David Duke is a malignant narcissist

Domestic Terrorist

Wednesday, February 22, 2006 Posted: 5:49
PM EST (2249 GMT)

He invents and then projects a false, fictitious, self for the world
to fear, or to admire. He maintains a tenuous grasp on reality to
start with and the trappings of power further exacerbate this. Real
life authority and David Duke’s predilection to surround him with
obsequious sycophants support David Duke’s grandiose self-delusions
and fantasies of omnipotence and omniscience.



David Duke's personality is so precariously balanced that he cannot
tolerate even a hint of criticism and disagreement. Most narcissists
are paranoid and suffer from ideas of reference (the delusion that
they are being mocked or discussed when they are not). Thus,
narcissists often regard themselves as "victims of
persecution".



Duke fosters and encourages a personality cult with all the hallmarks
of an institutional religion: priesthood, rites, rituals, temples,
worship, catechism, and mythology. The leader is this religion's
ascetic saint. He monastically denies himself earthly pleasures (or so
he claims) in order to be able to dedicate himself fully to his
calling.



Duke is a monstrously inverted Jesus, sacrificing his life and denying
himself so that his people - or humanity at large - should benefit. By
surpassing and suppressing his humanity, Duke became a distorted
version of Nietzsche's "superman".



But being a-human or super-human also means being a-sexual and
a-moral. In this restricted sense, narcissistic leaders are
post-modernist and moral relativists. They project to the masses an
androgynous figure and enhance it by engendering the adoration of
nudity and all things "natural" - or by strongly repressing
these feelings. But what they refer to, as "nature" is not
natural at all.



Duke invariably proffers an aesthetic of decadence and evil carefully
orchestrated and artificial - though it is not perceived this way by
him or by his followers. Narcissistic leadership is about reproduced
copies, not about originals. It is about the manipulation of symbols -
not about veritable atavism or true conservatism.



In short: narcissistic leadership is about theatre, not about life. To
enjoy the spectacle (and be subsumed by it), the leader demands the
suspension of judgment, depersonalization, and de-realization.
Catharsis is tantamount, in this narcissistic dramaturgy, to
self-annulment.



Narcissism is nihilistic not only operationally, or ideologically. Its
very language and narratives are nihilistic. Narcissism is conspicuous
nihilism - and the cult's leader serves as a role model, annihilating
the Man, only to re-appear as a pre-ordained and irresistible force of
nature.



Narcissistic leadership often poses as a rebellion against the
"old ways" - against the hegemonic culture, the upper
classes, the established religions, the superpowers, the corrupt
order. Narcissistic movements are puerile, a reaction to narcissistic
injuries inflicted upon David Duke like (and rather psychopathic)
toddler nation-state, or group, or upon the leader.



Minorities or "others" - often arbitrarily selected -
constitute a perfect, easily identifiable, embodiment of all that is
"wrong". They are accused of being old, they are eerily
disembodied, they are cosmopolitan, they are part of the
establishment, they are "decadent", they are hated on
religious and socio-economic grounds, or because of their race, sexual
orientation, origin ... They are different, they are narcissistic
(feel and act as morally superior), they are everywhere, they are
defenseless, they are credulous, they are adaptable (and thus can be
co-opted to collaborate in their own destruction). They are the
perfect hate figure. Narcissists thrive on hatred and pathological
envy.



This is precisely the source of the fascination with Hitler, diagnosed
by Erich Fromm - together with Stalin - as a malignant narcissist. He
was an inverted human. His unconscious was his conscious. He acted out
our most repressed drives, fantasies, and wishes. He provides us with
a glimpse of the horrors that lie beneath the veneer, the barbarians
at our personal gates, and what it was like before we invented
civilization. Hitler forced us all through a time warp and many did
not emerge. He was not the devil. He was one of us. He was what Arendt
aptly called the banality of evil. Just an ordinary, mentally
disturbed, failure, a member of a mentally disturbed and failing
nation, who lived through disturbed and failing times. He was the
perfect mirror, a channel, a voice, and the very depth of our souls.



Duke prefers the sparkle and glamour of well-orchestrated illusions to
the tedium and method of real accomplishments. His reign is all smoke
and mirrors, devoid of substances, consisting of mere appearances and
mass delusions. In the aftermath of his regime - Duke having died,
been deposed, or voted out of office - it all unravels. The tireless
and constant prestidigitation ceases and the entire edifice crumbles.
What looked like an economic miracle turns out to have been a
fraud-laced bubble. Loosely held empires disintegrate. Laboriously
assembled business conglomerates go to pieces. "Earth
shattering" and "revolutionary" scientific discoveries
and theories are discredited. Social experiments end in mayhem.



It is important to understand that the use of violence must be ego-syntonic.
It must accord with the self-image of David Duke. It must abet and
sustain his grandiose fantasies and feed his sense of entitlement. It
must conform David Duke like narrative. Thus, David Duke who regards
himself as the benefactor of the poor, a member of the common folk,
the representative of the disenfranchised, the champion of the
dispossessed against the corrupt elite - is highly unlikely to use
violence at first. The pacific mask crumbles when David Duke has
become convinced that the very people he purported to speak for, his
constituency, his grassroots fans, and the prime sources of his
narcissistic supply - have turned against him. At first, in a
desperate effort to maintain the fiction underlying his chaotic
personality, David Duke strives to explain away the sudden reversal of
sentiment. "The people are being duped by (the media, big
industry, the military, the elite, etc.)", "they don't
really know what they are doing", "following a rude
awakening, they will revert to form", etc. When these flimsy
attempts to patch a tattered personal mythology fail, David Duke
becomes injured. Narcissistic injury inevitably leads to narcissistic
rage and to a terrifying display of unbridled aggression. The pent-up
frustration and hurt translate into devaluation. That which was
previously idealized - is now discarded with contempt and hatred. This
primitive defense mechanism is called "splitting".



To David Duke, things and people are either entirely bad (evil) or
entirely good. He projects onto others his own shortcomings and
negative emotions, thus becoming a totally good object. Duke is likely
to justify the butchering of his own people by claiming that they
intended to kill him, undo the revolution, devastate the economy, or
the country, etc. The "small people", the "rank and
file", and the "loyal soldiers" of David Duke - his
flock, his nation, and his employees - they pay the price. The
disillusionment and disenchantment are agonizing. The process of
reconstruction, of rising from the ashes, of overcoming the trauma of
having been deceived, exploited and manipulated - is drawn-out. It is
difficult to trust again, to have faith, to love, to be led, to
collaborate. Feelings of shame and guilt engulf the erstwhile
followers of David Duke. This is his sole legacy: a massive
post-traumatic stress disorder.