By educating voters about individuals with Narcissistic Personality Disorder – a particularly dangerous and power-seeking type of high-conflict personality.
It never ceases to amaze me how little we learn in schools about the most important subjects in life. As far as I know, these topics are not included in the curriculum of any school.
This irresponsible and dangerous practice must stop.
I feel compelled to write this article in the hope of raising awareness that can lead to meaningful change. Every individual who becomes aware of this issue contributes to a larger shift in perspective. If even a few more people recognized the dangers of voting for someone with NPD and inform their friends, that might make a difference in the outcome of an election. Change begins in the minds of people. Awareness of a problem eventually paves the way to a solution.
Democracy is the most widespread system of governance on this planet, yet many people are not well-informed enough to make sound voting decisions, particularly when it comes to recognizing the pathology behind the charisma of power-hungry psychopaths who instigate wars and undermine efforts to combat climate change.
The good news is that avoiding fatal voting decisions doesn’t require years of education. In fact, it takes very little—sometimes, just reading one article on Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) can make a difference.
Why focus on Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD)? Because leaders with NPD are the ones who manipulate people into wars and make decisions that harm the environment once they gain power.
They are elected more frequently than mentally stable individuals because they not only crave power but also excel at manipulating the masses. This personality type constitutes a disproportionate number of candidates for powerful roles, possessing a dangerous blend of manipulative skill, dishonesty, and moral corruption—traits that, unfortunately, enable them to secure positions of authority more easily than well-balanced individuals.
And that’s really bad news for humanity.
It is crucial that everyone with the right to vote becomes informed and capable of recognizing the signs of dangerous traits of the candidates such as Slobodan Milosevic, Jair Bolsonaro, Victor Orban, Donald Trump, Adolf Hitler and the like. What these people have in common is Narcissistic Personality Disorder.
They are exceptionally skilled at using lies to provoke people’s lowest emotions and fears, convincing them that their neighboring nation or a minority is to blame for all their problems and suffering. This incites hatred towards the “bad” group, facilitating the path to conflict and war. Pathological narcissists exploit any irrelevant differences between two groups to create an artificial divide of “them” versus “us.” In reality, the true divide is between “them”, the evil manipulators and “us” the rest of humanity, the normal folks, uninterested in power games, conflict, and war.
And it’s not just the uneducated; even intelligent and educated individuals can be easily manipulated by those with NPD traits in positions of power.
Schools and the media fail to educate people about why positions of power attract psychopaths and how to recognize them. Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) predators exploit this critical failure.
I still remember the speeches delivered by Slobodan Milosevic, the Serbian dictator responsible for the Balkan wars, as he addressed vast crowds of Serbian people in large fields and squares across Serbia and Kosovo, sowing the seeds of hatred. He masterfully brainwashed a majority of the Serbian population, convincing them that Croats were harming Serbs living in Croatia. He argued that these Serbs needed saving and that a Serbian republic should be established wherever there was even one Serb, to protect them from the hostile Croatian neighbors and reclaim the “Greater Serbia” that he claimed historically belonged to them.
The reason narcissists' lies are so powerfully convincing is that they first convince themselves; they genuinely believe the lies they tell are, in fact, the truth.
Milosevic’s speeches were so persuasive that few thought to question them. The reality was that the overwhelming majority of Croats and Serbs in Croatia and Bosnia actually helped each other and lived in harmony. Many fell in love and married without regard for nationality or religion. Any conflicts that had arisen were limited to a handful of nationalitst individuals.
The seeds of hatred were planted and spread in the minds and hearts of the majority of the Balkan people by this one manipulative man. The consequences of those seeds have been the deaths of many innocent people.
Negative feelings toward a minority or a neighboring nation exist everywhere in the world, but without an NPD leader to transform these feelings into hatred and a readiness to kill, they remain insignificant and harmless.
Sometimes, in the absence of a neighboring nation or a minority that would serve as a perfect target, an NPD leader will exploit existing differences within a nation to divide and polarize people, making them ready to kill each other and instigate a civil war.
Individuals with NPD that are not in positions of political power cause division and conflict within their organizations and families. In these settings, narcissistic traits like manipulation, lack of empathy, pathological lying, gaslighting, playing the victim, triangulation, smear campaigns, and the need to dominate disrupt harmony, creating ongoing tension and trauma for those around them. In families, this can manifest as favoritism, emotional abuse, and scapegoating, while in organizations, narcissists create hostile work environments, pit colleagues against one another, or take credit for others’ work. They often accuse others of the very things they themselves are guilty of—lying, selfishness, or manipulation. When individuals with NPD are in political or military leadership, their traits can have far-reaching consequences. Some experts argue that narcissistic leaders have historically incited wars and large-scale conflicts due to personal vendettas, delusions of grandeur, and the desire for dominance. They disregard the well-being of a population to pursue aggressive actions that align with their grandiose self-image. At their core, wars reflect the dynamics of large-scale narcissistic abuse.
It’s been almost 20 years since Slobodan Milosevic died. While much of the hatred in the Balkans has subsided, it has not completely disappeared. In a large portion of any population exposed to the manipulation of a pathologically narcissistic leader, the fabricated polarization and hatred often endure for centuries, even millennia, far outliving the manipulator who first created them. These long-standing divisions are passed down through generations, creating a fertile foundation for another high-conflict leader to ignite tension and start a war in the future.
Both sides in any war are victims of the manipulative leader. The true enemy is NPD itself, and the ignorance surrounding it.
Fighting with a narcissist is like wrestling in the mud: no matter your intentions, you’ll end up dirty, while they delight in dragging you down to their level.
We have to ensure that every single voter is familiar with Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD).
We need to be able to recognize the red flags of NPD and go to the polls with a commitment to vote against dangerous candidates, even if the alternative is not our ideal choice.
This is crucial for the survival of the human race.
Donald Trump serves as a good example of what to look out for. His rhetoric against Mexicans reminded me a lot of Milosevic’s language, and it genuinely frightened me. I feared it could lead to war. While few people outside the Balkans witnessed Milosevic’s speeches, Trump’s behavior was seen worldwide, giving the entire planet a chance to learn from the American experience. Even though covert narcissism is more subtle and harder to detect, politicians and leaders tend to exhibit an overt, more recognizable form of narcissism. Donald Trump very clearly exemplifies the personality traits and rhetoric that people should vote against.
About 85 to 90% of the people on this planet genuinely want to do good, help each other and live in harmony. However, this percentage is disproportionately smaller among those in positions of power. We must not allow the 10-15% of humans with disordered power-hungry personalities to bring out the worst in us and brainwash us into conflicts and wars.
NPD personalities are as destructive to their families as they are to the nations they lead. They epitomize the domestic abuser, meticulously curating a positive public facade while unleashing outright evil on their loved ones behind closed doors. Protect yourself. Protect humanity. Recognize these traits. Do not support or choose these individuals, be it in your private relationships or public roles.
Update:
I wrote the article above in 2016 and named it How to Prevent Sociopathic Leaders from Destroying the Human Race. While there is no doubt that the main issue is the predictable patterns of behavior characteristic of Narcissistic Personality Disorder, the distinction between sociopathy and psychopathy is not that clear. I changed the title to How to Prevent Psychopaths from Destroying the Human Race because, according to ChatGPT, narcissists are typically more psychopaths than sociopaths.
Are Narcissists More Psychopaths or Sociopaths?
- More Psychopaths:
- The controlled, calculating, and manipulative nature of psychopaths aligns more closely with how narcissists exploit others to meet their needs.
- Both psychopaths and narcissists lack empathy and see others as tools to achieve their goals.
- Less Sociopaths:
- Sociopaths’ impulsivity and emotional outbursts are less consistent with the composed, self-serving nature of most narcissists.
- However, narcissists who act impulsively when their self-image is threatened might show behaviors resembling sociopathy.
Trump’s behaviors (e.g., manipulation, a lack of remorse for controversial actions, and grandiosity) align with narcissistic traits more than classic psychopathy or sociopathy. While he exhibits traits like a lack of empathy and impulsive decision-making (sociopathic tendencies), he also meticulously crafts his image and exploits others strategically (psychopathic traits). His narcissism may overshadow true ASPD classification.
Learn more about NPD:
https://www.uu.nl/en/node/541/donald-trump-textbook-narcissist
