Because a single powerful leader will draw from the rest of us powerful projections ranging from savior to devil, from healer to destroyer, I have long been interested, as a psychiatrist and Jungian psychoanalyst, in the relationship between politics, mythology and psychology. For people like me, this is our year. – Thomas Singer

Wherever he is, wherever he goes, Trump invariably draws huge attention and makes himself the center of interest. For some that can be inspiring; for others, it can be traumatizing. He is larger than life — what we sometimes call “grandiose.” What especially interests me is how, in stirring up collective emotions and group issues of identity, Trump finds a seamless fit with significantly large segments of the population. Obviously he is tapping deep currents in the American psyche that fuel our political thoughts and behavior. Some see him as a colossal narcissist, sucking up all the energy around himself like a black hole and making himself a grave threat to American life — Public Menace No. 1. Others see him as a dynamic and successful businessman who gets things done and courageously speaks unpleasant truths. (…) As a selfie of our own worst side, Trump is the modern incarnation of Narcissus, the Greek beauty who is oblivious to everything but himself. Trump’s self-interest and grandiosity appeal to his followers in their desperate need of something grand and powerful to help them avoid confronting the phenomenon of “extinction anxiety.” This is not just what Freud called the “death instinct” in individuals, but a fear that everything we care about will ultimately vanish. My work has convinced me that all of us at some level fear that “our people” — white, black, Muslim, Latino, whatever the group to which we belong — are in danger of extinction. Certainly many people sense that America itself is threatened with extinction. Somewhere in our unconscious, if not our consciousness, we even feel that life on the planet is in danger of extinction.