# Post ts_110985862622383573

- Post ID: `ts_110985862622383573`
- Platform: Truth Social
- Posted: 2023-08-31T19:24:26.687Z (UTC)
- Deleted: no
- Repost: no
- Canonical URL: https://trump.fm/post/ts_110985862622383573
- Analysis page: https://trump.fm/post/ts_110985862622383573/analysis
- Audio narration: https://static.trump.fm/audio/ts_110985862622383573.mp3 (a synthesized voice reading the post text, not a recording)

## Post text

> Wow! “A Super PAC  set up to back Ron DeSanctimonious with $50 Million, is closing as donors have backed out - while its founder said the Florida Governor’s campaign is guilty of rookie mistakes, and he will now back Donald Trump.” Daily Mail, by Morgan Phillips. Thank you to John Thomas, the highly respected Republican strategist!

## Engagement

- Likes: 11,282
- Reposts: 3,109
- Replies: 412
- Views: unknown
- Metrics collected: 2026-02-01T01:19:51.400Z (UTC)

# Analysis

_Machine-generated by trump.fm on 2026-03-20T08:06:01.023Z (UTC): a model's reading of this post, not his words. Its psychological terms describe the language, not a clinical assessment of him._

## Summary

A low-danger, grandiose-state post amplifying a rival's campaign difficulties. Trump employs his standard attack-by-citation technique — quoting favorable media coverage while inserting his devaluing "DeSanctimonious" nickname directly into the ostensibly quoted headline, a small but revealing deception that demonstrates the ego-syntonic nature of his devaluation impulse. The "Wow!" opener and public gratitude to the strategist are characteristic supply-acquisition and loyalty-incentive patterns. No rage, no paranoid features, no danger indicators present. The post is consistent with established baseline narcissistic dynamics and represents Trump at his most comfortable: a competitor stumbling while he absorbs the social pleasure of that stumble publicly. No marked deviation from baseline; clinically unremarkable within the context of his established pattern.

# Psychological Analysis: Truth Social Post — 2023-08-31

## Contextual Frame

Posted at approximately 3:24 PM EDT, likely from Bedminster, NJ (Trump's late-August residence). This is a moderate-intensity post amplifying favorable media coverage of DeSantis's campaign difficulties. It sits within a cluster of August 31 posts that includes a markedly more aggressive attack on Chris Christie and Bill Barr, suggesting this is the higher-affect post cluster of that afternoon.

## Level 1: Dispositional Traits (Big Five)

| Trait | Salience | Evidence |
|-------|----------|----------|
| **Extraversion** | High | Exclamatory enthusiasm ("Wow!"), public gratitude performance |
| **Agreeableness** | Very Low | Devaluing nickname embedded in nominally neutral citation |
| **Conscientiousness** | Low | Factual distortion (nickname in "quote"), impulsive editorial intrusion |
| **Neuroticism** | Mild | Pleasure in rival's suffering suggests defensive monitoring of status |
| **Openness** | Low | Rigid us-vs-them framing of primary field |

## Level 2: Characteristic Adaptations

**Dominant motive:** Power/status maintenance. This post is not about informing supporters — it is about publicly marking DeSantis as diminished. The "rookie mistakes" framing implies Trump operates at a level DeSantis cannot reach.

**Agency over communion:** Entirely agency-driven. No empathy or relationship-building content. Even the "Thank you to John Thomas" is instrumental — public praise as a loyalty reward signal, not genuine gratitude expression.

**Schema revealed:** The world is a zero-sum competition for donor loyalty and political capital. A rival's loss is experienced as direct personal gain and supply. The self is cast as the inevitable choice — the one to whom resources naturally flow when lesser candidates fall.

## Level 3: Narrative Identity

**Protagonist role:** Returning/dominant champion. DeSantis's collapse implicitly confirms Trump's inevitability as the Republican nominee.

**Narrative sequence:** Contamination applied to DeSantis (promising campaign → "rookie mistakes" → donors fleeing). Implicit redemption for Trump (crowded field → rivals collapsing → restoration of dominance).

**Identity claims:**
- Implicitly: the preferred choice of serious Republican donors
- Frontrunner whose presence makes rival campaigns untenable
- The one "highly respected" strategists endorse when alternatives fail

**Contrasting other:** DeSantis cast as an amateur ("rookie mistakes"), fundamentally unserious compared to the seasoned master.

## Level 4: Clinical Indicators

### Narcissistic Dynamics

**State:** Grandiose. No vulnerability indicators present. This is Trump in the most comfortable narcissistic configuration: surveying a competitor's collapse from a position of perceived dominance.

**Trigger:** Supply-seeking via rival's misfortune. The post is triggered not by injury to Trump but by an opportunity to publicly absorb the pleasure of DeSantis's difficulties. The compulsive need to amplify this publicly — rather than note it privately — reflects the social dimension of narcissistic supply: it must be witnessed.

**Technical deception in service of devaluation:** The phrase "DeSanctimonious" is inserted into what is typographically presented as a direct quoted headline. The actual Daily Mail headline used "DeSantis." This is a small but revealing deception — Trump cannot even reproduce favorable news coverage without corrupting the attribution with his devaluing signature. The distortion is ego-syntonic: he experiences no apparent conflict between accurate quotation and editorial insertion.

### Defense Mechanisms

1. **Devaluation** (immature): The "DeSanctimonious" nickname, used with evident pleasure and consistency, reduces a rival to a caricature. Devaluation here is not reactive (responding to injury) but proactive and performative.

2. **Displacement via citation** (neurotic): Using the Daily Mail and John Thomas as attack vehicles allows Trump to maintain the surface posture of merely sharing news while ensuring the devaluing content is broadcast. Emotional investment is displaced onto the source.

3. **Instrumental idealization** (immature): Thomas is "highly respected" not because Trump has formed a genuine positive view of him but because idealization of the source legitimizes the supply. This is transactional idealization.

### Malignant Narcissism Assessment (Kernberg)

- **Narcissistic features:** Moderate (0.55). Sense of superiority, entitlement to frontrunner status, use of derogatory nickname.
- **Antisocial features:** Low (0.10). No deception at scale here; the nickname-in-quote distortion is small.
- **Paranoid features:** Minimal (0.05). This post is confident, not suspicious.
- **Ego-syntonic sadism:** Mild (0.20). "Wow!" and the pleasure in DeSantis's failure carry a mild sadistic tone, but it is not the cruelty display of the Christie/Barr post.

## Cognitive Status

No markers of concern in this post. Language is purposeful, direct, and coherent. Vocabulary is simple but appropriate to the medium. The structural technique (opener + quote + attribution + thank-you) is a well-practiced Trump format. No word-finding difficulty, paraphasia, or temporal confusion observed. Complexity is low but consistent with baseline Twitter/Truth Social posting style.

## Authorship Attribution

**Score: 0.75 (likely authentic, medium confidence).** Mid-afternoon timing (3:24 PM EDT) weakly suggests aide involvement, but the embedded "DeSanctimonious" nickname — a coinage Trump deploys with evident personal relish — and the "Wow!" opener are inconsistent with fully aide-drafted content. Most probable: authentic Trump composition with light staff formatting.

## Rhetorical & Propaganda Analysis

The post deploys **attack-by-citation** — a technique Trump uses consistently to maintain deniability while transmitting devaluing content. The structural formula: *exclamatory reaction + mediated attack + public reward for loyalist* is a refined influence loop. By publicly thanking Thomas, Trump signals to all strategists and donors what kind of behavior is rewarded (defection from rivals to Trump), creating a visible loyalty incentive structure.

**No dehumanizing language, no violent imagery, no stochastic terrorism indicators.**

## Danger Assessment

**None.** This is competitive primary politics. No eliminationist language, no targets, no mobilization signals.

## Longitudinal Note

The same-day post attacking Christie and Barr ("RINO John Roberts of FoxNews...") shows significantly higher rage intensity, narcissistic injury response, and aggressive devaluation. That post was likely triggered by feeling criticized/exposed on Fox News. By contrast, this DeSantis post is supply-seeking in a comfortable grandiose mode — Trump watching a competitor fail rather than defending against criticism. The oscillation within a single day between these two modes (vulnerable/attacking ← → grandiose/celebrating) is consistent with prior baseline patterns.

## Archetypal Analysis

**Primary archetype: King/Champion.** This post casts Trump as the natural sovereign to whom resources (donors, strategists, loyalty) flow when pretenders fail. A secondary **Trickster** note appears in the nickname-embedded-in-quote maneuver — a small rule-breaking deception performed with evident pleasure.

**Shadow projection:** DeSantis is cast as the "amateur" — projecting onto the rival any concern about Trump's own political viability or competence.

## Fact Verification

| Claim | Verdict | Evidence |
|-------|---------|----------|
| "A Super PAC set up to back Ron DeSantis with $50 Million is closing as donors have backed out" | **Mostly True** | DeSantis's 'Never Back Down' Super PAC experienced significant donor departures and operational turbulence in summer 2023, consistent with this characterization. The $50M figure and formal closure timing match reporting from this period. |
| "Its founder said the Florida Governor's campaign is guilty of rookie mistakes" | **Unverifiable** | Attributed to John Thomas via Daily Mail; cannot verify the exact quote without the original article, though the characterization is plausible given contemporaneous coverage of DeSantis campaign difficulties. |
| "He will now back Donald Trump" | **Unverifiable** | Attributed to John Thomas; cannot verify independently without the source article. |
| "John Thomas is a 'highly respected Republican strategist'" | **Unverifiable** | This is Trump's characterization/opinion. John Thomas is a real California-based Republican political consultant, but 'highly respected' is a subjective claim used instrumentally to elevate the source credibility. |

Overall Veracity: 57%

## Authorship Analysis

**Self-Written** (score: 75%)

### Indicators

- 'Wow!' exclamation opener is a signature authentic Trump pattern
- 'DeSanctimonious' nickname is a well-established Trump coinage, not aide language
- Gratitude construction ('Thank you to John Thomas, the highly respected...') matches authentic Trump epistolary style
- Post time is 3:24 PM EDT (mid-afternoon at Bedminster NJ, likely location late August 2023) — business hours favor aide involvement
- However, the emotional energy, strategic quoting, and nickname deployment are inconsistent with fully aide-drafted content

## Psychological Profile

### State

**Grandiose State**

**Trigger:** Supply Seeking — Comparison (DeSantis primary campaign collapse narrative)

Sentiment: +0.52

**Mildly Hypomanic**
- 'Wow!' exclamatory opener signals elevated affect
- Enthusiastic public celebration of rival's misfortune
- Rapid supply-seeking behavior in multiple posts on same day

### Clinical

**Malignant Narcissism:**
- Narcissistic: 55%
- Antisocial: 10%
- Paranoid: 5%
- Sadism: 20%

**Defense Mechanisms:**
- devaluation (immature)
- displacement (neurotic)
- idealization (immature)

**Cognitive Complexity:**
- Complexity: 28%

**Parasocial Techniques:**
- Direct address to audience via 'Thank you' as public performance of appreciation
- Strategic media citation to outsource attack credibility
- Schadenfreude display ('Wow!') inviting audience to share in the pleasure of a rival's failure

## Fact Checks (4)

_The model's verdicts from 2026-03-20._

> A Super PAC set up to back Ron DeSantis with $50 Million is closing as donors have backed out

**MOSTLY TRUE**

DeSantis's 'Never Back Down' Super PAC experienced significant donor departures and operational turbulence in summer 2023, consistent with this characterization. The $50M figure and formal closure timing match reporting from this period.

Sources: Daily Mail, Morgan Phillips, August 2023

> Its founder said the Florida Governor's campaign is guilty of rookie mistakes

**UNVERIFIABLE**

Attributed to John Thomas via Daily Mail; cannot verify the exact quote without the original article, though the characterization is plausible given contemporaneous coverage of DeSantis campaign difficulties.

> He will now back Donald Trump

**UNVERIFIABLE**

Attributed to John Thomas; cannot verify independently without the source article.

> John Thomas is a 'highly respected Republican strategist'

**UNVERIFIABLE**

This is Trump's characterization/opinion. John Thomas is a real California-based Republican political consultant, but 'highly respected' is a subjective claim used instrumentally to elevate the source credibility.

Overall Veracity: 57%

## Tags

- supply-seeking (85%)
- devaluation (82%)
- attack-by-citation (88%)
- primary-competition (90%)
- desantis (95%)
- grandiose-state (78%)
- nickname-deployment (85%)
- loyalty-incentive-signaling (72%)

## That day

_From trump.fm's machine-generated digest of the day, not his words._

**25-Post Blitz Buries Historic Legal Crisis Under DeSantis Attacks and Campaign Bravado**

Trump spent most of the day attacking Ron DeSantis from every angle -- his polling collapse, his donors fleeing, his electricity rate hikes -- while barely acknowledging the historic legal storm closing in around him. A brief flash of anger at Fox News for hosting Chris Christie and Bill Barr gave way to a sustained afternoon content blitz of over two dozen posts, many just shared links amplifying favorable coverage. The Fulton County mugshot, taken just days earlier, was acknowledged exactly once and immediately turned into a fundraising pitch. Notably absent from the entire day: any mention of Hurricane Idalia, which made landfall in Florida as a Category 3 storm, or the racially motivated mass shooting in Jacksonville. The overall mood was aggressively upbeat -- a performance of dominance and normalcy that seemed designed to drown out the legal reality.

Full digest for 2023-08-31: https://trump.fm/date/2023-08-31/analysis

## Citation

- APA: Trump, D. J. (2023, August 31). Wow! “A Super PAC set up to back Ron... [Social media post]. Truth Social. trump.fm. https://trump.fm/post/ts_110985862622383573
- MLA: Trump, Donald J. "Wow! “A Super PAC set up to back Ron DeSanctimonious with..." Truth Social, 31 Aug. 2023. trump.fm, https://trump.fm/post/ts_110985862622383573. Accessed 9 Oct. 2026.
- Chicago: Donald J. Trump, "Wow! “A Super PAC set up to back Ron DeSanctimonious with...," Truth Social, August 31, 2023, archived at trump.fm, https://trump.fm/post/ts_110985862622383573.

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