(note: you can click on the picture to see the whole image and click off of it to read the post)
(note: this post is part of my series, The Narcissistic Nation ... However, unlike other posts in the series, it's not about a spread of narcissism in a nation, but rather about one narcissist effecting many nations ...)
As with most of my posts, a further reading section follows. In this particular case, I feature some articles about Putin's childhood which has a lot to do with his personal makeup and how he rules, and invades other countries, and how he feels about the impact he is making on the lives and fates of others.
There are a lot of psychiatrists and psychologists who say that Vladimir Putin has all of the signs of Malignant Narcissism (see further reading section below), something he shares in common with Hitler, Mussolini, Saddam Hussein, Stalin and King Henry the VIII.
If there was ever a case for why the world should not have a malignant narcissist as a leader of a country, and why other nations' leaders cannot seem to communicate effectively and resolve issues with compromise, reasonableness, less violence and terror, these men (the malignant narcissist leaders) would explain why. As Jerrold M. Post states in his books, it is important to know the signs of malignant narcissists before such leaders are voted into office - or handed power by any government. They should not even be given power in a business or your personal life.
I explain a little why we should all be on the lookout for characteristics of malignant narcissism, because they can make any person be victims of their heartlessness, exploitation and cruelty, all in that order.
Whether you are married to a malignant narcissist, or you are the scapegoat child of the malignant narcissist, or he invades your nation, and blows up your house, or his soldiers cause you injuries, or kill your children, the end result for most of us is a lot of trauma, and some of us, particularly women, will also develop PTSD (since women are more prone to PTSD than men). None of us have the biology and mind to endure what the malignant narcissist does to us unless it is fleeting, except for primary psychopaths who are not particularly common and have a different kind of autonomic nervous system than the rest of us.
Primary psychopaths can actually rush into battle without fears, anxiety or trepidations. It makes sense that we had some psychopaths among us in our ancient hunter-gatherer tribes, to go head-long into battle with another competing tribe without a backward glance, and why they might become leaders. But in contemporary times, nuclear weapons, it is a disaster.
However, having said that, most primary psychopaths do not become leaders of countries. The sociopath (otherwise known as the secondary psychopath) has a lot of qualities like the primary psychopath, but still has the same kind of autonomic nervous system that most of the population has, however, because of their upbringing, learned to subvert anxiety and trepidations in order to conquer trauma symptoms and survive trauma by becoming aggressive. In other words, they became bullies in childhood, and carried their bully mentality into adulthood.
Most despotic dangerous leaders who show lack of empathy for the suffering of others, who start wars that are invasion-oriented, who make plans to start other invasions once they have successfully completed one invasion, whose main ambition is to subvert whole populations to their will, who seek to alter the press and insist on their own narrative, who threaten other nations and the leaders of other nations with retaliatory measures if they interfere with the invasions, who punish those who protest and rebel, almost always are malignant narcissists.
We know enough about Putin's childhood to know that he fits the mold: he became a bully in response to being repeatedly and severely bullied himself (in the "further reading" section below I have cited some articles about Putin's childhood). Most likely Putin has the secondary form of psychopathy, with the traits of narcissism. The advent of narcissism with psychopathy probably happened because he was made to feel entitled to special treatment in addition to being a bully-victim (also something that is prevalent in his biography as a youngster - plus, he was an only child, and never really learned how to get along with others or had any skills of "compromise").
It has been suggested by Todd Grande (in the video below) that he may actually be a dark triad. The dark triad consists of psychopathy, narcissism and Machiavellianism.
Machiavellianism, as written in Wikipedia is "a personality trait centered on manipulativeness, callousness, and indifference to morality". It can also display with "a high level of deceitfulness and an unempathetic temperament", something that we see with psychopathy. In fact, Machiavellianism goes hand in hand with psychopathy a lot, but it is more common to see it together with narcissism plus psychopathy, especially if the person happens to be a leader of a nation.
When people are reacting to the wars, threats, lack of empathy, Machiavellianism, narcissism and psychopathy that malignant narcissists are perpetrating against a nation, the populace is reacting in the same way that people react in a close personal relationship to someone with the disorder: fawn or fight or flee or freeze or ignore, or all five at different times.
Most people want to have the freedom to make decisions about their own lives. They do not want to be sublimating to a leader or someone out to hurt them and take away their autonomous decision-making. They don't want to be fed a lot of lies and told to believe them. They don't want to be puppets to an evil regime. They don't want their children to be puppets of an evil regime. They don't want to support evil. So most people will be fighting, fleeing, ignoring or freezing. Fawning happens when you either feel out-powered (i.e. you feel there is no other choice than to join the bad guys in deeds and attitude, and at least pretend to go along with them) or if you feel like you are one of them, or feel you belong more with them than your own people (i.e. you are another bully, and bullies will fawn and plot with each other).
You can see that people are willing to do a lot not to be a puppet to a bullying regime. In this case, victims and potential victims are leaving their homes behind, in the millions, often traveling for days on foot, often with only a suitcase and their children. Fleeing is the best thing to do for children, by the way, and most people care about their children (except malignant narcissists - they only care about children insofar as it serves them and their agendas, and the agenda for power, control and domination will be clear that is all they care about).
Fighting is the other option: you fight and are willing to die to keep the malignant narcissist in check, to slow down the invasion, to keep troops from advancing on loved ones who are trying to flee. You do so because your country-men don't want to be puppets to a controlling regime with a leader hell-bent on either destroying you, overtaking you, bombing what's left of your country to get you to submit to their will, and taking away your freedoms. It's no wonder we are in awe of people willing to fight against the behemoth empire that keeps wanting to swallow other countries and territories up.
Then there is freezing and ignoring. Ignoring is a way to live in a traumatic situation. You ignore the bombs dropping and try to put your mind to other things. But it can also mean that other nations ignore so that they won't be bullied too (however, we know that bullies don't stop and suddenly want to talk peace and reason). So in a way, it is an anesthetizing mindset where you don't try to stop the bullying, but you don't egg it on either. You try to remain neutral to it. It is a lost child way of dealing with threats, the trauma around you, the pain and suffering of those around you. You freeze and stop speaking if the bully gets too close, hoping the bully will turn elsewhere. It is also a kind of gray rock method.
The problem is for society, and the world, and for evolution. We need to evolve past warring and invasions. We need to stop following or worshipping malignant narcissists, and to end putting them in power (even when they want power so badly). If you think about it, invaded nations means that so many people will either be spending their time, resources and energy either defending themselves or attacking the people who are invading them. It is akin to protecting your home from burglars, thieves and murderers who are trying to break in. In other words, victims won't be putting their energy into medicine, remedies for climate change, remedies for poverty, getting educated, and putting their time into their children as much as they would be if they were living in peace. They are caught up in battles, and in a way, both sides lose: they lose lives, they lose money, they lose a lot of what they have built.
In the meantime, the malignant narcissist leader is not all that effected by the destruction, not nearly as effected as those who are in actual life-and-death battles. The morale to fight for a lying, malignant narcissist out to obtain more power at all cost is lost on some soldiers too.
So being vigilant about making sure malignant narcissists do not get into positions of power is paramount if we want to live in peace, reduce wars and invasions, have prosperity, survive, and evolve into a co-operative, empathetic species and good stewards of the earth. I will even go so far as to say that malignant narcissists are a danger to all forms of peace, and even our very existence.
If you think about it, who really wants power any way? When I talk to most people, they are content in their lives, working hard to support themselves and their families, self reflecting, exploring their ideas of how to make something better: a better medicine, an energy that is more efficient and less polluting, or a painting more beautiful, or raising children who will be good for the world and to their neighbors. We are living our lives, expanding our consciousness, expanding our understanding, learning a great deal, raising children or seeing a project through to fruition. That's a normal life.
But malignant narcissists don't live like this. Nor do they want to live like this. And they don't care if other people want to live like this. They want to be exceptional in terms of the attention they garner (whether it is good or bad attention). They are gipped with an intense addiction to power, control and domination, such as they must seek more and more of it, so that they don't go through a narcissistic collapse, even when they have a lot of power already. This is where the aggression to take over other people's lives, to make them puppets, or to invade comes into play.
People who are traumatized are not realizing these goals either. They are dealing with a brain that is on fire with "fight-or-flight" reactions, with high levels of cortisol and anxiety, especially if they have been exposed to malignant narcissists in any profound way. And a war is a profound way that effects a lot of people, generations of people, millions and millions of people, even the whole world. I don't know about you, but after seeing the evening news daily on the Ukrainian humanitarian situation, I have nightmares every night.
Malignant narcissists don't have nightmares in the same way the rest of us do. They worry about themselves; they worry about their ambitions for more power and control being thwarted in some way (sanctions, getting push-back by other nations that are just as powerful as they are). They do not worry about other people, and the suffering of others. They aren't crying over the children being injured, killed and being left homeless because their houses or apartments were bombed or obliterated through their commands. They don't care that the people they are hurting, invested a lot in their homes that are now destroyed, invested in a peaceful existence and hard work, invested in the freedom to make their own lives and the choices about their own lives. They are thinking about how well they are doing in taking over other people, their land, their homes, their minds. They are thinking about how well their victims are giving in to them and whether their victims are getting closer to total submission to the Great God of Violence and Threats "You do what I tell you to do or I will kill you or make you homeless!" is the constant message of the malignant narcissist, and of most invasions.
Can we really afford dictators who are malignant narcissists, and who care so little about how they effect other people in a world that is teeming with nuclear weapons?
If a highly intelligent being from a peaceful planet looked at our situation, they would think we were mostly all nuts, nuts for having malignant narcissists run nations, nuts for making weapons that could destroy the whole planet (which could end up in the hands of malignant narcissists, the most likely to fire them off and use them for murdering a whole nation, or for suicide purposes), nuts for allowing anyone to start a war or an invasion which is traumatizing millions of people, nuts for thinking that if we stay out of this one war, then "that will be the end of it", when it is so obvious that malignant narcissists can't stop with one territory, one country ... their minds work in such a way that they will always feel the impulse to have power and control over another nation, or region, and then another after that, and another after that, not stopping until they die. All of it adds up to violent traumatizing invasions.
Then they are likely to leave it all to another narcissist or psychopath, most likely someone who went along with all of the evil they wanted to inflict on other people. And the cycle starts again ...
Power, control and domination is ALL that they live for, and the way they think they can get it is through threats, terrorizing, violence, abuse, being anaesthetized to the pain of others, selfishness to the point of not caring about others, blackmail, lies, self-aggrandizement, controlling the narrative, false flag operations (i.e. smear campaigns) and blame-shifting their horrific deeds onto others.
Putin probably has the attitude that Ukraine brought it on themselves by daring to be a free country, by daring to be a democracy when they are right on Russia's border, by daring to talk openly about politics amongst themselves like Western countries do without threats to their lives and livelihoods, by daring to think it could join NATO and snub Putin, authoritarianism and Russia.
If you are a child abuse survivor of a malignant narcissist, you grow up with these attitudes, that you must be grateful for authoritarianism, grateful for not being free or able to tell the truth without the malignant god-of-war breathing his wrath down your throat. Threats abound for your entire lifetime unless you just give up on your parent. We know this is the way malignant narcissists relate to nations, and we know this is the way they relate to quite a few of their family members too.
The sight of fear, terror and trauma is something a lot of them like to see because to many of them it means that they are "winning the war" and they start savoring the sublimation, the "giving in" to them and their demands, the surrender when they see this. They aren't thinking like the rest of us would think: "Those poor children having to endure so much violence! Those mothers who had to leave their bombed out homes that they worked so hard to afford! All of those refugees who had to walk 200 miles with their children and a small suitcase to the Polish border, never knowing if they would ever be able to return home again to see their husbands and fathers, to live in camps: that is so awful! I must be the most horrible monster to have driven them to that kind of desperate life!" No, they are thinking, "Good! The war is working!" That's how evil and blind they are.
So the next time you think a despotic tyrant is a "monster", replace that with "malignant narcissist". Then as you say it to others, it will spread to the point where people will know what to look for, who not to vote for, who to start sanctioning way before they get to the point where they are threatening the entire world.
HOW TO TELL IF
A CANDIDATE
AN AUTOCRAT
A LEADER
MAY BE A MALIGNANT NARCISSIST
In this section I discuss what to look for, so that you are not enamored with a leader who "seems to speak your language" and "seems to address your concerns", but who may actually be the opposite from what they are portraying.
And that's what is so difficult when it comes to these leaders: we often don't know because they are putting on a facade, an acting trip. But here are the slip-ups they are most likely to make:
love bombing:
Despotic tyrants will sound initially like they deeply care about other people's concerns. They will keep it up as long as they can, but at some point it will be obvious it is a façade used to win votes, to obtain power over others, to stay in power and get more and more of it, usually by unfair means.
"All of your dreams will come true, and the nation will prosper and become the envy of the world, if you only vote for me, and put all of your confidence in me" is the message most of them portray. However, as you'll see, it is a sign of future faking (i.e. promises they never plan to fulfill, but which they think people want to hear enough to put them in power: extremely common for all types of narcissists).
finds scapegoats to blame:
Hitler used Jews as his scapegoats.
Saddam Hussein used Kurds as his scapegoats.
Stalin had different scapegoats from time to time, including engineers, Trotsky-ites, and Ukrainians. He killed more people than Hitler (around three million).
Pol Pot used the intelligentsia as his scapegoats.
Putin appears to be using Ukrainians as his scapegoats too, claiming they are Nazis and that they are installing biological weapons labs. He also appears to use NATO nations to blame for his behavior too.
Scapegoating is necessary for despotic tyrants to take the blame off off of themselves and stick someone else with it. They aren't going to be saying, "I invaded your country (or territory) because all I can think about is having control and domination over you." No, they will be lying about "reasons" to kill and torture people of a nation, and making sure news outlets repeat the narrative that they want. People either "believe" the narrative or "don't believe" the narrative, and at any rate become confused as to what "the real story" is.
Scapegoats keep him from being attacked personally, or by government insiders.
They aggrandize themselves while putting their competition down (often using insults, false narratives and creating confusion). They will also use exaggerations to explain others.
Mudslinging, smear campaigns and exaggerations are used in political advertisements these days, even in Democratic countries like the USA. Negative ads about the opponent are to get people to doubt the professionalism and direction of the opponent while aggrandizing the person or political party running the ad. So narcissism is always part of politics, a bit.
However, malignant narcissists are constantly doing it, even when they are not currently running for an office. They "divide and conquer", choosing "the side" most loyal to them, most ego-satisfying to them, and most likely to be brainwashed by their words. Their words are "believed" to be the gospel truth.
They also pepper their speeches with praise for their loyalists and insult, threaten, punish and run on-going smear campaigns against those who they see as belonging to the opposite party (or their opponent).
Since malignant narcissists see so much in black-and-white terms, they see their opponents as "the enemy" and as ruthless as they are.
When their enemies win favor with the populace, they will whine and rant that it isn't possible because they are so popular. They will insist that it's underhanded "dirty tricks", only the pure spiteful rivalry of their opponents, that put them out of power.
Malignant narcissists spend most of their time triangulating other people and putting others down.
Create suspicion of the press, attempt to control the press, attempt to control the narrative the press reports and if the press doesn't behave the way they want, discounts the press, their reporters, insisting that reporters are having agendas to report false stories, and to see them in a terrible light:
We see this with all of the despotic tyrants I have named: Hitler, Stalin, Hussein, etc. Eventually it ends up so that the despotic tyrant ends up controlling the press and controlling what is being said.
Controlling the press also means constant scapegoating - blaming other people, or another party, for what goes wrong in a nation.
The point also is to slant stories so that they look favorably on the despotic tyrant and disfavor-ably on the scapegoats.
Create nepotism:
The reason why despotic tyrants like nepotism is because they already know how to control these people. They deem these people to be their best loyalists, people who will help them do their dirty work and to help normalize the abuse, threats, invasions and murders they commit.
In return, these relatives and friends get the best houses or palaces, the best clothes, the best yachts, the best servants, planes, limousines, etc.
The point of having these people serve the tyrant is to portray the following message: "We get along with him. We are loyal to him. Why can't you? He's a good man and he deserves the utmost praise!" They are getting a lot of gifts in return for normalizing.
Compulsively competitive:
Everything is a competition to a malignant narcissist: of who is smarter, who is more capable, who can win at popularity contests, who is healthier, who can strategize better, who is richer and can exploit resources, who can fool others better, who can dominate the minds of others the most (one of the reasons they start wars is to get attention), etc.
Just about everything that comes out of their mouths has strategy and manipulations behind it. Covert malignant narcissists also keep their plans and thoughts "close to the vest".
They are always playing games with your mind or perceptions to "win" something.
Most of us aren't all that competitive. We want things to be just and fair, and that's about it.
Two faced:
This is one of the hallmarks of narcissism (all forms of it). "What you see is NOT what you get."
It is definitely something to watch out for.
They are nice to people, but then verbally tear them apart, scoff at them, and insult them behind their backs. Most often they refer to them as stupid or crazy in some manner. They treat other world leaders like this too, except other narcissists (for a time - what they will focus on is different however: that their fellow narcissist did not strategize well enough).
Don't make the mistake that they won't be two-faced to you too, even if they tell you they won't, even when you are their partner or kid. They do it to everyone they know, at one time or another. And they rule this way too: appearing to be willing to compromise (through diplomatic "talks") when what they are really doing is trying to find weaknesses to invade or be the world's leading power, a dictatorial power.
Find henchmen and sychophants who will condone the attitude that everything that they want is also good for the country:
Despotic tyrants typically have boot-lickers who will tell them what they want to hear. If they don't think he is a genius at all times, or if someone suggests using caution, the tyrant simply rages and lets them go.
Most sycophants aren't all that smart, or they have to hide their intelligence to be safe.
If you are smart, you'll want to be somewhere else where your intelligence can be best expressed. Being a sycophant isn't a fun job, or the best use of human potential. This has something to do with their downfall and why they eventually act on fantasies and paranoia.
The problem is that the despotic tyrant cannot get a good realistic perspective on much of anything, especially if he is only surrounded by people who flatter him. Flatterers are also not going to be enlightened about the reactions of other people or nations; their job is to say "yes" to everything the tyrant wants. So they tend not to be experts, only loyalists, yes-men, parrots.
Hitler, for instance, thought he was better at war strategy than his generals (because of his arrogance, which most tyrants have in spades). It was why he lost so many soldiers (Hitler insisted that soldiers should never to retreat, only advance - when his generals thought the opposite: that it was necessary at times to retreat, recover, regroup to continue an offensive). "Not retreating" is very much a tyrant kind of move too.
Malignant narcissists especially have no idea how people who have been invaded feel. To make them even less able to understand, they also don't care how other people feel (their disorder will always mean lack of empathy). They have no idea that these people won't simply capitulate under pressure. Anger and resentment will burn in the souls of the invaded, and it is likely to be multi-generational unless the invading country itself adopts the invaded country's ideals, a love of democracy, a love of hearing the perspectives of the invaded nation, and a love of its religion.
If Russia doesn't adopt these things, and is not lenient about perspectives and ways of life, then if Ukraine becomes part of Russia (or the "old Soviet Union"), there is likely to be continual unrest and violence.
A dictator is never going to successfully wipe out how and why his victims disagree with him.
Again, the dictator wants sycophants, even from his victims. So unrealistic and out of touch with the reality of how people react! Would you be a sycophant to anyone who killed your family, bombed your house, left you homeless, without a job, food, water and shelter? But, believe it or not, malignant narcissists think it is possible, and even sanely justified (it's okay to laugh now).
This is just another reason why they shouldn't be running anything, let alone a country.
Addicted to flattery:
Malignant narcissists are addicted to flattery. It means they will reject, or destroy, or ostracize people who do not agree with them or go along with everything they want.
Malignant narcissists are plagued with black and white thinking, so they typically see people as "complete friend" or "complete enemy". Plus they are so out of touch with how people think and feel anyway that they can't see much beyond whether they are friend or enemy. Their minds are not focused on understanding others; they are focused on "how to manipulate others" to get what they want. While they may be good at predatory moves and manipulations, they are not good at understanding why people rebel.
If they are a leader of a country, they will typically rage at people who do not flatter them. Most malignant narcissists who are leaders rage at people who they feel aren't flattering them "enough" anyway, but once they reach leadership positions, they get much worse.
They hate cartoonists, satirists and comedians who poke fun at them. They will make every effort to shut them down so that only a flattering image is presented in the media. However, they have no problem making fun of other people. A lot.
Profound lack of empathy:
You can tell how un-empathetic they are by how much they criticize other people, and how many people they criticize, and whether what they say is peppered with insults and false narratives - that's the first sign.
A lot of blame-shifting is another sign as to how un-empathetic they will be, especially if they refer to their exes as crazy.
A love of dictators, authoritarians and keeping company with other hurtful or bullying people is another sign.
You don't want to wait until they start a war, start an insurrection, scapegoat large groups of people or another nation, and try to control what the press is reporting before you realize that they have no empathy. By then, it's too late.
If they have all of the rest of the qualities of malignant narcissism as it pertains to leadership (and the list on this page), then that is also the sign that they will have no empathy, and no remorse for hurting other people, or destroying the homes, children, and communities of others.
Envy and paranoia can eat them alive to the point where they feel they must attack those that they feel are provoking them to feel that way:
For despotic tyrants, they hate to see other nations which are democracies thrive. It makes them feel that their "authoritarian nation" pales in comparison. They squelch free speech, make their citizens poor so they can make themselves and their oligarch bootlickers rich; they punish rebels who speak out about their policies or hypocrisies.
So they want nations that aren't like theirs to suffer through:
* internal fighting
* distrust in their government
* the presence of an oligarch (rich who are "favored" by the government, who don't have to pay taxes, who get sweetheart deals if they break the law)
* the election of authoritarian dictators who are like them and disenfranchise a lot of their population
In other words, they want most nations to mirror them (so that they, and their citizens) don't feel like they are lacking something (freedom, free choice, free speech). They also like mirrors because it is like condoning: "We are just the same; not a threat to you at all".
Paranoia eats them alive when they feel they have enemies from without and from within. To get rid of their paranoia, they often attack those who they feel "could be" an enemy. It's a pre-emptive strike to make sure that they stay or achieve an all-powerful position on the world stage.
Envy works the same way. And malignant narcissists feel envy so strongly that it practically eats them alive. They have to contrive popularity among their people to relieve it. They have to attack others who they are envious of so that they feel better. They have to try to recreate envy and jealousy in others, so they set up competitions (triangulation). They have to feel that they are so important that they have to set up a "tough guy" veneer. They have to feel that other people envy them, so they flaunt wealth and prestige.
And what does all of this create? More envy and jealousy because these are contrived desperate actions on their part to get other people to respect them, like them, want their company, and want their leadership. These are not organic happenings.
One of the reasons why tyrants don't become as powerful and respected as empathetic leaders is because they spend so much time at triangulation games and pumping up their image as geniuses and not very much time on policies that make sense for their populations. Most of their ideas for the nation come from others (and then they claim them as their own).
Erroneous blaming, perspecticide and false flag operations:
Malignant narcissists are very belief oriented, as well as fantasy oriented, and as I've said above, very, very paranoid too. Bad combination.
A nation that is becoming more democratic, and in this case, less of a puppet of the Russian government and dictator, will be seen as a terrible threat.
Despotic narcissistic tyrants require absolute loyalty and puppetry (even though they are incredibly disloyal themselves and are allergic to being dominated) in order to feel safe and not attack.
So they will erroneously blame a leader or country of something in order to justify an attack. In this case, Putin said that Ukraine needed to be "de-Nazified". Russian media (controlled by Putin's government) also claimed that Ukraine was harboring biological weapons - all likely projection to justify Russia's use of them on the Ukrainian population down the road.
Zelensky was right to see it as projection.
In other words, malignant narcissists find ways to claim that their victims are dangerous aggressors and threaten them when there is absolutely no proof, and no justification.
They attack based on beliefs and fantasies. Malignant narcissists attack in such a way to make the most devastating impact, in ways that will hurt them the most. Zelensky's vision was about trying to make his country prosper and to take it into the modern era, away from corruption and away from appeasing Russia. And Putin found that very, very threatening. Perhaps it would be a NATO country.
So he felt he had to attack it in such a way that the population would never think to try that again, thus the bombing of civilians. He tried to make the argument that Ukraine belonged to Russia because it was once a part of the Soviet Union - so it was a baseless claim) and that it should be grateful, prostrating and capitulating to Russia and to its leader. That's a narcissistic fantasy and it is not something that can be brought about easily.
So it is a pre-emptive attack. Pre-emptive attacks are very much an Antisocial Personality Disorder trait (malignant narcissists usually have pronounced Antisocial Personality traits).
Watching civilians fleeing, dying, being injured, crying at losing their babies, taking away their homes, making them desperate for food and clean water, bombing their schools and hospitals is a sadistic act. Sadism is very much an Antisocial Personality Disorder trait too. Sadism makes these leaders feel a lot better, and full of power. It's a depraved kind of power, but to them, it gives them a temporary rush of dopamine. They like all of the attention too ... until they get tried for war crimes. However, nuclear weapons are his shield against that.
This will give any despotic tyrant the ability to feel they can display as much heartlessness and sadism as they want: it's an endless hit of a sick kind of pleasure, and the power that they want keeps coming to them. They have the power to effect lives, get nations to capitulate, get nations to want to talk to him (where he can say "no" and derive the power and pleasure to say "no" without having to show a sign of empathy).
Now when these kinds of people are running for leadership positions, you won't necessarily see this right away. So the things to watch out for are these qualities:
* Makes grand, conspiratorial accusations against other leaders, other political parties, other nations.
* Dis-information campaigns are a part of life
* Malignant narcissists demand you agree with them, even if it's about a lie. If you don't, expect narcissistic rage, and punishments. Or being fired. Definitely attempts at brainwashing.
* Erroneously blames others for why he is losing power or clout
* Makes it clear he hates the press (unless it is run exclusively by him) - important sign.
* Creates confusion as to his real intentions
* Makes other branches of government seem like enemies of the people
* Makes the argument that a "strong-man" (who threatens other leaders with ease) needs to lead the country.
* Always seems to be on the attack with something or someone.
* Shows a profound lack of empathy for refugees of any kind unless he deems them to be 100 percent loyal to him
* Shows a profound lack of empathy for what other nations are enduring, and will only provide assistance or help if there is something "in it" for him.
Remember that unwarranted attacks are almost always about the ambition to gain more power, control and domination.
Punishing if another nation, or section of the same country, appears to go out of the role:
Roles are all-important to authoritarian dictators. If he assigns a role to a nation, he expects the role to be fulfilled always. If they don't fulfill the role, he gets nervous, starts to panic and feels that they are too unstable (they might go against him).
Despotic tyrants are usually authoritarians, so they cannot handle or condone other nations around them who aren't the same, thus assigning roles, which person to put in power in which government.
Having a democratic country on their border which has fair elections, whose people debate politics and the political agendas of their leaders openly in the streets, whose leaders have high approval ratings among its people, and a nation who is prospering under those conditions is totally outrageous and abhorrent to a dictator. It creates too much of a lure for "his" own people to defect. So they have to be wiped out if he is going to maintain control.
It means that "his" citizens are required to walk on eggshells about political discussions (or they will be imprisoned), and they are required to look no further than their economic status (poorer than the nation "next door").
The only way that the tyrant will accept leaving a smaller nation next door alone is if its citizens are as oppressed and as unhappy as his own citizens. The only way that the tyrant will accept leaving a smaller nation next door alone, is if they have a similar kind of dictator, "friendly" to them.
Any small, easily invaded country, will have to be punished for going out of the role of being filled with unhappy citizens. The role also requires that the citizens be at least as unhappy and oppressed as the main dictators citizens, if not more so. He wants the envy to flow his way, to his country, not to their own country.
If they go out of role, they must be punished and obliterated enough to be an unhappy people living in a devastating place; i.e. the dictator feels they must be kept "down" and derided until they can go back to their role.
The problem with "being kept down" is that the invading country loses its status in terms of trade (becoming economically depleted and demonized), and the invaded country becomes shattered (with not much to take over). Building it all back up to become a super power again becomes a huge challenge.
Can be sadistic in their punishments of any rebels:
Obviously dictators cannot tolerate anyone who questions what they do or points out flaws.
When narcissists are criticized they rage (they don't consider the allegations at all). Remember they are flattery freaks: they can only hear flattery. Rebellions challenge their feelings of grandiosity, superiority, and their huge egos, so they have to put rebellion down.
In the USA, we have a style of government that does not allow unmitigated rage, ego and cruel and unusual punishment by a president to happen very easily, if at all. The Congress keeps it all in check.
"Dictator rage" can turn into sadism. You keep hurting your "supposed" or "potential enemy" (the one causing the rebellion) in order to get him to "finally shut up." That is so you can keep ruling in the same way with the same amount of flattery going your way.
In democracies, presidents-who-act-like-tyrants will be insulting, claiming "false allegations" or "false news", and running smear campaigns on their potential opponents instead. So the sadism is more likely to remain verbal rather than turn into anything physical (imprisonment and torture, unless they can, through ambiguity, convince others to do the violence, imprisonments and tortures).
Sadism is almost always a sign of Antisocial Personality Disorder.
Constant demands that people capitulate to their leadership:
Most grown-ups don't need leaders or leadership as much as despotic tyrants seem to think we need them. If society is run the way it is supposed to run with laws (like driving on the right side of the road, and putting your trash in receptacles made for trash, and not murdering people over a drug habit), then society can run fairly smoothly.
Where populations have issues with their government tends to be with distribution of wealth, how much to tax various kinds of workers, and how much the government should provide for old people and the disabled who can no longer work, what kind of infrastructure to invest in. Where extenuating circumstances happen is with big climate changes, monetary policies, cataclysmic changes, wars we should or should not be involved with, what the government should or should not invest in.
For the most part, citizens do not like to be watched, they don't like it when government makes decisions about how we should make an income and how we should live, in general they don't like government over-stepping and controlling us. But most populations do not like oligarchs either, people or corporations who receive special treatment, tax advantages, and status with their government (lower taxes, subsidized, bailed out when they get into financial trouble, treated to special parties and dinners by the country's leaders).
In other words, most people like being in-between these two extremes. In the USA, this translates into balancing power between Democrats and Republicans, voting them in and out, and switching parties who rule by voting for Democrats for a couple of years until they overstep and then Republicans for a few years until they overstep.
In very general terms, when Democrats are overstepping invasive government policies and economics, and getting too close to Socialism with high taxes to pay for "programs", then a Republican is likely to be voted in to stop the trajectory. When Republicans are playing favorites with their citizens/corporations by creating an oligarch and Fascist-like tax policies where businesses are inexorably linked to government and its decisions, then a Democrat is likely to be voted in to stop the trajectory. It's been like this for a hundred years, with the mid 1940s to early 1970s bending more towards liberalism, and the mid 1980s into the 2000s bending more towards conservatism. We can all argue which is better, but the truth is, from voting statistics, most Americans like it somewhere in between (which explains why Independents make up more of the voting populace than purely Democrat or Republican voters).
Since this is more of a "natural selection", the former Soviet Union or its present Russian off-spring isn't practicing what most people want, and their leaders know it. Which is why Russia, its leaders and oligarchs, must constantly be toying with the media, investing in lies and half-truths, convincing the population they need an overwhelming authoritarian dictator (a type of infantilizing), so that they can brainwash their people by omitting certain forms of news or bending it in such a way to make the leaders and oligarchs "right": "You want us, you want the leaders that are provided to you by Russia. The U.S. and NATO are evil."
I think many Russians survive without thinking about politics or talking about it. They try to ignore it, a kind of "freeze response" to not deal with walking on eggshells of dictatorial dangerous narcissistic leaders, their henchmen and their attitudes about dissent.
Plays the victim when they go out of power, or when they are tried for crimes (including war crimes):
Always. They will blame others (especially those they deem as enemies).
They will try to make the argument if they are losing power, that their power was taken from them in conspiratorial ways, or they say they were let down by loyalists.
If they bomb another country and then get bombed in return, to stop their invasions, they will say that they never deserved it, that they are a victim.
They believe the law doesn't apply to them:
Almost all despotic tyrants break laws (including international laws), rules, and forms of decency to get what they want.
When they get caught, they usually say things like: "Everybody does it", "I know how to work the system. It's too bad you haven't figured out how to do that," "Everything I do is legal. It's how other people see it that makes it seem illegal", "I'll just sue the people who are trying to make me accountable. They don't have a leg to stand on."
It's all about deflecting, excusing, lying and blaming. Quite disgusting, but some people who think despotic tyrants are saviors may go along with it all and deem the opposing forces to be conspirators hell-bent on taking their favorite leader down.
They also think of themselves as too entitled and special to have to adhere to laws and rules.
However, if other people break laws (or even make mistakes), they are extremely punishing.
Hypersensitive to criticism
Despotic tyrants can't stand to be criticized, but they dish out criticism constantly. They rage when they are criticized. This is what makes it hard to discuss important matters with them. They refuse to listen to any criticisms about how they are conducting affairs internationally or domestically, or how their invasion of other countries isn't going the way they planned. It is a hit to their grandiose sense of self.
They believe they are beyond criticism, but that other people are not.
One sign of that belief is that they will punish others for not agreeing with them on how they view things. They make it known that your job is to agree with them, always.
Malignant narcissists (as opposed to run-of-the-mill narcissists) are vengeful and spiteful towards anyone who criticizes them (or that they believe is criticizing them, i.e. paranoia about being criticized).
Reckless and impulsive:
They are reckless in their ambitions to be "top dog". They often don't think repercussions through. They can be trigger happy, starting divisions, wars and grievances in an impulsive way against populations or other leaders. Co-operation is in short supply (they prefer to threaten and punish instead).
Nuclear weapons are of particular concern in the hands of malignant narcissists. They can use them in a murder-suicide way, especially when they feel backed against a wall, that their ambitions are being thwarted, or that their people, soldiers and henchmen are going against them.
Despotic tyrants also entertain coups, territorial take-overs, revenges against other nations, and certainly their mind is always on how to gain more power and dominance.
Hypocrites:
They feel that they get to break laws, but they expect everyone else to adhere to laws at all times.
They feel that they are privileged enough to hurt other people, but become over-sensitive and cowards if someone so much as criticizes them for one of their lapses.
They feel they have a right to dominate and dictate, but would never tolerate being dominated and dictated to themselves.
They feel they have a right to attack or invade other nations or governments, but feel their country is sovereign.
They feel they have a right to own nukes, but will sanction other nations that have nukes.
And so on ...
Everything is personal for them:
In a malignant narcissist's world view, there is no such thing as a mistake (they believe it is always intentional), there is no such thing as an unintentional oversight (they believe it is always intentional), joking around and having fun (they believe it is being done to make fun of them and about trying to damage their ego).
When people want to take away their power, they especially take it personally, becoming vengeful, making up conspiracy theories, wanting to assassinate people (or leaders) who are challenging their rights to power. This is just one of many reasons why malignant narcissists should not be a leader of a nation. It's too dangerous for the rest of us, and they will not listen to reason, or how their actions will effect their children, spouse, comrades, government, the people of their nation. They actually do not care how their actions effect others. They are too arrogant and feel they are "too right" to care.
IN THE HANDS OF AUTHORITARIAN LEADERS
WHO ARE MALIGNANT NARCISSISTS
I would say the possibility of nuclear weapons being used again is pretty certain and it will be these kinds of leaders who will use them at some point ... unless the world's population can keep malignant narcissists out of being the heads of countries.
The problem for populations in keeping them out is that these narcissists want powerful positions so badly that they will do just about anything to obtain them (including a lot of lying, sweet talk, "can-do" statements and promises, or conversely, threats, attacks, blackmail, false narratives and smear campaigns).
Some thoughts and reality checks about nuclear war comes from this article:
We Need to Relearn What We’d Hoped to Forget (Here we are again, trying to make our way around nuclear terms and concepts as war rages in the middle of Europe.) - by Tom Nichols for The Atlantic states:... In 1954, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles came up with the idea of threatening to use America’s “great capacity to retaliate, instantly, by means and at places of our choosing,” to deter Communist aggression. Instead of facing down the Communists in every theater in the world, we would “massively retaliate” with our nuclear arsenal for any Soviet misbehavior.
This, of course, was impossible. Although we were committed to our own defense and that of our allies, we weren’t seriously going to respond to any provocation with the nuclear destruction of Leningrad or Vladivostok ...
...
Flexible Response
But what if the Soviets went ahead and marched into Europe instead of launching nuclear weapons? A madman’s threat to start blowing up Soviet cities in response—that is, to engage in massive retaliation—was ghastly and immoral. And from the point of view of deterrence, it was even worse: It wasn’t credible.
The answer to this dilemma in the 1960s was a NATO policy—one still in effect—called flexible response. During the Cold War, NATO was outgunned. It could not win a major conventional war in Europe against the U.S.S.R. Instead, the U.S. and NATO promised high risks of escalation. If you invade us, we told the Soviets, we’ll hold you off as long as we can with any number of conventional options. But we reserve the right to escalate the conflict—and even to use nuclear weapons first, if that’s what it takes to save ourselves and our allies ...
...
The “triad” and Mutual Assured Destruction
The 1960s brought nuclear arms into the missile age, and bombs that once would been delivered by loading them on aircraft for hours of risky flight over hostile territory—think of the B-52 crew in Dr. Strangelove—would now reach their targets in minutes. Bombers and submarines and intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) would form a triad that could survive a first strike from the enemy and then hit back. This ability is now commonly called a “secure second-strike capability.”
These technological advances were wedded to massive stocks of nuclear warheads, and soon even the most bellicose hawk could do the math: A full nuclear exchange meant the complete destruction of both sides (and most of the world). Even the most elegant war plans would result in millions killed instantly, and billions more dying later from radiation or famine. There would be no “winner” in such a war. The enemy’s obliteration and ours was inevitable: mutual assured destruction, or MAD.
This reality led the Americans in the late 1960s to propose MAD to the Soviets as a policy. Let us recognize, we said to the Kremlin, that there is no counting on victory here. That means we, and you, will not try to develop defenses, a position the Americans held until President Ronald Reagan initiated a strategic-defense program in 1983. We will not make provocative investments in civil defense. We will proceed in every conflict between us—conflicts that are inevitable in our competition—with the duty to do everything possible to avoid a global nuclear war.
The Soviets, at first, wanted no part of this suicide pact. They believed in defenses, and claimed that even after a nuclear war, the superior nature of Soviet social and economic organization—no, really, they said this—would allow them to recover first; they would one day preside over the final burial of capitalism ...
It takes intelligence, ingenuity, creativity, patience, time, an understanding of architecture, knowledge about engineering feats that have happened in history, and a love of civic beauty to build beautiful buildings. War can take it all down in a number of seconds.
Which uses our higher mind?
It takes a lot of emotional investment, money, hard work, empathy, creativity, patience and love to raise a child. War can destroy your child in a number of seconds.
Which uses our higher selves?
It takes a lot of benefit of the doubt, compromise, understanding different points of view, appealing to people's better nature, trust, time, attention, and tireless resolve to build a relationship. An impulsive destructive reaction (narcissistic abuse, abuse of power, stonewalling, refusing to consider the effect on others, war crimes, bombing civilians) can take a workable relationship down in a number of seconds, and make it unworkable. In other words, talking in the usual reasonable way to a leader who is hell-bent on committing war crimes won't be productive.
When one leader is in a relationship to out-compete, to lie, to ignore another leader of a country and the concerns of other world leaders, and appears to be fine with the destruction of other nations, and appears to be fine being sanctioned by other nations, it makes any future relationship impossible. The tyrants relationship with other world leaders will be rife with distrust. Basically talks have to end because all that there is left in the tyrant is the ambition to destroy others to gain more power and domination.
Which uses our better selves? Which produces morale in most of us?
Most of us know the answers to these questions and most of us use our better selves.
Malignant narcissists never will. They will always be trying to hurt others, censor others, using false flag operations and smear campaigns, gutting other people's property or nations by terrorist means, in order to gain more power, control and wealth.
Which is why they should never be granted leadership positions, ever, but especially leadership of a country.
by Dr. Todd Grande:
... The risks of miscalculation are compounded, psychology research has shown, by the fact that power literally goes to your head, including in a key way that may be relevant in explaining Putin’s costly gambit in Ukraine. The longer someone is in power, the more they begin to get a sense of what is known as “illusory control,” a mistaken belief that they can control outcomes much more than they actually can. That delusion is particularly dangerous in dictatorships ...
SOME OTHER VIDEOS OF INTEREST:
excerpt:
"Watch the opening scene of "Putin’s Road to War," a new documentary on what led up to the Russian president’s invasion of Ukraine and how he wields power."
Putin's Road to War (full documentary) | FRONTLINE -The story of what led to Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine. - Frontline, PBS
Putin's Road to War: Julia Ioffe (interview) | FRONTLINE - Frontline, PBS
excerpt:
"In an interview for the FRONTLINE documentary “Putin’s Road to War,” journalist Julia Ioffe discusses Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine — and why she believes the Russian leader is now “more dangerous than he’s ever been at any point in the last 22 years.” “What he has opened up with this invasion is unthinkable,” Ioffe tells FRONTLINE. “And because he is losing and because the sanctions and the Ukrainians are humiliating him, because he is backed into a corner, he is the most dangerous he has ever been, because it is now existential for him.” Julia Ioffe is an American journalist who was born in Russia. She is a writer for and founding partner of the media company Puck. She previously reported on politics and world affairs for The Atlantic. This interview was conducted by FRONTLINE’s Mike Wiser on March 3, 2022. It has been edited for clarity and length."
Putin's Road to War: Susan Glasser (interview) | FRONTLINE - Frontline, PBS
Since the original publication, more videos:
Putin has features of a psychopath: Expert | The Donlon Report - News Nation (interview with Dr. Ziv Cohen, a board-certified forensic (criminal) and clinical psychiatrist who has consulted on over 50 murder cases, including over a dozen cases for the US Department of Justice. Dr. Cohen is also a clinical assistant professor at Weill Cornell Medical College and adjunct faculty at Columbia University.)
Is Putin a Psychopath? | Jon Ronson and Brian Klaas on Power - How To Academy Mindset
Brian Klaas is also featured in the video above in the MSNBC video describing the "Dictator Trap".
excerpt for description of this video:
... Does power corrupt, or are corrupt people drawn to power? How do you tell if your leader is a psychopath? Are we drawn to following bad people? To find out, Brian Klaas met presidents, philanthropists, cultists and dictators. He tells his story to Jon Ronson.
Dr Brian Klaas is an Associate Professor in Global Politics at University College London and a columnist for the Washington Post. Klaas is also a frequent television commentator and political consultant. He was previously based at the London School of Economics and the University of Oxford. He is also the host of the Power Corrupts podcast. He has advised governments, US political campaigns, NATO, the European Union, multi-billion dollar investors, international NGOs, and international politicians. On YouTube, Brian has been featured on CNN (strongmen leaders), MSNBC (Corruption in the republican party, dictators, authoritarianism), David Pakman Show, TEDx Talks, BBC Newsnight, Skeptic and Forward with Andrew Yang. ...
FURTHER READING
‘This Is Everyone’s Culture’: Ukraine’s Architectural Treasures Face Destruction (The country’s vast array of historic buildings, artworks and public squares are an integral part of Ukraine’s cultural identity. Amid the violence of war, many are being reduced to rubble.) - by Evan Rail for The New York Times
Pathological power: the danger of governments led by narcissists and psychopaths - by Steve Taylor, Senior Lecturer in Psychology, Leeds Beckett University for The Conversation
... It’s not really surprising that people with personality disorders are drawn to political power – narcissists crave attention and affirmation, and feel that they are superior to others and have the right to dominate them. They also lack empathy, which means that they are able to ruthlessly exploit and abuse people for the sake of power. Psychopaths feel a similar sense of superiority and lack of empathy, but without the same impulse for attention and adoration.
But pathocracy isn’t just about individuals. As Lobaczewski pointed out, pathological leaders tend to attract other people with psychological disorders. At the same time, empathetic and fair-minded people gradually fall away. They are either ostracised or step aside voluntarily, appalled by the growing pathology around them.
As a result, over time pathocracies become more entrenched and extreme. You can see this process in the Nazi takeover of the German government in the 1930s, when Germany moved from democracy to pathocracy in less than two years.
Democracy is an essential way of protecting people from pathological politicians, with principles and institutions that limit their power (the Bill of Rights in the US, which guarantees certain rights to citizens is a good example).
This is why pathocrats hate democracy. Once they attain power they do their best to dismantle and discredit democratic institutions, including the freedom and legitimacy of the press. This is the first thing that Hitler did when he became German chancellor, and it is what autocrats such as Trump, Vladimir Putin and Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán have been attempting to do.
Leaders and Their Followers in a Dangerous World: The Psychology of Political Behavior - by Jerrold M. Post and Alexander George, Cornell University Press (available on Amazon)
Revolutionary Monsters: Five Men Who Turned Liberation into Tyranny - by Donald T. Critchlow, Regnery History (available on Amazon
Narcissistic and Psychopathic Leaders - by Sam Vaknin for Healthy Place
Power Causes Brain Damage (How leaders lose mental capacities—most notably for reading other people—that were essential to their rise) - by Jerry Useem for The Atlantic
excerpt:
... The historian Henry Adams was being metaphorical, not medical, when he described power as “a sort of tumor that ends by killing the victim’s sympathies.” But that’s not far from where Dacher Keltner, a psychology professor at UC Berkeley, ended up after years of lab and field experiments. Subjects under the influence of power, he found in studies spanning two decades, acted as if they had suffered a traumatic brain injury—becoming more impulsive, less risk-aware, and, crucially, less adept at seeing things from other people’s point of view.
Vladimir Putin, Narcissist? (How the psychology of narcissism might offer insight on the Russian leader) - by Joseph Burgo for The Atlantic (2014 article)
excerpt:
... During a recent segment on the PBC NewsHour, for example, New York Times columnist David Brooks stated that U.S. attitudes toward Putin have “hardened to an amazing degree” and the current administration now views him as a “narcissistic autocrat.” Zbigniew Brzezinski, Jimmy Carter's national security adviser, has accused Putin of “narcissistic megalomania.” The Financial Times referred to the Sochi Olympics as “Putin’s narcissistic self-tribute.” ...
... Narcissism is a severe psychological disorder that always takes root in childhood, where family life is marked by trauma and emotional chaos. When his earliest experiences drastically depart from what is normal or expectable, a child grows up with a painful feeling of internal defect. He comes to feel that there is something damaged and shameful about himself, an “ugliness” that must be concealed. He may grow up feeling that he is a “loser.” And so he develops a defensive identity to hide his unconscious shame and to “prove” that he is a winner instead. The Russian leader comes from a background similar to what one might find in a narcissist’s history ...
... In her recent biography of Putin, Masha Gessen paints a grim picture of the Leningrad complex in which the family lived, typical of the city during the post-war period. Crumbling stairwells and courtyards strewn with trash. Cramped, filthy, and crowded rooms. Families piled one on top of the other, sharing and fighting over a communal kitchen in the hallway. Post-siege Leningrad was “a mean, hungry, impoverished place that bred mean, hungry, ferocious children.” ...
... Though they doted on their child, the parents were desperately trying to survive, childcare was virtually non-existent, and Putin passed an increasingly large part of his time in the communal courtyard below, a space dominated by drunken thugs, cursing, and fistfights. In the personal mythology he has created, Putin takes special pride in having become one of those thugs. According to Oleg Blotsky's Vladimir Putin: The Road to Power, childhood friends support this view.
In exploring the past of prominent figures who seem to display features of narcissistic personality disorder, I have found that many of them were childhood bullies who may also have been bullied by others. The bully is a special type of narcissist who offloads or projects his sense of defect into the victims he persecutes. I’m not a loser, you are. I don’t feel vulnerable and afraid, you do. Though younger and smaller than many of them, Putin fought back against the courtyard thugs and became something of a bully himself. With an explosive temper and thin skin, Putin regularly took offense, instantly lashing out with violence. According to Gessen, one childhood friend recalls that if anyone dared to insult Putin, he “would immediately jump on the guy, scratch him, bite him, rip his hair out by the clump—do anything at all never to allow anyone to humiliate him in any way.”
Though his history suggests, certainly, the possibility for narcissism to take root, it’s impossible actually to diagnose the man at a distance. But while a courtyard thug may inspire fear, the notion of a narcissistic bully with a large army and an arsenal of nuclear weapons is terrifying.
excerpt:
... By inference, when you look at Putin’s early years, the adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) pile up—lack of food, inadequate housing, bullying, neglect, parental depression, etc. And he obviously inherited a bunch of ACEs from his parents, including wartime trauma personified by Nazi forces that threatened their existence and their homeland. But what’s also evident is what he didn’t seem to get: appropriate attachment—the strong and requisite bond between a parent and a child that leads to a healthy life and without which children can die or be damaged ...
... A friend sent me an essay that psychologist Alice Miller wrote called, “The Ignorance or How we produce the Evil”. It’s remarkable, and I encourage everyone to read it. She said that although evil exists, people aren’t born evil. How they live their lives depends on what happens after they’re born (and also before, as epigenetics is teaching us).
Children who are given love, respect, understanding, kindness, and warmth will naturally develop different characteristics from those who experience neglect, contempt, violence or abuse, and never have anyone they can turn to for kindness and affection. Such absence of trust and love is a common denominator in the formative years of all the dictators I have studied.
EMMA KENNY Vladimir Putin is egocentric, narcissistic & exhibits key traits of a psychopath - by Emma Kenny, psychologist for the U.S. Sun
MY NOTE: when psychologist refer to psychopaths, the phrase can be referred to as primary and secondary psychopathy (sometimes people with secondary psychopathy are referred to as "sociopaths" - these are people who tend to have grown up in harsh bullying environments, usually are "spoiled" in some way in terms of entitlement, and can have a number of A.C.E.s - adverse childhood experiences).
Who is Mr. Putin? - Brookings Institute
Vladimir Putin's childhood explained - from 'miracle baby' to power-crazed president (Vladimir Putin was born on October 7, 1952, in Leningrad, now St Petersburg, a city that had been under siege for 900 days in the Second World War. Putin was a street kid, small for his age and bullied) - by Emily Retter for The Mirror (UK publication)
excerpt:
... She says Putin’s doting parents fed that greed. He had a wristwatch as a teen – something his dad didn’t have. When they won a car they reportedly gave it to their student son.
Masha suggests by treating him as their “king”, Putin’s parents gave him a sense of entitlement. She said: “There’s a lot of proof he feels he is chosen now.”
The proof could include his sprawling “Putin’s Palace” home, and those photos of him riding horses bare-chested. More recently, making French President
Emmanuel Macron sit at the other end of a ridiculously long table says everything about his need to feel superior.
excerpt:
He said Putin scores high in the three categories associated with the mental disorder of psychopathy: aggression, narcissism and lack of empathy, which have been on full display in autocratic leader's invasion of Ukraine.
Putin: The New Tsar review – a portrait of a lonely, lying narcissist (Stuffed with insight and bizarre anecdotes, this documentary about the Russian president could almost be funny if it weren’t so scary) - by Sam Wollaston for The Guardian
The Political Political Personality of Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin - by Aubrey Immelman and Joseph V. Trenzeluk, Psychology Faculty Publications, St. John's University, College of St. Benedict
Europe’s New Hitler: Another Psychopath at Work (Vladimir Putin is a murderous despot: Why the West’s response to Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine matters. And why we must deal firmly with his European enablers.) - by Stephan Richter and Uwe Bott for The Globalist
Putin Is Spinning the Globe Faster and Faster - by Gail Collins and Bret Stephens for The New York Times
excerpt:
The “central flaw” in the West’s strategy arose from the failure of its leaders to see Putin for what he is.
At times, he behaves like a shrewd rational, actor, but he is a megalomaniacal, malignant narcissist obsessed with restoring at least part of Russia’s past grandeur and power. Failure to understand that obsession led to a miscalculation by Western leaders.
His perception of reality is shaped primarily by his own aberrant personality, not by a dispassionate or objective view of the world. No concession or economic sanction was going to dissuade him from trying to reincorporate Ukraine into “greater Russia.” ...
... For malignant narcissists like Putin and Trump, the insatiable needs of their egos drive them to constantly assert dominance over others. The cycle never ends, as they must continue to reassure themselves of their own worth by preying on weakness and bending others to their will.
Nothing is more important than redressing perceived grievances. They magnify those grievances in their minds and become obsessed with getting even.
The irrational bitterness that he feels from having Ukraine “taken” from Russia is what drove Putin to invade Ukraine. Looking for other “triggers” demonstrates a misunderstanding of his psychopathology.
This is the reason some people are drawn to “strongmen” leaders (Political scientist & author Brian Klaas says “strongmen” leaders like Vladimir Putin activate a template in the human brain, causing many to gravitate toward them. Klaas tells Reality Check’s John Avlon about his research into sociopaths - how they are naturally drawn to power and all too often, succeed in getting it.) - CNN
excerpt:
One instructor's comment said, "before class [Putin] threw chalkboard erasers at the children."
Others read: "Didn't do his math homework." "Behaved badly during singing class." "Talks in class." ...
... Putin's grades didn't reveal anything exceptional, either. On the Soviet five-point scale, he scored threes in arithmetic and natural science, and a two in drawing.
The only subject in which he scored a five was history. He also got a five for behavior, despite his altercations in gym class.
Putin Biographer Explains Psychology Behind Putin's Extreme Action In Ukraine | Good Morning Britain ('We're seeing in some ways a new Putin, a much darker one. In which he's willing to take risks because in a way there's no one to tell him that he really best not to.' Putin Biographer Mark Galeotti explains some of the psychology behind Putin's extreme action in Ukraine. Broadcast on 28/02/22) - Good Morning Britain
Psychology Of Vladimir Putin: Inside The Mind Of The Russian Leader | NBC Nightly News - NBC (2017)
Is Vladimir Putin a psychopath? | Psychologist Dr Arthur Cassidy answers ('He does exhibit quite a number of psychopathic traits. There's a pathology of evil that runs through his identity.' Psychologist Dr Arthur Cassidy on whether Vladimir Putin is a psychopath.) - GB News (You Tube)
As Putin mulls a Ukraine attack, experts paint scary psychological picture of what makes Russia’s tyrant tick (Some observers think the scale of the Russian leader’s dishonesty is entering the realms of fantasy, writes Michael Day) - by Michael Day for I-News (UK publication)
We Are All Living in Vladimir Putin’s World Now - by Ivan Krastev for The New York Times
Now we know that sanctions can’t stop tanks. Europe’s cherished conviction that economic interdependence is the best guarantee for peace has turned out to be wrong. Europeans made a mistake by universalizing their post-World War II experience to countries like Russia. Capitalism is not enough to temper authoritarianism. Trade with dictators does not make your country more secure, and keeping the money of corrupt leaders in your banks does not civilize them; it corrupts you. And Europe’s embrace of Russian hydrocarbons only made the continent more insecure and vulnerable. ~ Ivan Krastev
Excerpt:
As Julia Ioffe wrote in Puck, Putin stewed in his begrudging juices for decades and then rang down a new Iron Curtain: “Even as his forces were shelling the entirety of Ukraine — north to south, east to west — Putin made clear that his invasion wasn’t really about Ukraine. It was about the United States, about history and settling old scores, and rewriting the terms of surrender, 30 years later, that ended the Cold War.” ~ Maureen Dowd
Vladimir Putin’s Clash of Civilizations - by Ross Douthat for The New York Times
excerpt:
This posture was cynical and self-interested in the extreme. But it was also vindicated by events, as our failures in Iraq and then Afghanistan demonstrated the challenges of conquest, the perils of occupation, the laws of unintended consequences in war. And Putin’s Russia, which benefited immensely from our follies, proceeded with its own resurgence on a path of cunning gradualism, small-scale land grabs amid frozen conflicts, the expansion of influence in careful, manageable bites.
But now it’s Putin making the world-historical gamble, embracing a more sinister version of the unconstrained vision that once led George W. Bush astray. And it’s worth asking why a leader who once seemed attuned to the perils of hubris would take this gamble now.
I assume that Putin is being sincere when he rails against Russia’s encirclement by NATO and insists that Western influence threatens the historic link between Ukraine and Russia. And he clearly sees a window of opportunity in the pandemic’s chaos, America’s imperial overstretch and an internally divided West. ~ Ross Douthat
How Putin Thinks (A conversation with Jeffrey Goldberg, Anne Applebaum, and Tom Nichols about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Vladimir Putin’s animating worldview, and what the coming days might hold) - The Atlantic’s editor in chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, talks with staff writer Anne Applebaum and contributing writer Tom Nichols about the global reaction to Russia’s military campaign, the effectiveness of sanctions, and how the free world should address the rise of authoritarianism and ongoing threats to democracy.
Why Vladimir Putin Invokes Nazis to Justify His Invasion of Ukraine - by Anton Troianovski for The New York Times
excerpt:
... The language of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has been dominated by the word “Nazi” — a puzzling assertion about a country whose president, Volodymyr Zelensky, is Jewish and who last fall signed a law combating anti-Semitism. ...
... The “Nazi” slur’s sudden emergence shows how Mr. Putin is trying to use stereotypes, distorted reality and his country’s lingering World War II trauma to justify his invasion of Ukraine. The Kremlin is casting the war as a continuation of Russia’s fight against evil in what is known in the country as the Great Patriotic War, apparently counting on lingering Russian pride in the victory over Nazi Germany to carry over into support for Mr. Putin’s attack. ...
Ex-KGB agent weighs in on 'bizarre' Putin photos - CNN (also discusses Putin's mindset)
Stepping Into The Spotlight? Putin's Hidden Daughters Take The Stage At Prestigious St. Petersburg Forum - by Robert Coalson and Yelena Rykovtseva for Radio Free Europe, Radio Liberty
excerpt:
"I never discuss my family with anyone," Putin said during his annual end-of-the-year marathon press conference in 2015. "Every person has a right to their fate. They live their own lives and do it with dignity."
Is Vladimir Putin a war criminal? Human rights lawyer Geoffrey Robertson says 'no doubt' | ABC News - ABC News Australia (You Tube)
Law expert predicts when Putin will be indicted for war crimes (David Scheffer, the former US Ambassador-at-large for War Crime Issues, believes that Russian President Vladimir Putin will be indicted on war crimes charges in "2 or 3 months" because Putin could stop the atrocities in Ukraine or punish those committing them and is choosing not to do either.) - CNN
Ex-CIA official explains who Putin should be afraid of - Steve Hall, a former CIA chief of Russia operations, discusses what Vladimir Putin should fear as the invasion of Ukraine continues.
excerpt:
After being in the mental health field for 30 years and observing interactions between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, I would have to say this: Birds of a feather flock together.
Americans who are still interested in and supportive of Trump may want to take a look in the mirror. Does dictatorship appeal to you? Do you like mentally unstable people leading your life? The reason Trump goes out of his way to buddy up to dictators is he sees himself in that way. All powerful and god like. He is an aspiring dictator himself.
Personally I enjoy living in a democracy where I have freedom to believe what I feel is right. I don’t want a crazy man telling me how to live.
Why Donald Trump Loves Vladimir Putin (Because he loves himself a lot—really, he does.) - by Davis Corn for Mother Jones
Rekha Basu: Does Donald Trump's base accept Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine? (It's alarming and astounding that these attitudes and rhetoric are on the rise after so many years of anti-communist fervor.) - by Rekha Basu for the Des Moines Register
Trump's praise of Putin, 'America First' view tested by war (From the earliest days of his first presidential campaign, Donald Trump aggressively dismantled pillars of Republican foreign policy) - by Jill Colvin for ABC News and the Associated Press
Here’s definitive proof this Republican senator is afraid of Donald Trump - by Chris Sillizza for CNN
Trump Calls Putin’s Invasion of Ukraine Smart, Blames Biden for Not Doing Enough - by Andrew Restuccia for The Wall Street Journalexcerpt:
ORLANDO, Florida—At the dawn of Russia’s new invasion of Ukraine this week, Donald Trump appeared to be on a Russian roadshow, telling whoever would listen about the wonder of President Vladimir Putin’s ability to take over the country next door on a whim.
But as Russia continues to attack Ukraine, several advisers and associates have practically begged the former president to end his effusive-sounding praise of Putin. Trump’s warm words for the Russian leader, who the ex-president regularly brags about knowing “very well,” has startled even some of Trump’s onetime lieutenants who were already conditioned to mask their disgust with the 45th U.S. president’s actions.
Trump Fears Putin Is Too Distracted by Ukraine to Help Him with 2024 Campaign - by Andy Borowitz (satire) for The New Yorker
Boris Johnson says 'Putin must fail' and sends new message of support to Ukraine - The Sun (video)
excerpt:
It is not enough for the international community to simply express support for Kyiv without action, Boris Johnson has said, as he unveils a six-point plan which he hopes will ensure Russia fails in its “horrific” invasion of Ukraine.
The Prime Minister said that “it is not future historians but the people of Ukraine who will be our judge” over how the world reacts to Vladimir Putin’s “hideous, barbarous assault”.
Ahead of a swathe of meetings in coming days, Mr Johnson said: “Putin must fail and must be seen to fail in this act of aggression. “It is not enough to express our support for the rules-based international order – we must defend it against a sustained attempt to rewrite the rules by military force.”
U.K. Moves to Tighten Laws on Oligarchs. Critics Say It’s Too Late. (With most of the Western world uniting against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Britain is trying to plug loopholes for wealthy Russians to which it has long turned a blind eye.) - by Mark Landler and Stephen Castle for The New York Times
excerpt:
LONDON — On Friday, the day after Britain blacklisted seven prominent Russian oligarchs, residents of the wealthy London borough of Kensington and Chelsea rolled a washing machine overflowing with fake pound notes in front of a multimillion-dollar townhouse belonging to the family of the president of Azerbaijan.
It was a camera-ready stunt that made a serious point: For Britain to be successful in curbing the flood of dirty money — a phenomenon some call the “London laundromat” — it needs to go further than imposing sanctions on highly visible Russians ...
Russia says it 'will not forget' Britain's support for Ukraine in biggest threat yet (The Russian foreign ministry promised that London faces 'retaliatory measures' after the government, with other countries in the West, levelled sanctions at the aggressor) - by Antony Thrower for The Mirror (UK publication)
excerpt:
Spokesperson Maria Zakharova warned: “Russia will not forget Britain's desire to co-operate with ultra-nationalist forces in Ukraine and the supply of British weapons to the Kyiv regime.
"The sanctions hysteria in which London plays one of the leading, if not the main, roles, leaves us no choice but to take proportionately tough retaliatory measures. London has made a final choice of open confrontation with Russia.
"Such a development convinces us once more that Russophobia and the aim to undermine the Russian state are integral elements of Britain's foreign policy."
Biden once told Putin, 'I don't think you have a soul.' He responded, 'We understand one another.' - by Talia Lakritz for Yahoo News
excerpt:
"You said you know he doesn't have a soul," Stephanopoulos said in an interview with Biden recorded in March 2021.
"I did say that to him, yes," Biden said. "And his response was 'We understand one another.' I wasn't being a wise guy, I was alone with him in his office. That's how it came about. It was when President Bush had said, 'I've looked in his eyes and saw his soul.' I said, 'I looked in your eyes and I don't think you have a soul,' and [he] looked back at me, he said, 'We understand each other.'"
"So you know Vladimir Putin," Stephanopoulos said. "You think he's a killer?
"Mm-hmm. I do," Biden said.
‘Cynical, craven’ Republicans out to bash Biden, not Putin, over gas prices (Critics say party has seized on price hikes to exploit war in Ukraine for its own benefit – ‘an unconscionable act of political cowardice’) - by David Smith for The Guardian (UK publication)
President Biden Is Too Weak To Stand Up To Putin - House GOP (Congresswoman Elise Stefanik)
Majority of voters say Biden is too lenient with Russia: poll - by Tal Axelrod for The Hill
More Republicans have negative view of Biden than of Putin, poll finds (Findings from Fox News poll point to deep domestic divisions as well as splits over Biden’s handling of Ukraine crisis) - by Martin Pengelly for The Hill
excerpt:
WASHINGTON — As congressional Republican leaders push President Joe Biden to act more forcefully to punish Vladimir Putin for sending troops into Ukraine, former GOP President Donald Trump and some of his prominent allies have been praising the Russian leader’s style of power.
The fissures point to a growing divide in the Republican Party, between traditional foreign policy hawks who have advocated for a more confrontational U.S. posture to the Russian strongman and a Trump-aligned “MAGA” faction that has expressed some sympathy for Putin's tactics or described them as effective.
Republicans, Once Harsh Ukraine Critics, Pivot to Strong Support (In a matter of weeks, the center of gravity on Ukraine has sharply shifted among Republicans, muffling doubts about U.S. involvement and dismissing questions about the recent past.) - by Jonathan Weisman for The New York Times
excerpt:
WASHINGTON — In the final years of Donald J. Trump’s presidency, Republicans portrayed Ukraine as an Eastern European Wild West run by nefarious oligarchs and unlawful politicians, a bad actor that sought to tamper in American elections and channel millions of dollars to Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s son.
“We’re talking Ukraine,” thundered Representative Jim Jordan, Republican of Ohio, in 2019, describing the country as “one of the three most corrupt countries on the planet.” The setting was a hearing for Mr. Trump’s first impeachment, over his efforts to pressure Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, into digging up political dirt on Mr. Biden.
Now such voices are fading, as the bulk of the Republican Party tries to get on the right side of history amid a brutal Russian invasion of Ukraine. Republicans are among the most vociferous champions for the United States to amp up its military response, and are competing to issue the strongest expressions of solidarity with Ukraine’s leaders.
Senator Roger Wicker of Mississippi has taken up Mr. Zelensky’s call for a western-enforced no-fly zone. Senator Rick Scott of Florida said deploying U.S. ground troops to Ukraine should not be “off the table.” Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina encouraged the assassination of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia to save a nation that many in his party had previously portrayed as hardly worth saving.
excerpt:
I must admit, I listen to some in my party who are arguing for authoritarianism and I think, Well, Biden’s in charge now. Do you want him to be an authoritarian? Do you want him to close down Fox? Do you want him to take away your rights for free speech? Or do you only want authoritarianism if you’re in charge? Maybe recognize that the other party has the majority in the country right now. They have the majority; we don’t. Be careful what you wish for. Because if we installed authoritarianism in our country today, it would not be a happy day for those of you who are arguing for it.
‘I’ll Stand on the Side of Russia’: Pro-Putin Sentiment Spreads Online (After marinating in conspiracy theories and Donald J. Trump’s Russia stance, some online discourse about Vladimir Putin has grown more complimentary.) - by Davey Alba and Stuart A. Thompson for The New York Times
excerpt:
Early in his State of the Union address, the president addressed a challenge that many of those who have previously faced the Russian leader say is at the crux of Biden's current problems with Vladimir Putin.
"Throughout our history we've learned this lesson — when dictators do not pay a price for their aggression, they cause more chaos," Biden said. "They keep moving. And, the costs and threats to America and the world keep rising."
Republican critics say the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan emboldened Putin, who had put troops on the border well before the Afghan debacle, to attack Ukraine. But government advisers and former U.S. officials from Republican and Democratic administrations say the bigger problem is how the United States and allies have handled past Russian incursions since the mid-2000s — and whether it was possible to stop Putin from doing what he has signaled he will do for more than a decade ...
... Russia has claimed that NATO's eastward expansion was a reneging of commitments made to it during the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Fifteen years ago, Putin delivered a fiery speech to the Munich Security Conference seething about the alliance adding members.
"It represents a serious provocation that reduces the level of mutual trust," he told world leaders. "And we have the right to ask: Against whom is this expansion intended?"
That speech set the stage for what came next: A year later, in 2008, Russia invaded Georgia. In 2014, it annexed Ukraine's Crimea, and later backed separatists in eastern Ukraine.
The United States and allies repeatedly condemned Russia's actions and imposed harsh economic sanctions on Moscow.
But little changed.
Opinion: The Biden blame game on inflation won’t work - by Hugh Hewitt for The Washington Post
Forget Biden's bump in the polls: His Putin problem has only gotten worse - by Keith Naughton, Opinion Contributor for The Hill
What Putin’s invasion means for the future of Switzerland (Neutral Switzerland has taken a clear position with its unprecedented sanctions against Russia. This has far-reaching consequences for its policy towards China and Europe. An analysis.) - opinion piece by Markus Hafliger for SwissInfo.ch
Putin wanted to block Ukrainian NATO membership. Now more countries are eager to join - by Karen Gilchrist for CNBC
... Finland and Sweden are rethinking their long-standing positions of military neutrality, with a majority of voters now favoring membership of the 30-member alliance, according to new opinion polls ...
... Already, Russian warplanes have reportedly been intruding into Swedish airspace.
... A statement from the Russian Foreign Ministry Friday voiced concern about what it described as efforts by the United States and some of its allies to “drag” Finland and Sweden into NATO and warned that Moscow would be forced to take retaliatory measures if they join the alliance.
Finnish Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto said Saturday that “we’ve heard this before.”
“We don’t think that it calls for a military threat,” Haavisto said in an interview with the Finnish public broadcaster YLE ...
“I want to be extremely clear. It is Sweden that itself and independently decides on our security policy line,” Andersson said.
Russian Jets Violate Swedish Airspace As Tensions Remain High In The Region - by Stefano D'Urso for The Aviationist (3/3/22)
Why Sweden is concerned about Russian provocation - BBC News (their You Tube Channel)
Long-neutral Sweden beefs up military defenses to face Russia threat - PBS News Channel
Four Russian Fighter Jets Violate Swedish Airspace - Boom News (You Tube channel - shows videos)
excerpt:
BEIJING, March 8 (Reuters) - Chinese President Xi Jinping on Tuesday called for "maximum restraint" in Ukraine and said China is "pained to see the flames of war reignited in Europe," state media reported, in his strongest statement to date on the conflict.
Putin's War on Ukraine Shows Xi the Dangers of Attacking Taiwan (The fallout from Russia’s invasion may prompt China’s leaders to think twice about taking Taiwan by force.) - Bloomberg News
China wanted to appear neutral between Russia and Ukraine. It isn’t - by Doyle McManus for The Los Angeles Times
How China Embraces Russian Propaganda and Its Version of the War (In much of the world, Russia is losing the information war over Ukraine. In China, though, it’s winning big.) - by Li Yuan for The New York Times
Six nations are backing Putin's Ukraine invasion. Here's Why | Explained - by Hindustan Times (their You Tube channel)
excerpt:
... A few days before he became president, in late 1999, Putin wrote an article in the Russian newspaper Nezavisimaya Gazeta, outlining his task as he saw it. “For the first time in the past 200 to 300 years, Russia faces the real danger that it could be relegated to the second, or even the third tier of global powers,” Putin warned. He called on Russians to unite to make sure that the country remained what he called a “first-tier” nation ...
... Even his then-wife Ludmila, in a rare 2005 interview to Russian newspapers, painted a picture of a taciturn and authoritarian master of the house. She said he could only be asked questions (never about work) when he came home late at night and drank a glass of kefir before bed. And Ludmila said she gave up cooking because her husband never praised her food. “He has put me to the test throughout our life together. I constantly feel that he is watching me and checking that I make the right decisions,” she said. The couple announced a divorce in 2013 ...
India’s stand on Ukraine is shaped by its national interest. It should continue to do so — with us or against us doesn’t work (As the situation develops, it cannot be ruled out that Delhi’s position may change or get calibrated further, especially if confronted by large-scale civilian casualties.) - The Indian Express
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s phone conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin underlined that Delhi will for now stick to a path of strategic ambivalence on the Ukraine crisis. This is a pragmatic choice, one that reflects the complexities of a realist world and Delhi’s own positions on territorial integrity and sovereignty, its own concerns about its unresolved borders, its difficult relationship with its two northern neighbours.
Russia remains India’s biggest and time-tested supplier of military hardware. At the height of the crisis with China in Ladakh, it was to Moscow that Defence Minister Rajnath Singh travelled to ensure that there would be no cut-back in military supplies. And since then, Russia has boosted India’s defence capability against China with the S-400 air defence system. Moscow is also a reliable ally in the UN Security Council. India-Russia ties have ensured that Delhi has not been entirely left out of the conversation on Afghanistan, and in Central Asia, while also providing some leverage with the US. At the same time, the US, the European Union, and UK are all vital partners, and India’s relations with each of them, and the Western world in general, go far beyond the sum of their parts. Moreover, in the UNSC, India has counted on France’s unstinted backing on many issues. It has relied on western support as it deals with an aggressive China on the Line of Actual Control. Prime Minister Modi’s appeal to President Putin on Wednesday night for a “cessation of violence” and for all sides to return to the dialogue table was certainly a notch up from India’s earlier explicitly neutral stance, and carried a hint of the compulsions to get off the fence, though still largely maintaining a balance.
EXPLAINER: Will Russia bring Syrian fighters to Ukraine? - by Zeina Karam for AP News
Syria recruiting troops from its military to fight with Russian forces in Ukraine (Up to 16,000 volunteers to be paid $3,000 a month – a sum up to 50 times a Syrian soldier’s monthly salary) - by Martin Chulov for The Guardian (UK publication)
The Russian invasion of Ukraine happened because the world gave Vladimir Putin a free pass in Syria - by Marwan Safar Jalani for Atlantic Council
When Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, I rushed to a protest organized by Ukrainians in Oxford, England. I, along with fellow Syrians, brought the Syrian revolution flag to the protests to demand an end to the invasion.
At the time, I struggled to put into words why I felt so strongly about Ukraine. Before long, I found out about the forceful Syrian participation in protests across Europe and the United States against the invasion. Pictures of the Syrian revolution flag appeared alongside Ukrainian flags waved at the demonstrations, showcasing identification with the values of freedom and democracy that Moscow is attacking yet again.
Those very values were obliterated when Russia intervened in Syria in 2015 to prop up the authoritarian and brutal regime of Bashar al-Assad. With the help of Moscow, the Assad regime forcibly displaced millions of Syrians; committed crimes against humanity and war crimes by bombing hospitals and schools in Idlib and Aleppo provinces; was largely responsible for killing at least half a million through indiscriminate shelling, massacres, crimes of torture, and sexual violence; led mass disinformation campaigns to depict the Syrian regime’s war against the Syrian people as a “war on terror”; and covered up the use of chemical weapons against civilians.
excerpt:
Hours after Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine on February 24, Russian President Vladimir Putin called his Iranian counterpart Ebrahim Raisi to inform him about Russia’s “special military operation.” During the call, Raisi expressed Iran’s understanding of Russia’s security concerns and affirmed the country’s contention that “NATO expansion is a serious threat to the security and stability of independent nations.”
To an extent, Iran’s support for Russian actions reflects the improvement in bilateral ties, which have grown considerably at the political and military levels over the past decade. Russian and Iranian cooperation in the Syrian Civil War—though not without problems—when combined with their mutual antipathy towards the West, has led to greater coordination on overlapping goals and interests. Iran’s response to the Russian invasion of a sovereign state stands out in its particularly pronounced pro-Russian stance—a contrast to Moscow’s traditional allies, such as Kazakhstan.
Official statements from the Iranian Foreign Ministry have indicated Tehran’s preference for a peaceful resolution of the conflict, while directly or indirectly blaming the United States for provoking or exacerbating the fighting. Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh called for a ceasefire and “immediate negotiations for a political resolution of the crisis” consistent with “respect for international law and human rights.” Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian attributed the current crisis to “NATO’s provocative actions,” adding that Iran doesn’t see “resorting to war as a solution” and underlined the necessity of establishing a ceasefire for a diplomatic solution.
Tehran will likely remain hesitant to support Moscow’s direct challenge to Ukrainian territorial integrity by recognizing the Russian-backed separatist republics in the East. Iran’s abstention during the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) vote on March 2 illustrates this balance between Tehran’s relations with Moscow and its hesitancy to endorse separatist claims. Still, the intervention holds considerable implications for the trajectory of the Russia-Iran relationship, as both face similar challenges from the West and economic sanctions.
Analysis: Ukraine war forces United Arab Emirates to hedge - by Jon Gambrell for AP News
UAE sends aid to Ukraine (The aid is a departure for the Emirates, which has remained neutral on the Russia-Ukraine conflict so far in a reflection of improving UAE-Russia ties.) - Al Monitor
How the Arab World Is Responding to the War in Ukraine - by H.A. Hellyer for Time Magazine (H.A. Hellyer, a scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in DC, is senior associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute in London and fellow at the University of Cambridge.)
excerpt:
A couple of days later, however, the situation had changed. When U.N. General Assembly resolution condemning Russia passed overwhelmingly its backers include the UAE, as well as Saudi Arabia and Egypt, two of the most powerful Arab states. Clearly, Western—particularly American—pressure had done its work. But considering the alignment of the near totality of the Arab political elite with DC, and with the West in general, why had such pressure even been required? Especially over such a clear-cut case of the breaking of a state’s sovereignty, which even the most dictatorial of autocrats in the region are keen to uphold?
Several factors are at play here.
There’s only one Arab leadership that is genuinely pro-Putin: the Assad regime in Syria. Every other Arab state is generally prioritizes its Western ties, and none is trying to pivot to Moscow. But this does not mean Arab states are hostile to the Kremlin. They generally see in Russia a substantial global power that continues have relevance in their region—and sometimes intervenes in ways that are helpful to their interests. Moscow is also a useful capital to publicly ‘flirt’ with when relations are strained with Western capitals (particularly D.C.).
excerpt:
USTRZYKI DOLNE, Poland — Polish people know the pain of being invaded. This is what an opera singer told me as she handed out hot stew to Ukrainian refugees in a tent near the mountainous border between Ukraine and Poland on a chilly night in early March. She had planned to go skiing. She came here instead.
“We were in the same situation in 1939,” said Susan Grey, the opera singer, referring to the Polish people during World War II. “We didn’t have such an opportunity to be welcomed. We didn’t have a place to go.”
It feels as if the entire country of Poland has joined the effort to welcome Ukrainian refugees ...
Almost 26,000 Ukrainian Refugees Have Arrived In Moldova, Romania Since Invasion - Radio Free Europe, Radio Liberty
On Ukraine’s Border, Moldovans Wonder: Where Will Putin Stop? (Moldovans fear that Transnistria, a region run by Russia-backed separatists in eastern Moldova, might be the next target after Ukraine.) - by Patrick Kingsley for The New York Times
A Conversation with Turkish Ambassador Mercan on the Ukraine Crisis - Wilson Center
Ukraine: at the Romanian border CARE International prepares to provide assistance alongside partner SERA - Relief Web
Romania, Ukraine say more troops needed on the Black Sea - by Joe Gould for Defense News
excerpt:
The illegal annexation of Crimea and the Russian invasion of Donbas was the moment of truth for the cohesion of the Visegrad Group. Unfortunately, it has shown very deep differences of position between Poland and its southern partners. On the other hand, Poland could count on full support of Romania in the Ukrainian matters in the EU and NATO. Romania has been pursuing a decidedly pro-American foreign policy, supporting NATO and EU expansion. Economic relations between Romania and Russia are limited and Russia is treated as the most important potential threat for Romanian security. Poland and Romania should utilise this community of interest now for creating a triangle with Ukraine, which needs the support of its Central European neighbors more than ever.
Lithuania, a Vulnerable NATO Link, Readies for Putin (The Baltics, wedged between Russia and Belarus, have been likened to a modern-day West Berlin. Many here worry that if Ukraine falls, they might be next.) - by Katrin Bennhold for The New York Times
excerpt:
... The mood is tense in Lithuania, one of the three small Baltic States and NATO members that spent half of the 20th century under Soviet rule. Everyone here heard the recent warning by President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine: “If we are no more, then God forbid, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia will be next.” ...
A STATE OF EMERGENCY FOR DEMOCRACY - by Hillary Rodham Clinton and Dan Schwerin for The Atlantic
The Russian Elite Can’t Stand the Sanctions (The latest measures are far more effective than Western powers’ past efforts to target Russia’s elite.) - by Brooke Harrington for The Atlantic
Putin Picked the Wrong Country to Mess With - by Anastasiia Lapatina (a reporter at The Kyiv Independent) for The New York Times
... From sharing food to taking up arms, Ukrainians across the country are united in repelling the invaders — and protecting our homeland. President Vladimir Putin was apparently confident that Russia would defeat Ukraine in two or three days. But he picked the wrong nation to mess with ...
... Some stories, like that of 8-year-old Alisa Zhuk from Kyiv, are especially touching. The little girl is selling her drawings for $20 and up, donating all proceeds to the army — to make sure that Ukrainian soldiers have enough food and clothes, she said.
Economic Ties Among Nations Spur Peace. Or Do They? (The Russian invasion of Ukraine strains the long-held idea that shared interests around business and commerce can deflect military conflict.) - by Patricia Cohen for The New York Times
The Cancellation of Mother Russia Is Underway - by Thomas L. Friedman for The New York Times
There Are Many Things Worse Than American Power (Blaming U.S. hegemony for global problems has been easy, but Putin’s invasion of Ukraine offers a preview of a much more dangerous world.) - by Shadi Hamid for The Atlantic
... The coming weeks, months, and years are likely to be as fascinating as they are terrifying. In a sense, we knew that a great confrontation was coming, even if we hadn’t quite envisioned its precise contours. At the start of his presidency, Joe Biden declared that the battle between democracies and autocracies would be the defining struggle of our time. This was grandiose rhetoric, but was it more than that? What does it actually mean to fight such a battle?
In any number of ways, Russia’s aggression has underscored why Biden was right and why authoritarians—and the authoritarian idea itself—are such a threat to peace and stability ...
The Russian Elite Can’t Stand the Sanctions (The latest measures are far more effective than Western powers’ past efforts to target Russia’s elite.) - by Brooke Harrington for The Atlantic
excerpt:
If figures like these are calling for, even demanding, an end to the war, the sanctions are far more effective than past efforts by Western powers to target the Russian elite.
U.S. preparing further sanctions against Russian oligarchs -sources - by Daphne Psaledakis and Matt Spetalnick for Reuters
Quoting Churchill and Shakespeare, Ukraine Leader Vows No Surrender (In a dramatic video address to Britain’s House of Commons, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said he would never capitulate to the invading Russians.) - by Mark Landler and Marc Santora for The New York Times
Two Days of Russian News Coverage: An Alternate Reality of War (To watch news broadcasts of the fighting in Ukraine on the main state channels in Russia is to witness the extent of the Kremlin’s efforts to sanitize its war.) - by Neil MacFarquhar for The New York Times
Ukraine war: Fact-checking Russia's biological weapons claims - by Olga Robinson, Shayan Sardarizadeh and Jake Horton for the BBC (British Broadcasting Service)
Theory About U.S.-Funded Bioweapons Labs in Ukraine Is Unfounded (Prominent conservative voices have mischaracterized remarks from American officials to amplify baseless claims promoted by Russian state media.) - by Linda Qiu for The New York Times
U.S. Biological Weapons in Ukraine—Separating the Facts From the Fiction - by Ewan Palmer for Newsweek
Zelensky slams Russia's claims of biological weapons in Ukraine - by Shawna Chen for Axios
China and QAnon embrace Russian disinformation justifying war in Ukraine - by Sébastian Seibt for France 24
Russia’s bioweapon conspiracy theory finds support in US (Russian allegations of US-funded biolabs in Ukraine gain traction with American conspiracy theorists including QAnon adherents.) - Aljazeera
QAnon Embraces Russia Conspiracy Theories on Ukraine Labs - by Jon Jackson for Newsweek
Who Is Behind QAnon? Linguistic Detectives Find Fingerprints (Using machine learning, separate teams of computer scientists identified the same two men as likely authors of messages that fueled the viral movement.) - by David D. Kirkpatrick for The New York Times
Ron Watkins - Wikipedia
excerpt:
Ronald Watkins (born 1987 or 1988)[1] is an American conspiracy theorist and site administrator of the imageboard website 8kun (formerly known as 8chan).[2][3] He has played a major role in spreading the discredited far-right QAnon conspiracy theory,[4][5] and has promulgated baseless conspiracy theories that widespread election fraud led to Joe Biden's victory over Donald Trump in the 2020 U.S. presidential election.[4][6] He is the son of Jim Watkins, the owner and operator of 8kun.[7]
Who Is Ron Watkins, the QAnon Celebrity Running for Congress? - by Matt Stieb for Intelligencer
Volunteers Cold Call Russians to Counter the Government's Media Control - CBS News
‘The only thing we hear is blasts’: Residents say the port city of Mariupol is nearing a ‘humanitarian disaster.’ - by Masha Froliak, Ainara Tiefenthäler, Haley Willis, Dmitriy Khavin and Sarah Kerr for The New York Times
Russia blocks Facebook inside the country as the Kremlin moves to stifle dissent. - by Mike Isaac and Adam Satariano for The New York Times
I’ve Dealt With Foreign Cyberattacks. America Isn’t Ready for What’s Coming. - by Glenn S. Gerstell (Gerstell is a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the former general counsel of the National Security Agency and Central Security Service.) for The New York Times
excerpt:
As Russian missiles rain on Ukraine, there’s another battle brewing — in the cybersphere. Destructive malware has flooded hundreds of Ukrainian websites and computers since Vladimir Putin announced his invasion. It would be a mistake to assume such attacks will remain limited to Ukrainian targets.
Last week President Biden warned Mr. Putin against Russian cyberattacks on the United States’ critical infrastructure.
Putin's Road to War: Julia Ioffe (interview) - FRONTLINE, PBS
Why the West May Have to Offer Putin a Way Out (The question for world leaders is how to ensure the Russian president is defeated while nevertheless providing him with a route out of the crisis.) - by Tom McTague for The Atlantic
My note: I don't necessarily agree with this article (there are others too that make the same argument). I don't think compromise or concessions are a good idea (or even possible without a lot of injustice) with tyrannical malignant narcissists.
... What makes this situation even more dangerous is that Ukraine is (legitimately and sensibly) being armed and supplied by the very military alliance Russia most fears, NATO. Meanwhile, Russia is being squeezed by an ever-tightening economic blockade designed to force its defeat. On top of all this are credible claims that if this campaign ends in humiliating defeat for Russia, it will prove terminal for not only the country’s national prestige and power, but Putin’s regime itself.
... When a gambler has already lost so much that he will go bankrupt unless he can turn it around, the logical thing for him to do is to continue upping the stakes. This is the desperate opponent the West may now face. Worse: This is the opponent whose bloodstained debts the West may have to to write off.
excerpt:
I don’t know about you, but I’ve found the writings of conventional international relations experts to be not very helpful in understanding what this whole crisis is about. But I’ve found the writing of experts in social psychology to be enormously helpful.
That’s because Vladimir Putin is not a conventional great power politician. He’s fundamentally an identity entrepreneur. His singular achievement has been to help Russians to recover from a psychic trauma — the aftermath of the Soviet Union — and to give them a collective identity so they can feel that they matter, that their lives have dignity.
The war in Ukraine is not primarily about land; it’s primarily about status. Putin invaded so Russians could feel they are a great nation once again and so Putin himself could feel that he’s a world historical figure along the lines of Peter the Great ...
... The end of the Soviet Union could have been seen as a liberation, a chance to build a new and greater Russia. But Putin chose to see it as a catastrophic loss, one creating a feeling of helplessness and a shattered identity. Who are we now? Do we matter anymore?
Like identity politicians everywhere, Putin turned this identity crisis into a humiliation story. He covered over any incipient feelings of shame and inferiority by declaring: We are the innocent victims. They — America, the Westerners, the cool kids at Davos — did this to us. Like other identity politicians around the world, he promoted status resentment to soothe the wounds of trauma, the fears of inferiority ...
... But now it’s all spun out of control. Putin’s identity politics are so virulent because they are so narcissistic. Just as individual narcissists appear to be inflated egotists but are really insecure souls trying to cover their fragility, narcissistic nations and groups that parade their power are often actually haunted by fear of their own weakness. Narcissists crave recognition, but they can never get enough. Narcissists crave psychic security but act in self-destructive ways that ensure they are often under assault.
Putin Has No Good Way Out, and That Really Scares Me - by Thomas L. Friedman for The New York Times
excerpt:
... In the coming weeks it will become more and more obvious that our biggest problem with Putin in Ukraine is that he will refuse to lose early and small, and the only other outcome is that he will lose big and late. But because this is solely his war and he cannot admit defeat, he could keep doubling down in Ukraine until … until he contemplates using a nuclear weapon.
Why do I say that defeat in Ukraine is Putin’s only option, that only the timing and size are in question? Because the easy, low-cost invasion he envisioned and the welcome party from Ukrainians he imagined were total fantasies — and everything flows from that ...
When you get that many things wrong as a leader, your best option is to lose early and small. In Putin’s case that would mean withdrawing his forces from Ukraine immediately; offering a face-saving lie to justify his “special military operation,” like claiming it successfully protected Russians living in Ukraine; and promising to help Russians’ brethren rebuild. But the inescapable humiliation would surely be intolerable for this man obsessed with restoring the dignity and unity of what he sees as the Russian motherland ...
Ukraine’s art and architectural treasures face destruction - by Evan Rail, The New York Times and Seattle Times
‘Things Will Only Get Worse.’ Putin’s War Sends Russians Into Exile. (Thousands of Russians saw their comfortable, middle-class lives fade overnight with the invasion ordered by President Vladimir V. Putin.) - Russians who fled after Russia invaded Ukraine gathered Saturday at a volunteer’s apartment in Istanbul to share their stories and get tips on settling in Turkey. - by Anton Troianovski and Patrick Kingsley for The New York Times
How the Crisis in Ukraine May End (We’re still looking at a range of possibilities, including de-escalation and a great-power conflict.) - by Derek Thompson for The Atlantic
The Russian Invasion Touches Outer Space (The long-held idea that earthly conflict can’t tarnish something as lofty as space travel is only a platitude, not a certainty.) - by Marina Koren for The Atlantic
We Have Reached a Hinge of History (Out of the righteous rage of this moment, perhaps a new world can be born.) - by Ben Rhodes for The Atlantic
My note: This writer has interviewed Navalny for a book and compares him favorably to Ukraine's president, Zelensky. Readers might find it interesting what Navalny, the former mayor of Moscow, thinks (there are quotes from quotes from Navalny in this article)
excerpt:
Europe’s largest invasion since World War II is a logical outcome of Vladimir Putin’s dominance of Russian politics in the 21st century, a reminder that grievance-based ethno-nationalism and authoritarianism lead inexorably to conflict. Putin’s efforts to reconstitute empire and “protect” Russian speakers beyond national borders tap into currents of history running deep underneath our collective experience. And in many ways, the tolls of the war—cities reduced to rubble, civilians caught amid armies, refugees moving en masse across European borders, threats of nuclear annihilation—recall the circumstances that shocked world powers into creating an international system to prevent another world war. Perhaps it is no coincidence that at precisely the time when living memory of World War II is fading away, humanity has failed to heed the lessons of our worst history ...
Excerpt:
A Russian journalist who burst on to a live TV news programme to protest against the war in Ukraine has been reported missing overnight.
Marina Ovsyannikova, an editor at state-controlled Channel 1, was detained after she ran on to the set on Monday holding an anti-war sign.
The sign, clearly visible for a few seconds, read: "No war, stop the war, don't believe the propaganda, they are lying to you here."
Her whereabouts are now unknown. Ms Ovsyannikova's lawyers say they have been searching for their client but have been unable to find her.
excerpt:
He threatened any country that interfered in his invasion of Ukraine with “consequences greater than any you have faced in history.” He placed his nuclear forces on high alert and held exercises with them. And then he proclaimed that Western sanctions amounted to a “declaration of war” against Russia.
The fate of humanity suddenly seems to be in the unsteady hands of an isolated, frustrated, and potentially unhinged Vladimir Putin. And people are understandably panicked about that prospect. “The fact that there’s a very short path from, say, Putin feeling humiliated to the end of life as we know it,” the sociologist Kieran Healy wrote, “is literally insane.”
This Is Why Autocracies Fail - by David Brooks for The New York Times
excerpt:
... People rise through autocracies by ruthlessly serving the organization, the bureaucracy. That ruthlessness makes them aware others may be more ruthless and manipulative, so they become paranoid and despotic. They often personalize power so they are the state, and the state is them. Any dissent is taken as a personal affront. They may practice what scholars call “negative selection.” They don’t hire the smartest and best people.
Putin vs. Democracy (Democracy is on the decline worldwide, and Vladimir Putin is a big factor.) - by German Lopez for The New York Times
China’s Information Dark Age Could Be Russia’s Future (Russia and China have the tendency to learn the worst from each other: tyrants, famines, purges and, now, internet censorship.) - by Li Yuan for The New York Times
My note: It is beyond horrendous what one man has done to this city. It is stealing, and then breaking the property of others, damning the citizens of a hitherto beautiful city with historic buildings and universities to homelessness, poverty, squelch, hunger and PTSD - something that all malignant narcissists like to inflict on someone in their lives ... it is why it has to be a "never again" situation, where "type of person" matters, just as in mate selection matters to keep out of domestic violence situations for women.
THAT THERE WOULD BE WAR AND THAT RUSSIA WOULD START IT
Anne Applebaum, as a result of her insights, forethought and articles, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee scheduled a hearing on March 15 about how the United States should combat authoritarianism. Senator Robert Menendez, chair of the panel, invited Applebaum to speak. The first article, "America Needs a Better Plan to Fight Autocracy" is her written submission to the committee (only lightly edited from the article here - for The Atlantic).
her articles:
America Needs a Better Plan to Fight Autocracy. (By enabling Putin and other global kleptocrats, the West undermined democracy. It’s time to change tactics.) - by Anne Applebaum for The Atlantic
The Impossible Suddenly Became Possible (When Russia invaded Ukraine, the West’s assumptions about the world became unsustainable.) - by Anne Applebaum for The Atlantic
Calamity Again (No nation is forced to repeat its past. But something familiar is taking place in Ukraine.) - by Anne Applebaum for The Atlantic
There Are No Chamberlains in This Story (But there are no Churchills, either. And Ukraine will fight alone.) - by Anne Applebaum for The Atlantic
Why the West’s Diplomacy With Russia Keeps Failing (American and European leaders’ profound lack of imagination has brought the world to the brink of war.) - by Anne Applebaum for The Atlantic
The Reason Putin Would Risk War (He is threatening to invade Ukraine because he wants democracy to fail—and not just in that country.) - by Anne Applebaum for The Atlantic
The U.S. Is Naive About Russia. Ukraine Can’t Afford to Be. (Putin is right about one thing: A free, prosperous, democratic neighbor is a threat to his autocratic regime.) - by Anne Applebaum for The Atlantic
The Bad Guys are Winning (If the 20th century was the story of slow, uneven progress toward the victory of liberal democracy over other ideologies—communism, fascism, virulent nationalism—the 21st century is, so far, a story of the reverse.) - by Anne Applebaum, Illustrations by Michael Houtz
A Dictator Is Exploiting These Human Beings (Belarus’s ruler has used asylum seekers to destabilize the EU. And he’s not the only one profiting politically from their misfortune.) - by Anne Applebaum for The Atlantic
Tucker Carlson Is Stirring Up Hatred of America (His new documentary is designed to sow mistrust of the country’s most important institutions.) - by Anne Applebaum for The Atlantic
Liberal Democracy Is Worth a Fight (Not all battles can be won with language, arguments, conferences, or diplomacy.) - by Anne Applebaum for The Atlantic
Democracies Don’t Try to Make Everyone Agree (Marxist literary scholars and popularizers of critical race theory have one thing in common with certain GOP commentators: a tendency to see their own view of the world as the only valid one.) - by Anne Applebaum for The Atlantic
Democracy Is Surprisingly Easy to Undermine (Politicians around the world are borrowing Trump’s “Stop the Steal” tactics. These false fraud allegations are profoundly dangerous.) - by Anne Applebaum for The Atlantic
Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism
description:
NATIONAL BESTSELLER - How did our democracy go wrong? This extraordinary document ... is Applebaum's answer. --Timothy Snyder, author of On Tyranny
The Pulitzer Prize-winning historian explains, with electrifying clarity, why elites in democracies around the world are turning toward nationalism and authoritarianism.
From the United States and Britain to continental Europe and beyond, liberal democracy is under siege, while authoritarianism is on the rise. In Twilight of Democracy, Anne Applebaum, an award-winning historian of Soviet atrocities who was one of the first American journalists to raise an alarm about antidemocratic trends in the West, explains the lure of nationalism and autocracy. In this captivating essay, she contends that political systems with radically simple beliefs are inherently appealing, especially when they benefit the loyal to the exclusion of everyone else. Elegantly written and urgently argued, Twilight of Democracy is a brilliant dissection of a world-shaking shift and a stirring glimpse of the road back to democratic values.
Disinformation and the Erosion of Democracy featuring Anne Applebaum, the Nobel Prize–winning journalist Maria Ressa, Representative Adam Kinzinger, and Jeffrey Goldberg
excerpt:
With democracies across the globe under assault, the University of Chicago Institute of Politics and The Atlantic are hosting Disinformation and the Erosion of Democracy, a groundbreaking three-day event exploring the organized spread of disinformation and strategies to respond to it.
The conference, April 6 to 8, will explore the roots and scope of the problem, the next-generation threats posed by new technological advances, and the tools and policies required to neutralize them. Panels will also discuss the challenge presented when the term disinformation itself becomes fractious, and the tension between free expression and the need to combat wanton and willful disinformation aimed at eroding it.
To register to attend and to find additional details about participating speakers and our agenda, please visit disinfo2022.com.
Marlette Cartoon
Granlund Cartoon: "Why Does Trump Waste Time Debating Opponents?"
Michael deAdder cartoon: "Everything is Going As Expected"
This is Not a Meme: Ukraine Tweets Hitler-Putin Cartoon Amid War
Granlund Cartoon: Putin Working Remotely
Sometimes cartoonists can say succinctly what writers take many paragraphs to explain.
Do bullies, narcissists like this KNOW they are lying and manipulating when they project; or are they unconscious of it?
ReplyDeleteI ask because I have a brother who fits the depictions above. However, when he is obviously projecting, his face contorts into an expression of such contempt, that I've come to believe he truly believes that the target is all of the things he says-- not realizing he is describing his own actions toward the victim.
This would suggest they are UNCONSCIOUS of thier own actions, feelings, and attitudes...casting them off as projections onto others. Yet, they DO use tactics to cover up their actions, and manipulate, in order to get away with it, and influence people....which also signals they KNOW what they are doing.
So confusing! Does anyone have the answer on this? Are they aware that they are bullying and ruining the repuation of others, or being cruel? Or are they unaware, and truly feel as if THEY are being attacked. (even though in reality they are the ones doing the attacking).
I need to know because I need to know HOW TO FEEL about my brother. Should I feel sorry for him? Allow for some leeway? Should I be furious? Afraid of him? WHAT IS THE TRUTH???
--a bullied sister
Hi Bullied Sister,
DeleteFrom looking at all of the research into this is that mostly they know what they are doing, and mostly they don't change, or want to change. Most of them are always manipulating an outcome that serves their ego and puts them in the spotlight.
Where they tend to be more unconscious is in black and white thinking called "splitting" (you are either deemed as totally loyal to them, or a total enemy). Lack of empathy can sometimes be attributed to a brain issue, an amygdala atrophy, so that part can be attributed to not caring what others are going through.
You said: "We've come to believe he truly believes that the target is all of the things he says-- not realizing he is describing his own actions toward the victim." - this is so typical of narcissists. It's a good way to detect what kind of attack they may be planning too.
I cannot give advice about how to deal with your brother. Most people go to a domestic violence counselor or domestic violence center on what to do about their particular case.
On the first meeting, they usually want to assess the dangers. And victims generally tend to downplay the dangers because abuse has usually become "normalized": it's a type of brainwashing, using constant blaming, that perpetrators use to get you to accept abuse from them.
There are usually dangers when relating to narcissists because they can eventually, in the escalation process, react with rage over a look on your face. And not kidding. Which is to say that they also tend to get worse, with the bullying getting worse, and the erroneous blaming getting more pathological.
It's a tough one because he's a family member and a lot of families put pressure on victims to accept the bullying, or they downplay what is happening to you. That's why professionals are usually sought. The family can be quite hurtful and toxic, and make the situation unbearable for victims. There's nothing like a family bully being coddled and condoned and getting away with it: most bullies take it as a free pass to do anything they want to do to you. And that's how it can become dangerous.
I also ask because this is a world wide human problem. Whether it be bulling in the family, on the schoolyard, or on the global stage, with militaries and countries as flying monkeys. It's all the same dynamic.
ReplyDeleteIf they truly know what they are doing when they project and lie, that changes the strategy for how we should deal with them.
And if they truly aren't conscious of what they are doing, how do we help them become conscious, responsable? How do we get them to start taking ownership of their own emotions, motiviations, desires?????
a bullied sister
I tend to look at narcissism as "throw-back", emotionally primitive and immature.
DeleteThe way forward has to start in childhood: not to accept or expose children to bullying of any kind, and to have a "no tolerance" approach (which has to be societal): parents not allowed to bully, no schoolyard bullying, no sibling bullying. Kids also should not be exposed to war. That is when their brains are being formed. Their brains and emotions will form in the way that they get rewards.
If they are taught to play nice with a sibling in the sandbox, and monitored in terms of how they are treating one another, they are likely to put empathy first. If they are taught to disregard or discipline a sibling, or fight with their sibling, or take their aggressions out in school, if caretakers are neglectful about complaints about bullying, then that can become a problem later on in terms of how perpetrator's empathy has developed. An undeveloped empathy can lead to what we are seeing today: the killing of civilian populations without the perpetrator having regrets.
Good points! The illustration is also as good as what is printed in news magazines for opinion pieces.
ReplyDeletePutin's definitely a sociopath, but then when I examine the dirty dealings of Putin, how are our top leaders any different on both sides of the aisles, they vanquish enemies, conspiracy theorists talk about the "Clinton List" of disposed enemies, but even that aside, here they have their methods too like in the court room and otherwise. Trump definitely punished and vanquished enemies in a variety of ways.
ReplyDeleteI just read a graphic novel I purchased called "Putin's Russia", this guy is probably flying Ukraine flags from his house too but found it interesting just to read over events. Putin did bad things to get to the top. He was involved with the KGB. There were sure a lot of poisoned enemies who died and attempted poisonings. He did wretched things to get into power. Of course I asked.... Don't they all?
Continuing...
ReplyDeleteWe read about Hunter Biden's dirty dealings in the Ukraine, We read about Trump's butt-kissing with Putin, and relationships with Russian oligarchs and funny business with elections. How come Trump's campaign manager and even Jill Stein all had dinner with Putin some years ago?
I don't support WWIII for Ukraine. I think Putin was wrong to invade but the Ukraine has all the food sources and access to the black sea and most of the oil lines go through it. It was madness to want the Ukraine to join NATO, almost like a Cuba next to Russia, and not expect some push back. I find myself kind of sickened about the outrage of invasion of Ukraine when the USA invaded endless Middle Eastern nations and no one cared. Hundreds of thousands of people died in these countries, what's happening in Yemen now with famine, and very few protested. The anti-war movement has been destroyed in America. Now leftists cry for WWIII. It's got me troubled beyond measure. Sometimes I want to puke seeing all these Ukraine flags everywhere, how come no one cared about all these other people who died in "invasions"? I feel sorry for innocent people in general who suffer due to sociopathic leaders and that includes Ukrainians. I sometimes worry Putin is going to use nukes to "win" and then it really will get rolling.
Sometimes I think unless humanity does something about the sociopathy problem we are going to go extinct and now that they have added bioengineered viruses to the weapons list, how long will we even last now?
Our "parasites" have no empathy. You can see it. It's all about money and their billions and a system of dominance and control has led the worse to be leaders. While there's a few representatives and Congress people who aren't sociopaths, and a few scattered here and there who really want to help others or have firm convictions, and this includes state level people too, at this point I believe NPD is basically running the top layer leaders and the majority may be sociopaths.
I'm kind of done with politics, think I reached a point of burn out, where I see no "reform" in the system. Any non-sociopath/NPDs may get an occasional vote out of me but the way this system is run now, its gotten dangerous. The oligarchs have basically destroyed the social fabric now world wide and are working on obtaining even more increased power. Humanity is in a very dangerous and precarious place now. Most people are fooled by their propaganda and lies as well. I see WWWII as a likely possibility on the horizon.
I dare say the majority of the elite are full blown sociopaths, machaveillains and dark triad. Some do it with more fake smiles on their faces, while Putin in cold Russia doesn't have to bother with as many fake smiles. They all talk about religion, honor, and say the "right things" but they only care about themselves. You ever wonder why some of these near 90 year olds don't go retire and enjoy their grandchildren? The lust for power is too great, they can't unwrap their fingers around it. That's why we got a gerentocracy going right now in the USA.
Their vision of the future a la Klaus Schwab is dystopian beyond measure. The level of power they are obtaining at this level of technology too will be insane.
Anyhow good article.
ReplyDeletePutin definitely was going to be a problem. Google Third Rome, some believe Russia is going to be the "third Rome" and obtain power.
I'm surprised Putin waited this long to start some of his "conquests" but the timing may not have been up to him.
The world elite definitely seem intent on having the USA lose reserve currency status, and more, the chessboard is being reshuffled.
Hi Peeps,
ReplyDeleteThanks for all of your comments.
One of the reasons I started this blog was to write pieces like this. Granted I care about how narcissism and psychopathy effect individuals and families, but this is where it can end up - in the emergence on the world stage of despotic tyrants who are on a mission to wantonly destroy.
And the reason they are so destructive is because they live in a world where they are a bully or bullied (mostly starting in childhood, with the attitude that there is no other way to live than these two extremes). So murdering people, including children and the elderly, and destroying homes, shows the world that they are a dangerous bully. They are practically inferring, "I am horrifically destructive, so you better not mess with me or I'll be spreading it around!"
It is having the opposite effect, of course ...
Professor Brian Klaas (who I feature above in the "video section" and "further reading section") makes the point that people who crave power are usually going to have some stand-out narcissistic traits and among some of them you will find psychopathic traits too. The Catch-22 in all of this is that people who do not particularly want or need power often are much better leaders than most candidates who are fighting to "win" power.
The problem of doling out power is that it is now a "winning game" of convincing and throwing your opponent under the bus with nasty, often untrue, smear campaigns. Who likes to do that? Narcissists. Most of the rest of us want no part of these games and have the attitude that "You like me or you don't like me. I'll be fine if you don't like me."
For instance, Ukraine got lucky with Zelensky. He's not on a popularity quest. He's on a quest to save the lives of his countrymen. Unlike the Afghanistan leaders, he didn't run away. He's not arrogant or on a pedestal according to many of the world leaders and journalists who have met him. Sometimes, leadership ends up in the right hands, with an "everyman" as it did with him, but too often it does not.
And unfortunately it has to do with the blind, un-investigative worship of some citizens of the "strongman". "Strongman" as defined by Wikipedia is:
"A strongman is a type of authoritarian political leader. Political scientists Brian Lai and Dan Slater identify strongman rule as a form of authoritarian rule characterized by autocratic military dictatorships, as distinct from three other categories of authoritarian rule, specifically machine (oligarchic party dictatorships); bossism (autocratic party dictatorships); and juntas (oligarchic military dictatorships)."
We even see those types in narcissistic/psychopathic families as golden children. The bully golden child is worshipped for having traits of man-liness, but also for having traits of power and domination ... Society can worship this type too, just as it does in the family as evidenced by Putin getting an 80 percent approval rating in his own country in the last few weeks.
Of course, it's all based on false narratives and mirages, but that is how it goes in these situations, as we know ...
Continued ...
Hi Thanks Lise.
DeleteI liked this article, you know, I don't see anyone else writing about Putin's sociopathy. Just look at the guy, even how he rode that horse in that one picture. He is kind of another Napoleon type, short, and small, but blustering and hard faced.
Its true we got the microcosm scale and macrocosm scale. A few times during all this Covid stuff, I started ranting the NPDs and sociopaths really like destroying lives. It's like we can't get away from them.
World history has been a long sordid tale of endless tyrants and monsters and while more developed nations suffer many third world ones have for eons with their endless coups and other problems. No stable society at all for them even for short periods of time.
One can tell Putin grew up in a hardcore way, don't they all where they learn to be the wolf among the sheep to survive. Bully or be bullied. Yeah they are taught there is no other way to live. Many NPDs and sociopaths train their children to be just like them. I read in that graphic novel Putin's father was a member of the NKVD--precusor to KGB and was a soldier. What did he do in life, his son inherited his ways.
Yeah I read about those apartment blocks being destroyed, the whole thing is "Don't mess with me". or if you do I'll screw you up. That's the whole mentality screwing up this entire world.
I think one problem we have is those who even want these positions of "leadership" are those hungry for power and that's how we get the worse personalities "in charge" So you end up with NPD on the lesser end, and sociopathy and psychopathy in the case of many. The glad-handing, lies, gaslighting and narc traits seem to get them elected easier.
I don't know how we could get leaders who aren't interested in power, that's a problem humanity needs to solve. Ordinary people don't want to play the dirty games, you are right. I think there were a few enclaves of family lines who saw themseves as statesmen, etc, where they saw power as a "duty" but even those were rare. Some of the Kennedy's may fall into that, but they definitely had NPD/sociopathy going in the family line with Joe and Rose Kennedy.
Zelensky I'm not sure what to think, he used to be an actor but may care about his own country and people. He may just want the country to survive at all. I hope he is not using his position to enrich himself but really for decent purposes.
Yeah most of the world remains in the authoritarianism vision with dictatorships and more running the world. I do know the USA has had much corruption etc, but seems like there were some ideas of freedom, that are definitely at risk today.
That's one dark part of human nature, I think we remain trapped in. Most people worship power and or the "strong-man", I saw it in my family where to be "weak or sensitive" was the greatest evil. The meanest ones got the most acclaim. I've read Putin is loved by Russians, I know they may do their own propaganda, so hard to know, the dissenters wouldn't get a voice but he has to have enough who support him to hold onto power in the first place.
Yes the golden children are worshipped and sadly most often the biggest bully and dictator....
Hi Peeps,
DeleteYou said "Yes the golden children are worshipped and sadly most often the biggest bully and dictator...." - I really think this comes from our hunter-gatherer past, to see bullies as warrior/protectors of a tribe rather than as menaces. That vision is out-dated in the modern world, and dangerous, therefore throw-back.
I have a long line of politicians in my family on both sides. The most recent ones were pretty good people in my book. My great uncle was part of a team of congressmen who helped draft the Social Security Act under FDR. Making sure the elderly can be self sufficient in old age is a pretty noble cause, yes? He lived simply, wasn't self-indulgent, and was mild-mannered. Hardly arrogant. Not even close to being a bully. That kind of politician seems to be a rarity these days ... today senators and congressmen increasingly use their role in government to be about staying in power on top of their agenda list, parroting a popular leader from their own party, and in making sure they get votes more than doing good work, and putting a lot of thought into their own decisions. It seems to be more about building an alliance "against" the other party rather than going with your own vision about what is right and what is wrong. It creates spinelessness and rancor if a party member goes out of the role of being a sycophant to the party line and agenda. Then there is the censorship of Liz Cheney.
And in the meantime, it is also splitting the country, making us more vulnerable to attack. It's no secret that Putin's operatives want to sow seeds of division to bring "America down."
I may be wrong, but I think a lot of our population in the USA respects members who step outside party lines to make a stand, based on principal.
Although I also realize I could be biased and short-sighted as I come from a part of the country that is pretty Independent in terms of voting. I worked as an election inspector for decades, and people here change their party constantly, depending on which primary they want to vote in. In other words, they aren't really affiliated with a party. In NY Independents can't vote in primaries, so you are forced to choose, and instead of being forced, people just change parties a lot. Many here were even Bernie-Trump people in 2016 (we tend to think of Bernie and Trump as opposites, but here they looked at them as similar in that they seemed more like Independents and weren't party "followers"). However, from all I can gather, many bailed on Trump. Insurrection and Trump only endorsing Republican candidates who go along with the election being stolen is particularly anti-Independent (it especially scoffs at independent-mindedness, i.e. he isn't endorsing candidates who think for themselves and about doing what is best for the country's citizens; rather he is endorsing candidates who will line up and say the election is stolen more forcefully the next time it goes to another candidate other than him, thereby increasing the likelihood of over-turning the next election more effectively ...).
However, I can't believe either agenda bodes well for his re-election. Can't most people see through this? But I also don't know if other parts of the country are so enthralled with Trump that they will hear of nothing else other than him being a constant fixture, in one way or another, in the White House. Even to the point of backseat driving the agendas perhaps. I just don't know. A lot of us are blind in only knowing what is going on in our own little part of the country.
Anyway, thanks again for your thoughts.
On how safe voting is ... it is pretty fool-proof. At least in NY. You have to prove residency when you register.
DeleteYou vote in your own neighborhood.
When you vote, you fill out a paper ballot. That paper ballot is then inserted into a machine. The paper ballots have to match what is in the machine. When the votes are counted, there are a lot of inspectors from both parties who come in and tally the votes (the paper ballots as well as what the machine tallied to make sure there is a match and that the ballots were filled in correctly).
There isn't a way for the machine to change who you voted for without it being noticed. The machine can't eat the papers: the mechanisms are visible upon opening the machine. Also the number of ballots are counted by inspectors, so that it has to match what is in the machine too.
The press makes sure that both parties agree as to the count of the votes (if they are the kind of journalists who vet the outcome).
The papers go in a locked box that have to be opened with two keys, one for each party. These papers live at the county election office in case a politician wants to contest votes.
Mail-in ballots are safe when they reach the election office. Ballots are handled the same way as they are at the end of a voting day, with inspectors from both parties.
Before they reach the office, I suppose it is possible for delivery to be late, or sent to the wrong address, and other issues, but most mail gets to where it is supposed to go. It is safer to vote in person if you can do it that way.
As for what is happening in Ukraine, I find it deeply disturbing. We know that Putin isn't going to stop (Chechnya, Georgia, Syria and Crimea) where civilians are the main targets, and where half of them can be displaced from their own homes.
ReplyDeleteI agree there have been many genocides in our human past, even on American soil, but we need to get past it ... And it is frustrating to see this backward trend, isn't it?
Most people do not like seeing bullying where someone is throwing their weight around like this. I think the responses have been pretty natural and not contrived. Again, the help being given is not for a popularity contest. There's a lot that could go wrong for Biden. He could get undeservedly blamed if Putin escalates. We know from human behavior that this happens where the instigator gets off the hook and someone else is blamed for instigating "the wrath" of the tyrant (as if the tyrant should be excused for instigating it all by himself).
Many people back off from helping victims of bullying for this reason. But the wise know that helping victims is the humane thing to do, and that the popularity contest is not all that important.
Narcissists will always think the popularity contest is "the most important" thing to achieve in life.
In work places you'll see that narcissists kiss a boss's butt, but the true empath (and even scapegoated workers) will typically stand up for the bullied and disenfranchised instead. I've worked in plenty of toxic environments where bullying was going on, even in places you would least expect it. I've also worked in places where no bullying is going on, and they are wonderful. The contrast is "night and day". Anyway, the blaming and counter-blaming about who is responsible for the bully and the bullying is what I see happening on the world stage too ...
I also think that this time is different ... How many Groznys and Ukraines are we going to sit by and watch burn down from the same dictator?
How many nukes and poisonous gasses should a bully have? How many erroneous prison sentences should he make?
And I agree with you on America having its own oligarchy. We are supposed to have anti-trust laws to keep that from happening. We did in the past. But until people rise up against America adopting and subsidizing its oligarchy, the silence is placating, and lets it happen in ever greater instances of it. And as we speak, Elon Musk is trying to take over Twitter ...
Excellent discussions and ideas here. I'm glad others think about these matters - even more deeply and profoundly than I do. Someone needs to.
ReplyDeleteThank you 500 pound peep, other anonymous commenters, and especially Lise for this blog.
Question: how much of humanity is grappling with or afflicted by the issues described here? The narcissism, projection...I suppose it all boils down to individuals REFUSING TO BE RESPONSIBLE for their own issues/emotions and thus PROJECTING everything unpleasant they don't wish to deal with onto innocent others. What percentage of the population has this problem? It seems rampant to me, but I may be biased as I grew up in family system like this (narcisstic parent; golden child; scapegoat, etc) where the powerful at the top REFUSED to take ownership of anything bad either within themselves or acts they committed, and instead projected onto an innocent target. Smearing, and goading the rest of the family to do the same. So that they never felt guilt or bad for being abusive if the rest of the family was on their side, doing the same thing, adopting the same attitude. So when I see bullying in the school, in society, slander and wars...I may be seeing it everywhere, when if fact it is not as big a problem as I make it out to be. At least, that is my question. What percentage of people are decent? What percentage are like my family? If most systems and communities are like my family, there is no hope for change.
Bullies will never "see the light" and change for the better. They will only dig in more self-righteously and seek to destroy anyone or any system that challenges them to be better.
Do you suppose there are pockets of decent people here and there within this sick human population OR are most people in fact decent and it is just the narcisstic, power hungry few at the top making the most noise? My experience suggests the former, but my experience is just that. I am open to the idea that the rest of the world isn't just like my family. But it sure looks like it.
What say you? Are most human systems like this (with pockets of decent folks here and there)? Or are most people decent (with pockets of bullies/narcissists sprinkled here and there-albeit in positions of power).
-a bullied sister
I've often wondered if all of humanity isn't one big abusive system. For example, I've yet to see a classroom that didn't exhibit the same old patterns of bullying (mimicking the very same dynamics within an abusive household); there's always a scapegoat..the class picks on him...others join in or look the other way...the teacher (like the parent within the dysfunctional home) sticks their head in the sand to the bullying , or worse adds to it, siding with the bullies. Bullies are never held to account and thrive in these systems.
DeleteSame scenarios play out in society all over the place. There is aggression and dysfunction displayed to a vulnerable other, and the vast majority deliberately avoid seeing or doing anything about it. Whether it's denial or pretending not to see because it is convenient. In order to avoid responsibility and still feel good about themselves, they (those who are in a position to do something about the bullying) double down on the narrative that they "deserve it", are "no good", or "it isn't happening." If the recipient of bullying still insists that the mistreatment is happening at this point, then they are labeled "crazy" or "troubled."
Whether on the macro or micro scale, this dynamic plays out in society everywhere, over and over again. It's been going on since recorded history. Sure, there are some families where this doesn't seem to happen, but then the children from this healthy family go to any school and become exposed to this dynamic in some for or fashion inevitability. Then witness it in politics, in the workplace, on the global stage.
My only question is, is dysfunctional bullying, abuse, and scapegoating the way of humanity, or just the way human systems work in patriarchal societies? Patriarchal societies are inherently hierarchical, competitive, with top down aggressions, and always have someone at the bottom of the pecking order by design.
These are excellent questions. I think it largely depends on who is "in charge" as to how bullying and abuse is being perceived and treated. For instance, as a youngster (under the age of 18), I was in a school as you described with bullying largely overlooked, but I was also in a school where bullying was not overlooked or permitted at all, and where it was confronted at the earliest stage.
DeleteAs a teacher, I did not allow it to go on at all and most of my colleagues nipped it in the bud early on too. Then some students, frustrated by their inability to bully their classmates, tried to threaten or bully their teachers instead. And then the cameras in every classroom were rolling 24/7, and the school authorities were pulling the pertinent parts of the videos to build a case. When the parents were called in for a discussion about their child's behavior, some would deny the bullying and insist it wasn't their child doing it - when the video was rolling right in front of their eyes (unbelievable isn't it? But denial can be a huge part of some types of parenting! And parents who have bully children tend to be in denial the most).
Democracy takes vigilance to preserve it, but so does peace (by not letting bullies get into positions of authority, amongst other precautions).
As far as the war in Ukraine is concerned, one reason many countries in the world became galvanized is because of cameras: showing residences and civilians being targeted (as compared to purely military targets), and atrocities being committed. Without cameras rolling, and without showing the civilian toll, many countries may have reacted with denial or with sticking their heads in the sand: a "that's them and our country has peace and that's all we care about."
Zelensky is more of the new world kind of leader (a non-authoritarian, anti-bullying, humble and non-narcissistic leader): he's not running away, cowering, using the situation to enrich himself, or letting the human toll go unnoticed. He's also fighting back against the notion that Russia must be awarded some territory (he knows it would be a temporary "fix" and that Russia would regroup and be back to chip away another piece of Ukrainian territory with even worse weaponry, because he understands how bullying works). I saw a quote by Zelensky somewhere that went something like this: "We appreciate that America stood by us to keep Ukrainian children from being murdered in a war, and we stand by America's children from being murdered in peace" (about the latest school shooting in Texas).
So, it is possible to bring our society out of the quagmire of narcissism, and if we care about the human race surviving, and perhaps even the very planet surviving, we have no choice but to do it.
Hi Bullied Sister,
ReplyDeleteRates of full blown Narcissistic Personality Disorder are around 5 percent now:
https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/9742-narcissistic-personality-disorder
Some other publications put it at 6.8 percent, and older publications put it at one percent. The one percent is more of what it used to be pre-internet, so it has increased.
Here is another article where rates for men with the disorder are higher than women:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2669224/
And yes, modern societies are becoming more narcissistic:
https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/discussion/opinion-why-are-we-becoming-so-narcissistic-heres-the-science
But besides the full blown personality disorder, having traits of narcissism has, perhaps, increased even more. It has been argued by some psychologists that big city living, with people coming and going, and with more lures to be unethical, and distractions from raising children the right way, that it has contributed to the narcissism of society, especially with social media being so prevalent in our lives too. It is very easy to find people who think just like you do on social media, and that includes the good and bad: if you like to scapegoat others, you will find others who like to scapegoat too.
As for how narcissistic traits come to be? Mostly parents: either they excessively praise their child and let him get away with unethical behaviors, or they neglect the child:
Here is one source:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7216544/
another:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-legacy-distorted-love/201802/the-real-effect-narcissistic-parenting-children
another:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/women-autism-spectrum-disorder/202005/the-narcissistic-family-legacy
And yes, you are right about this: "I suppose it all boils down to individuals REFUSING TO BE RESPONSIBLE for their own issues/emotions and thus PROJECTING everything unpleasant they don't wish to deal with onto innocent others. What percentage of the population has this problem? It seems rampant to me, but I may be biased as I grew up in family system like this (narcisstic parent; golden child; scapegoat, etc) where the powerful at the top REFUSED to take ownership of anything bad either within themselves or acts they committed, and instead projected onto an innocent target."
It is hard to change that dynamic within the family because blame-shifting is so knee-jerk and ingrained for them, and even when you point out that they are doing it and that it is creating discord, evil, abuse, injustice, estrangement, they most often double down on it (proving they can't move beyond it).
Once all of the realizations set in that you are dealing with a cement-style narcissistic family, and know that they will remain stuck, and when you become disgusted with all of the blame shifting and projection, that their way of doing "life" is not for you, it can be so freeing and life-affirming (and even incredibly enlightening) to move beyond it. But not without grieving first. Part of the grief is realizing they are not capable of real loving (loving without the manipulations present in that last article in this comment above).
After healing, the narcissistic family style can seem so brittle that you no longer take the barbs to heart: you know it is all about them wanting to manipulate you into a role. Realizing that you've been toyed with your entire life, and the injustice of it, can make you angry and empowered enough not to live "their way", and that is when you know that you have healed. Those realizations mean peace, real love, a profound and wonderful relationship with your own child or children, especially if they aren't exposed to narcissists, and graduation from a hitherto miserable life (the miserable lifestyle of walking on eggshells or being the narcissist's scapegoat).
It's all worth it.