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Gary Kloner's avatar

I enjoyed the interview. As we increase our understanding of authoritarian personality types like Trump, Berlusconi and Mussolini for example, we see a particular personality profile of psychological traits that emerge. Once it is identified and you combine it with tools of rule, making predictions about what someone like Trump will do next becomes dare I say easy. I've been saying since Trump left office he would run again if he doesn't have legal or health issues. And boy has he ever been busy... despite the split in the party with the Liz Cheneys, Adam Kinzinger and Mitt Romneys, Trump has converted the GOP into a cult of personality. They kneel before Zod.

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Kara Massie's avatar

Good interview! One of the most fascinating (I think) things about the brain is that it is an adaptive, changing organ. When neuroscience finds differences between the standard brain and the psychopathic brain (for example), it's tempting to say "Ah, look! We found the cause of psychopathy because psychopaths have smaller amygdalae than the rest of us!" The reality is actually even more fascinating. The differences in the brain do not *cause* psychopathy, they *are* psychopathy--kinda like a flock of birds is not *caused* by a bunch of individual birds. So, if you have a person with a normal brain who gets into office and begins behaving in a psychopathic manner (or having psychopathic thoughts), their brain will change accordingly. This reminds me of Jane's comment below about how people can be influenced by interacting with others with malignant traits. For me this reinforces the importance of having robust systems in place that limit problematic leaders after they have risen to power as well as weeding them out beforehand.

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