ENCORE: Under the hair and inside the mind of Donald Trump
How does Donald Trump operate? Who is Donald Trump? These questions have never been more pressing with Trump a day away from officially being nominated as the Republican presidential candidate at this week's Cleveland convention.
But what's inside the mind of the public figure notorious for his inflammatory speeches and flagrant disregard for codes of conduct? It's a question two professors were willing to take on when speaking to The Current's host Anna Maria Tremonti back in June of this year.
"Donald Trump has a pretty deep-seated motivation to display himself and to see himself as adored and see his name everywhere," says Dan McAdams, a professor at Northwestern University.
He's a consummate social actor.- Dan McAdams
"He goes through life as a man who knows he's always being observed. He's a consummate social actor. And at the same time, the kinds of things he does, they're so outlandish, it is as if he doesn't realize what the implications are going to be."
McAdams paints a portrait of Trump in his article, The Mind of Donald Trump, and says it was a challenge to go behind the role that Trump plays, a man that he calls "extraordinarily socially dominant."
What McAdams did discover is that most of what he could come up with was about "narcissism."
"Like Narcissus in the ancient Greek legend, Trump is in love with this image and in love with the name, and why wouldn't everybody else? And so he's putting it out there all the time … You know T-R-U-M-P: the picture, the word, it's got to be out there."
Aaron James, author of A--holes: A Theory of Donald Trump, says it takes "a certain kind of social skill to balance alienating people and keeping them cooperating."
"In Trump's case, I think he really does have to be appealing in certain ways, and he is. Part of that is the sense that he'll be a sort of destructive force for good, a disruptor of the political system."
So what is it about Trump that connects him to his supporters?
He's what I call an ass-clown.- Aaron James
James says Trump's got a lot of "charisma," he's "likeable" and can be "very funny."
"He's what I call an ass-clown … Part of why we can relate to him as sort of seemingly authentic or human, because he's the guy who's telling the joke, but not in it. And that way of being oblivious is something that we can all relate to, it's a deeply kind of human moment."
James tells Tremonti that Trump has a way of "breaking things" and considers him "bad medicine."
"I don't think he's likely to reform the system, the political order that much, but the chances of things being a lot worse are really significant."
Listen to the full conversation at the top of this web post.
This segment was produced by The Current's Howard Goldenthal.