One question explains everything you need to know about Donald Trump: why he’s so self-absorbed, why he’s so divisive, why he lacks empathy, why he’s rube, demeaning, racist, and sexist.

It’s a question I suspect he asks himself every day, multiple times a day.

“Is it me, or is it them?”

The question itself is not that unusual. Most sane people ask it routinely.

A cashier gives you back a $5 bill in change, but you believe you’re due $10.

“Is it me, or is it them?”

Your significant other breaks up with you.

“Is it me, or is it them?”

A potential employer rejects your application.

“Is it me, or is it them?”

Normal people ask themselves this question about a variety of topics, big and small. It’s part of being open-minded and rational. But it also requires a lot of energy, so we tend to examine some of them — generally the larger, more important ones — reach a conclusion, and then set them aside. We don’t want to revisit them unless it’s absolutely necessary, because it’s simply too much trouble. We’d rather just “set it and forget it.”

Staying the course

Most of us don’t go around continually rethinking our career choice, life partner, political party, or spiritual path.

We assume those choices are right — or at least that they’re right for us. People in the other political party might argue with us, and people who’ve chosen a different spiritual path might condemn us. If you’re a lawyer or a dentist or a used-car salesman, people might give you grief for that, but none of that’s likely to cause much internal struggle, because we’re sure of ourselves.

It’s easy to see how this attitude can pave the way for prejudices such as racism and sexism. White supremacists and misogynists never ask, “Is it me, or is it them?” They assume it has to be them. The more often a person assumes “it’s them,” the more dogmatic/prejudicial and the less rational their thinking processes are likely to be.

But even toxic prejudices don’t preclude racists (for example) from posing the question in more mundane settings, such as when a police officer says you’ve been speeding... and you know for a fact you weren’t.

Choices like these are binary. But life’s often a lot more complicated than that.

If you’re laid off from a job, it might not be you or them. It might be a lousy business climate.

If a relationship fails, chances are it’s you and it’s them. In some cases, one abusive partner is to blame. But in others, there’s plenty of blame to go around, and in still others, partners may simply not be well suited to each other. They may have different priorities, different ways of dealing with stress, different philosophies on life. A number of factors may be in play.

Trump’s answer

How does any of this relate to Trump?

It comes down to this: Because of his extreme insecurity, Trump is always asking himself the question — perhaps even more than most of us. But he almost always answers it the same way: “It’s them.”

Trump’s unwillingness, or inability, to admit fault or even question his own judgment has created a “superbias” against everyone else.

If a woman opposes him, she’s “nasty” or “a monster.”

Black Americans who march against him are violent mobs and “dangerous thugs.”

This superbias includes sexism and racism, but it goes far beyond either. Anyone who disagrees with him on anything, no matter how trivial, can go from “tremendous” to “treasonous” in 6.5 seconds, because in Trump’s mind he knows more than.

His advisors.

The nation’s top generals.

Doctors.

Scientists.

And he sure as hell knows more than Democrats or the fake news media.

Nothing there

If it seems like Trump is constantly at war with someone, he is — because he has to keep asking that question, and answering it the same way, in order to bolster his own fragile ego. He has no independent sense, within himself, that he’s worth anything, because his family never nurtured it. To his father, he was only valuable if he was “a killer.” If he was better than everyone else. And if his latest achievement was more impressive than the last.

New conquests require new enemies, and Trump can’t help but make them. He has to keep asking the question “Is it me or them?” because he needs an external gauge against which to measure himself: He needs someone to be “better than.” But these external enemies, whether they’re Democrats or “fake news media” or Never Trumpers, are really proxies in an internal war against himself that he can’t admit he’s fighting.

If he ever did, he’d have to admit that he’s the problem. That the answer to the question is, “it’s me.”

For a normal person, that would be a cue to apologize, change behavior, and try to become better. It would be an opportunity. But to Trump, it would be confirmation of the one thing he can’t face: that he isn’t good enough. If he were to acknowledge that, the entire house of cards he’s built on hollow successes and phantom victories would collapse in on itself and he’d be left with...

Nothing but himself.

It wouldn’t be them. It would be him.

And that’s the answer he just can’t live with.