Political Psychopathy–The “Culture of Psychopathy” as Epitomized in the Presidential Campaign
It’s pretty amazing what we’re seeing in the 2016 presidential primary campaign.
Among other things, we’re seeing how politics itself is a culture, a breeding-ground, an enabler and encourager of some seriously psychopathic behavior. It’s gotten to the point (perhaps we’ve been there a long time, it’s just “combusted” in this campaign season) where it’s now pretty much “officially okay” to be a “political psychopath,” with no repercussions.
It seems to me we’ve reached the point where we expect our politicians to behave like psychopaths; scarier, where we view “psychopathic traits” as acceptable, perhaps necessary, and worse, even advantageous attributes of our politicians. This seems a development to which we’ve become inured, desensitized.
It’s easy, of course, to focus on a Donald Trump, who is inarguably the “pathological liar” Bernie Sanders, with sober consternation, noted he is. Trump’s “psychopathy,” incidentally, is expressive in a less “compartmentalized” form than that of most candidates’, meaning he’s really more than a “political psychopath”–he’s really just broadly, flat-out a psychopath.
In any case politics, and the “culture of politics,” have become a “safe haven” effectively sanctioning psychopathic attitudes and behaviors as, let’s be honest, “normal.” It’s reached a point where, with almost conscious awareness, we find ourselves lulled into evaluating less the substance of the candidates’ personalities and policies than how impressively, effectively, and entertainingly they can evade a responsible accounting of their record and agenda.
It’s as if we’ve become a part of their “game”–the winner being he or she who looks best, is most glib, entertaining, effectively prevaricating, cool and funny under pressure; he or she who is most deft at slipping out of dangerous corners into which he or she is being challenged to account.
Most of these politicians, to be clear, are not full-blown psychopaths in the wider sense; however, operating within their political worlds, in a “political culture” that increasingly “normalizes” psychopathy, they are nothing less than psychopathic.
Psychopaths notoriously evoke astonishment with their jaw-dropping audacity. This evoked reaction can be indicative that we are witnessing the psychopath in action. Watching these candidates disavow formerly held positions and convictions with unflappable composure; watching them repudiate legislation they once supported (or perhaps even drafted) without blinking an eye; watching them demonstrate a readiness, when the heat rises sufficiently, to “throw each other under the proverbial bus” with almost perverse relish; and watching them deny evidence thrust in their faces, which is to say deny “undeniable” realities with the chilling imperturbability of the “gas-lighter”–in each of these respects, among others, we are watching the embodiment of the psychopathic personality.
If an individual were to ask me, “So…I’m not REALLY a psychopath. At least, I don’t think so. But tell me a white-collar career I can enter where it’s really OKAY, really ACCEPTABLE, to be a psychopath…even REWARDED for being one. Because I think it could be FUN to have a career where by day I can BE a psychopath, and at night, go home and maybe be myself, which is not psychopathic (I think?)”
I’d answer, “Go into politics.”
And if that individual were to ask, “How can I prepare to be the best ‘political psychopath’ I can be? Are there texts to study? Schools to attend? How can I best prepare myself?”
I’d answer, “Go watch, and watch again, and again, the 2016 presidential debates. Study especially the Republican debates. You’ll be watching multiple ‘political psychopaths’ in peak psychopathic form. Study these men. They are the masters…the masters of psychopathy. Good luck.”
