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David Duke is a malignant narcissist.David
Duke is a malignant narcissist.
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.