Lens of narcissism is only way to understand Donald Trump’s crime

By David McElroy · June 10, 2023

Why did Donald Trump steal secret documents when he left the White House? Why did he lie about it when the federal government demanded the documents back?

If you already hate Trump, you probably don’t care why. You just want him charged and convicted for something. And if you love Trump, you don’t believe he did anything wrong. Even if he violated federal law, it’s not a big deal, you think, because others have done worse.

But for reasonable people who just want to understand what happened, the question is why he took such a ridiculous risk that had no obvious benefit. What was his motive?

You are not going to understand Trump’s behavior related to the stolen documents until you see it through the lens of malignant narcissism.

Through a normal lens, everything about what he did is irrational and self-destructive. His actions just wouldn’t make sense. But through the lens of pathological narcissism, it’s typical behavior. Narcissists believe rules don’t apply to them. They pursue their own irrational urges even when doing so could destroy them, simply because they refuse to recognize limits placed on them by others.

Donald Trump is a sick man. He’s a malignant narcissist. And that has nothing to do with politics.

When I consider charges that have been leveled against people — public figures or common criminals — I always think about their motives. If I can’t come up with a believable explanation for what caused the alleged crime, I’m inclined to be more skeptical about the charge.

A murderer might be motivated by jealousy or revenge or anger at rejection. He might kill to keep from another crime being discovered. He might have been paid by someone else to kill. But it’s very rare when one person kills another without any motive.

Motives have to do with what the criminal gets for committing the crime. When there are potential consequences, a criminal takes a risk because of greed or anger or ego. There are all sorts of variations, but we can understand most of those motives once we know all the facts.

In the case of Trump’s theft of the documents and then the lies and conspiracy to avoid being caught, there is no motive that makes sense. At least, not to a reasonable and mentally healthy person.

Donald Trump has a long history of doing things simply because he wanted to. Not for any particular gain. Just because it satisfied his ego or lust in the moment. And if you’ve paid any attention to his long business career, you know that it’s second nature to him to lie. Dishonesty doesn’t bother him.

Trump’s ego took a huge blow when he lost the 2020 election. He’s never been able to accept that he lost. His dysfunctional ego couldn’t accept that he could lose. When he left the White House, he took random secret documents with him — not because they served any purpose, but because he thought he was so important that he should be able to have what he wanted.

If he gave up access to classified information, that would subtly tell his ego that he was now less important. Taking the documents and hiding them was his sick way of soothing his wounded ego — of telling himself that he didn’t comply completely when he was forced to give up power.

Nothing else makes sense, because he had no rational motivation. But for a narcissist, the damaged ego — sometimes called the “false self” — is all that matters.

As president, Trump sometimes favored policies that I would prefer over Joe Biden’s political positions. Not always, but sometimes. I strongly disapprove of the top-down coercion both men stand for. At all times, though, Trump was a uniquely dangerous president — and you can’t understand who he is without looking at his actions through the lens of malignant narcissism.

Trump stole secret documents and exposed them in reckless ways. He refused to give the documents back when the National Archives demanded them. He lied about having them. He moved them around to try to hide them. He asked others to lie for him.

And none of that would make any sense without the fact that his narcissistic ego had been wounded by the election loss. But if you understand narcissism, it makes perfect sense.

The outcome of this case shouldn’t have anything to do with partisan politics or ideology. Trump is a sick man who acted recklessly because of his narcissism. In a rational and reasonable world, he would pay a steep price for what he’s done — and he would never have any political power again.

Of course, we don’t live in a rational or reasonable world. We live in a world where a malignant narcissist can become president.

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