(PJ Media)—The next time a senator gets caught insider trading, or a presidential candidate says something breathtakingly narcissistic, or a governor smiles while bankrupting your business “for your safety,” try to resist the urge to clutch your pearls. Take a breath. Because the truth is, you voted for this. Maybe not them specifically, but the type. You voted for a psychopath — or someone in the neighborhood — and you’ll probably do it again.
Now, I’m not talking about a knife-wielding, serial-killing, Ted Bundy psychopath (although he was charming). I’m talking about the high-functioning, camera-ready, preternaturally confident variety — the kind of person who can ruin lives with a pen stroke and still sleep like a baby. According to Oxford psychologist Kevin Dutton, these “functional psychopaths” aren’t lurking in alleys. They’re walking the halls of Congress, chairing committees, and grinning at fundraisers in $6,000 suits. And what’s worse? They might be good at it.
Dutton’s research — based on something called the PPI-R psychopathy scale — scored American presidents on a spectrum of psychopathic traits. Not serial-killer stuff, mind you. Traits like fearless dominance, emotional detachment, and superficial charm. You know: leadership qualities. Franklin D. Roosevelt? High scorer. JFK? A natural. Bill Clinton? Please. Off the charts. Donald Trump? Scored higher than Adolf Hitler. And before you say “Fake news!” — Oxford University says so.
But here’s the kicker: it’s not even necessarily a bad thing. These aren’t the psychopaths who stab strangers in a Walmart parking lot. These are the ones who stare down a geopolitical crisis without blinking. The ones who say, “I alone can fix it,” and almost make you believe it. In other words, they’re exactly the kind of people our broken political machine was designed to promote.
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