Why We Elect Narcissists and Sociopaths- And How We Can Stop!
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three schools.126
Mao’s father expected him to help with farm work, but Mao hated phys-
ical labor. He also hated his father. After years of conflict, his father was
looking for a way to settle Mao down. He decided to arrange a marriage to
his niece when Mao was fourteen and she was eighteen. He was obviously
hoping Mao’s new wife would take Mao to task. It was not to be so, though.
Mao ignored her and became opposed to arranged marriages.127
When Mao’s wife died two years later, his father let him leave the village
to go to a modern school in the city. There he learned about the world, went
to a teacher- training college, and later became a young Communist leader.
The Communist Party was being formed and funded in China by Stalin’s
Soviet Union.128
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72 Part II: The Fantasy Crisis Triad Worldwide
High- Conflict Personality
Mao’s writings as a young adult revealed an extremely self- centered and hedo-
nistic man.
“People like me want to . . . satisfy our hearts to the full, and in doing so
we automatically have the most valuable moral codes. Of course there are
people and objects in the world, but they are all there only for me.”
Mao shunned all constraints of responsibility and duty. “People like me
only have a duty to ourselves; we have no duty to other people.”
. . .
Mao did not believe in anything unless he could benefit from it
personally.129
Like Hitler, he saw himself as a great hero who would have great powers:
When Great Heroes give full play to their impulses, they are magnifi-
cently powerful, stormy and invincible. Their power is like a hurricane
arising from a deep gorge, and like a sex- maniac on heat and prowling for
a lover . . . there is no way to stop them.130
These descriptions certainly suggest both a narcissistic personality and a
sociopathic personality, or malignant narcissism with fantasies of unlimited
power.
The Communist Party in China was started and funded by Stalin and the
leadership of the Soviet Union in Moscow in an effort to expand their influ-
ence. Mao missed the founding Party Congress, but he was in the immediate
outer ring of the party and was given the job of running a bookstore to sell
party literature.131
Mao was extremely ambitious and skilled at manipulating and attacking
his colleagues and those above him over the years, and he did so in order
to gain power. He rapidly formed and dispensed with alliances in the Com-
munist Party and eventually in the Red Army. He was a party official in
the Red Army’s Long March across China in their retreat from fighting for
power against the Chinese Nationalist Army of the government. Rather than
having to march, he and some other officials were carried in litters.132
In January 1935, the march stopped for a leadership meeting in Zunyi to
decide what to do after some important military losses.
Mao had started taking active steps to seize the leadership of his Party
once the marchers entered Guizhou. This required splitting his Party
foes from within. In particular, he had been cultivating two key men with
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6: How Hitler, Stalin, and Mao Took Over 73
whom he had not previously been on the best terms… Mao had crossed
swords with them in the past, but now he buttered them up, as they both
had grudges against Party No. 1 Po Ku.133 (Emphasis added)
During this meeting, the leadership rehashed who was responsible for
these military failures. Mao and his two allies strongly criticized the key
leaders from before the Long March. In the process, Mao became a member
of the Secretariat, the decision- making core. Although it was untrue, he
spread the claim that he had become the leader of the Party and the army at
this meeting—by majority mandate. In fact, he was never elected to either
role.He was just elected to be one member of the Secretariat.134
He was endlessly aggressive and blaming, without any empathy or
remorse in his drive for personal power. It appears, as in the following quote,
that everyone else around him had a sense of restraint that allowed Mao to
run them over, since he had none.
With his back to the wall, Mao fought with fearsome willpower and enor-
mous rage, condemning Peng with political labels like “right- wing,” and
accusing him of stirring up Lin Biao. When Lin tried to reason, Mao just
bellowed: “You are a baby! You don’t know a thing!” Lin could not compete
with Mao in a shouting match, and was bludgeoned into silence. Peng was
doomed by his own decency and decorum. Unlike Mao, he was shy about
fighting for power for himself, even though his cause was good. Nor could
he match Mao in mudslinging and “political” smearing.135
One skill Mao had was spreading false information about his power, as he
did with the claim of being the party’s and army’s leader. For example, after
leading his troops into suicidal battles losing some 30,000 men, he “shamelessly
called this his ‘tour de force.’”136 This misinformation worked for him, because
when he met up with a more powerful division, he was given a top military job.
He then sent an envoy to Moscow to establish his authority; they mis-
represented that Mao had been elected party chief at the meeting in Zunyi.
Moscow then appointed Mao chairman of the Central Executive Commit-
tee. Thus, he became Chairman Mao, a title for him that would become
world famous. In other words, Mao was never elected to his top position,
but rather he created and promoted this myth throughout his lifetime.137
The Fantasy Crisis
Mao ruled ruthlessly and took a similar approach to Communism that
Stalin took: I’m in charge and whatever I do is good for the people. Thus,
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74 Part II: The Fantasy Crisis Triad Worldwide
collectivization was the cure for all ills. One of his fantasy crises was the
Great Leap Forward. It was necessary to catch up to the rest of the modern
world, otherwise they were at risk.
In 1958 he had a revelation that the country could double its steel pro-
duction in a year if peasant families contributed to the national output
by running backyard smelters. . . . It was also revealed to him that China
could grow large quantities of grain on small plots of land, freeing the
rest for grasslands and gardens. . . . Peasants were herded into communes
of 50,000 to implement this vision, and anyone who dragged his feet or
pointed out the obvious was executed as a class enemy.138
The Fantasy Villains
During the Great Leap Forward, anyone who resisted in any way or didn’t meet
quotas was considered an enemy. As with Stalin, peasants who didn’t cooperate
were Targets of Blame with terrible consequences; millions died.
In his next Fantasy Crisis, the villains were almost anyone who wasn’t
a peasant. Less than ten years after the disaster of the Great Leap Forward,
Mao had another inspiration:<
br />
During the Cultural Revolution of 1966–75, Mao encouraged maraud-
ing Red Guards to terrorize “class enemies,” including teachers, manag-
ers, and the descendants of landlords and “rich peasants,” killing perhaps
7 million.139
The Fantasy Hero
Just as with Hitler and Stalin, Mao had quite an emotional mass following
who treated him as a god. By having his endless speeches blared from public
speakers in town and urban squares, and by having his photo plastered
everywhere, Mao was able to keep the people seduced with emotional repe-
tition in isolation; they had only his messages to hear.
Despite his disastrous policies, his propaganda efforts promoting him-
self were extremely successful. During the Cultural Revolution in 1966,
. . . the cult of Mao was escalated to fever pitch. Mao’s face dominated the
front page of People’s Daily, which also ran a column of his quotations every
day. Soon, badges started appearing with Mao’s head on them, of which,
altogether, some 4.8 billion were manufactured. More copies of Mao’s
Selected Works were printed—and more portraits of him (1.2 billion)—
than China had inhabitants. It was this summer that the Little Red Book
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6: How Hitler, Stalin, and Mao Took Over 75
was handed out to everyone. It had to be carried and brandished on all
public occasions, and its prescriptions recited daily.140
High- Emotion Media
We have already seen how Mao’s face was everywhere. His Little Red Book
of sayings was everywhere. During the Cultural Revolution, he had stu-
dents everywhere publicly condemning their teachers on the radio and from
loudspeakers “rigged up everywhere, creating an atmosphere that was both
blood- boiling and blood- curdling. ”141
His successful myth- making has left a lasting heritage. Multitudes
attended his funeral, and his body and picture still remain on display in
Tiananmen Square in Beijing to this day.142
5 5 5
Conclusion
In all three of these examples, we have individuals who had similar and
extreme patterns of emotional warfare and Fantasy Crisis Triads. Warn-
ing signs of their unrestrained personality patterns were evident early on
in their political careers, but most people didn’t know what to look for and
didn’t realize the danger they posed until it was too late.
Politically, Stalin and Mao were far to the left, and Hitler was far to the
right. Remember, it’s not about the politics, it’s about the personalities. Now
we’ll look at a sampling of current Wannabe Kings around the world and
how they got elected.
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7
AROUND THE WORLD TODAY:
RUSSIA, HUNGARY,
THE PHILIPPINES, VENEZUELA,
AND ITALY
In elections since 2000, several nations have chosen leaders who have
viciously attacked fantasy villains within their own countries and structur-
ally attacked their own democratic procedures. They exhibit the same patterns
of HCP Wannabe Kings as the historical leaders in the prior chapter. Although
current HCPs have more restraints in place at the moment, they also have
much more potential technological power to be dangerous and much more
power to be deceptive using the latest high- emotion media. To date, their suc-
cesses at creating and exaggerating fantasy crises has been stunning.
Russia: Vladimir Putin
In 1991, the Soviet Union ceased to exist. Boris Yeltsin took over as the pres-
ident of Russia and essentially took control of what was left of the institu-
tions of the central Soviet government, which were always based in Russia.
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78 Part II: The Fantasy Crisis Triad Worldwide
Over the next several years, there was a drive toward a market economy,
free speech, and democratic elections, but by 1999, this all slowed when the
world economic crisis hit Russia hard. Boris Yeltsin was wearing out physically
and mentally and he appointed Vladimir Putin to replace himself as president.
Putin’s Early Years
Vladimir Putin was born in 1952. His mother worked as a cleaning woman
but doted on him because his older brothers had both died young. His father
was a factory worker and a representative in the Communist Party. He grew
up poor and was highly disruptive in and out of school. Putin “was once
rebuked for delinquency by a neighborhood [Communist] party committee,
which threatened to send him to an orphanage. ”143
He did not join the Pioneers, the Communist Party’s youth group, when
he was very young. “I was a hooligan, not a Pioneer,” he once said.144 But then
he took up martial arts, enjoying its strict discipline.
The martial arts transformed his life, giving him the means of asserting
himself against larger, tougher boys. . . . The martial arts gave him an
orthodoxy he found neither in religion nor in politics. It was more than
mere sport, he believed; it was a philosophy.145
His commitment to martial arts eventually led him to join the Pioneers and
become the leader of his school’s branch. Then, in eighth grade, he joined
the Communist Party’s youth organization, Komsomol. He was well on his
way to his life’s work.
High- Conflict Personality
In his youth, Putin saw a movie about a KGB secret agent and impulsively
decided that was what he wanted to become. He liked the idea that one
person could affect the lives of thousands.146
By the time Yeltsin appointed him to be the next president, he was head
of the KGB. At the time, the economic crisis was hitting the country hard.
No one expected him to last long.
[By then, most Russians] wanted a savior, a leader who would be not
merely decisive but dominating. Putin hardly seemed suited for that role:
he had no history and no presence.147
But from August to November 1999, based on his tough talk and aggressive
actions (described next), independent polls went from a 31-percent to an
80-percent belief that he was doing “a good job. ”148
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7: Around the World Today: Russia, Hungary, the Philippines, Venezuela, and Italy 79
Fantasy Crisis
When Putin took office as president, he restarted the war on Chechnya.
Apparently, this played well with the Russian people, because he seemed
to be acting and sounding like a leader—and he seemed stronger and more
determined than Yeltsin.
Fantasy Villains
Putin termed the Chechen rebels terrorists.
“We will pursue terrorists wherever they are. At the airport, if they are at
the airport. And that means, I apologize, that if we catch them going to the
bathroom, then we will rub them out in the outhouse, if it comes to that.
That’s it, the issue is closed.” 149
A majority of people liked his tough way of speaking and were charmed by
his appearance of strength, mode
sty, and reason. He seemed to be a leader,
but at the same time a man of the people.
When United States Ambassador Michael McFaul arrived in Russia in
January, 2012, he was immediately targeted by Putin as an agent who had
come to Russia to foment revolution—a claim purposefully made to help
Putin in the run- up to his March election. In February, a video came out
falsely suggesting that McFaul was a pedophile, which went viral, since
numerous politicians in Russia were also being accused of pedophilia with
no basis in reality. The Russian government was believed to be behind the
attacks.150
Such treatment of an ambassador was previously unheard of. These false
claims were the tactics Putin used against Russian critics and now his big-
gest Targets of Blame: the United States and its representative in Moscow.
Fantasy Hero
Surveys in 1999 showed that the Russian people were nostalgic for the old
Soviet Union days: 58 percent said they would prefer the way things were
before 1985, 26 percent said that Stalin’s rule had been good for the country
(compared to 18 percent in 1994), and a majority no longer held a negative
view of the old dictator.151
The fantasy hero to lead Russia was back, in the form of Vladimir Putin.
But would he be a strong democratic leader, or would he try to return the
nation to a totalitarian form of government?
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80 Part II: The Fantasy Crisis Triad Worldwide
[By 2002] in just two years, Putin had greatly weakened the power of
elected officials by creating federal oversight over governors and giving
the federal center the right to fire elected governors; reversed judicial
reform; and monopolized national broadcast television in the hands of
the Kremlin. So while his regime could not yet be called authoritarian,
that seemed to be the direction in which it was headed. This transitional
state . . . was . . . an “authoritarian situation”—meaning, authoritarianism
could happen here.152
Although Putin had a domineering personality, he also seemed to have
narcissistic aspects. It was said that “The new president was getting a repu-
tation for being thin- skinned and vengeful. . . . ”153
The Russian constitution sets no limits on how many years someone can
hold the office of president. It merely forbids a president from serving more