The Trifecta of Passion that explains the Trump Phenomenon
Donald Trump is Time Magazine’s Person of the Year for 2016. In the article, Michael Scherer states:
…tastemakers and intellectuals have dismissed him as a vulgarian and carnival barker, a showman with big flash and little substance. But what those critics never understood was their disdain gave him strength.
You see, Trump has been accumulating passion over his lifetime. By my definition, passion is either a powerful, barely controllable feeling that can overtake a person at times, or a delicate, intuitive sense much like an artisan has for his/her craft. It is very clear that Trump has both. In other words, he’s a Red-hot Lover and one with the capacity to use the full spectrum of attributes passion provides.
Most Red-hot Lovers focus their passion on obtaining some particular knowledge or expertise. Usually, they gravitate to one of the six passions: heartbreak, challenge, pursuit, gallantry, vindication or attention. Unusually, Trump appears to have three passions. This probably explains in part why he is difficult to completely understand and put in place in your head. It always feels like he defies description to some extent; he constantly wiggles free of containment.
This is the Trump phenomenon:
- He is governed by passion fueled by his need to be in pursuit of a goal that feels right to him. It’s similar to the experience of an amazing war hero who had to make decisions under pressure with few resources and a need to largely trust his gut. In the moment it’s possible that no one else can fathom the direction he takes or his level of confidence in taking it.
- At the same time, his passion is focused on obtaining vindication. This does not mean becoming part of the established order that criticizes and sidelines him. It means, as Scherer notes later on in his article, becoming a demagogue. His trophy is mastering the specifics of his appeal to his following so that he controls it and is disenfranchised no more.
- And, he has yet one more passion that rules him: he wants and needs the spotlight. This requires almost a sixth sense as to what will give him the sort of riveting attention that allows for his internal dramas to be everyone’s concern. Scherer refers to this as Trump using the Presidency as Improv, or performance art. It gives him the feeling of primacy and majesty that makes him feel he is where he belongs.
Think of Trump as having a trifecta of passion that rules, feeds and directs him.
Here you have the reason the Donald won the election: Scherer says it was due to ‘historical inevitability or individual brilliance, or some combination of the two.’ Trump’s brilliance in my opinion is his reliance on passion and the accidental convergence of his three passions which made him a campaign superstar.
Image by Michael Vadon – Donald Trump, CC BY-SA 2.0, Link