CounterPunch Exclusives

CounterPunch Exclusives

How This Ends: Escaping the Dark Triad

Image Source: Anthony E.D. Mobbs – CC BY-SA 4.0

We have all come across those in our lives who display the characteristics now known as Dark Triad Personality. It’s a combination of narcissism, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism. In short, it creates a person devoid of empathy, and they use manipulation as the preferred tactic to achieve their goals. They do not feel remorse for their behavior, nor do they typically learn from their mistakes. The only guardrails are consequences that they can’t avoid with their trickery, and even then, it’s more of a containment system rather than any type of meaningful growth on their part.

We have seen the chaos such individuals sow, how they seem to thrive in such conditions. We know that they seem to bring out the worst in other individuals who don’t exhibit such cluster b disorders. They simply react to the surrounding mayhem in a grasping and desperate manner. The best course of action when individuals like this are in your life is to diminish their ability to impact you, but this is of course, easier said than done. People like this are never content, even when they seem to achieve their so-called goals. It seems that the real truth of their soul is that they constantly try to establish and create misery in others to match the rot inside their own core.

We are now seeing what occurs when such personality types are given unfettered power in government. The many enablers along the way that have simply gone along to get along have been integral pavers on this path to hell. The types who were there for Trump, I knew what they were signing up for. These ghouls paved the way for Trump II, which, of course, is loaded with characters who suffer the same defining toxic traits that he does. We are seeing the domestic violence presidency emerge fully formed and grotesque. The culpability lands on every politician who has diminished the........

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