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Sycophants or Sociopaths? And How Long Before One Becomes the Other? [1]
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Date: 2025-05-15
Sociopathy:
a pattern of antisocial behaviors and attitudes, including manipulation, deceit, aggression, and a lack of empathy for others. . . . Sociopaths may or may not break the law, but by exploiting and manipulating others, they violate the trust that the human enterprise runs on.
Sycophant:
a person who tries to win favor from wealthy or influential people by flattering them. Also known as brown-nosers, teacher's pets or suck-ups.
(The Cambridge dictionary adds that a sycophant is insincere, but I’m not sure that’s always true with our current crop of boot-lickers.)
It can be reasonably said that Trump’s past and especially present behaviors are well-described by the DSM-5 Criteria for Antisocial Personality Disorder (sociopath):
A pervasive pattern of disregard for and violation of others' rights, occurring since age 15
The individual is at least 18 years old
Evidence of Conduct Disorder with onset before age 15 Additionally, the person must exhibit at least three of these behaviors: Failure to conform to social norms and lawful behaviors Deceitfulness, repeated lying, use of aliases, or conning others Impulsivity or failure to plan ahead Irritability and aggressiveness, often resulting in physical fights or assaults Reckless disregard for safety of self or others Consistent irresponsibility, failing to sustain work or honor financial obligations Lack of remorse, indifference to or rationalizing hurting others
This is NOT a clinical diagnosis — I’m not a psychologist and I haven’t examined the patient. But a retired Harvard professor of psychiatry, along other experts, called Trump a successful sociopath back in 2019 (and there’s another reason for Trump to hate Harvard).
(Note: a fact-check analysis published just today says calling Trump a sociopath is “mostly false” because it “is largely based on subjective interpretations of his behavior rather than concrete, empirical evidence.” In other words, Trump has not — for good reason — undergone a clinical evaluation.)
(There are also overlaps and differences between sociopath and psychopath. But I digress.)
The question I pose now is whether those around Trump, those enabling and validating him, are themselves sociopaths or (just) sycophants. Trump certainly made sure to choose only sycophants this time around. But he may not have been so keen on having a sociopath on his team. (Which may help explain why Elon Musk, who also been called a sociopath — again, not clinically — is being eased out of the limelight.)
Of additional concern: The longer one sucks up to a sociopath, does that make it more likely that one will also start to exhibit sociopathic behavior? I realize that this would not fit the DSM-5 criteria given above, since it requires a pattern of behavior starting in childhood. But being that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, imitating a sociopath may — I say as an amateur — lower the inhibitions that would otherwise restrain someone with a sociopathic inclination. Are we witnessing the development of an entire sociopathic government?
And a further concern: to the degree that Trump’s evidently sociopathic behavior is approved of by members of the general population, it also gives, how shall I say, dormant or hidden sociopaths license to relax their inhibitions and act out openly. I think we are seeing this already in the behavior of groups from ICE to the Proud Boys.
Everything Trump touches dies. But the death throes this time are far more consequential.
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