Donald Trump famously said something true. He bragged (?) “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters, OK?” Well, not “OK” but apparently true. Why does he think he can get away with virtually any and all transgressions against law, morality and tradition?

There is a reason, and it doesn’t depend on armchair psychoanalysis and diagnosing psychiatric conditions from a distance. Yes, he probably has diagnosable mental conditions, neuroses and all kinds of psychopathologies. But, that is not what is critical here. There are lots of people with narcissism and character disorders, and they can’t and don’t get away with murder. They are held to account. Trump isn’t.

That’s the secret of his success. He keeps going and getting more unrestrained, mercurial and impulsive because no one stops him. He acts, and when he gets away with something, it feeds a re-enforcement loop. He scores a win and uses that to inspire his next transgressive (and mostly destructive) act.

The Leitmotif of his personal life, his business life and his political life is to follow his impulses; act first and be judged only on the result and not the process, not the precedents, laws or ethics. Why should he pay vendors, if he can get away with settling for 25% of their bill? Why pay taxes if he can create a hundred corporations that would take a platoon of forensic accountants to go through? Why apply for a permit to build a Grand Ballroom? Just go ahead and tear down the East Wing of the White House. Get permission later.

Every time he is not stopped or doesn’t have to pay, he is re-enforced that rules, laws and customs are for suckers. They don’t apply to him. He wants to be remembered for eternity and so he graffitis his name on the U.S. Peace Institute and it becomes the Trump Peace Institute. The Kennedy Center becomes the Trump Kennedy Center. He is currently pursuing making the Dulles Airport the Trump Airport and now he holds out his support for the building of a sports stadium for the Washington Commanders as contingent on naming it the Trump Stadium. He may get away with all this (for now) or not, but even when unsuccessful, there is no cost to him. Why then wouldn’t he keep going and growing in this mad grandiosity?

Trump’s motto seems to be “If I think it would be good, I’ll just do it. The rules and laws will not count if my effort is successful.” I would add to this, “Or if I judge it as successful.” Who else would have taken down Biden’s Presidential portrait and replaced it with a picture of an autopen? Who else would have removed Obama’s Presidential portrait from its traditional place and hidden it? Who else would have vandalized the White House by spraying it with gold gilt? This is a kind of metaphor for the thin and soon peling veneer of many of his self-proclaimed successes.

More serious than his ego projects are his misadventures in law both domestic and foreign. He has gotten away with Musk’s massive destruction of government with DOGE—which did incredible harm but didn’t save money. He has defied laws and court orders demanding that he stop. He has broken international treaties and American law by ignoring the rights of refugees at our border. But he “fixed the border,” so to hell with the treaties and laws. Only results matter. Round up people suspected because of their color, accent or occupation. Take them from their homes. Drag them from their cars. Arrest them at their work or on their way to a refugee hearing. Raid the hospitals, churches and workplaces looking, not for the “worst of the worst” but just for enough bodies to fulfill the quota. The public largely supports ICE at the border, even if it’s not legal. ICE in our heartland, is not working—either to change immigration or to boost Trump. This, at long last, may exact some political costs, but not his border policies.

Trump’s attitude is to cut-to-the-result, and law, precedent or decency be damned. Every time it works, which is to say that he gets a result he can claim is a win, it reenforces his impulses. So, of course, when he wanted something from Venezuela, he came up with a story and just went in and kidnapped Maduro. Ask Congress? No, why would he? He decapitated the country and got control of the oil. Mission accomplished and at no significant cost to him.

In Trump 1.0 he took out Iranian General Soleimani. This was probably in his legal rights. It did however annoy and embarrass the Iranians who responded by putting out a contract on him. He took that personally, which is understandable. So, when he was called upon to come to Israel’s aid in 2024, he did and bombed Iranian nuclear and industrial facilities and sent antimissile defenses to Israel. Naturally, he didn’t ask for authorization. He just did it. It worked. No American service personnel were lost. Positive reinforcement once again. Why then would he ever think to ask permission to start a war with Iran? He wouldn’t. He didn’t. He never will. The only accountability he even theoretically accepts is success or failure, and he only accepts himself as the judge of success or failure. Pretty neat and self-contained system.

Forgetting Trump’s mental or moral deficits, what could contain his metastasizing grandiosity? Clearly not his own moral compass. Congress needs to wake up and stand up. Academia needs to learn the history of what happens when the lawless are allowed to win. Business has to push back because they should be smart enough to know that allowing coercion to work never works. It only gets worse. The courts need to push back rather than allowing themselves to become as craven and irrelevant as the Congress.

Trump’s Iran project isn’t really about helping Israel. It’s far more about pursuing his legacy, his immortality for remaking the Middle East by eliminating the cancer that is the Mullah’s Iran. However unlikely it would be, if he replaced them with a decent government, it would be an actual accomplishment. More likely is the coming end of the efficacy of bombing in a couple of months, then leaving, as with Venezuela, and saying “Mission accomplished. We broke their military and killed a bunch of their leaders and that’ll teach ‘em.” Then he can move on to taking over Cuba and lusting after Greenland.

Blustering bullies, when not faced down and contained, grow in both their blustering and bullying. Trump does not need a precise diagnosis or cognitive therapy. He wouldn’t benefit from a psychiatrist’s couch. Trump needs limits. He needs “We the People” to stand up and speak up. And We the People need to hear this urgent call of history because everything depends, not on him getting better but on us Standing Up Speaking Up and Showing Up.