Okay, I figured out why the conspiracy theories about Trump’s motives for pushing hydroxychloroquine bug me.

Trump’s narcissism is very simple. It compels him to avoid shame and seek admiration. Those two impulses control him.

He is ALWAYS serving his broken ego.

1/

To make his actions about some other thing (e.g. a secret connection to one of many companies that make the drug) overlooks why he does EVERYTHING:

To manipulate how people see him.

That’s the dysfunction. Plain old greed is actually more functional than that.

2/

Finding a theory for his behavior based on a shitty but rational motivation like greed excuses him from his actual dysfunction: being solely focused on serving his own ego needs.

Being greedy is a character flaw. Being compulsively driven to serve your ego is worse than that.

Trump covets money because he thinks it makes people hold him in higher esteem.

Right now, his biggest problem isn’t about money and can’t be solved with more of it.

His biggest ego problem is how people are judging his handling of this crisis.

4/

Making the story about some profit motive actually distracts from the real danger of Trump’s dysfunction:

He will lie through his teeth about anything he thinks will make people judge him less right this minute.

Even if it gets people killed.

5/

He cares solely about manipulating today’s headlines to seem worthy of admiration.

He’ll say he’s doing a great job.

He’ll say he already has COVID-19 under control.

He’ll say he has people closing in on a cure.

6/

He’ll say anything - no matter how dangerous or wrong - just to manipulate the media into making him look good (or less bad) right this minute.

Consequences be damned.

That’s the danger. That’s the dysfunction.

7/

There are a lot of greedy people in the world.

Trump’s greed isn’t what makes him dangerous.

He is dangerous because his narcissistic compulsions are so severe, he will happily do massive harm if he thinks it will serve him even for just one day.

That’s the problem.

8/8