A perfect combination of three factors:
The power of the A$$hole to impose its will on others (as with a simple narcissist) requires a shield to cover up the two aforementioned motivations. All such a$$holes, starting in infancy as mere narcissists, learn how to hide their true feelings as they are also learning how to manipulate their parents or guardians with positive reinforcement (i.e., smiling sweetly) and negative reinforcement by expressing displeasure – with crying, an unhappy looking face and ultimately throwing a temper tantrum which never elicits actual discipline from parents or guardians whose personal feelings are superseded by the narcissistic infant’s expressed feelings. (During childhood in warding off parental discipline, two phrases are successfully used for the development of narcissism to continue the evolution into a full-fledged adult narcissist in personal life or even more so a true A$$hole. Those two phrases are: “It’s not my fault!” and “It’s not my responsibility!” Once the parents tolerate this, the growth of the narcissist continues. In personal life, it is very likely that the parents will inevitably be stuck into a nursing home so that the narcissistic children can steal their property and continue their happy existence. No one will ever tell you this, but it happens far more than you would imagine. In families of good, decent, non-narcissistic people, old age is catered to by loving children – not turned into an impersonal financial and personal advantage. Such children do not require a government subsidy as a care-giver – but boy has that become corruptly true in our world.)
Mere narcissists who do not develop into full-fledged Social A$$holes are content going through a happy personal life without the powerful need to control almost everyone they ever encounter. A true mere narcissist, when encountering a more narcissistic individual, will always back down. A full-fledged A$$hole will never back down unless encountering an even more adamantine A$$hole. They must secretly choose whether to accept being in the second position or, alternatively, plotting a longer-term strategy to overthrow #1.
Two Examples of A$$holes from Political History
In explaining why she was such a great professional Political A$$hole, she told these greedy schmucks that all successful politicians have two personalities: a public persona (the phony act) and a real inside persona that the general public will never see. That is where the “I’ve got your back” comes from.
[If you think that Donald J. Trump hides his emotions in public, then you are minimally a narcissist or optimally a true A$$hole.]
During WWI, in 1917, when the czar abdicated and was succeeded by a democratic government, they foolishly tolerated violent Revolutionary Communists as if they were just another political party. Lenin was transported from Switzerland by the Imperial German government to Helsinki where he could return to Russia and join his three co-conspirators (Stalin, Trotsky and Felix Edmundovich Dzerzhinsky) – none of whom were still imprisoned by the pre-democratic czarist government. Those other three had promised to favor continuing the war and behave like regular politicians. Lenin, the Premier A$$hole, laughed and said: we must seize power.
In November 1917, the Bolshevik Revolution, by coup d’etat, seized power and mass murder internally never really stopped – it only spread everywhere.
THE ENDS JUSTIFY THE MEANS if you are not a normal human being with an individual soul and individual conscience.
(Of the four, Trotskly was the lesser A$$hole – or maybe even a mere fanatical Idealistic Narcissist. Stalin deported him before the 1930s. This website is filled with historical information that the Search feature will direct you to should your curiosity and skepticism drive you forward.)