I am dismayed by such naivete, but not entirely surprised. For anyone who studies the nature of evil and its origins in psychological pathology, it is not a surprise that persons who are not fully familiar with this problem can be so easily taken in. It is, however, a perennial problem, and until normal people learn this most essential thing about our world, they are helpless, and there is no hope for change for the better. The fact is: we ALREADY have an American leader like Hitler.

I frequently get emails and letters from readers who simply cannot understand how psychopaths - and other related or similar psychological deviants - can move into positions of power, how they can "put one over" on so many people. It strikes the average person as preposterous that even they can be taken in by a deviant. As I wrote in my blogpost, "The Cult of the Plausible Lie":

"Our culture agrees on the signs of lying. Ask anyone how to tell if someone is lying and they will tell you that they can tell by "lack of eye contact, nervous shifting, or picking at one's clothes." Psychologist Anna Salter writes with dry humor: "This perception is so widespread I have had the fantasy that, immediately upon birth, nurses must take newborns and whisper in their ears, "Eye contact. It's a sign of truthfulness." [Anna C. Salter, Ph.D.]

The practiced liar: a category of liar that even experts find it difficult to detect.

Problem is, even when dealing with people who are not practiced liars, such as college students who have volunteered for a research study of lying, most observers are not as good as they think in detecting deception. The research shows consistently that most people - even most professional groups such as police and psychologists - have no better than a chance ability to detect deception. Flipping a coin would serve as well. [Anna C. Salter, Ph.D.]

All of us have many encounters with other people in our lives; most of these encounters are stimulating and encourage us to do our best. There are other kinds of encounters that always and inevitably, in one way or another, lead to destruction. This is accomplished by individuals who are quite charming, often evoking feelings of admiration or protectiveness and even "instant likeability" in their victims. These are individuals who give the right impression, who look and sound like superior specimens of humanity, and carefully conceal the dark side of their nature; a side that is deceitful and manipulative in ways difficult for a normal person with conscience to even conceive. They are capable of infiltrating any kind of social or organizational group, creating a "power base of helpers" in a covert way that escapes all but the most careful scrutiny, and ultimately generating confusion, tumultousness, bad feelings, and eventual destruction of the social ties holding the normal people together.

The destructive personality traits of the psychological deviant - the psychopath in particular - are so well hidden that they are virtually invisible to most of the people with whom they interact. They often tell others how ambitious they are to achieve a particular goal, and they will include a hard-luck story about how they have overcome incredible odds to achieve something remarkable, (growing up poor or underprivileged, or abused as a child), but over time, it will be noticed that they are actually quite lacking in conscientiousness, diligence, and hard work. Somehow, they always manage to create a "support team" that does the actual work for them while they take the credit.

Psychopaths are quite adept at weaving stories that are very emotionally stimulating. They can do this with a fantastic, deft touch, restraining a furtive tear, or clearing a cracking voice at the right moment, so that even the most practical of normal humans is taken in and convinced that here is the "real thing," a noble human being who needs my help, my support, my all.

They are master manipulators, able to sense with ease what their target wants and needs to hear. Personal interactions are where they excel because they are so skilled at telling exquisitely acted stories that may, indeed, contain some elements of truth. They can tell these stories so impressively that normal due diligence is cast aside as being insulting to such a noble and oppressed character.

Psychopaths are masters of rising to the top in any field or organization. They know how to worm their way into the good graces of those at the top, and how to get those who work alongside them to carry the load for them and be happy doing it! They deliberately seek to build emotional attachments between themselves and those with power thus making sure that they have guardians and boosters to their "careers."

The fact is that the most pronounced traits of the psychopath just happen to be traits that American Capitalistic society values: egocentricity, lack of concern for others, superficiality, manipulativeness, an ability to "play the game" better than others. Looking at these characteristics in isolation is a big mistake, we are told by Prof. Robert Hare, an expert on psychopaths. Yes, many of these characteristics are valuable for accomplishing all sorts of different things - politics, business, show biz - for example. These characteristics can lead to productive output. But it is when they are combined with the hidden part of the psychopath that they become disastrous.

People might say that a psychopath is "charismatic", "high profile", "gets things done", and that is exactly the impression that they wish to create and are able, with preternatural cunning, to do so.

The fact is, to a psychopath, the entire world is one big feeding trough and they are going to get in and get it all and they'll do whatever it takes to accomplish this, including playing weak and defenseless, maintaining an incredible cover of lies for as long as necessary, and using anybody and everybody, including their own family members.

Psychopaths live their lives incognito: outside they are often lawyers, politicians, entertainers, religious leaders, military leaders, union leaders, media moguls, artists and critics; and most often they are at the top. They are persuasive, charming, charismatic, and easily able to make masses of people like them. They are fun to be around because they are everything that the usually neurotic, guilt-ridden, normal human wishes he could be. It can take a long time before anyone figures out that there is really something missing, that the image is not the reality.

Inside, the psychopath is really insincere, arrogant, untrustworthy, manipulative, insensitive to the thoughts and feelings of others, remorseless, shallow, irresponsible (blames others for anything and everything that goes wrong), impatient, unreliable, selfish, parasitic, and quite willing to take shameless advantage of the goodwill they manipulatively engender in those individuals they intend to use to get to the top. They treat all people, including their families, like objects and can do incredible damage to anyone who crosses them or frustrates their goals. And, the horrifying fact is, most of them never get caught.

We live in a high speed, high pressure world where a lot of the traditional social structures that used to contain and protect us have been stripped away. Many of us are involved in virtual interactions with others and this presents its own set of problems. As the old-fashioned way of doing things is forced to change with the times, pressures for speed, technology, new systems, create a sort of frontier capitalistic reality where ideas and information are the new commodities.. Psychopaths thrive in this type of chaotic, high-pressure world. In the realm of ideas as commodity, there's no shortage of opportunities for psychopaths to rise to the top.

The 9-11 Truth Movement, Historical Revisionism, Alternative Media are part of this Frontier. Such venues are ripe for takeover by people who are high-energy and fast-moving, two of the characteristics of psychopaths that rise to the top. Psychopaths are impulsive and thrive on stimulation; they require it. They can do many things at once, though they often do not finish them, but leave that to their "lackeys." It also happens that things may move so fast that no one notices how they change and shift their position according to the wind of the moment.

Psychopaths are more likely to join organizations that offer them the possibility of getting to the top such as those that are formed on the basis of "cutting edge" ideas, or even revolutionary ideas, because in such an environment, often in a distressed state due to attacks from the outside, it is easier for them to hide. They are able to do this because the kinds of things they say and do under such stresses are the kinds of things the organization seems to want: they are able to pour on the charm, the charisma, to command respect, be larger than life; all things that are natural to the psychopath. Neurotic, guilt-damaged people easily mistake such traits as true leadership abilities, especially when the psychopath builds everyone up with their carefully crafted false stories about how they have suffered to pursue the goal! Never forget that psychopaths are great storytellers and they can weave disjointed facts in so seamlessly, bringing it to such a dramatic conclusion that it almost seems like a vision.

The fact is, the Truth vacuum in our society - the lack of official Truth - has created opportunities for psychopaths to be suddenly cast as great heroes and saviors; someone who can offer us transformational visions of the future. Everyone is searching for meaning, for Truth, for something solid to stand on, and what is so disturbing is the way we are looking more and more to psychopathic types as being above the rest of us, offering charismatic ideals and greater and more glorious visions. The appetite of the masses of people for leadership, even if it is a false leader, as long as he has a good story, is disturbing. It reveals to us that people have become reluctant to look at the truth, that they have become inculcated in denial of reality in favor of the 30 minute drama with a resolution after four commercials.

The psychopathic leader is an interesting study. The persona of the great leader - the archetype - is one of mercurial highs and lows; dramatic achievements and equally dramatic betrayal and losses. The leader is expected to have strong views and to be absolutely confident of his rightness; to make demands of others, to have high expectations that his ideas will serve as the vision for others who will follow him. A real leader has to be a driven individual, ambitious for a certain goal, and with sufficient ego to sustain themselves in times of set-back and betrayal. That's what the masses of people want and need from a leader, and it just happens to also be the very thing that is easiest for a psychopath to fake and generally their motivation is not Truth, but rather envy and rivalry. Nothing is wrong with any aspect of leadership if the views are based on Truth, if the goal is sincere and truly for the good of many others, if the followers are treated with understanding and compassion. [...]

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