According to the The Canadian Psychiatric Association there is narcissism, and then there is narcissistic personality disorder (NPD), a mental disorder or illness. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders defines NPD by the following criteria: a grandiose sense of self-importance; preoccupation with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love; beliefs of being special and unique; a need for excessive admiration; a sense of entitlement; taking advantage of others for personal gain; a lack of empathy; and arrogant and haughty behaviours or attitudes.

Reading through the criteria, it struck me that I was reading a description of one Donald J. Trump. The man is a textbook case.

He comes by it, you might say, honestly. People with NPD are more likely to have parents or close relatives with it and Donald’s old man, Fred Trump, apparently bequeathed him the requisite genes. Mary Trump, who is in a better position to analyze the Trumps than anyone—she was a member of the family and is a licensed psychologist—says her grandfather was a “sociopath” and his family “malignantly dysfunctional.” She claims he was cold to his children and spurned his eldest son because he wasn’t a “killer,” favouring Donald for his “arrogance and bullying.” Add a dysfunctional upbringing to a disposed genetic makeup and you’ve got the ideal recipe for narcissistic personality disorder.

Donald got more from his father than bad genes and a dysfunctional upbringing. He was a lousy businessman—his business career was a litany of bankruptcies and lawsuits—but his father was always available to bail him out. According to a New York Times investigation, he received at least $413 million US in today’s dollars from his father’s real estate empire, an empire his old man built largely on cheap federal loans, fraud and tax invasion. According to the Times, “They were both fluent in the language of half-truths and lies.”

Trump has, however, one considerable gift. Like many narcissists, he is a master of self-promotion. His one great achievement prior to politics was building the Donald J. Trump, Self-made Billionaire, brand. It has generated hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue through TV shows, books and licensing deals.

An example of the hype is the phenomenally successful biographical book The Art of the Deal. Trump claims authorship but in fact it was written by a ghost writer, Tony Schwartz, who said that it was impossible to keep his subject focussed on any topic other than his own self-aggrandizement. Schwartz later said he regretted his work as he felt it implicated him in Trump becoming president, commenting “I put lipstick on a pig.”

He also says that Trump’s short attention span has left him with “a stunning level of superficial knowledge and plain ignorance.” This has been evident since his inauguration, not least in his bizarre economic polices. Also apparent is his narcissistic incapacity for empathy as he tracks down immigrants and unleashes Elon Musk in a chaotic assault on civil servants. And his narcissistic incapacity for admitting mistakes was apparent in the recent debacle of a group of his cabinet members inadvertently inviting a journalist to a high-security meeting. Trump blamed the journalist and insulted his magazine while absolving the cabinet members of blame.

We might keep something of great importance in mind about these behaviours of the president. They are not his choices. Narcissistic personality disorder makes the choices. He is the puppet of his illness. Regardless, we all have to suffer the results. We should therefore remain alert to who, or more precisely what, they are coming from and design our responses accordingly.

American electors, in their wisdom, have chosen for their president a mentally ill criminal with an alarming ignorance of economics. This in what was long referred to (but no more, I think) as the world’s leading democracy. No, the people are not always right.