We know Trump has Covid-19. But just how crazy is he?

What exactly is the matter with Donald Trump? Long before he became President, the present writer identified three potential personality disorders that American voters should think carefully about before electing him. They were: narcissism, paranoia and megalomania. All three have been on display throughout the presidency, but — as was suggested here this week — Trump’s recent behaviour seems to have crossed the line from the provocative to the pathological.

The first of these disorders, narcissism, is perhaps better described as a character trait than a pathology. Trump has been a narcissist all his life, perhaps to compensate for a lack of parental love or attention in early childhood. Whatever the cause, the effect has been to turn him into an egocentric, extroverted exhibitionist, to a degree spectacular even by the standards of American politics. That has never been a career for the faint-hearted, which explains why Trump’s narcissism has not hitherto been a fatal handicap. Indeed, his use of social media, while magnifying the impact of his compulsive attention-seeking, has also proved to be an essential tool of communication. Even in the midst of a pandemic, it’s all about him.

That brings us to paranoia. Compared to, say, Richard Nixon, Trump’s paranoia is nothing unusual. Yet his obsession with the idea that “they are out to get me” has progressively paralysed his Administration. He trusts nobody outside his family and has sacked subordinates at all levels for plotting against him, often on a whim. True: his suspicions have not been entirely without foundation. Extraordinary efforts have been made to unseat him, not only by the Democrats and their friends in the media, but by erstwhile colleagues and once loyal Republicans too.

The jury is still out on whether the so-called “deep state” has indeed undermined his presidency, but it is hard to recall a time when the Washington establishment and the American elites in general have been so united in opposition to the President. Only Wall Street bucked the trend, more out of fear of something worse under a weak Democratic leadership held hostage by its Left-wing. Now even big business has abandoned Trump, to judge by the donations flooding into Joe Biden’s campaign coffers.

We should, however, preserve some perspective on Trump’s paranoia. It has not taken the fratricidal form exhibited by so many rulers throughout history, who have had inconvenient relatives disposed of (step forward Kim Jong-un). Nor has he perverted US security agencies to eliminate “traitors” (that’s you, Vladimir Putin, plus Xi Jinping), journalists (Putin again, plus Mohammed bin Salman, or “MBS”, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia), tycoons and rivals (Putin plus Xi Jinping again).

Critics such as John Bolton or Trump ’ s sister Maryanne should be glad they live in the United States. Anyone who demonises Trump or believes that America is ruled by fear ought to read the recent interview given by Alexei Navalny to Der Spiegel, in which the Russian opposition leader vividly describes his poisoning: “I assert that Putin was behind this stuff and I have no other explanation for what happened. And my job now is to remain the guy who isn’t afraid.” Trump in the grip of paranoia fires off tweets like this: “BIDEN, OBAMA AND CROOKED HILLARY LED THIS TREASONOUS PLOT!!!” Putin has his rivals Novichoked or shot. People who pretend that the United States is controlled by Russia or that their two leaders are in any way comparable are more paranoid than Trump.

Finally, Trump’s megalomania. This is of course an occupational hazard of all leadership, especially in politics. In Trump’s case, however, it goes far beyond the normal déformation professionnelle that led Lord Acton to make his famous observation: “All power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

In a video made after his return from hospital, Trump now tells us that catching Covid-19 was “a blessing from God”. The Almighty has, apparently, used him as an instrument to save the American people from the pandemic. He is now promising to make the treatment he received — specifically, the Regeneron drug he took, which has yet to be approved by the federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) — available free to all Americans. He insists that this antibody cocktail is not, as it is being marketed, a therapy for this coronavirus, but a complete “cure”.

In reality, he is more likely to have responded to another drug, the steroid Dexamethasone, which was developed for treatment of Covid-19 in Britain, is cheap and has FDA approval. Quite apart from the astronomical cost and the lack of FDA approval for Regeneron, the most worrying aspect of Trump’s video is the conviction that his “cure” was due to divine intervention. By his own admission, he is not a deeply religious man, but his invocation of God as his guide (and as a promoter of pharmaceuticals) may herald a new phase of megalomania. It comes combined with an ominous promise that China will be made to pay for what he insists on calling the “China Virus”. Could Trump the peacemaker be about to turn into Trump the warmonger?

Again, we must not exaggerate. Trump’s megalomania does not take the most extreme forms familiar from the courts of Hitler, Stalin or Mao. That his megalomania is by no means Napoleonic is evident from the fact that in office he has been obsessed, not with starting wars but with finishing them. The Abraham Accords just concluded between Israel and the United Arab Emirates — now joined by Bahrain, with other Gulf States likely to follow suit — would be more than enough to secure a share of the Nobel Peace Prize for any other President who had brokered such a treaty.

By the time the Nobel committee announces its decision in December, Trump will probably be a lame-duck President about to vacate the White House. It is hard to say whether that would embolden the Norwegians to honour him, or remove any incentive to do so. Either way, it is likely that Trump’s megalomania and narcissism will fixate upon the Nobel as a substitute for the presidency. If he is denied it, paranoia might also kick in: how many Nobel peace laureates have ever been prosecuted after leaving office?  

If Trump is even capable of contemplating the possibility of losing the election by a landslide — as all the polls now predict — he must be hoping that his successor will wish to protect the dignity of the presidency. In the event that he is proven to have broken the law in office, he will expect a pardon, as Ford did for Nixon. But American politics is less bipartisan and more polarised than in the 1970s. A lot of people would like to see him stand trial. A future President Biden might be one of them. In that case, Trump would have no choice but to plead diminished responsibility. His craziness might prove to be his last and best line of defence.