Narcissistic individuals become paranoid when they can’t find a suitable excuse for their own failures. Because they can’t admit fault, they must always externalize the cause. Something is at fault but it can’t be them as avoiding fault is their most important article of psychological faith.

So, if their narcissistic coping skills are inadequate and can’t construct a believable excuse, given the circumstance, they can’t effectively point the finger. All that’s left is the pathological, egotistical desire to point the finger away from themselves and when they can’t point at anything specific? That manifests as paranoia. As they habitually dismiss their own fault, the only possibility is an unknown force that is attacking them by forcing them to experience being responsible for their own failures.

Trump and his entire administration is filled with these people. Their narcissism also makes them incompetent, so failures will continue to pile up, eventually threatening Trump himself. When Trump inevitably becomes paranoid, as there is nothing left to blame, he will use his authority to start attacking unrelated targets that he blames for his failures, hoping it will prevent the failures. But it won’t. It will accelerate his failures and eventually lead to the end of him. He already blames the media, the democrats, the scientists, the public, foreign nations etc. for the failures of his leadership.

All because his ego is so malformed that he can’t endure feeling responsibility for failures, while ironically seizing a position of immense responsibility, one he will inevitably fail at. His greatest failure will be his inability to endure failure.