Trump's campaign — and psyche — are threatened as coronavirus takes away his rallies: report

One of the many consequences of the coronavirus pandemic is that large gatherings of people are starting to be canceled around the country.

Sooner or later, wrote Michael Kruse for Politico, this could also extend to President Donald Trump's rallies. And that could end up being a disaster for the Trump campaign. Many people close to the president agree that the rallies are an essential component of Trump's political success.

Trump's campaign spokesman called the rallies, "An integral, main part of the campaign, and the campaign's COO suggested they were the "driving force." Former Trump aide Michael Caputo said that “Rallies are important to the Trump campaign, and I’d worry about losing them because it would tilt a bit to Biden’s advantage.”

But it could do more than throw off Trump's re-election campaign — it could throw off Trump himself.

“They are his lifeline,” said Yale psychiatrist Bandy Lee. “He’s very good at this, because his life depends on it, not just the life of his presidency but the life of his psyche.”

"In the estimation of Lee and other experts of her ilk, as well as the many people who have known him and worked with him for years, the way Trump is ties back to the way he was raised," wrote Kruse. "The 'complete emptiness inside,' the 'bottomless void' that 'can never be filled,' the 'psychological defects' and 'pathologically narcissistic traits' — all of this, says Lee, is a result of the core particulars of Trump’s upbringing: his distant and demanding father, the disruptive near-death experience of his mother when he was just a toddler, his banishment to military school when he was barely a teenager."

"'The lack of love translates into desiring accolades,' Lee explained. 'And the rallies are really the most critical crutches that he’s had. He needs his followers more than his followers need him.'"

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