‘The Founders Feared a Trump, So Why Could They Not Prevent One?’

Our Founding Principles were Predicated on One Thing: To Stop a Tyrant from Gaining Power

The Founders feared that every so often in a democracy, a Donald Trump would emerge. They tried to limit the likelihood, and mitigate the damage, by setting up a democratic republic that not only had checks and balances designed to reflect the will of the people but also had procedures that could undo the will of the people. Among the latter were electors who could defect, a Congress that could impeach, and Senators originally chosen indirectly by state legislatures, not by “the masses” (then, landowning white men).

On this perhaps saddest Fourth of July the nation has experienced, the words of Dr. Drew Westen, professor of psychology and psychiatry at Emory University and author of The Political Brain, ring especially poignantly in our new book, The Much More Dangerous Case of Donald Trump. He continues:

They put all these procedures in place because they knew the social contract philosophy that provided the intellectual architecture for the Constitution they devised had a major flaw: Humans are susceptible to demagogues, and demagogues are capable of arousing not only the passions of “the mob” but also what Lincoln might have called the lowest demons of our nature.

None of these philosophers had an answer to this problem. The one who grappled most with it was probably Rousseau, who distinguished between the “general will,” the genuine best interest of the people, from the “will of all,” the closest approximation to it, namely the outcome of the clash of public and private interests obtained through the democratic process. Most of the time, Rousseau believed the political process would yield a close enough approximation to the collective interest (and if not, with regular elections, the system should be self-correcting). But when the will of all diverged too far from the general will—far enough, as the Founders feared, to bring down the entire edifice of the republic—Rousseau’s only answer was a fanciful deus ex machina, a divine legislator sent by God to put the people back on the right path.

The Founders would have had to recognize a dangerous personality intuitively, but today we have standardized, quantifiable measures, in part thanks to Westen and his colleagues. They applied their research background in personality disorders, emotion regulation, unconscious processes, and psychotherapy effectiveness to capture subtle personality processes in a scale. They developed the scale for skilled mental health professionals, but still managed to produce a portrait that an educated layperson can easily interpret. In early September 2024, they applied their 200-item measure to Donald Trump.

Below is the resulting 30-item profile. Donald Trump:

• Has an exaggerated sense of self-importance (e.g., feels special, superior, grand, or envied).

• Tends to blame own failures or shortcomings on other people or circumstances; attributes his/her difficulties to external factors rather than accepting responsibility for own conduct or choices.

• Tends to be deceitful; tends to lie or mislead.

• Tends to engage in unlawful or criminal behavior.

• When distressed, perception of reality can become grossly impaired (e.g., thinking may seem delusional).

• Seeks to be the center of attention.

• Has little empathy; seems unable or unwilling to understand or respond to others’ needs or feelings.

• Tends to become irrational when strong emotions are stirred up; may show a significant decline from customary level of functioning.

• Takes advantage of others; has little investment in moral values (e.g., puts own needs first, uses or exploits people with little regard for their feelings or welfare, etc.).

• Tends to get into power struggles

• Tends to be unreliable and irresponsible (e.g., may fail to meet work obligations or honor financial commitments).

• Tends to show reckless disregard for the rights, property, or safety of others.

• Seems to treat others primarily as an audience to witness own importance, brilliance, beauty, etc.

• Tends to have extreme reactions to perceived slights or criticism (e.g., may react with rage, humiliation, etc.).

• Experiences little or no remorse for harm or injury caused to others.

• Tends to see own unacceptable feelings or impulses in other people instead of in him/herself.

• Tends to feel misunderstood, mistreated, or victimized.

• Reasoning processes or perceptual experiences seem odd and idiosyncratic (e.g., may make seemingly arbitrary inferences; may see hidden messages or special meanings in ordinary events).

• When upset, has trouble perceiving both positive and negative qualities in the same person at the same time (e.g., may see others in black or white terms, shift suddenly from seeing someone as caring to seeing him/her as malevolent and intentionally hurtful, etc.).

• Tends to be hostile toward members of the opposite sex, whether consciously or unconsciously (e.g., may be disparaging or competitive).

• Has difficulty making sense of other people’s behavior; tends to misunderstand, misinterpret, or be confused by others’ actions and reactions.

• Has fantasies of unlimited success, power, beauty, talent, brilliance, etc.

• Tends to feel s/he is inadequate, inferior, or a failure.

• Tends to elicit dislike or animosity in others.

• Appears impervious to consequences; seems unable or unwilling to modify behavior in response to threats or negative consequences.

• Tends to hold grudges; may dwell on insults or slights for long periods.

• Is invested in seeing and portraying self as emotionally strong, untroubled, and emotionally in control, despite clear evidence of underlying insecurity, anxiety, or distress.

• Thought processes or speech tend to be circumstantial, vague, rambling, digressive, etc. (e.g., may be unclear whether s/he is being metaphorical or whether thinking is confused or peculiar).

• Has little psychological insight into own motives, behavior, etc.

• Appears to feel privileged and entitled; expects preferential treatment.

The instrument helps us to understand dimensions of personality. [As early as 2008, Westen and colleagues applied standardized measures to determine that] Trump’s profile and the items prototypical of that subtype were virtually indistinguishable, providing a quantified diagnosis of malignant narcissism. The main difference was that Trump’s showed more signs of disordered thinking, likely a stronger attribute of authoritarian leaders willing to incarcerate or kill their political opponents than among the malignant narcissists in the range settings from prisons to boardrooms that comprised our patient sample.

Despite this science-based prediction, the people have chosen to return him to office, along with his similarly personality-featured posse. The structural conditions and the social Trump Contagion that have contributed to it are extensively discussed in my previous books, Profile of a Nation and The Psychology of Trump Contagion. Westen concludes:

sometimes, by an extraordinary, and some might say divine, roll of the historical dice, you get the confluence of a Benjamin Franklin, a George Washington, and a Thomas Jefferson, all living in the same place at the same time, at a moment ripe for a progressive change. And at others, you roll snake eyes, and get a Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, and Josh Hawley. Those are the times that try men’s and women’s souls.

Announcement:

Dr. Bandy X. Lee is holding weekly live sessions on:

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Please note that the next session will be this Saturday, July 5, 2025, at 12 noon EDT/9 a.m. PDT on Zoom. A paid subscription is required to receive a link the morning before. Thank you!

Dr. Lee is a forensic and social psychiatrist who became known to the public through her 2017 Yale conference and book that emphasized the importance of fit leadership. In 2019, she organized a major National Press Club Conference on the theme of, “The Dangerous State of the World and the Need for Fit Leadership.” In 2024, she followed up with another major Conference, “The More Dangerous State of the World and the Need for Fit Leadership.” She published another book on fit leadership that has been recently expanded, in addition to a volume on how unfitness in a leader spreads and two critical statements on fit leadership. Dr. Lee warned that journalists and intellectuals are the first to be suppressed in times of unfit leadership, and it is happening here; she continues, however, to be interviewed or covered abroad, such as in France, Germany, Norway, Switzerland, the Czech Republic, Italy, Poland, Russia, Brazil, Chile, Argentina, Mexico, and Canada (with notable articles in Estonian, Lithuanian, Ukrainian, Turkish, and Korean). She authored the internationally-acclaimed textbook, Violence; over 100 peer-reviewed articles and chapters; and 17 scholarly books and journal special issues, in addition to over 300 opinion editorials. Dr. Lee is also a master of divinity, currently developing a new curriculum for public education on “One World or None.”