Read the full transcript of Dr. Jordan B. Peterson’s talk titled “A Psychological Analysis of Trump’s Personality” where he walks the psychological edge, breaking down the personality types of Donald Trump and his coalition of supporters: Elon Musk, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Tulsi Gabbard, Vivek Ramaswamy, and JD Vance.
Listen to the audio version here:
TRANSCRIPT:
Introduction to Trump’s Early Career
I suppose I have had the same problems with once and maybe again President Donald J. Trump that are shared by many. It wasn’t obvious to me at all that his first shot at the leadership of the world’s most powerful country was anything other than a brilliant and unorthodox marketing scheme, albeit one that succeeded beyond the wildest of imaginings. Congratulations, Mr. President.
I knew him only at that point as a self-promoting, bombastic, quintessentially American-type celebrity reminiscent, in my imagination, of Colonel Tom Parker, the morally ambivalent, although indubitably successful, promoter of Elvis Presley.
However, Trump made a name for himself in the difficult business of construction, where particularly in cities such as New York and Chicago, all manner of corruption and trouble had to be managed, a challenging matter, to keep the projects going on time and within budget. Anyone who’s ever undertaken a renovation of any magnitude knows how badly such things can spiral out of control without diligent devotion of time and attention.
Business Success and Media Presence
He managed, while doing so, to make himself quite famous, another feat that is by no means as simple as those who have never done it might imagine. So maybe there was something to him on the diligence, attention, and negotiation front that belied his mere success as a celebrity. After that, of course, he was co-producer and host of the reality shows The Apprentice and The Celebrity Apprentice.
He’s also the author of 19 books, collaborating with various ghostwriters, and has been involved in a true variety of other business enterprises. This history of entrepreneurial activity, combined with his successful bids for attention, leads to two of President Trump’s cardinal personality features. He is extremely extroverted, that is, both assertive and enthusiastic, although more particularly the former rather than the latter. And also at least relatively high in trait openness, which is the single best predictor of entrepreneurial slash creative activity and prowess after general intelligence.
Personality Analysis
This makes him high in the personality meta-trait of plasticity, which is characterized primarily by the capacity to change, grow, and transform. Something quite evident in the case of Trump, who is a very dynamic individual indeed, particularly given his age. Many people have been set in concrete with regard to their essential being by the time they’re 30, not Trump. He reinvents himself constantly, and with a high degree of continual success.
Trump’s Humor and Social Media Presence
That can happen by chance once, perhaps twice, but if it is sustained across many decades, there is something substantive and real at work. I also followed the Donald with great amusement on Twitter during his presidential run and afterward when he was in office, before he was turfed so scandalously by the progressive good thinkers who infested the platform. And you must be commended on their arrogance, presumption, and sheer gall. The man has a devastating and underappreciated, at least by the legacy leaders of opinion, sense of humor, although it is also somewhat ruthless.
I own a very comical book, “The Collected Poems of Donald J. Trump,” available for purchase at the Daily Wire website, by the way, which compiles his most memorable tweets and declarations from 2009 to 2019 into beautiful library edition hardback form. It is a ridiculously funny tome. I believe that deeper consideration of this proclivity for the viciously funny is also useful in shedding more general light on Trump’s admittedly complex personality.
Comparing Trump’s Humor with Historical Leaders
First, we should fairly note that dictatorial types, a category which his enemies insist he falls into, are generally not known for their sense of humor. People were imprisoned in the Stalinist Soviet Union for being the first to stop applauding after a speech by the great leader. Criticism was absolutely out of the question and certainly not forthcoming from the top. I have also never encountered a compendium of the witty and amusing things said by Adolf Hitler or Fidel Castro or Chairman Mao.
Trump does have a surprisingly thin skin in some settings, but he can take a joke as well as tell one. He was roasted on Comedy Central in 2011, bandied back and forth self-deprecatingly several times with David Letterman. He even made a joke about getting wood during his presidential debate with Joe Biden: “And you know, we knock on wood wherever we may have wood that I’m in very good health. I just won.” I don’t think he could help himself. And I truly like that.
He’s rough in his jokes, but no more so than Bill Burr. “You can’t hit women. You can’t. You honestly cannot. You ever see how they fall? They fall like toddlers.” And is it not the case that a certain degree of harshness is necessary for serious comedy?
Connection with Working Class
Understanding and appreciating this helps us in comprehending one of Trump’s more remarkable features, his serious attractiveness to the working class. This is something particularly made evident in his ability to easily banter with soldiers and policemen, a rare trait among politicians, often made nervous by the necessity of interacting with real people with dangerous and difficult jobs.
Let us not forget as well that the humor characteristic of working class men and women also tends toward the rough more deeply. This capacity to relate the very ability that is so often derided as an appeal to a hypothetically dangerous populism speaks to me of the paradoxical presence in Trump’s character of a substantive degree of agreeableness, the personality trait most associated with empathy for other people and one that seriously mitigates against the more pathological elements of the narcissism that can be associated with extreme extroversion.
Understanding Trump’s Personality Complexities
How can this be given his rough and sometimes even bullying humor? Well, agreeableness subdivides into the aspects of politeness and compassion, although they tend to co-vary, else would not unite to produce the trait. People can somewhat rarely be high in one and low in the other. This makes them somewhat harder persons to understand, but is something that is nonetheless possible. I believe that Donald J. is one of those people.
He is certainly not polite. He knows how to behave, so is not merely unsocialized or accidentally gauche, but he frequently chooses not to. This is part of what makes him so funny. The aforementioned Bill Burr is not polite. Louis C.K. is not polite. Tony Hinchcliffe of current kill Tony fame is not polite. Many comical people will say anything that comes into their mind no matter what, if it is either true or funny or optimally both.
Trump definitely falls into this camp. “It’s just awfully good that someone with the temperament of Donald Trump is not in charge of the law in our country because you’d be in jail, Secretary Clinton.” It is clear from the personality and psychopathology literature that people tilt towards narcissism when they are extroverted and disagreeable. Trump is indisputably extroverted and extremely so.
The Private Trump
He’s also definitely low in politeness, but he simply would not be able to make contact with the so-called ordinary people that love him if he did not care deep in the blackness of his heart. I have a suspicion that his very impoliteness is at least in part a mask worn to shield him from the pain that such caring can produce. This would make Trump a man whose gruffness is there to shield himself from the public exposure of his tender heart. There are many men who are like that.
Now I don’t know Trump except from a distance, but I know many people who do. All of them have spoken to me of his hospitable nature in private and of his proclivity to go out of his way for the people around him. This group of witnesses to his character includes people who are seriously not aligned with him politically, by the way. It is also by no means obvious that Trump kisses up and kicks down.
That tendency is a very damning sign indeed, particularly in someone who has genuine power and is simply not reported of Trump. This is something that appears to stand in marked comparison to Kamala Harris, who is notoriously unpopular among her staff, current and former, and for precisely that reason.
Analyzing Trump’s Personality Traits
Two personality traits remain to assess with regard to the former president. That of neuroticism, the tendency to experience negative emotion, and conscientiousness, the tendency to work hard and diligently and to formulate and keep verbal contracts.
Neuroticism subdivides into withdrawal, a depression-like proclivity to shrink, avoid, and freeze in the face of challenge, and volatility, a tendency towards what can be an aggressive touchiness. Trump appears to me to be someone who is very difficult to stop. Thus, my suspicion is that he is very low in withdrawal. What may perhaps add to the paradox of his personality, however, is a higher level of volatility.
People can and do get under his skin, as Kamala Harris did so effectively in her debate with him. In Minnesota, she went out, he gets reactive, but he won’t quit, and he can handle high levels of pressure on a continual basis. His spontaneous response to being nearly assassinated provided clear and stellar evidence of that.
Work Ethic and Daily Routine
What about conscientiousness? Well, Trump famously does not drink or use recreational drugs, so he prioritizes his sobriety and alertness over the transient pleasures of substance use. “I can honestly say I never had a beer in my life, okay? It’s one of my only good traits. I don’t drink.”
I also cannot see how he could juggle all the activities that he has been involved in, even the ghost-writing-aided production of 19 books, not a trivial accomplishment, to say the least of all his other businesses and projects, without a true work ethic. He’s up at 5:30 a.m., a sign of the so-called morningness, the preference for early rather than late hours, which is associated temperamentally with both agreeableness and conscientiousness. Night owls tend as well to be more neurotic and to display more symptoms of personality disorder.
Trump seems to be active and working, as well as gathering information about the state of things from TV, until about midnight each day. That’s a long day of movement. He has a reputation for being a veritable whirlwind of activity in general. A description I find credible, given his strenuous campaign schedule, high openness and extraversion, and early morning preference, all despite his relatively advanced age.
Intellectual and Creative Aspects
On the openness side, I suspect Trump is more interested in ideas than aesthetics. That is two aspects into which openness differentiates. He’s not an intellectual, nor an artist, so I wouldn’t place him in the upper echelons of the distribution of this trait. But no one average or below devotes any attention, for example, to writing books, and the number of books the typical person has written is zero. The diversity of his career is another testament to his trait openness.
Trump is clearly a serial entrepreneur type, and he’s also very interested in the entertainment world, for better or worse. That gives him commonality with those who inhabit the world of the arts, and is part of what makes him a very strange Republican indeed.
Understanding Trump’s Character
So why does Trump set so many people on edge? To recapitulate, he is exceptionally extroverted, particularly with regard to the aspect of assertiveness. He’s also low in politeness. Now that combination has some overlap with narcissism, not surprising in a figure who has been in the spotlight and strived to be for so many years. However, he is genuinely compassionate, really quite surprisingly so, and appears on the basis of his behavior to be relatively or perhaps even markedly conscientious. The presence of those aspects and traits mitigates against what could otherwise be the dangers associated with narcissism.
The Trump Family Dynamic
We might also spend some time in regard to Trump’s personality, considering his family, and the evidence for the Donald’s fundamental reliability, and perhaps even goodness, that its high level of function indicates. The Trump children are a remarkably scandal-free and stable bunch, certainly by the standards set by, say, Hunter Biden. Barron seems to genuinely admire his father. Donald Jr. has many of the same personality traits of his father, for better or worse, but he has also remained free of the taint of narcissistic privilege and power.
Jared Kushner married into the family, but has certainly done it credit, not least on the Abraham Accord front. Trump’s beautiful and elegant wife, Melania, keeps her own counsel and is admirable in so doing. She does not appear to think that she could or should run the country merely because she is married to the man who does.
In marked contrast, say, to Hillary Clinton, this familial honesty and reliability is particularly telling in the case of the Trump family, given that the almost universally Democrat biased legacy media and its propagandistic agents would be thrilled to trumpet any possible misstep on behalf of those near the former president to the skies. Where there is smoke, there is fire, or so goes the cliché. This is sometimes, but not always, true. The converse may be something more reliable.
Where there is absolutely no smoke, even though many hawk-eyed observers are not only watching but wishing for it to appear, there is perhaps truly no fire. Zero scandal within the Trump family is reminiscent, for me, of the zero wars of the Trump presidency. It’s something easy to take for granted, given its too easily invisible non-existence, as it’s hard to be grateful for a problem you just don’t have, but it is a relief. And another indication that the bombastic Donald J has at least properly ruled his own roost.
Family and Behavioral Analysis
This is also no easy matter, as we have seen in the appalling family scandals of the Biden White House, and is another fact mitigating against the claim that President Trump is a danger on the temperamental front. We should address one other relevant clinical personality issue following our analysis of personality, not least through family.
Consider, before we do so, that there exist two primary influences on behavior, personality and the habit it constitutes, and the specifics of the situation in question. It turns out that knowledge of the former, personality, is clearly less useful than knowledge of the second, situation or context, when it comes to the specific and demanding task of predicting someone’s behavior, current or future.
Understanding Behavioral Flexibility
Why? Not least because psychologically healthy persons are flexible, adapting themselves to the specific demands of the current environment, despite their trait proclivities. Even extroverts are likely to be quiet, at least when they have been well socialized, at a funeral. In fact, there is often something seriously wrong with those who lack such situational flexibility, although strength of character with regard to honesty constitutes a marked exception.
The psychopathologies known as personality disorders, which constitute a very serious source of suffering and social conflict, are in fact precisely what emerge when someone is too rigid to change with the social demands of the moment. This all means that it is most useful to gather evidence about how someone has acted in the past, in a given situation, if the goal is prediction of their behavior when placed in that situation, once again, in the future.
Trump’s Presidential Record
We have that evidence already at hand in the case of Trump. This means that we don’t have to rely on our observations of his personality for predicting his behavior, even if they are well founded, compelling or even professional. The man has already been president. And for four years, what did we learn? First and foremost, the time during Trump’s tenure was peaceful, particularly on the international front. The importance of that non-problem, really an accomplishment, can hardly be overstated.
War in the nuclear age is infinitely dangerous. Had Trump been the dictator-in-waiting his foes so loudly and fearfully presume him to be, wouldn’t some evidence of that have made itself manifest, say, on the battlefield? The typical narcissist, particularly the more malignant, sadistic, Machiavellian types, have absolutely no qualms about sacrificing others to their imperial ambitions. Indeed, they may well regard it as a great honor for others to die in service of their own glorification.
Achievements in Foreign Policy
Trump, by marked contrast, embroiled the U.S., the most powerful military force the world has ever seen, in precisely zero wars. Zero is a very low number. Furthermore, he negotiated the Abraham Accords, the nine miraculous peace agreements that have built around Israel a cohort of, if not exactly Arab allies, at least not outright enemies. In a just world, Trump and his previous team of diplomats should have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for this accomplishment, which was deemed impossible by the experts, decade after decade, of the State Department.
It is of significant note, too, that these accords have held even after the events of October 7, 2023, and all the work that has been done, mostly by the truly pathological actors of the Islamic Republic, to set the Muslim, and indeed the broader world, yet again against the Jews.
Let us reiterate in relation to our analysis. We understand his personality, arguably, and may even have some remaining qualms about it. However, Donald J. Trump has already been president, and his tenure was marked by an absolute lack of cataclysmic occurrences.
Leadership Style and Economic Performance
We can therefore reliably rest assured on that front. It might also be noted here that his impolite assertiveness and proclivity not to withdraw in fear or dismay might be a real strength when dealing with dictators, particularly in combination with his openness, which makes him able to think outside the box and to bring to the negotiating table the advantage of unpredictability. Furthermore, Trump’s time as president was also marked by a not inconsiderable domestic economic record, with the arguably marked exception of debt accumulation.
At least decent economic performance and peace, the fact of these twin facts has put many of the various concerns I once had about Trump’s personality to rest, as has my now more sophisticated appreciation for his particularized and unique combination of traits. The events that have surrounded him as of late have done even more in that regard. Why? Well, the Republican candidate has now attracted a truly remarkable, surprising, and stellar group of compatriots around him, all highly accomplished and formidable figures, each with their own marked eccentricities.
The New Coalition
This is also not something that is likely to occur when someone pathologically narcissistic is running the show. That group includes Elon Musk, Tony Stark, genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist. Robert F. Kennedy, charismatic, eccentric, and intimidating. Tulsi Gabbard, who is, in truth, everything that Kamala Harris plays that being. Vivek Ramaswamy, smart, self-promoting, creative, witty, articulate, young, entrepreneurial, and fast on his feet. As well as J.D. Vance, the hillbilly, who pulled himself out of the Appalachians by his bootstraps, and who would, in sane times, be a veritable poster boy for the hypothetically support the poor and working class left.
The X-Men Analogy
I have been joking to myself and some others in my circle that the X-Men have now arrived in reality to rescue the Republic. This is a transformation that has not yet been fully noted, even by the Trump campaign itself, despite its truly and surreally revolutionary nature. First and foremost among these new supporters and colleagues of the former president is Elon Musk. He truly is, and so comically, an X-Man, as is starkly evidenced by the new name of the controversial social media platform he now owns and was once known as Twitter.
He has been struggling to build X, the everything platform, for decades, with that particular moniker in his mind the whole time. The X-Men, like the Avengers, was a group of misfit mutants who came together to save the normies from the various monsters of the world. It is frequently the case that life imitates art, and there were perhaps real reasons stirring in the collective unconscious of the West, inclining us to look toward the eccentric and supernormal for our salvation. Fiction meets reality in the strangest of ways.
Trump’s Leadership of the Coalition
In any case, Trump is now playing Charles Xavier to a strange group of mutants, or, if the similar metaphor of the Avengers is more attractive conceptually, Captain America to the gods and superheroes. Let us assess this group of remarkable people psychologically, one by one. I am, in fact, in a better position to do just that with them than I was in the case of Trump, as I have personally met Musk and the other group members several times, with the exception of VP candidate Vance, with whom a podcast is currently being scheduled.
Analysis of Elon Musk
Let’s begin our analysis with Mr. Elon Musk, the Tony Stark billionaire, although, importantly, without the arms dealing. Before diving in, however, one final important fact should be noted. Pertaining to the former president, the Donald is evidently willing to share the spotlight with Musk and, apparently, to listen to what the eccentric but stunningly capable and clearly genius-level intellect former South African has to say. A cynic might opine that the former president is merely capitalizing on the additional attention his dalliance with Musk might bring him.
I would object, however, as a clinician, on twin grounds. First, if Trump truly were narcissistic, Musk might be the last person with whom he would dally. The latter, Musk, rivals or exceeds him in fame and power and definitely surpasses him in sheer genius. That is not a situation that a truly self-centered and power-mad dictator-in-waiting is likely to appreciate.
Musk’s Character Analysis
Second, with regard to garnering attention, the genuine narcissist is someone unlikely to believe that anyone else is likely to bring anything of value to the table, not already in display in consequence of their own boundless and singular specialness.
On to Elon himself. First and foremost, the world’s premier engineer and inventor, is a man clearly and demonstrably capable of doing six impossible things at the same time. This speaks primarily of his intelligence.
Musk is exceptionally, one in a billion, high in general cognitive ability and openness, a true genius, albeit in the technical manner. That is an observation, not a criticism. With regard to personality, he’s not particularly extroverted, tilting, I would say, in the opposite direction, although not exceptionally so. He is moderate in neuroticism, carrying a fair burden of depression-like pain with him, not least because of a truly rough childhood, which he alludes to but does not make a show of.
Musk’s Leadership Potential
There is some withdrawal there, run roughshod over by his brilliance and openness, and also some volatility, evidenced in his behavior on X online, somewhat reminiscent of Trump himself. Musk is also a worker and manager, hard and dedicated, far beyond the norm, so exceptionally high in conscientiousness, and agreeable enough, particularly on the compassionate side, to be very pro-human. He is, however, no pushover, is not particularly polite, and can, and does, make the difficult judgments of discrimination that allow him to continually operate and maintain multiple, extremely large, demanding, stunningly diverse, and truly cutting-edge enterprises.
His staggering intelligence and business acumen means that he brings something near-miraculous to the Trump X-Men team. I would vote for Trump as president, if I could vote, and I can’t, because I’m Canadian, and forgive me for that, just because Musk has agreed to play a role in any new administration that Trump might bring about. He has even wittily proposed to head up a new Department of Governmental Efficiency, a phrase whose initials, D-O-G-E, indicate the willingness, in an inside joke manner, to do only good every day, as well as signifying a bemused but knowing dog whose image has become a widespread meme.
Future Possibilities
It has been my diligent and hopeful observation that Musk is a good man, or at least a terrible, complicated man, trying very hard to be good, which is all we could truly hope, if we were the least bit realistic about human nature and our own prospects. Could Musk do to the American deep state what he did for Twitter? Could he prune and cut so the republic could revitalize? Stranger things have happened in the course of human history.
Javier Milei is trying something similarly demanding in Argentina, and the U.S. of A. has a remarkable capacity to reinvent itself. Someone like Musk, playing a key role in the governance of the greatest show on Earth, is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. That’s an adventure by anyone’s standards.
Robert F. Kennedy Analysis
I have met with the next member of this group in question, Mr. Robert F. Kennedy, five times, speaking with and listening to him at some length each time. He has the near-manic energy and loquaciousness of those with exceptional verbal intelligence, and the intensely focused concentration that pushes people who have that proclivity beyond even their own limits in pursuit of a goal. He’s dreadfully well-informed, a veritable master of historical minutiae in a manner nonetheless relevant to today’s concerns.
He is also someone who, like Trump and Musk, can and does draw the overall picture accurately. And even in a somewhat prophetic manner, he is fearless and dedicated, having stood up and successfully against even the largest giants of the proto-fascist modern state. And his single-handedly drawn public attention to what is genuinely a health crisis of gargantuan proportions, despite its invisibility on the political stage until the current time.
Kennedy’s Political Evolution
He’s also someone once bitten, twice shy, a seriously wounded apostate, again like Trump and Musk, as well as Tulsi Gabbard, from his own original favored party, the Democrats. When I first spoke with Mr. Kennedy on my YouTube channel, I asked him the same question I always ask the many Democrat leaders I have spoken with, most privately, unwilling as they generally are to risk being seen in public with the likes of me. The question, when do you think the left goes too far?
His answer to that, in interview one, at the very beginning of his presidential march? I had my doubts about the suitability of that answer in the long run, having experienced precisely what happens when the left goes too far in my own private and personal life. Nonetheless, on that occasion, I let the question lie. I can tell you, however, that Mr. Kennedy had plenty to say on that topic when we spoke on YouTube on our second occasion.
Kennedy’s Current Stance
The erstwhile Democrat contender for president had, by that time, experienced running hard and headlong into precisely what I had intimated in the form of my initial and purposefully leading question. In consequence, Robert F. detailed for at least an hour his utter dismay with the power mad, corrupt, ideologically possessed shenanigans of the progressive left, the very force that could continue its current domination of the public discourse and seen if Ms. Kamala Harris and the shadowy and unknown forces behind her ascent to power manage to maintain their positions come November.
What is Kennedy like as a personality? Extroverted, like Trump, although perhaps not as much so. Trump is hard to equal, let alone talk in that regard. Not without his pain and negative emotion, like Musk, not too agreeable, although not at all narcissistic.
Kennedy’s Speaking Style
Despite his markedly forceful assertiveness in opinion and as a speaker, this was evidenced, not least by my comparative silence, particularly during our second YouTube discussion. I’m a very talkative, verbally assertive person, for better or worse. But Mr. Kennedy had the stage for the vast majority of our time together.
That was as it should be, in my opinion, given the circumstances. But it is still something that does not happen to me very often, even when I intend it to. Does this mean that RFK is inappropriately forward, self-aggrandizing, self-centered? Not my experience.
A Revealing Encounter
One anecdote quite tellingly reveals why. RFK Jr. and I encountered one another one evening in a restaurant I happened to be dining in during my last tour. I was there with Dr. Phil in a private room in the back of the building. Mr. Kennedy happened into the establishment, was informed that we were also there, and sent someone forward to ask if he could come and say hello. The fact that he so politely sought permission, since no offense would have been taken had he not, was something I noted, as was his somewhat near-apologetic entrance asking the two of us very graciously to forgive the intrusion.
An intrusion it was not, as we were happy to see him and pleased that he dropped in. He could have just taken that for granted, and even justly so. But he didn’t. A trivial happening, you might object. But I think not. Instead of presuming, he displayed all the social niceties that might be hoped for, and more. I saw evidence of the same proclivity every time I met him. It’s not all about RFK Jr.
Kennedy’s Character Assessment
And that is a good thing to see, given the fame and family reputation that has been part and parcel of his life ever since day one. This is not to say that Kennedy, like Trump and Musk, is without his eccentricities. But as the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche once so perspicaciously noted, great men are seldom credited with their stupidities. RFK Jr. is a singular person, with everything that entails on the positive and negative side.
Kennedy’s Mindset and Approach
He has a somewhat conspiratorial mindset, which, given the means of demise of his uncle and father, is eminently understandable. Furthermore, there are indeed strange things afoot in the world today, such that Kennedy’s suspicion on various fronts may be well warranted. Nonetheless, it’s still a tendency that has to be carefully held in check.
Better to assume incompetence than malevolence, for example. And adept pattern recognizers, of which Kennedy, like Trump, is certainly one, can be plagued by false positives. The tendency to see something that is in fact not there. But the tectonic plates are moving under our culture at an ever-increasing rate.
Potential Impact
And Kennedy’s skepticism, his ability to see the forest and the trees, could easily prove something of great advantage to the American people, prone as they are now, to manipulation by the looming quasi-fascist forces of the utopian, authoritarian, wannabe-globalist state. Imagine, for a moment, that Musk can bring efficiency to the federal government, and that Kennedy, with his skepticism and willing to battle Goliaths, however large, stumbling and blind, can seriously address the twin and terribly pervasive and serious problems of obesity and insulin resistance and their terrible spinoffs. These two things alone would be well worth much attendant risk, in my estimation. Who dares, after all, wins.
Tulsi Gabbard Analysis
Could we ask anything more of any single four-year administration? But there is even more on the table, as there are more remarkable actors involved. The last time I saw Tulsi Gabbard was in DC, during a discussion hosted in this strangest of all possible worlds, by Russell Brand. I had spoken with her at length, as in the case of Kennedy, on my podcast, although only once.
What is Lieutenant Colonel Gabbard like on the personality side? Moderately extroverted. Higher in assertiveness than enthusiasm. She is no giggling girl. Perhaps her military experience mitigated against taking that sometimes charming but often too easy route. Markedly low in neuroticism, as befits a woman who pursued a true military career.
Gabbard’s Character Traits
Agreeableness? Ms. Gabbard cares genuinely about those she served and continues to serve, although I would say she does so in the temperamentally conservative manner that is part patriotism and part respect for the intrinsic dignity and worth of every person, rather than in the oft-cloying, false, and morally self-righteous manner that so often characterizes the so-called allies of the oppressed.
On the side of the progressive left, she’s also very smart, without the more showy brilliance of Ramaswamy, who we still have to discuss, down to earth in that intelligence, and is as conscientious as you would hope an ex-military member and influential political leader might be. Gabbard is the sort of woman who would make of someone a favorite aunt, a close confidant, a trusted friend. If you wanted sane advice, she’d be your pick.
Gabbard’s Role and Impact
She doesn’t have the stunning entrepreneurial flair of Musk, Kennedy, or Ramaswamy, but her presence on the X-Men team would add to that excess of plasticity some true stability. The other personality, Meditate. This is particularly important when the team in question will be tasked with so much administrative and managerial responsibility.
It is great to have someone around like Vivek, for example, who spins off new ideas at a constant rate. But I’d bet on Gabbard to implement effectively and to pay attention to all the details, although Musk also excels at that, to walk the walk as well as talk the talk. She’s a very difficult person not to admire, not to feel lesser than in her presence. She’s solid, competent, straightforward, admirable, brave, patriotic, and tough.
She’d be a truly thoughtful presence in the Trump X-Men team, which might otherwise tilt too hard toward the entrepreneurial and revolutionary. Slow down, gentlemen. Take some time and think. She has as well the emotional resilience not to panic, even under pressure, not to claim that the sky is falling and rush around madly and counterproductively merely for the show of work.
It doesn’t hurt as well that she is the epitome of feminine grace and attractiveness, Wonder Woman indeed, borrowing, if we can, from the DC world, the comic books, and not the city. I can certainly envision her as the first truly deserving female president of the United States.
Vivek Ramaswamy Analysis
This brings us to one Vivek Ramaswamy. He and I recorded a number of podcasts, which I greatly enjoyed. That started before he was running for office, when we discussed another notable accomplishment, the establishment of the Strive Asset Management Fund, designed to give investors an alternative to the mongers of ESG stakeholder capitalism, who are doing everything they can to sneak a particularly pernicious form of top-down, centrally planned socialism into the free market system. So they can pretend to be virtuous in a manner hypothetically unlike their greedy, by-implication peers.
Ramaswamy’s Political Journey
Not long after embarking on his daring campaign for president, Vivek began a habit of approximately quarterly appearances on my YouTube channel. That effort, despite its unlikelihood given his unknown status as a political contender, unfolded very successfully, bringing both the candidate and his ideas to a wide public audience, and proving his credibility as a young and rising alternative on the political scene.
Personality Assessment
What can I say about Vivek’s personality? He is extroverted, both on the assertive and enthusiastic side, characterized by more positive emotion overall than anyone else we have discussed. He is also very high in openness, both to ideas and, as far as I can tell, on the artistic cultural side, although perhaps more the former than the latter. He shares those traits with Trump, Musk, and Kennedy, although less so, although he is still far above average in such regard, than Gabbard.
He is more polite than Trump, certainly, more measured in his speech, less rough and provocative, although also less witty, although certainly not dull. I would hazard a guess, as well, that he is less compassionate and people-centered than both Trump and Musk. Ramaswamy tends to stay in the realm of ideas, and is clearly motivated on the political side, primarily by intellectual curiosity, as well as the desire to see things done better.
Strengths and Potential Concerns
He appears low in neuroticism and is highly stress-tolerant, as those are the same thing. Unlikely to withdraw, like Trump, less depressive than Musk or Kennedy, but also less volatile than Trump, quite stable temperamentally on the emotional side. That’s a good feature in a crisis, as noted in the case of Gabbard.
I suspect he is high in conscientiousness, as well, particularly on the side of industriousness, which is half that trait, the other half being orderliness. Ramaswamy is very successful for a comparatively young man, and he has done that in consequence of his own efforts. This is not a fate that befalls people who fail to work dreadfully hard.
Youth and Growth
Cautions with regard to Vivek? Mostly to do with his youth. Mr. Ramaswamy is accustomed to being the smartest person in the room, and, perhaps, the most successful. This gives him a certain brashness. When I watched him in the first round of the Republican primaries, for example, he was the candidate who received the most positive responses from the audience, as well as the most negative.
The same was true, arguably, of his compatriots on the stage. I thought he risked, in his provocative but undeniably interesting approach, some unnecessary enmity from those same people. And it is not clear to me that this was a good long-term strategy, given the high possibility of sharing a bed with at least some of them, metaphorically speaking, in the future.
Evolution and Potential
I would say that as his campaign progressed, he became more moderate and careful in his criticism of his fellow Republicans, but also more measured overall in his utterances. This is a sign of someone humble enough to learn, despite his confidence, and that is a good thing. He is, above all, like Musk, Kennedy, and Gabbard, cognitively gifted, and that is also a good thing.
Complex jobs require highly intelligent people to manage them. This is true of any job where the demands constantly shift, and governance at the highest level certainly qualifies. His intelligence showed, most particularly in his ability to bring a genuine intellectual excitement to the Republican stage, in addition to accounting for his preternatural early business success, if Ramaswamy went bad, became disillusioned, resentful, angry.
It might be in the narcissistic direction, like Trump, like so many in the political, entertainment, and media realm, but the fact that he is part of this team of high performers means, number one, that he will be required, in the best possible way, to watch his words and actions, and number two, that he will be surrounded by the kind of wise counsel that can help him mature into a person even more remarkable than he is now.
Final Observations
His youth might be regarded as a hindrance, insofar as he is less experienced than he might be, even, arguably, somewhat overconfident, but it is also a marked advantage in that Vivek is not living in 1995, or even 2005, and is very much part of the online digital generation during the most rapid time of technological transformation in human history.
J.D. Vance’s Background
I have not yet met JD Vance, although we have a podcast planned. I have read his book, however, much of it twice. I also watched his debate with Governor Walz, the Democrat VP candidate, very carefully.
The first thing to understand about Vance, like Vivek, like Kennedy, like Musk, is his intelligence. You don’t pull yourself out of the serious backwoods of Appalachia and graduate from law school at Yale without some 95th or even 99th percentile intelligence. He also appears mature for his age, even more so than Vivek, for whom he is perhaps a match in raw cognitive power. I suspect as well that JD is highly conscientious, as it is that trait, second only to intelligence, which best predicts upward mobility.
Character Analysis
And he is certainly the poster child for the American dream in the land where anyone can become president. He is as well extroverted, particularly on the assertiveness side, rather than enthusiastic, and appears both more compassionate and perhaps more polite than Trump and Vivek. Vance writes with real love of the people in his life in “Hillbilly Elegy,” which is genuinely a people rather than idea-centered book. That is not a criticism, by the way, merely an observation, as I have already commented positively on his intelligence.
Connection to Working Class
I think the Republican vice presidential contender will bring a whole other level of concern for the working class to the Trump X-Men team, not least because he is not dismissive of his past, as so many who have escaped upward tend to be. Joining the elites in their contempt for the workers and the inhabitants of the lower rungs of the economic ladder, I detected a profound absence of such dismissive sentiment in “Hillbilly Elegy,” a work that was instead characterized by the substantive gratitude of the well-integrated personality.
Leadership Qualities
Vance is also a very good speaker. That’s the extroversion as well as raw cognitive power, fast on his feet and also no pushover. Despite his people-centered outlook, he holds his temper very well. So he appears low in the neuroticism aspect of volatility, more stable in that regard than the Donald, whom he defended in his debate better than the former president managed for himself and has also overcome many serious obstacles in his uphill climb. Thus, he appears low as well in withdrawal.
Team Dynamics and Concerns
Vance is another person who, like Tulsi Gabbard, is unlikely to panic under difficult conditions. There’s a very positive attribute in the leader. He is another person likely to be a steadying managerial hand, balancing the dangerous brilliance of some of the other members of the Trump coterie. Do I have any reservations, having said all this, about the new Trump X-Men team? Of course.
First, it is a dreadfully creative consortium, and it is not at all obvious that under normal conditions, creative brilliance is the first thing to want in political leaders, who should mostly play an administrative role under normal conditions. However, the current situation in the U.S. and abroad is not normal, and something out of the box may well be necessary in consequence. So I think the risk worth taking.
Potential Risks and Benefits
Second, any one of the strange and powerful mutant or superhero personalities that have gathered themselves around Trump, as well as the Donald himself, could go seriously wrong. They are all strong-willed, charismatic, terribly able people, all of whom appear more than capable of pushing their way forward, even when in error and to hell with the consequences. Such is the proclivity of genuine movers and shakers. However, this is much more likely to happen in isolation.
Team Synergy
The six of them together—Trump, Musk, Kennedy, Gabbard, Ramaswamy, and Vance—should be able to keep every single member in check, and that bodes well for the creativity, productivity, and stability of the future Trump X-Men team administration. And wouldn’t it be a relief to Donald J., who is starting to be an older man, to have some people around him he could admire, and who could really help him, and who respect and listen to him, and who could necessarily involuntarily bear some of what is obviously just too much responsibility and possibility for one man?
The Adventure Ahead
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, wouldn’t it be insanely interesting? Wouldn’t it be, in a word, fun? Wouldn’t all you daring and oh-so-cinema-obsessed theatrical Americans love to have the adventure that such a mutant group of strange personalities running the show would offer? For the next four years? Or longer?
Call to Action
Trump, Musk, Kennedy, Gabbard, Ramaswamy, Vance—that’s a dream team, by the standards of anyone looking for a wild and compelling show. God only knows what, with that same God’s help, they could accomplish. Every single one of those people is remarkable in their own right. Every one, a person whom it has been a privilege to watch, hear, and, to some degree, get to know.
It is for such reasons, for what it is worth, that I hereby and wholeheartedly endorse the Trump X-Men team. I truly can’t imagine anything more exciting and absurd than their ascendance, any possible political event, more preposterous and compelling, any future I could look forward to with more on-the-edge-of-my-seat excitement.
Conclusion and Final Appeal
Remember this, however. Remarkable as they are, those DC-bound X-Men are going to need plenty of help. And all of you watching and listening should understand that failure looms unless you are there to do your part. Seriously. It’s not for nothing that you are all sovereign citizens of a free and remarkable state, charged with the responsibility and opportunity of your own governance. Start by voting.
If all of you who are undecided just took up that initial light mantle of citizenship and headed to the booths, or all of you too cynical above it all and faux cool to bother, the whole world could change. And in a remarkable way. This is going to be a thin margin of victory or defeat, one way or another. Don’t let what you hope for vanish in consequence of your inaction.
Play your part in bringing the Trump X-Men team to DC and let the cards fall where they may. What new possibilities might be revealed? What new opportunities might emerge? What vistas of productive peace be established if these six people took the reins? I want to be around just to see it. On with the show.
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