Stop Hailing to the Sociopath-in-Chief (Part II)

After reading and writing about The Sociopath Next Door, I couldn’t wait to read Dr. Martha Stout’s companion piece Outsmarting The Sociopath Next Door. Would she have any more insights about Trump?

I wondered what—if any—ideas and advice she might offer, considering the time frame of her written work. Her first book was published in 2005, before Trump’s first term. The paperback edition of her second work was published in 2021— after the election was “stolen” from Trump but before he got elected to his second Presidential term.

Needless to say, Dr. Stout couldn’t have been familiar with the first 125 days of his current term in office. There was no way she could have known about his arbitrary push-me/pull-you tariff games or mass liquidation of entire government agencies or mandatory deportations of immigrants and students after he’d decided they all were rapists and terrorists.

Back in 2005 or 2021, she couldn’t possibly have known about all these questionable actions he’d be making in 2025.

Since the book’s subtitle is How to Protect Yourself Against a Ruthless Manipulator, however, I did hope to see some strategies on how to deal with sociopaths that might also pertain to Trump.

I wasn’t disappointed.

These memorable comments came in Chapter Seven: Sociopath or Narcissist? Recognizing Narcissistic Personality Disorder:

“When people ask me about sociopathy, narcissism, and politicians, I respond that I don’t support diagnosing anyone I have not spent face-to-face time evaluating. But I will say that if a patient came to me who exhibited the personality traits that we have seen in Donald J. Trump as President of the United States — the grandiosity, the utter absence of empathy, the excessive need for attention and admiration — I would think long and hard about narcissism.”

So on page 217, she states — albeit responsibly and gingerly — that Trump does exhibit the character traits of a bona fide narcissist — but not necessarily a sociopath.

A few pages later, (on page 221) she also states, “Technically, all sociopaths are narcissistic.” Hmmm…So sociopaths are also narcissists, but not ALL narcissists are sociopaths. But couldn’t Trump the narcissist, also be a sociopath?

Quite possibly, but Dr. Stout never diagnoses him as such.
Ever true to her vow of ethical professionalism, she refuses to psychologically diagnose Trump because she has never evaluated him in person.
And yet, after reading her second book, I’ve spotted enough thoughtful and insightful breadcrumbs that responsibly yet inevitably scream SOCIOPATH IN THE OVAL OFFICE!

I don’t want to believe that. I don’t want to play gotcha games with anybody’s mental health, either. It’s just that Trump’s words and deeds keep indicating that something’s terribly wrong with him. No one seems to know what to do, and a lot of people still can’t recognize that he’s exhibiting abnormal behavior. And yet, more and more Americans want him to resign, and go away — far, far, away. They just don’t know what to do or how to make it happen.

The other day I saw a tee shirt with the words that perfectly crystalized this debacle: SOMEBODY DO SOMETHING!

At least, Dr. Stout IS doing something. She’s enabling people to recognize sociopaths so that they actually can do something to protect and help themselves. In both books, she effectively explains what sociopathy really is so we can have a better understanding of it. Rather than demonize sociopaths, she portrays them as human beings who have a psychological and neurological deficiency.

Instead of denouncing sociopathic behavior as “evil,” she effectively explains it as a defect.

In her second book, she echos this definition of evil. To her, what we define as evil is not really a thing or dark shadow of normal human nature. “Rather, evil is a hole,” she states, “an absence of the normal ability to love, and to experience conscience.” Encouraging us to see it as emptiness then helps us to better deal with sociopathy.

Although Dr. Stout believes avoidance is the best way to handle your sociopath next door, she’s realistic enough to know that’s not always possible. Bosses and coworkers, ex-spouses trying to get custody of your children, cyberbullies, manipulators in groups, institutions, corporations, and governments— these different sociopaths require different strategies. In Outsmarting the Sociopath Next Door, she provides detailed plans to address them all.

Although I’d planned to share strategies from her second book with you, dear readers, it’s not logistically possible to do so in only one op-ed. Not enough space. So do yourself a favor and read both books. If you need help with a specific situation or manipulator, though, I advise you to go straight to Outsmarting the Sociopath Next Door.

What you learn will be helpful, and Dr. Stout’s wisdom might even surprise you.

Just when I thought there wouldn’t be anything else insightful about Trump, she provides timely feedback in Chapter Eight: Sociopathy at the Institutional Level: Corporations and Governments:

“You will recall from the last chapter that, if pressed, I would be inclined to place someone who behaves as President Trump does in the category of narcissism. But history — the twentieth century alone — has given us no shortage of dictators who cast a shadow over their nations and subject their people to policies that mandate tremendous suffering. The name that probably comes to mind first in this category is Adolf Hitler…”

The surprising thing here is not that she uses Hitler as our example, but that Trump’s name can also be easily inserted in her following discussion of how sociopathy can easily infiltrate government.

“Lying was a key component of (Trump’s) propaganda, and it facilitated deception on a massive scale. He had discovered an important principle of sidestepping the truth: big lies often are more effective than little ones. His God-like vision of himself, combined with his paranoia, allowed him to think that all of his thoughts and behaviors were inviolate, while compelling him to purge any potential threats to his power. Meanwhile, he surrounded himself with sycophants who were infected by his rabid nationalism. Thus the sociopathic regime was sustained.”

Suddenly, The Donald’s fusion of his birthday with the 250th anniversary of America’s armed forces seems eerily familiar to Adolf’s playbook.

The narcissist in POTUS 47 might want a larger-than-life parade on his June 14th birthday, But it’s the sociopath in him that demands it. It’s the sociopath within him that will misuse millions of dollars to make it happen, then seek vengeance on those who oppose his senseless extravagance. Remember, now The Donald and The State are one and the same.

Keeping that in mind, isn’t it easier now to see why Trump closed down numerous government agencies and fired all those federal workers? He might have enlisted Elon Musk to do the dirty work of destroying the status quo, but it was his plan all along to create this unthinkable chaos. Why?

With chaos in government, he believes he can become the big hero who can “straighten everything out.”

He wants to create an unguarded, seemingly defenseless government that’s highly vulnerable to crime, terrorism, and other domestic attacks. He wants to invite chaos. He doesn’t just think things might get worse, he EXPECTS things to get worse. That way he can “rescue America” and make it great again by declaring Martial Law.

Goodbye, democracy.

So long, personal freedom.

After Martial Law is declared, he’ll be able to make even more unconstitutional demands and issue even more ridiculous changes in those executive orders. I’m hoping I’m wrong here, but after that Greenland thing and the Gulf of America, I’m worried that anything is going to be possible with this Sociopath-in-Chief.

I’d planned to joke about the Armageddon direction on his moral compass, but then I realized something: Trump doesn’t have one. My only hope now is that more people will read Dr. Stout’s books and come up with a winning strategy to outsmart this sociopath.

The U.S. Constitution already provides the ways to remove a sitting President who becomes unfit for office. Now it’s up to the public servants in power to determine whether Trump’s sociopathy warrants impeachment or section 4 of the 25th Amendment. But first, they must admit he IS a sociopath, then realize how dangerous his sociopathy really is.