Narcissism in Dotage, Stuck in an Adolescent Brain
By Tom Kagy | 20 Jan, 2026

What could possibly explain destructive moves like mass deportations, unilateral tariffs on friends and allies, threats to tariff Europe into submission over Greenland, and a "Board of Peace" with $1 billion memberships?

There's something bizarre happening in American politics right now, and it almost seems we've gotten used to the chaos, the unpredictability, the tweets-turned-Truth-Social-posts that sound like they were written by someone who just discovered capitalism last week.  Lately, watching Trump's second act shift into high gear, I can't shake this nagging question: Is this what happens when narcissism meets old age, and the brain running the show never left high school?

Mass deportations that would devastate entire industries, tariffs slapped on our closest allies like Canada and Mexico, threatening to bludgeon Europe with more tariffs unless they let us buy Greenland, and now the "Board of Peace" scheme to make countries pay a billion dollars for the privilege of membership.  You have to wonder at the kind of thinking behind all this.

Let's start with what we know about the adolescent brain.  Neuroscience has shown us that teenage brains are still under construction, particularly in the prefrontal cortex—the part responsible for impulse control, long-term planning, and understanding consequences. Teenagers aren't dumb; they're just wired to prioritize immediate rewards, social status, and dominance hierarchies. They're risk-takers who often can't see past next weekend, let alone next decade.

Now layer narcissism on top of that.  Clinical narcissism isn't just being self-centered or arrogant. It's a whole personality structure built around an inflated self-image that's actually quite fragile, requiring constant validation and reacting with rage or contempt when challenged. Narcissists see the world in terms of winners and losers, dominance and submission. They lack empathy not because they're evil, but because other people simply aren't real to them in the same way—they're props in the narcissist's story.

Combine an adolescent's reward-seeking impulsivity with a narcissist's need for constant validation and dominance, and you get some pretty predictable patterns. Grand gestures that sound impressive but fall apart under scrutiny. Bullying behavior masked as "tough negotiation." An obsession with being seen as the smartest guy in the room. A complete inability to take advice or admit mistakes. And perhaps most tellingly, an addiction to the spotlight that trumps—pun intended—any actual strategic thinking.

The mass deportation plan is a perfect example. Setting aside the moral catastrophe for a moment, let's just look at it practically. America's agriculture, construction, hospitality, and food processing industries depend heavily on immigrant labor.  Ripping millions of people out of the economy isn't just cruel; it's economically suicidal. Food prices would skyrocket.  Construction would grind to a halt. But does it sound tough and decisive?  Does it play well to a base that's been told for years that immigrants are the source of all problems?  Absolutely.  It's pure adolescent thinking: take the dramatic action, worry about consequences later, if ever.

Then there are the tariffs. Trump seems genuinely convinced that tariffs are something other countries pay, like some kind of international cover charge.  Never mind that every economist will tell you that tariffs are taxes paid by domestic consumers and businesses.  He has hit Canada, Mexico, China, the UK, Japan, S. Korea and Taiwan with massive tariffs, apparently under the delusion that this will somehow bring manufacturing jobs flooding back to Michigan.  It won't, of course.   It'll make everything more expensive for Americans while angering our trading partners.  But again, it sounds powerful.  It feels like dominance.  It's the economic policy equivalent of a teenager saying, "Oh yeah? Well, I'll just stop talking to you!" without realizing they need their friends will just rewire their friendships around him—which is exactly what's happening among all our onetime allies and competitors alike.

The Greenland thing might be the purest distillation of this adolescent narcissism. Threatening to tariff Europe into selling us Greenland is so absurd it barely deserves analysis, except that it reveals so much about the mindset.  We'd own this huge piece of territory! I'd be the president who bought Greenland!  Never mind that Greenland isn't for sale, that Denmark is a NATO ally, that Europe would react with fury rather than compliance, or that this serves no actual American interest.  It's just a flex, a way to feel big and important and dominant.

And then, the "Board of Peace."  A billion dollars to join an elite club of nations that have paid for the privilege of American protection or favor or whatever this is supposed to be. It's so nakedly transactional, so obviously a scheme to enrich or aggrandize, that it sounds like something a teenager would dream up after watching too many mob movies.  "Yeah, see, countries pay us for *peace*, and if they don't pay, well, maybe they don't get peace, capisce?" It's the geopolitical equivalent of a protection racket, dressed up in the language of diplomacy.

The thing about aging and personality disorders?  They don't typically get better.  If anything, the traits that define someone's personality tend to become more pronounced as they age, especially if they're surrounded by enablers rather than people who'll tell them hard truths.  The filters that most people develop—the little voice that says "maybe I shouldn't say that" or "perhaps I should think this through"—those can weaken.  Impulse control, already a challenge for narcissists, can deteriorate further.

So what we might be seeing is narcissism in its elder years, unrestrained by the social and political guardrails that somewhat contained it before, combined with the same adolescent thinking patterns that have apparently always been there.  It's a brain that never fully developed the capacity for genuine strategic thinking, empathy, or long-term planning, now potentially losing even the modest inhibitions age and experience sometimes bring.

What's really worrisome, however, isn't just that Donald Trump thinks this way—it's that tens of millions of Americans seem to find it appealing, or at least acceptable.  Even people who have risen to responsible posts in the Senate and House.  There's something in the culture right now that valorizes this kind of impulsive, dominance-obsessed, consequence-free approach to power.  Maybe it's exhaustion with conventional politics. Maybe it's a genuine belief that the system is so broken that chaos is preferable.  Maybe it's just that the personality traits that make terrible policy make great television—which, after all, is almost the point of Trump thought.

At some point the growsing disasters will drive home to enough Americans that what we're actually seeing isn't some master strategist playing four-dimensional chess, but someone whose psychology is fundamentally stuck in adolescence, whose narcissism demands constant feeding, and whose aging brain shows no signs of developing the wisdom or restraint we desperately need in leadership.

The question isn't whether Trump is a narcissist—that debate is long over. The question is what happens when narcissism persists into old age, untreated and unchecked, wielding the power of the American presidency.  And based on the policy proposals we're seeing, the answer appears to be: nothing good.  In fact, something very bad and dangerous for Americans and for the world.