Clear and Present Danger

Narcissism is epidemic and there is scarcely a domain that is immune. A Clear and Present Danger: Narcissism in the Era of Donald Trump brings together bestselling authors, university professors, and practicing clinicians. "Every country has the government it deserves", said Alexis de Toqueville, author of Democracy in America. Whatever history eventually records about the 2016 presidential election, this frank and thoughtful exploration of narcissism will prove to be a timely and timeless study. Narcissism demands to be mirrored and refuses to be challenged. It demands acclaim, obedience, and accommodation, while disregarding others. Whether narcissism overtakes the home, the workplace, or the national stage, everyone who comes under Narcissus's spell, both the narcissist and their subjects, suffer. Pundits insist that politics has seldom been as polarized as it became during the 2016 election in the USA. But there is a long history of what the religious scholar Mircea Eleade, Abraham Joshua Heschel, Henry Corbin, and C. G. Jung described as coincidentia oppositorum, the coincidence of opposites. While Donald Trump galvanized a vast number of angry, disaffected voters, Senator Bernie Sanders mobilized enormous crowds of young voters who were intent on changing the status quo. The contributors share a hope that these essays will become a mirror for self-examination. Gaze into the reflecting pool, but beware that you do not become absorbed in your own image and the echo of your own voice. Then let your gaze return to the world around you, to the people who share your life, to the nation and planet you inhabit. And as Dr. Estés reminds us in the closing pages, remember "We were made for times like these." TABLE OF CONTENTS: Front Matters Introduction to Narcissistic Personality Disorder The Goldwater Rule - Crossing the Border of Assessing Public Figures Section 1: Opening Thoughts Narcissis's Forlorn Hope: the Fading Image in a Pool too Deep - James Hollis Section 2: Narcissism in the Era of Donald Trump The Trump Complex, the John Wayne Archetype and States of National Possession. - Steven Buser Healthy Presidential Narcissism: Is that Possible? - Nathan Schwartz-Salant Trump and the American Selfie: Archetypal Defenses of the Group Spirit - Tom Singer Trumplestilskin: Narcissism & the Will to Power - Leonard Cruz Fascist Style in Narcissistic Fashion - John McClain Waking Up! Malignant Narcissism: How Bluebeard and Hitler Came To Power - Clarissa Pinkola Estés The Trump Phenomenon - Thomas Patrick Lavin Section 3: Personal Narcissism The Hall of Mirrors: Narcissism and Celebrity in the World of Twitter and Reality TV - Kathryn Madden Narcissism and the Masculine - James Wyly Narcissism in the Home - Nancy Swift Furlotti Narcissism and Social Media: Eros Held Hostage- Eve Maram Section 4: Archetypal Narcissism The Wounded Healer: Transformation through Compassion - Jean Shinoda Bolen Who was Narcissisus? - Alden Josey Narcissism in Our Collective Home, Our American Culture - Nancy Swift Furlotti The Demonic and Narcissistic Power of the Media in Shakespeare's Macbeth - Susan Rowland The Opposite of Loneliness is not Togetherness, it is Intimacy - Laurence de Rosen America in the Grip of Alpha Narcissism: The Predator Within and Amongst Each and All of Us - Jacqueline West Section 5: Closing Thoughts Come, There is Much that We Can yet Do! - Robert Moore Do Not Lose Heart, We Were Made for These Times - Clarissa Pinkola Estés