Oligarchies run on sociopathy. Warmongers need to condition themselves not to care about the suffering and death that will be caused by their instigation of selfish interest-serving military conflict. Robber barons need to teach themselves the lower classes deserve it if they’re hurt by economic exploitation. Those that instigate environmental disasters for their own gain need to develop a subconscious disrespect for the communities and planet they’re destroying. The whole system is based on rejecting empathy and becoming emotionally detached from the world around oneself, clearing the psychological path for unlimited power grabs.
No more has this been seen lately than on the self-identified American right. In the last few decades, Republican leaders have been able to turn themselves and millions of others effectively against humanity-disdain for unions and the rights of working people, an active disregard for environment, and the glorification of harming or slaughtering scapegoated ethnic, racial and religious groups have all been parts of the standard right wing worldview for the last quarter century or so. And their culmination in the current regime, which aims to take health care away from 51 million people, balloon the fracking enterprise, and worse, should absolutely be combatted. But as is the sure sign of a fascist drift, the meme of sociopathy has reached both main sides of the political debate.
Establishment liberals are now the main American purveyors of genocide. There, I said it. Last week the U.S, under the guise of countering the (by the way still unproven) Russian DNC hacking, imposed sanctions on Russia. It’s easy for anyone looking outside the neoliberal echo chamber to see the neocons have done this because they want to replace Putin with a U.S.-obedient Russian leader, though to be fair, one of the neocon congressmen actually admitted this on Fox News a few months back.
This means America is now literally trying to kill the ordinary Russians that will be economically deprived because of these sanctions to serve its imperial agenda. And that the subscribers of the Deep State’s narrative in regards to the issue are now condoning this genocidal mission-when Bernie Sanders voted against the Russia sanctions bill (unfortunately, as he made clear, only because it included similarly reckless sanctions against Iran), droves of zealous Clintonites and even a few public figures denounced him as a Russian agent.
It’s come as no surprise, seeing the ugliness of the rhetoric that’s been used in the effort to get people behind this. Noted real life telescreen enthusiast James Clapper, for one, has said on the matter that Russians are “genetically driven” to unethical behavior. “The Russians” has also become a very generally used phrase in propaganda about the Red Menace. This effort to dehumanize an entire people so that economic genocide can be justified is beyond appalling. But then again, so is everything else that’s wrong with This American Moment.
The sociopathy coming from the Trump facet has been focused on somewhat singularly, but it’s nonetheless deadly. When we’re faced with whatever geopolitical or economic catastrophe that’s sure to soon ensue from decades of bad choices, the fanatics in the White House will be ready to make their pitch for a society even more reactionary and repressive. Amid the crisis, insane measures will be put on the table, scapegoats will be made in paranoid abundance, and much of the population will be too rattled to question the push for societal self-implosion. And the ones responsible will not be those who’ve taken a stand against sociopathy no matter which party it comes from; it will be the ones who’ve normalized callousness and cruelty beforehand with things like these sanctions.
Chris Hedges-esque rant over. Now the call to action: let’s stop these scoundrels by countering their propaganda, helping candidates and causes that represent a humane vision, and simply trying to act compassionate and open minded. If the status quo depends on lack of empathy, you know what you need to do to end it.
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