(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Contagious Sociopathy? [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2024-06-15 Today’s Saturday Report by Thom Hartmann contains a hodgepodge of small stories, but the one that caught my eye is near the bottom of the page, that begins Few dispute that Trump and his enablers are sociopaths... In this paragraph, Hartmann cites an article in Raw Story as the source of his information. The cited article is titled GOP‘sociopaths’ live among us – and it’s ‘contagious’: neuroscientist, and it is behind a paywall. If you aren’t a subscriber and don’t want to make a donation to Raw Story so you can read it on their site, I found a very cumbersome (but free) summary of it here. The neuroscientist quoted is Seth D. Norrholm, Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neurosciences at Wayne State University School of Medicine. Norrholm sums up his Raw Story piece like this: I have written and said it before, and I will do so again: The contagious spread of sociopathy has provided us with potential and actual leaders who embody the worst that humanity has to offer according to moral, legal, religious/spiritual, and societal norms, and they continue to run on this platform. So, you have to dig in to Norrholm’s analysis to figure out why and how sociopathy can be contagious, but his evidence is pretty compelling. For video fans, here is a YouTube video (9 months ago) of none other than Thom Hartmann interviewing Dr. Norrholm. But this appears to have been recorded before the “contagious” argument was proffered. First, he defines (paraphrased): Anti-social = doing things against society. Anti-social personality type = doing selfish things that harm other people without remorse Sociopath = someone who repeatedly does things (e.g. lying, deception, violence) that harm others, without any remorse. Psychopath = a sociopath who crosses the line, and not only feels remorseless, but actually takes pleasure in doing anti-social things. Via Thom Hartmann’s example (e.g. a Bruce Willis movie, where bad guys kidnap his daughter and he rescues her, and ends up killing a couple of the bad guys), Norrholm clarified that “righteous” violence is totally different from psychopathic violence. Society condemns kidnapping, so if the perpetrators of a kidnapping are killed during the rescue of the victim, the violence is considered righteous. However, when a sociopath or psychopath commits violence, the concept of righteousness gets terribly skewed. The example cited was the child separation policy introduced during the Trump administration (by Stephen Miller and others). The proponents of these sociopathic policies convinced themselves (and tried to convince others) that the parents of the separated children were de-facto enemies of the nation (because they wanted asylum in the U.S.), so the government was justified in punishing them by stripping away their young children. In the Raw Story piece, Norrholm asserts that there are at least three forms of sociopathy present today in the government and the public. The first form includes individuals for whom sociopathic tendencies are deep-seated and a core feature of who they are (e.g., Donald J. Trump, as well as many nondescript, functioning sociopaths in society at large). The second form includes includes a cohort of power cravers, who have decided to act sociopathic for their gain. The sociopaths of this form include Congressional enablers of Trump, such as Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert, Kari Lake, and Matt Gaetz, who all decided they should infect themselves with Trump’s contagious form of sociopathy. Norrholm uses Ron Desantis as an example self-infection. On paper, he’s an impressive member of normal society — Yale undergrad, Harvard law, U.S. Navy Seals. But after reaching Florida’s governorship, he began to deliberately choose anti-social positions that are harmful to identifiable groups of people — de-regulate gun ownership, strip away reproductive rights from women, alter history books to diminish the plight of historically maltreated groups. Presumably, he saw this shtick working for Trump and decided he should hitch his wagon to Trump’s horse. He also includes a different type of power-wielders among the second form of infectious sociopahty — the judiciary. SCOTUS’s recent actions, which represent clear symptoms of an apparent case of sociopathy infection, are also marks of a noticeable degradation of moral and ethical standards within the Court. In addition to judicial decisions that have stripped away reproductive rights, normalized and justified discrimination, and undid Biden’s student loan forgiveness to spite students burdened by heavy debt — several Justices are also facing accusations of improper gifts, hypocrisy, and politicization. The third form includes are the passive enablers, in particular, the Senate Minority leader, who seems not to have a stomach for Stephen Miller’s sadism, but is willing to embrace the concept of Donald Trump taking the reins of power — even though he could have just as easily taken the path trail-blazed by Liz Cheney and helped to rescue the nation out of its downward moral spiral. The MAGA rally crowds and Jan 6 insurrectionists also fall into the category of enablers, and their loyalty to the sociopath-in-chief is a form of cultism that represents a departure from the societal norms that were shared by a large majority of the populace until (choose one): 1988 (the first episode of the Rush Limbaugh Show; 2009 (the start of the Tea Party Movement); or 2015 (the founding of the Freedom Caucus). In addition to the deviation from long-held American mores and norms, today’s contagious sociopathy has (a) twisted religious principles to suit sociopathic behaviors; (b) aligned with political movements like fascism that prioritize power and control over justice and equality; and (c) used rhetoric to amplify racist platforms and ideologies. To this diary author, all of these symptoms appear to accurately characterize an infectious disease. While the time periods associated with exposure, infection, and recovery are much, much longer, we do appear to have the makings of an epidemic in our nation — albeit one associated with psychological disease instead of physiological disease. The big question is, can we develop an effective antibiotic (antipsychotic?) medicine to combat this infectious malady? Those of us who have avoided infection aren’t necessarily the best suited to help our less fortunate (infected) neighbors find a cure and commit to ingesting (practicing) it daily. If any DK readers are educated or practiced in psychology, please help us understand what we can do! I wonder if the cast of Saturday Night Live could create a compelling TV commercial, perhaps with a popular jingle (...think “Oh Oh O, Ozempic”) that would convince our infected brothers and sisters to take their medicines daily and thereby shed the excess weight of sociopathy that is ruling their lives and shortening their lifespans. 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