The strongman catastrophist summons the worst in us. Why do so many heed his call?
John Restakis 18 Mar 2025 
The Tyee
U.S. President Donald Trump’s flagrant violations of the Constitution and the rule of law are the unmistakable early signs of an administration that is only warming up to abuses yet to come.
Pundits are scrambling to make sense of the chaos he has unleashed. But to understand what is really happening, we need to move beyond politics into the uncharted territory of pathology.
U.S. President Donald Trump’s flagrant violations of the Constitution and the rule of law are the unmistakable early signs of an administration that is only warming up to abuses yet to come.
Pundits are scrambling to make sense of the chaos he has unleashed. But to understand what is really happening, we need to move beyond politics into the uncharted territory of pathology.
Trump’s demagoguery is in the service of something far darker than the mere lust for power that is the hallmark of all demagogues. We are speaking of the politics of pathology and the emergence of what the Polish psychiatrist Andrew Lobaczewski termed a pathocracy.
Not merely a dictatorship or an oligarchy, a pathocracy is “a system of government created by a small pathological minority that takes control over a society of normal people.” That is the danger that is now stalking the flailing democracy of America.
Devoid of all empathy and conscience, he is pathology personified. And, like moths to a flame, he has drawn to himself the personalities that reflect the same lust for power that eclipses all sense of moral responsibility or shame. People like Stephen Miller, JD Vance, Elon Musk and the entire stable of miscreants that compose his cabinet are extensions and reflections of his own persona.
Depressing as it is, one can understand the attraction Trump holds for the opportunists and grifters that populate his circle of enablers. They ride his coattails for personal gain. What is truly disheartening is the continuing allegiance of a large segment of the American public. Fifty-eight days into his reign, with chaos enveloping the nation and stock markets plunging, 46 per cent of Americans still applaud him.
Trump and his followers constitute an assault against normalcy. There is in America today a deep desire for the very disorder that he both fuels and feeds upon. We are witnessing a form of social contagion, emanating from Trump himself, that left unchecked leads in one direction — unspeakable human suffering and tragedy.
That is one lesson we may draw from similar processes we have witnessed in the past. But pathology expresses itself in myriad ways. For psychos like Adolf Hitler or Pol Pot, the impulse to do harm was channelled through a fervently held ideology — murderous race theory in one, apocalyptic class war in the other. Trump has no ideology. His impulses are wholly personal and bound only by the evolving whims of his disordered ego.
“Spellbinders are characterized by pathological egotism. Such a person is forced by some internal causes to make an early choice between two possibilities: the first is forcing other people to think and experience things in a manner similar to his own; the second is a feeling of being lonely and different, a pathological misfit in social life. Sometimes the choice is either snake charming or suicide.”
Sadly, for us, Trump has chosen snake charming. How does this work? The first object of this deceiving process is Trump himself. The deceptions and delusions that cover up the sense of personal weakness and unworthiness that lay untreated in the subconscious of such individuals morph into a belief system that both rationalizes the behaviour and beguiles the unwary. In Trump’s case, it is MAGA and the bubble of his own narcissism.
This repression of self-critical thought is accompanied by what Lobeczewski calls paramoralism — the bad faith appeal to morality to cover ulterior, self-interested aims. The spellbinder’s lies “stream so profusely from the mind and mouth of the spellbinder that they flood the average person’s mind. Everything becomes subordinated to the spellbinder’s over-compensatory conviction that they are exceptional, sometimes even messianic.”
That Trump has succeeded so spectacularly is terrifying. We must look at the world in a different light. It is an achievement of such mind-boggling audacity that only a man possessed could attempt it — and succeed. But then again, his role models laid out the method: “Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it.” So said Joseph Goebbels, chief propagandist of the Nazi party.
In our day, the task seems to have become so much simpler. The tsunami of misinformation that floods social media, the deliberate blurring of fact with fiction — all this undermines the very basis of objective truth. And beyond the pathological need to dominate, the aim is to undermine the critical faculty itself.
As the philosopher of totalitarianism Hannah Arendt once wrote, “the result of a consistent and total substitution of lies for factual truth is not that the lie will now be accepted as truth and truth be defamed as a lie, but that the sense by which we take our bearings in the real world — and the category of truth versus falsehood is among the mental means to this end — is being destroyed.”
This is the point at which a growing number of Americans have arrived. How did they get here? Are there lessons here for Canadians?
Trump, with his offhand confession that he would be a dictator “on the first day of his presidency,” is showcasing this phenomenon. His promise to exact revenge on his perceived enemies, to weaponize the justice system, to persecute immigrants, to be an avenging angel of retribution for his followers, was the driving logic of his claim to a second term. Such a claim from a presidential candidate would have been unthinkable 20 years ago. Now, everything is thinkable.
Not merely a dictatorship or an oligarchy, a pathocracy is “a system of government created by a small pathological minority that takes control over a society of normal people.” That is the danger that is now stalking the flailing democracy of America.
We were warned
From the moment Trump entered the political arena, psychologists warned us of the dangers that he posed. Some have pegged Trump as a psychopath. Others have labelled him a sociopath. Still, others have identified him as a malignant narcissist. In fact, Trump is all three. He has the calculating predatory drives of a psychopath, the craving for adulation and approval of a sociopath and the preening self-regard of a narcissist.Devoid of all empathy and conscience, he is pathology personified. And, like moths to a flame, he has drawn to himself the personalities that reflect the same lust for power that eclipses all sense of moral responsibility or shame. People like Stephen Miller, JD Vance, Elon Musk and the entire stable of miscreants that compose his cabinet are extensions and reflections of his own persona.
Depressing as it is, one can understand the attraction Trump holds for the opportunists and grifters that populate his circle of enablers. They ride his coattails for personal gain. What is truly disheartening is the continuing allegiance of a large segment of the American public. Fifty-eight days into his reign, with chaos enveloping the nation and stock markets plunging, 46 per cent of Americans still applaud him.
Trump and his followers constitute an assault against normalcy. There is in America today a deep desire for the very disorder that he both fuels and feeds upon. We are witnessing a form of social contagion, emanating from Trump himself, that left unchecked leads in one direction — unspeakable human suffering and tragedy.
That is one lesson we may draw from similar processes we have witnessed in the past. But pathology expresses itself in myriad ways. For psychos like Adolf Hitler or Pol Pot, the impulse to do harm was channelled through a fervently held ideology — murderous race theory in one, apocalyptic class war in the other. Trump has no ideology. His impulses are wholly personal and bound only by the evolving whims of his disordered ego.
Spellbinders
The term Lobaczewski uses to describe personalities like Trump is “spellbinders.”“Spellbinders are characterized by pathological egotism. Such a person is forced by some internal causes to make an early choice between two possibilities: the first is forcing other people to think and experience things in a manner similar to his own; the second is a feeling of being lonely and different, a pathological misfit in social life. Sometimes the choice is either snake charming or suicide.”
Sadly, for us, Trump has chosen snake charming. How does this work? The first object of this deceiving process is Trump himself. The deceptions and delusions that cover up the sense of personal weakness and unworthiness that lay untreated in the subconscious of such individuals morph into a belief system that both rationalizes the behaviour and beguiles the unwary. In Trump’s case, it is MAGA and the bubble of his own narcissism.
This repression of self-critical thought is accompanied by what Lobeczewski calls paramoralism — the bad faith appeal to morality to cover ulterior, self-interested aims. The spellbinder’s lies “stream so profusely from the mind and mouth of the spellbinder that they flood the average person’s mind. Everything becomes subordinated to the spellbinder’s over-compensatory conviction that they are exceptional, sometimes even messianic.”
That Trump has succeeded so spectacularly is terrifying. We must look at the world in a different light. It is an achievement of such mind-boggling audacity that only a man possessed could attempt it — and succeed. But then again, his role models laid out the method: “Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it.” So said Joseph Goebbels, chief propagandist of the Nazi party.
In our day, the task seems to have become so much simpler. The tsunami of misinformation that floods social media, the deliberate blurring of fact with fiction — all this undermines the very basis of objective truth. And beyond the pathological need to dominate, the aim is to undermine the critical faculty itself.
As the philosopher of totalitarianism Hannah Arendt once wrote, “the result of a consistent and total substitution of lies for factual truth is not that the lie will now be accepted as truth and truth be defamed as a lie, but that the sense by which we take our bearings in the real world — and the category of truth versus falsehood is among the mental means to this end — is being destroyed.”
This is the point at which a growing number of Americans have arrived. How did they get here? Are there lessons here for Canadians?
Regression and retribution
There is a tendency in democracies to absolve the citizenry of responsibility for its follies. The choices people make when they vote are always considered legitimate, even when those choices lead to the pain and suffering of the citizenry. This is the moral dilemma of democratic systems. What then, can one say when the democratic process destroys democracy itself? This is the standard procedure of regressive populism — the conscious abrogation of rights and the surrender of political agency by a people to a leader. Sociologist Dylan John Riley calls this authoritarian democracy.Trump, with his offhand confession that he would be a dictator “on the first day of his presidency,” is showcasing this phenomenon. His promise to exact revenge on his perceived enemies, to weaponize the justice system, to persecute immigrants, to be an avenging angel of retribution for his followers, was the driving logic of his claim to a second term. Such a claim from a presidential candidate would have been unthinkable 20 years ago. Now, everything is thinkable.
Trump supporters marching in Raleigh, North Carolina in 2020. Regressive populism uses the democratic process to destroy democracy itself. ‘When a psychopath like Trump bonds with a group that has fallen prey to this kind of regression, the pathway to the pathological abuse of power is open.’ Photo via Wikimedia.
The signs of a profound regression in political culture are everywhere. The abandonment of even a pretence of truth-telling is perhaps the most compelling evidence of this decline. The impossibility of political dialogue and the widespread animus toward the institutions of government are further evidence.
But the question remains: how is it possible that a political party led by a convicted felon can succeed with nothing beyond slogans and hateful rhetoric to address the ostensible grievances fuelling people’s anger?
These are some keys that help explain what is happening. The first is the declining legitimacy of the political system in addressing the real concerns and anxieties of citizens.
The second is the social regression resulting from these anxieties.
The third is the pernicious role of pathological leaders in exploiting both phenomena for their own purposes. The abysmal state of public education in civics, in basic history, in critical thinking, has also prepared the ground for Trump’s ascent. It should be no mystery why he is intent on dismantling the department of education — the one institution that is essential for the cultivation of an enlightened citizenry.
People understand very clearly that the system is rigged against them. So long as they believe that they might still benefit from a corrupt and unequal system, people are willing to put up with it. When this belief ends, the legitimacy of the system collapses, and a deep sense of grievance and anxiety sets in.
This, in turn, is the catalyst for social regression — a term that describes a society-wide relapse to primitive modes of behaviour characterized by extreme polarization, tribalism, irrationality, intolerance, loss of individuality, entitlement morality and the demonization of others.
All these symptoms are on full display in the U.S. It is precisely the cultivation of these conditions that preoccupies the energies of a pathocrat. When a psychopath like Trump bonds with a group that has fallen prey to this kind of regression, the pathway to the pathological abuse of power is open.
Ultimately, Trump is a catastrophist. He wrecks things and then feeds on the pieces. His enablers scavenge the perks and privileges that he dispenses. He is a misanthrope. The conflict and confusion that he creates are purposeful, not incidental. It is a calculated cruelty. And it takes the combination of grievance, vulnerability, and pervasive public ignorance that allows a strongman symbol like Trump to rise to the surface by channelling these feelings into rage and the lust for retribution. It’s not the price of eggs.
The inconsistency and unpredictability of Trump’s actions are a defining feature of his persona. However, there is one surefire way to anticipate what he will do. Whatever the issue, Trump will always choose the one thing that will make the situation worse. Trump’s triumph will be in leaving a blasted landscape of moral failure, systemic corruption, social and environmental degradation, and the unchecked pillage of America’s commonwealth.
In his work Politics, Aristotle wrote the following over 2,300 years ago: “where laws do not rule, there is no constitution” and “when states are democratically governed according to the law, there are no demagogues, and the best citizens are securely in the saddle; but where the laws are not sovereign, there you find demagogues.”
There is a corollary to this principle. When the laws are not sovereign, and demagogues rule, it is the worst of us that are securely in the saddle. And so, the battle between democracy and demagoguery, the best of us and the worst of us, is joined over the principle of the sovereign rule of law and the constitutional order that allows societies to check the abuse of power.
But governing a country is not like running a corrupt business empire. Global relations are not like real estate deals. The threats facing the world today require more co-operation, not less. Trump’s bully boy tactics only serve to isolate the U.S. at a time when mutual trust between nations is essential. Trump’s antics on the world stage will affect life in America as former friends are turned into enemies and trade partners retaliate in ways that will cost the U.S. in jobs, in investment and in trust. The damage done to the relationship with Canada is a case in point.
If there is a silver lining to all this madness, it is in the fact that the damage being done will impact Americans of all stripes. When Trump supporters see their Medicaid and Social Security benefits slashed, when veterans lose their services, when energy costs soar and the economy tanks because of a pointless trade war, people will react.
The U.S. midterm elections are only 18 months away and if people mobilize there is a good chance that the House and Senate will be regained. By then, the writing will be on the wall. The true face of this administration will be laid bare.
But beyond this, perhaps Democrats will understand that politics in our age will be won not within the familiar parameters of the party system, but on the streets and the town squares and the forging of a mass movement that infuses the party with a vision and a meaning that provides the alternative that so many have sought in the chimera that is Trump.
Bernie Sanders is setting an example by focusing squarely on the issues of inequality, injustice, and oligarchy that are at the root of America’s malaise. His rallies in the heart of MAGA country are drawing thousands. These are issues that Americans of all political persuasions understand at a gut level.
There are powerful, progressive ways that the rage fuelling MAGA can drive a different vision — one that offers real answers to the false narrative of victimhood and grievance that has bought the allegiance of those whose faith in the system has failed.
The signs of a profound regression in political culture are everywhere. The abandonment of even a pretence of truth-telling is perhaps the most compelling evidence of this decline. The impossibility of political dialogue and the widespread animus toward the institutions of government are further evidence.
But the question remains: how is it possible that a political party led by a convicted felon can succeed with nothing beyond slogans and hateful rhetoric to address the ostensible grievances fuelling people’s anger?
These are some keys that help explain what is happening. The first is the declining legitimacy of the political system in addressing the real concerns and anxieties of citizens.
The second is the social regression resulting from these anxieties.
The third is the pernicious role of pathological leaders in exploiting both phenomena for their own purposes. The abysmal state of public education in civics, in basic history, in critical thinking, has also prepared the ground for Trump’s ascent. It should be no mystery why he is intent on dismantling the department of education — the one institution that is essential for the cultivation of an enlightened citizenry.
People understand very clearly that the system is rigged against them. So long as they believe that they might still benefit from a corrupt and unequal system, people are willing to put up with it. When this belief ends, the legitimacy of the system collapses, and a deep sense of grievance and anxiety sets in.
This, in turn, is the catalyst for social regression — a term that describes a society-wide relapse to primitive modes of behaviour characterized by extreme polarization, tribalism, irrationality, intolerance, loss of individuality, entitlement morality and the demonization of others.
All these symptoms are on full display in the U.S. It is precisely the cultivation of these conditions that preoccupies the energies of a pathocrat. When a psychopath like Trump bonds with a group that has fallen prey to this kind of regression, the pathway to the pathological abuse of power is open.
Ultimately, Trump is a catastrophist. He wrecks things and then feeds on the pieces. His enablers scavenge the perks and privileges that he dispenses. He is a misanthrope. The conflict and confusion that he creates are purposeful, not incidental. It is a calculated cruelty. And it takes the combination of grievance, vulnerability, and pervasive public ignorance that allows a strongman symbol like Trump to rise to the surface by channelling these feelings into rage and the lust for retribution. It’s not the price of eggs.
The inconsistency and unpredictability of Trump’s actions are a defining feature of his persona. However, there is one surefire way to anticipate what he will do. Whatever the issue, Trump will always choose the one thing that will make the situation worse. Trump’s triumph will be in leaving a blasted landscape of moral failure, systemic corruption, social and environmental degradation, and the unchecked pillage of America’s commonwealth.
In his work Politics, Aristotle wrote the following over 2,300 years ago: “where laws do not rule, there is no constitution” and “when states are democratically governed according to the law, there are no demagogues, and the best citizens are securely in the saddle; but where the laws are not sovereign, there you find demagogues.”
There is a corollary to this principle. When the laws are not sovereign, and demagogues rule, it is the worst of us that are securely in the saddle. And so, the battle between democracy and demagoguery, the best of us and the worst of us, is joined over the principle of the sovereign rule of law and the constitutional order that allows societies to check the abuse of power.
Will the worst in us prevail?
Trump’s power has always rested in the fact that he appeals to the worst in all of us. The inflated self-regard, the vulgar showmanship, the indifference to the suffering of others, the bottomless avarice, the willingness to say or do anything that will advance his interests, all this is a grotesque caricature of the business mogul he pretends to be.But governing a country is not like running a corrupt business empire. Global relations are not like real estate deals. The threats facing the world today require more co-operation, not less. Trump’s bully boy tactics only serve to isolate the U.S. at a time when mutual trust between nations is essential. Trump’s antics on the world stage will affect life in America as former friends are turned into enemies and trade partners retaliate in ways that will cost the U.S. in jobs, in investment and in trust. The damage done to the relationship with Canada is a case in point.
If there is a silver lining to all this madness, it is in the fact that the damage being done will impact Americans of all stripes. When Trump supporters see their Medicaid and Social Security benefits slashed, when veterans lose their services, when energy costs soar and the economy tanks because of a pointless trade war, people will react.
The U.S. midterm elections are only 18 months away and if people mobilize there is a good chance that the House and Senate will be regained. By then, the writing will be on the wall. The true face of this administration will be laid bare.
But beyond this, perhaps Democrats will understand that politics in our age will be won not within the familiar parameters of the party system, but on the streets and the town squares and the forging of a mass movement that infuses the party with a vision and a meaning that provides the alternative that so many have sought in the chimera that is Trump.
Bernie Sanders is setting an example by focusing squarely on the issues of inequality, injustice, and oligarchy that are at the root of America’s malaise. His rallies in the heart of MAGA country are drawing thousands. These are issues that Americans of all political persuasions understand at a gut level.
There are powerful, progressive ways that the rage fuelling MAGA can drive a different vision — one that offers real answers to the false narrative of victimhood and grievance that has bought the allegiance of those whose faith in the system has failed.
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