With the advent of Donald Trump onto the scene, we are beginning at last to observe psychological concepts and thought entering the public arena--to attempt to interpret the Trump phenomenon.

My research and writing has focused on 20th century political destructiveness: World War I, Nazism and Communism.

Psychology informs my the books, papers and essays I've authored. But rarely do psychological interpretations appear in the writings of serious historians.

What seems to occur among historians who document events is that the extraordinary is normalized. Forms of behavior that in ordinary life would be characterized as sick, demented, insane, etc. are rendered normal--because they appear so frequently in the historical record. 

We have seen--in relationship to the Trump phenomenon--that psychological concepts are beginning to be employed. How could it be otherwise? We see terms like "malignant narcissism" and "psychopath" and "sadism" being "bandied" about. It seems the use of these terms comforts some people--a sophisticated from of "name-calling"--but of  course these terms explain nothing. 

70 million+ people voted for Donald Trump in the recent election. Did they vote for him because he was a "malignant narcissist?" Explanation requires an understanding of the interaction between leader and followers.

We may begin this exploration of contemporary politics by studying the citations below--about Hitler. They are entirely relevant to understanding the Trump "movement"--or any collective political phenomenon.

Joachim Fest (1973): 

Were it not for the congruence between the personal and the social-pathological situation, Hitler could never have wielded such hypnotic power over his fellow-citizens. He could not have bewitched the masses if he had shared their secret emotions and incorporated all their psychoses into his own psyche. When he spoke, the masses met, hailed and idolized themselves. An exchange of pathologies took place.

Ronald Aronson (1983):

What is most remarkable about (Nazism) is that it became enough of a mass outlook for a movement, and then a society as a whole to be organized around it. In power, the Nazis were able to reshape reality until it conformed to the distorted fantasy.

In achieving his position, wasn't Hitler giving voice to the malignancy, the irrationality of the social forces that brought him to power? It distorts the course of events to describe the locus of the Final Solution as being Hitler. Among Nazis, there was general agreement about the "Jewish Problem:" how could it be solved?