, Trump will throw a tantrum in which he blames everyone: his employees, his political opponents, NATO allies, the EU, European democratic leaders.

Power and flying monkeys
Trump supposedly wants to solve the war in Ukraine by giving Putin what he wants, by appeasing him. He parrots Russian rhetoric about the conflict. European leaders now want to go to Trump one by one to persuade him to continue supporting Ukraine and Europe militarily and he of course thinks that is wonderful. So much depends on his cooperation, the weapons and military the US can offer, the money he could continue to pour into NATO. He feels very powerful now. When there is a so-called agreement between Russia and Ukraine, he is a hero to his adoring supporters for bringing peace. If Europe is overrun by Russia, he thinks he will receive respect from Putin. If Trump helps Ukraine, he would be the hero of Europe. But he gains less from that. Because democratic countries in and outside Europe will criticize him for his destructive policies and destruction of the American democratic system, he will keep them at a distance and continue to treat them as the enemy under the control of the ‘left-wing elite’.

The MAGA cult listens to Trump’s every wish, every dog ​​whistle (call to action), supports the Project 2025 agenda and intimidates political opponents in their environment, oppresses women, recognizes just two genders, condemns homosexuality, bans abortions. They report their non-white neighbors and colleagues to ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) for deportation. They are the narcissist’s flying monkeys who help carry out Trump’s reign of terror in society. They don’t care about what happens to other people. Others are considered dangerous, the “enemy from within.” Anyone within the cult who asks critical questions, has moral objections, and opposes them, Trump and the other MAGA members, will be rejected and prosecuted. Thus, the MAGA cult is isolated, conditioned and an extension of the narcissistic leader Donald J. Trump.

Cartoon by Bill Bramhall (New York Daily News)