THIS CIRCUS IS EXHAUSTING!
How Do I Get Out Of Here?
Lately, it seems like half the country has taken up psychiatry, and the other half is shouting about history. Everywhere you turn, people are throwing around heavy words to describe the Trump administration, terms like fascist, authoritarian, and even Nazi.
These are not words you drop gently into a conversation. They land like grenades. And unsurprisingly, they create an enormous amount of defensive reactivity, not only from the Trump government but also from his fiercely loyal followers.
Some say these words are the reason the gap between Americans has become so wide. It’s hard to build a bridge when one side feels morally superior and the other feels unfairly attacked. To be fair, no one likes being compared to Nazis {except, perhaps, actual Nazis}. But the people who use such terms are trying to sound the alarm: “This isn’t normal! Pay attention!”
If “fascist” sounds too harsh or overused, some reach for the language of psychology. Instead of “authoritarian,” they’ll say “narcissist.” Instead of “liar,” they’ll say “pathological.”
This, of course, leads to another round of protest. Trump defenders point out that most of the people using these labels are not licensed psychiatrists. And even if they were, professional ethics forbid diagnosing someone from afar. (Although if there were ever a case study begging to be written from a distance, I think we all know who might qualify.)
Still, the question nags at us: What do these terms actually mean? What does it look like when someone truly has Narcissistic Personality Disorder or a pattern of pathological lying?
Let’s take a look, not to diagnose anyone, of course, but simply to see what these traits might look like in real life.
Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD)
According to the diagnostic manual, NPD involves an inflated sense of self-importance, a need for admiration, and a lack of empathy for others.
Picture someone who constantly needs to be the center of attention. They crave the spotlight the way most of us crave coffee. They’re the hero of every story and the victim of every plot. Compliments are oxygen. Criticism is poison.
They might say, “No one has ever done this better than me,” and mean it. When someone else succeeds, they feel threatened. When something goes wrong, it’s always someone else’s fault. They surround themselves with loyal admirers who reflect back their greatness, like human mirrors carefully arranged around the room.
But here’s the twist: underneath that loud self-assurance often hides deep insecurity. Their confidence is a grand bluster. Challenge their greatness, and what follows can be a social media tirade to a firing spree to a wild attack against perceived enemies.
If you imagine such a person in a position of national leadership, you might expect a few telling behaviors: constant rallies, endless self-congratulation, a love of gold décor, and a deep suspicion of anyone who won’t clap enthusiastically enough, and even a new concert hall with your name on it.
Pathological Lying
Now this one deserves its own reality show. Pathological liars don’t lie merely to avoid consequences or gain something tangible, they lie as a lifestyle choice.
They tell stories so confidently that you almost believe them, until you realize none of it checks out. Then, instead of correcting themselves, they simply tell a new story that contradicts the old one, and tell it louder.
When caught in a falsehood, they don’t blush or backpedal. They double down. They’ll say, “I never said that,” moments after a recording surfaces of them saying exactly that. They’ll insist their crowd was “the biggest in history,” even when the photos show acres of empty space.
The point of their lies is control. They shape reality through repetition. If enough people repeat it, it becomes ‘true’. Living with such a person can be disorienting, they tell so many lies there is no more fact checking, that becomes futile exercise.
What’s striking is how these same patterns, narcissism and pathological lying, seem to have spread far beyond one man. They’ve become the dominant features of an entire political party.
The Republican Party, once known for sober conservatism and moral seriousness, now feels more like a personality cult than a political movement. Its leaders repeat whatever the leader says, no matter how outrageous, because the cost of contradiction is exile. Truth has become optional, loyalty mandatory.
It’s as if the whole party has developed secondary narcissism, absorbing the grandiosity and defensiveness of the one they follow. They mimic his speech, his insults, even his grievances. And when he lies, they nod solemnly, as though repeating it often enough might make it real.
What makes this even more troubling is the religious overlay. Many of these same leaders and followers claim the name of Christian, invoking Jesus at rallies and quoting Scripture as if it were campaign material.
But it’s hard to square the person of Jesus the one who washed feet, forgave enemies, and taught that the greatest among us must be the servant of all, with the swagger, deceit, and self-glorification that now define this movement.
Whatever version of Jesus this is, it’s not one I recognize from the Gospels. It’s more like a political mascot, a Christ remodeled to fit a culture of power, resentment, and grievance. The result is a Christianity that blesses arrogance, sanctifies deception, and calls cruelty “strength.”
If you watch long enough, you’ll notice a favorite trick in the political sandbox: deflection.
When someone points out a lie or a scandal, the response isn’t to defend or explain, it’s to yell, “They’re lying! Not me!” followed by, “Biden did it first!” or “Obama did worse!” always “Look over there!”
It’s like arguing with a five-year-old who got caught with his hand in the cookie jar and immediately shouts, “Well, Joey stole two cookies yesterday!”
Accused of hiding classified documents? “What about Hillary’s emails!”
Caught making things up? “The media lies all the time!”
Questioned about corruption? “Biden’s son!”
It’s a dizzying carousel of distraction: round and round it goes, and nobody ever gets off. If you try to point out the hypocrisy, they just hand you it’s '“fake news”.
Whenever accountability approaches, they throw a smoke bomb of outrage and point in another direction. “Biden’s old! He’s senile! His people should be prosecuted for covering up for him!” Meanwhile, their own house is on fire, and they’re yelling, “Don’t look at me, look over there!”
If this weren’t shaping national policy, it would be high comedy. But as it is, it’s more like a tragic farce where the clowns took over the circus and started accusing the audience of arson.
Somehow, in this carnival of projection, we reached the stage where every Democrat is secretly part of a child-trafficking ring. They are all pedophiles! That’s an interesting attempt at deflection.
It’s as if political argument got outsourced to a bad spy novel written by a teenager with a grudge.
It’s a brilliant bit of psychological projection: accuse your opponents of the most horrifying thing imaginable, and suddenly you’re not the liar or grifter, you’re the protector of the children! You get to feel morally heroic while ducking any inconvenient questions about your own conduct.
Now, to be clear, I’m not diagnosing anyone. My pastoral experience of over 50 years does not give me the ability to prescribe medication. (Though some days, it feels like the entire country could use a collective dose of truth serum.)
I’m simply describing what these patterns of behavior look like, and perhaps why they resonate so strongly right now. Maybe we’re not just talking about one man’s personality; maybe we’re talking about something that has seeped into the national character.
We live in a culture that rewards spectacle over substance, confidence over humility, certainty over truth. We cheer for people who project strength, even when that strength is crule.
So before we hurl words like “fascist” or “narcissist” across the divide, maybe we should pause and ask: are we diagnosing the patient, or describing the culture?
There’s a classic psychological test where a person is shown their own reflection and asked to describe what they see. It’s called the mirror test. Maybe America is taking one right now, and we don’t much like what’s staring back.
Still, for the sake of curiosity, purely academic, if you were to imagine someone who constantly demands admiration, lashes out at critics, and treats the truth like a suggestion… who might come to mind?
I’ll leave that to you, my reader. I’m sure you’ll come up with someone.