The unshakable entitlement of Donald Trump: how narcissism rewrites the rules

There’s a grotesque irony to Donald Trump’s worldview: a man who spent decades gilding his name in gold insists that ordinary Americans must learn to live with less. He’ll mock food stamp recipients as lazy while billing the Secret Service $1.1 million for golf cart rentals at his properties. He’ll rail against “wasteful spending” on social programs while demanding loyalty payments – pardons for cronies, subsidies for his hotels, even a jumbo jet as a token of admiration.

This isn’t just hypocrisy. It’s the raw exercise of narcissistic entitlement, where power exists solely to serve the powerful. And the most alarming part? It works.

The rules don’t apply (and that’s the point). Trump’s entire brand relies on a simple promise: he’s rich enough to ignore the constraints that bind everyone else. When he dodged taxes, it was “smart.” When he strong-armed contractors, it was “good business.” When he lost the 2020 election, it was “fraud.” Accountability is for losers; winning – by any means – is its own moral justification.

This mentality seeped into his presidency. His administration slashed Medicaid and food assistance, arguing fiscal responsibility, while he spent $10.7 million in taxpayer funds golfing at his own resorts. He framed himself as a populist hero, yet his tax cuts overwhelmingly benefited the wealthy. The message was clear: austerity for thee, opulence for me.

The only thing worse than a man who believes he deserves everything? The millions who agree with him.

The “millions” is his base, who don’t seem to care.

You’d be right to think that such blatant self-interest would repel voters. Instead, it cemented his appeal.

To his supporters, Trump’s shamelessness feels like honesty. Unlike politicians who preach equality while dining with billionaires, Trump doesn’t pretend. His greed is upfront – even celebratory. For voters tired of sanctimonious elites, that’s refreshing.

When Trump flaunts his wealth, it’s not just excess – it’s a middle finger to the systems his base distrusts. They’ll never own a jet, but they relish him mocking the “do-gooder” liberals who (they believe) look down on them. His entitlement becomes their revenge fantasy.

Authoritarians don’t demand fairness; they demand a strongman who might toss them scraps. Trump’s voters don’t expect him to live modestly – they hope his victories will trickle down, whether through tax cuts or culture-war wins. The $400 million jumbo jet gift from Qatar’s Royal Family isn’t a betrayal; it’s proof he’s “winning.”

Trump’s legacy isn’t just policy – it’s the normalisation of sociopathic leadership. He proved that a critical mass of Americans will tolerate (even cheer) a leader who:

  • Treats corruption as a perk of office
  • Rewards loyalty over competence
  • Weaponises grievance to deflect failure

The next Trump-like figure won’t need gold toilets or reality TV fame. They’ll just need to replicate the formula: blame the weak, reward the loyal, and call it populism.

The Jumbo Jet Test

Imagine a child told to accept fewer dolls this Christmas while a billionaire demands a $400 million plane as a “gift.” The absurdity is the point. In Trump’s world, fairness is for suckers. And as long as voters see his excess as strength rather than exploitation, he’ll keep getting away with it – right into the history books.

The High Cost of Normalising Entitlement

Trump’s greatest trick wasn’t convincing millions he was a self-made billionaire, a stable genius, or even a righteous leader. It was making unchecked entitlement look like strength – and selfishness, like common sense.

We’ve reached a moment where shameless excess with Trump is framed as “winning,” where the rules are only for those too powerless to break them, and where the very idea of shared sacrifice is mocked as weakness. The jumbo jets, the tax dodges, the pardons-for-sale – none of these are flukes. They’re the natural result of a system that rewards narcissism and calls it leadership.

The question isn’t whether Trump will face consequences. History suggests he won’t. The real question is whether Americans – including the media – will keep treating his brand of entitlement as an aberration, or finally recognise it as the blueprint it’s become. Because the next aspirant to his throne is already taking notes.

 

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About Roswell 41 Articles
Roswell is American born though he was quite young when his family moved to Australia. He holds a Bachelor of Science and spent most of his working life in Canberra. His interests include anything that has an unsolved mystery about it, politics (Australian and American), science, history, and travelling. Roswell works a lot in Admin at The AIMN.

6 Comments

  1. Here are old history factors going around again, for since we had records, we have had some urbanisation, components of civilisation, rulers, prelates, generals, parasites. Trumpery is re-emerging arsery, bludgery, predation, crooked filth dressed as leadership. Filthy fuhrer types abound and Donny Dogshit the First is not the last. But, who voted for this? Who tolerates it?

  2. It always comes down to the bottom line for The Donald, the obsessive accumulation (by any means possible legal or otherwise) of cash, cash, and more cash.

  3. What a thoroughly disreputable, totally discredited megalomaniacal narcissist, Donald Trump is! This repugnant individual is not only an unconscionable misogynistic predator and a pathological liar, he is a CONVICTED CRIMINAL who poses a REAL and ever-present danger to America’s fragile democracy and, indeed, to America’s Constitution which Trump treats with condescending disdain!

    Trump needs to be arrested, charged, prosecuted and jailed for his dangerously undemocratic level of fascist entitlement and his treacherous, backstabbing disloyalty to (once) close allies of America: Australia, the UK and many other nations around the world (like the Ukraine and their President, Volodymyr Zelensky) whom Trump has ruthlessly betrayed!

    There is absolutely NOTHING good one can find to say about Trump – not only is he a depraved CONVICTED CRIMINAL and a ruthless, thoroughly entitled misogynistic predator, Trump ticks EVERY box as a totally deluded, born-to-rule racist right-wing extremist and a megalomaniacal autocrat as well as a dangerously undemocratic fascist and a vengeful political psychopath who’s ONLY “achievement” is to alienate America from all of its allies and, indeed, to MAKE AMERICA HATE AGAIN! The fact that the gormless, callously inhumane, insular racist, Donald Trump – a totally amoral, self-promoting political psychopath – has gone right out on a limb to support that ex-KGB killer, Vladimir Putin, as well as that cold-blooded, Islamophobic murderer, Netanyahu – who is currently gunning down defenseless non-Jewish Israelis (Muslims and Christians alike) as they attempt to flee Netanyahu’s KILLING FIELDS along the Gaza Strip – says SO MUCH about Trump’s total lack of discernment and absolute gormless ignorance about what is REALLY going on in the world outside of his own insular, protectionist little world in America! These – and so many OTHER reasons – are WHY Trump is so thoroughly condemned and despised right around the world.

  4. This morning his pathetic, condesending and childish comments about Syria were about as far as you could get coming from anyone called a statesman or world leader!
    Could only be from an individual with severe personality disorders who attracts feeble minded voters, despots, family supporters and oligarchs for what they feel they can get out from associating with him!

  5. The old time Mafia crime bosses must be spinning in their graves with envy at the thought that The Trump Crime Family (which includes the scumbags that surround him as well) has, for the moment at least, the US firmly in their grasp and would bleed the coffers dry given half the chance.

  6. Like laying a putting green on quicksand, it’s the arse-wriggles that’ll have the game scuppered.

    The Whitehouse is not Mar-a-Lago. In DC, T-Rump’s running out of mulligans as he fumbles from tee to green. Just into his round this time, and its his bragging, leather wedge and arse-wriggles that has the world of players planting over-night a new putting green to spite him.

    Would even his flunkies put out a hand to save him?

    Netanyahu, ahead of play, is sinking fast on the fringe, and Zelenskyy and Putin have decided to play out their putts in Istanbul far from the wild swings of the Don. Even Modi’s India is protesting that T-Rump is a lying self-aggrandizing tosser for mouthing into the old Paki-India argy bargy in the traps.

    As for the big deal with Starmer, so much stale fairy floss is hard to imagine.

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