This is a sequel to my last post (https://garthkroeker.blogspot.com/2024/09/narcissistic-antisocial-personality-in.html)
It is possible for a charismatic person with narcissistic and antisocial traits to gain widespread popularity, and ultimately to gain positions of public leadership. There are many psychological causes for this, which I've discussed in other posts:
https://garthkroeker.blogspot.com/2023/05/foolproof-by-sander-van-der-linden.html
https://garthkroeker.blogspot.com/2022/07/how-minds-change-by-david-mcraney-book.html
https://garthkroeker.blogspot.com/2022/03/belief-bubbles-delusions-and-overvalued.html
https://garthkroeker.blogspot.com/2021/09/conspiracy-theories-vaccine-hesitancy.html
https://garthkroeker.blogspot.com/2023/08/the-power-of-us-by-jay-van-bavel.html
Here are likely consequences for the nations that must suffer under such leadership, and for the world:
1) "Greatness" will decline, for many reasons. By "greatness" I mean cultural, moral, technological, and economic leadership. If such a country is of sufficient size (in terms of population and economy) the whole world will be adversely affected.
2) Other nations will take over the world's moral, cultural and technological leadership.
3) I am reminded of Shakespeare's insights about the impact on a nation of corrupt leadership. When the king is corrupt, the whole nation becomes corrupt. The leader can define the character of the entire country, in the eyes of the world, and in the eyes of its own citizens. Other corrupt forces in a country are emboldened. Corruption becomes a norm. When a bully is the leader, other bullies all over the country become more powerful as well. Other bullies and tyrants across the world will rejoice. A cloud of gloom and fear is cast upon the entire country. We see this as a common theme in the most popular novels and movies, such as "Lord of the Rings."
4) In this case, a mitigating factor in the past was incompetence, which was oddly protective. The world was dealing with an almost cartoon-like figure, who lacked the intellectual skills, curiosity, or fund of knowledge to do too much damage. It was like a middle-school bully came to be in charge of flying a jumbo jet. But in the past there were robust protective factors, such as the plane's automated systems, the other staff on the plane, the preoccupation of the bully with playing on his phone rather than playing with the plane's throttle, etc. As a result, the plane survived the trip, even though the pilot was unstable, mean-spirited, and incompetent. In this case, the bully is now 8 years older, and has been learning the ways of bullying all this time. And the bully is now angry and vindictive, with added health and cognitive issues due to age. The bully will have fired or replaced the plane's staff. The bully will have gathered around him a team of other bullies, who are more extreme and unstable than ever before. Scientists who designed the plane's safety systems will have been fired or will have resigned to find jobs in more stable countries. And most alarming of all is the fact that the plane in this case is now flying into very dangerous, stormy conditions requiring the expertise of a good pilot; 8 years ago, through pure luck, the plane was flying in comparatively calm conditions.
5) Medical care will be severely damaged, since health policy leadership will be taken over by individuals who have bizarre beliefs unhinged from scientific progress or wisdom. It will be demoralizing to health care professionals in this country, and also other professionals across the world. One aspect of the nation's "greatness" was the capacity to attract the most brilliant people from all over the world; this attractive quality will fade. Not only will the nation's leadership in technology fade, but others would not want to live there anyway, due to the atmosphere of gloom and even the overt risk of violence.
6) The nation's and the world's environment will be damaged, since policy will likely reverse or impede progress to reduce pollution.
7) If there are religious groups that have supported such a leader, the moral and religious leadership of these groups will steeply decline. It is jarring for a religion whose sacred texts teach values involving love, compassion, redemption, integrity, honesty, forgiveness, wisdom, peace, respect for outsiders, etc. to devolve into support for a villainous figure who has no interest whatsoever in any of these values. Many stories or lessons in religious texts warn that people of faith can be led astray -- into a desert if you will -- causing terrible harm to themselves and to others.
8) Political groups that have supported such a leader will lose their association with previous noble values, associated with justice, law & order, dignity, family values, loyalty to global allies, and personal freedom.
9) For individual young men who have supported this leader, they will likely see a decline in their happiness and prosperity. If such young men desire to be attractive to women, or to have a satisfying relationship life, this has a much lower chance of happening for them, since support for bullies, and becoming a bully oneself, is not an effective strategy for finding or attracting a mate. Thankfully, the vast majority of young women do not support narcissistic or antisocial leaders.
10) One of the typical features of bullying that we can expect in coming years is mockery or frank persecution of people who disagree with or are suffering under the coming leadership. Bullies and those who support them will mock or belittle those who disagree with them, and even enjoy observing the distress of perceived opponents, even if these opponents are their fellow citizens, doctors, technological experts, musicians, artists, or loyal coworkers.
What is the role of psychiatry with regard to this issue?
There will be a lot of depression, anxiety, and even traumatic experience that people will suffer as a result of these political changes, so mental health professionals will have to prepared. Many of the people who will suffer most are those who supported and voted for the bully in the first place.
I continue to be upset that the psychiatric community did not organize itself to warn the public about these issues. Finally I find it a failure in duty to serve and inform. This did not have to involve talking directly about any particular individual or political group, etc. But there should have been frequent discussion and urgent efforts to warn about the dangers of narcissistic or antisocial personality traits in positions of power. This could have started with discussion of personal or family relationships of this type (a phenomenon most psychiatrists would see clinically in the course of an average day), but also discussion of the psychology of persuasion, false information, tribalism, internet use & addiction, and propaganda. Other peripheral issues could have been discussed as well, such as how to evaluate cognition or competence. All the major journals and conferences could have frequently addressed this theme in the past year. Unfortunately, as a professional community psychiatrists more or less stood by and did next to nothing. I hope that in the future there will be more education and advocacy coming from the professional community about this. Companies involved with news or social media also did not do enough to address or improve these problems, despite having the technological tools and competent leadership to do so.
One interesting policy idea in the future could be to require neuropsychological testing for political leaders, at the very least to determine intellectual competence. It would be useful to know if a major political leader had shocking deficiencies in basic fund of knowledge about the world, capacity to learn new information efficiently, severe attentional problems or tendency to have extreme fluctuations in intellectual capacity determined by a volatile emotional state.
As always, there will be forces of kindness and good which will ultimately prevail. We see the spirit of this in many of our favourite movies, such as "The Lord of the Rings." In that movie the heroic characters struggled a lot, had many losses, and were often tempted to give up. So we will likewise have a difficult journey ahead.
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