Occam's Razor

It’s taken a while but a few people are figuring out how to use Trump’s narcissism against him. Anyone with sufficient influence or power who criticizes Trump will get a reflexive set of double-down tweets. Trump will point out how they are the flawed one and he is never wrong; after all he is a very stable genius.

Trump also uses his tweets to change the subject, hopefully resetting the narrative. This week former CIA Director and Homeland Security Adviser John Brennan felt Trump’s wrath by having his security clearance revoked. Brennan of course has been regularly criticizing Trump from his secure perch in retirement.

Removing his clearance means nothing; Brennan doesn’t need one and hasn’t used it since leaving office, except to prepare to answer questions from investigators. It is possible that by taking away his clearance it will ultimately work to Trump’s disadvantage. Trump is working to remove a bunch of other senior security clearances too in response to their “rigged witch hunt” against him. All but one of them no longer work for the federal government, so they are effectively toothless too.

What really got Trump’s goat recently though was the release of Omarosa Manigault Newman’s book Unhinged. The unflattering tapes she has been slowly releasing methodically prove she is speaking the truth. This resulted in a predictable set of new rage tweets from Trump against Omarosa, one of the few blacks in his administration. She has been part of his orbit since she first appeared on The Apprentice in 2004. Omarosa has nearly fifteen years of experience working with Donald Trump and is intimately familiar with his strengths and weaknesses. In response, he called her a “crazed, crying lowlife” and “that dog” among other insults.

Obviously her book is not flattering to Trump and Trump felt betrayed because of her disloyalty. Trump never returns any loyalty, but he hasn’t made the connection that true loyalty goes both ways. Trump thinks he can buy-off people, but he only rents them until they just can’t stand working for him anymore.

Fourteen years of observing Donald Trump, plus Omarosa’s own character flaws, have produced a character uniquely qualified to help bring him down, bigly. This is because unlike most of The Apprentice contestants, Omarosa played by Trump’s own rules. So of course she had no problem making surreptitious recordings (and reportedly videos) of Trump and his aides. This is completely consistent with Trump’s break-all-the-rules-to-succeed philosophy. Apparently she has quite a collection of these and plans to keep doling them out regularly, at least until Trump’s bullying against her stops.

Her condition that these releases would stop only when Trump stops bullying her is brilliant. It will show in time that Omarosa knows how to best Trump in his own game. Here’s why:

As someone with an extreme case of Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD), Trump cannot control himself when someone criticizes him. So with each tape released by Omarosa, Trump’s ego will require him to lash out at her some more, mostly through rage tweets. That in turn will keep his faults and her face constantly in the news. Trump will try to find surrogate issues (like these security clearances) to change the focus, but they are unlikely to work. He must stop bullying Omarosa to bring the pressure relief he craves. But he can’t do that because he has NPD. What’s really interesting is that Omarosa has done the impossible with Trump: changed the power dynamics. She is now his Alpha, on par with Vladimir Putin. Trump just hasn’t figured that out.

No wonder then that Trump is so scared. No wonder he has put together an enemies list and is revoking security clearances. Aside from bullying, Trump really doesn’t have much in the way of power to frustrate his opponents. His best weapon is Brent Kavanaugh, if he gets confirmed to the Supreme Court, as is likely. If cases against Trump come before the court, Kavanaugh is likely to rule in his favor. Removing security clearances though is largely a toothless exercise in retribution. Trump may sense that removing Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein is another trap that will make things worse for him. His narcissism and the feeling that the walls are closing around him though may impel him to fire him anyhow.

To Trump’s critics though Omarosa is the gift that keeps on giving. Each release shows more flaws in Trump and his hapless administration. This will cause an inevitable reflexive series of outrage tweets by Trump, which keeps the pattern repeating indefinitely. Omarosa has Trump is caught in a Chinese finger trap, and Trump simply lacks the life experiences required to get out of the trap. He can’t even picture them.

It is possible that Trump will figure out that ignoring her is more productive, but it’s unlikely he will figure this out by himself. Someone on staff will have to surreptitiously suggest it and hammer it in again and again until it gets absorbed. With his case of NPD so advanced though, he probably won’t. It will probably grow to become an every bigger cyclone of fury and hate.

As for Omarosa, just as Trump got tons of free publicity during his campaign by giving the media something shiny and new to follow, Omarosa gets tons of free publicity too, stays constantly in the news and makes a name for herself. Copies of her books fly off shelves, and her recording and videos inside the Trump White House get constantly played. Her future looks bright.

So effectively Omarosa has out trumped Trump. Well played, Omarosa. The apprentice seems likely to topple the king.