Narcissistic Family Dynamic and the USA National Dynamic

Exploring how America mirrors a narcissistic family system, from denial of past wrongs to exceptionalist beliefs — and what this means for its citizens' future.

A former colleague of mine once said that white supremacy is the highest form of narcissism and I couldn’t agree more. For years, I have been examining and writing about the USA through a psychological lens and that has included looking at things through a family systems’ perspective.

This has led me to this: the USA is like one giant, dysfunctional family with narcissistic tendencies.

Before we go any further, let’s discuss what narcissism is because there is a lot of misinformation and confusing information out there. Narcissism is often misunderstood as a person that is so full of themselves that their ego takes up the whole room. However, it is more accurate to say that the narcissistic personality is so deeply fragile and empty that they require constant validation and ego stroking to feel good about themselves. Their sense of self is so fragile that they can’t bear even the slightest criticism as it threatens to bring down their whole house of cards. A great example of this type of rage-filled empty ego is Joaquin Phoenix as Commodus in the Gladiator film.

Narcissism and white supremacy share several key psychological and behavioral patterns:

1. Both rely heavily on the belief that they are superior. Narcissists believe they are uniquely special and deserving of special treatment, while white supremacists believe in racial superiority and entitlement. Now, not all people are going to exhibit the extremes of these behaviors, so please keep in mind that there is a scale of behavior at play here. Not all white supremacists will be KKK members, just like not all narcissists will become Ted Bundy.

2. Both demonstrate significant deficits in empathy. Narcissists struggle to recognize or validate others' emotions and experiences, while white supremacists deny or minimize the humanity and experiences of those they deem inferior. The ability to dehumanize people is also what makes it so easy for each to treat the people they despise with such disdain.

3. Both show extreme sensitivity to perceived threats or challenges to their worldview. Narcissistic injury often leads to rage or aggression, similar to how white supremacists react defensively and sometimes violently to challenges to white dominance. We see this with what people have termed “whitelash”, or the backlash that came as a result of the election of the USA’s first Black president. It is no coincidence that Obama’s presidency was followed by the rise of white nationalism.

4. Both exhibit rigid, dichotomous worldviews. Narcissists often sort people into categories of either ideal or worthless, while white supremacists similarly engage in rigid racial categorization and hierarchical thinking.

5. Lastly, both rely on false narratives. Narcissists maintain their grandiose, self-affirming delusions through distortion and denial, while white supremacists maintain their belief system through historical revisionism and pseudo-scientific claims.

There is still a strong emphasis on projecting global power and maintaining an image of exceptional status despite being ranked poorly in healthcare outcomes, life expectancy, cost of living, high rates of gun violence, high rates of unhoused people and many other measures of success. The USA, like a narcissistic family, hides its wrongs and overestimates its successes. This is seen in the denial and obfuscation about how the USA genocides indigenous people and enslaved Africans. In the USA, like a dysfunctional narcissistic family, competition and success are often prioritized over community wellbeing.

A narcissistic dynamic is inherently abusive because the narcissist doesn’t actually value the people around them; they are merely objects to be used, a means to an end. In this way, the citizens of the USA don’t matter to the powers that be; we are merely cogs in the wheel. We are easily discarded when the narcissistic dynamic no longer needs us to exist. We will be cast aside without remorse or regard wondering how the country we thought adored us actually hates us.

For anyone who grew up in a narcissistic family, this is all very familiar which is why many were sounding the alarm early in the rise of Trump. We knew what was coming. We could see it a mile away because if there’s one thing trauma survivors are great at, it’s recognizing patterns of abuse.

One of the hardest days in one’s life is the day they figure out that their family was abusive. It is equally painful to realize that your government is abusive.

There are countless resources available for those who are seeking to understand how to survive a narcissistic family because it is so hard to grasp. When you’ve spent your entire life being cast as the bad apple, the wrong one, The Problem, the one who, if they could finally get their shit together everything would be fine, and you finally understand that you were, in fact, not the problem but rather the one who was aware and sensitive enough to recognize the actual problems, it's disorienting.

I often imagine what it must have been like for the kid in the book “The Emperor’s New Clothes” as he watched everyone around him pretend like they weren’t seeing what was happening. I imagine it must have been confusing, to see something so absurd, to know that you are seeing things accurately and yet, to have everyone around you participating in a collective lie. He watched as this pompous ass of an emperor walked around, naked, and everyone praised his clothes while knowing good and damn well that everyone was lying.

That is how it has felt the last decade, watching this government slowly slide further and further into fascism.

It is crazy making–and it’s meant to be–to be the alert ones, the national scapegoats, the ones who point at the emperor and his nakedness while the majority of people pretend it's all going to be ok if we just vote harder.

In this series, I will continue to draw parallels between the two systems–family and nation–in the hopes of assisting readers in understanding what is happening and also learning how to navigate these systems. In our next installment, we will dig deeper into the ways in which American exceptionalism reflects narcissism.