A Leader Stronger than the System: Trump's Narcissism and the Test of Democracy

Since Trump returned to the White House in January 2025, America seems to be looking in the mirror and not recognizing its own face.

The White House is no longer a house of state but a reflection of a man who sees himself as bigger than its institutions and more important than the history that brought him there.
Everything around him is shaped according to his mood, even facts are crafted to suit his image in the mirror.

Trump does not govern as a president but as a supreme self that must be obeyed.

Under his rule, power is no longer a means to serve the people but a tool to reinforce the self; every decision passes through the gateway of his vanity and every stance is weighed against his personal interests.

He does not rule through institutions but through charisma, and he leads not through reason but through instinct.

Those around him know that loyalty is to him, not to the state, and the biggest sin is not breaking the law but hurting his ego.

Abroad, the world was watching and adapting.

Netanyahu said during his visit to the Knesset a few days ago, coldly and cunningly:

"Let him feel loved, and we will get what we want from him."
This sentence summarizes the philosophy of dealing with the narcissistic leader: do not confront him with arguments, but pamper him with praise.
This is how politics turns into psychology, and diplomacy becomes a whimsical game where love is granted not to achieve peace but to ensure the satisfaction of the man sitting at the top.

Amid this, initiatives emerged presented as peace plans but in essence enforced a single vision.

The plan proposed by Trump was presented as a "diplomatic gift" sparkling, yet in reality, it was a repackaging of the Israeli occupation and an endorsement of its policies, which have led to ethnic cleansing, genocide, the killing of children, starvation, and wide destruction, presented in meetings filled with official smiles and applause from leaders who cared only about their seats, unaware of its text or its repercussions on the ground, making their signed documents appear as a peace plan while in truth justifying the continuation of crimes, violations, and the lack of accountability for them, and the plan did not include any mechanisms for accountability or guarantees of justice but focused on marketing the violation and turning people's suffering into a diplomatic commodity, and in a peak of moral irony, it is now being presented as a peace plan and promoted to international organizations that might grant it global honors—even the Nobel Peace Prize—while the truth bluntly states: if rewards were given according to actual merit, he would win the "Nobel Prize for Crimes."

The plan did not provide any real compensation for those whose homes and lives were destroyed, nor did it offer clear mechanisms for accountability for the crimes violating international law; instead, it placed the world before a new reality: a map of interests designed by the man for himself and for Netanyahu, bypassing international community institutions and skipping the Security Council and the United Nations to become the executor, patron, and legislator at the same time, everything designed to fit the authority and colonial desires and Zionism, not according to justice or the magnitude of pain left by these same policies.

Abroad, leaders remain submissive and occupied with their issues, but inside, America began to wake up from the spell of leadership to the shock of reality, and on October 18, 2025, millions took to the streets in "No Kings" protests. The signs were simple: no kings in democracy; that popular voice was a reminder that the constitution does not protect itself and that freedom is not an inheritance but a battle renewed every day as the masses proclaimed: no one is above the law, no one is above the people.

But the real danger does not stop at Trump alone; political narcissism is not the disease of one man but a test for the entire society:

Can it distinguish between the leader and the state? Between charisma and principle? Between loud voice and truth?
Every democracy carries within it the seed of authoritarianism waiting for applause and fear to nourish it.

What makes the leader stronger than the system is not his strength but the weakness of others in front of him.

When institutions and leaders fear confrontation and the elite choose silence in the name of "stability," the system begins to dissolve from within; democracy does not die by bullets but by prolonged applause.

Abroad, European leaders and even other world leaders move cautiously as America's politics are no longer governed by principles but by the mood of a man who sees every criticism as treason and every disagreement as an insult; allies now study his face before his words and measure interests by the measure of his smile or frown, thus turning international stability into a hostage of mood.

The bitter lesson is that institutions, no matter how solid, weaken in front of cult of personality, and that democracy, no matter how old, requires constant vigilance to prevent it from transforming into rituals without spirit; for when the leader becomes stronger than the system, the state stops being an idea and starts being a person.

Perhaps Netanyahu was right when he said: "Let him feel loved, and we will get what we want from him," and he did get what he wanted, but what no one said is that if democracy loves its leader more than it loves its principles, it will get its own end from him.