Obama’s delusion about ‘explaining’ illustrates all-too-common narcissism

By David McElroy · July 16, 2012

When I was a kid, I was pretty sure of whatever conclusions I came to. This used to irritate my father, who would say with exasperation when we disagreed, “You just think you’re right.” I found that an odd thing to say. Of course I thought I was right. Why would I have said it if I hadn’t thought I was right? Why should I question myself now?

My 12-year-old self would have really understood Barack Obama and various other politicians who seem puzzled when people want them to pinpoint the things they’ve been wrong about. I was reminded of it again a couple of days ago when I read these quotes from Obama when CBS News asked him about his mistakes as president so far. He sounded like a job applicant struggling to find an answer to a question about what he biggest weakness is.

“When I think about what we’ve done well and what we haven’t done well,” Obama said, “the mistake of my first term — couple of years — was thinking that this job was just about getting the policy right. And that’s important. But the nature of this office is also to tell a story to the American people that gives them a sense of unity and purpose and optimism, especially during tough times.”

See? He hasn’t actually made any mistakes. He just hasn’t sold his actions well enough.

Even though Obama made specific predictions about what his policies would achieve — and those predictions have been very wrong — you don’t hear him questioning the things he believed or the policies he pursued. Unemployment is now worse than what he said it would be if we did absolutely nothing to address problems. And we’re so far away from what he predicted his policies would achieve that nobody even brings up those predictions anymore.

He doesn’t seem capable of saying, “You know what? I thought stimulus spending would kick-start the economy and pull us out of our economic problems. That’s what my economic advisors told me, but it turns out their theories were wrong and their programs didn’t work. I’ve learned not to trust these theories and I’m trying to figure out what will work instead.”

Obama’s words aren’t those of a man with the ability to reflect on his actions and admit error. Instead, they reflect a narcissistic man who needs to prove to the world that he was right, no matter what the evidence says.

When most people speak of narcissism, they’re thinking of people who are excessively interested in their looks or who think too highly of themselves in some other way. I’m using the word narcissism as a psychologist might use it instead. We all have some narcissistic traits. Some psychologists even see some forms of what they consider healthy narcissism. (As with a lot of things, it’s a matter of definitions.) But Obama and politicians like him seem to potentially fall into a category that’s clinically called narcissistic personality disorder. Read these characteristics of the classical narcissist (from the previous link) and see if you think it sounds like politicians:

Has a grandiose sense of self-importance (e.g., exaggerates achievements and talents, expects to be recognized as superior without commensurate achievements)
Is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love
Believes that he or she is “special” and unique and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or high-status people (or institutions)
Requires excessive admiration
Has a very strong sense of entitlement, e.g., unreasonable expectations of especially favorable treatment or automatic compliance with his or her expectations
Is exploitative of others, e.g., takes advantage of others to achieve his or her own ends
Lacks empathy, e.g., is unwilling to recognize or identify with the feelings and needs of others
Is often envious of others or believes that others are envious of him or her
Regularly shows arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes

In the 20 years I spent working in politics, I saw over and over that successful politicians are almost always narcissists when you get to know them. I regularly saw all of those traits. And I found that most who weren’t excessively narcissistic had little chance to go far in the political world. When you consider that, it’s depressing.

Most people don’t want a humble leader. They don’t want someone who admits mistakes and admits having to grow and learn. They want someone who projects an image of invincibility. They want someone who is certain of everything. And that’s what they get in the people they elect to high office.

This isn’t a partisan issue. I see Obama as a narcissist, but George W. Bush was one, too. (Watch this one-minute clip of Bush trying to answer a journalist’s question about what his biggest mistake had been. It’s revealing.) If you elect Mitt Romney, you’ll get another one. Anybody who’s made it to this level is almost guaranteed to be a clinical narcissist.

If you wonder why it’s not possible to elect humble and competent people who simply want to serve, remind yourself that it’s not what people want. They might say that want people to be able to admit mistakes and be able to act like them, but their voting actions say otherwise.

Most people are looking for a superhero to be their savior. They’re scared of taking responsibility for themselves, so they look to a hero to do it for them. So understand that when you get narcissists as your political leaders, it’s not a random and unexpected glitch in the system. Instead, it’s just the system working the way it’s supposed to. And that should scare you.

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If you have problems with high blood pressure, I’d like to encourage you to consider making serious changes to your diet. There might be some people who don’t have any choice but to start taking prescription medications for high blood pressure, but I’d like to tell you that I have completely eliminated my issue by eliminating all sugar and almost all carbohydrates. (A couple of months ago, my blood pressure hit 185/144, which was dangerously high — considered stage 3 hypertension.) By completely changing my eating habits, I’m down 22 pounds and my blood pressure is now in the “ideal” range — without taking any medication. In addition, I sleep better and I have more energy. Getting away from the sugar-laden mess that we generally refer to as “highly processed food” has been a life-changer for me. Now my challenge is to avoid slipping back into old habits — by eating in the dangerous ways that almost everyone in our society has come to see as normal.

When I first heard about this, I thought it must be satire. When I discovered it was real, I was appalled, but I still thought it must be a one-time thing from some nutty activist. But it turns out it’s the latest bit of pandering to a bunch of far-left activists who believe that a man can become a woman if he decides to claim he’s a woman. As everybody knows, men have prostate glands. Women do not. Period. End of story. Men can get prostate cancer. Women cannot. But political activists are so eager to pretend that a man claiming to be a “trans woman” is really a woman that they are insisting that “women” be included in public health messages about the issue. This is nothing but political virtue-signaling. If you’re a man, you know which parts you have. You know that you ought to be screened. Nobody is made any safer by dragging far-left gender ideology into simple medical reality.

Every time someone tries to tighten requirements around the use of absentee ballots, I hear screams from Democrats and others on the political left that such efforts are nothing but “suppression of black voters.” These protests have never made sense to me, especially because it’s never been a secret that absentee ballot fraud goes on all the time in certain areas. (Everybody knew it when I worked in politics.) The people who engage in such fraud are rarely caught — often because the local political establishment approves of the crime — but a Democrat who won a primary election in Clay County, Alabama, last year has pleaded guilty to this sort of cheating. Terry Andrew Heflin was running for a place on the Clay County Commission. He was caught ordering seven absentee ballots in the names of various voters and sending them to his post office box — after which he used the ballots to vote absentee for himself seven time. Did he have other people cast additional fraudulent ballots? We’ll never know. But in a primary in which he was able to win with only 141 votes, it wouldn’t take many fraudulent votes to change the election. The next time you hear “civil rights activists” claim that it’s just “voter suppression” to hurt blacks which is at the root of efforts to stop this fraud, remember Terry Heflin. If you care about fair and honest elections, ballot security and voter identity should matter to you.

A state legislator in Maine has been stripped of the ability to speak in the state Legislature — and her votes are not being counted on legislative issues — all because she made a truthful social media post. Rep. Laurel Libby (R-Auburn, Maine) opposes allowing boys to compete against girls’ teams in school athletics and she’s become known for making an issue of it. On Feb. 17, she posted on Facebook about a recent example that she found outrageous. She posted side-by-side photos of a boy named John who competed last year in a state track event and won fifth place against other boys two years ago — and a photo of the same boy (now called Katie) who won first place in the same event this year against girls. Whether you find this outrageous or not, Libby is clearly being honest and truthful about the objective facts of an issue of public importance. But the state Legislature censured her. Democrats decreed that she could not speak in the House and that her votes would not count on legislation — until she apologized for the outrage of telling the truth. She refused and her constituents have been unrepresented in the state House since then. The people who promote this ideology are out of touch with reality and won’t rest until they force the rest of us to join them in this delusion. But even if you agree with “trans” ideology, you should be appalled at this heavy-handed attack on political speech.

The late Steve Jobs was at the center of our culture’s transition from analog to digital. He co-founded Apple Computer. He led the team that revolutionized personal computing with the first Macintosh. As CEO of Apple, he led the development of the iPhone and later the iPad. You would think the children of such a man would be surrounded by technology. But Jobs and his wife Laureen didn’t let their children use iPads. Their home had few screens of any kind. Even though Jobs spent most of his time developing and selling Macs and iPhones and iPads, he was home with his wife and children for dinner when he was in town. The family ate together at a simple wooden table in their kitchen — and there were no digital devices or focus on popular culture. Instead, he’s said to have guided his family toward deep discussions of art, philosophy and education — with no iPads to be found. If the man who guided the development of such products chose a different path for his own children, does that suggest that his digital experience taught him that children need human connection, not screens? And does it suggest the possibility that we might be better off if we made the same choice for our families?

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