Are we going to be forced to deal with the Republican Party as we might treat seriously impaired, possibly criminal adolescents in our household?
Is that really such a stretch? You don't want to think of your own kin as having criminal personalities, but the problem doesn't go away just because you don't want to address it.
Psychopathologists -- and sociopathologists -- have studied Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold in depth. Those two kids scared the hell out of our society during their cold rampage at Columbine. It's scary to look through what psychiatrists discovered to be among the pair's personality traits. These were very sick kiddos who managed to be tolerated in a community which just didn't want to -- or perhaps didn't know how to -- deal with the potential for widespread violence in two teenagers.
Psychopathologist Theodore Millon put together a profile of what he called the "malevolent antisocial." It's a typology which is associated with Columbine's Eric Harris. We've seen a lot of it over the past 15 years not just in known criminals but as a thread running through the fabric of American politics.
As a blend of the antisocial and paranoid or sadistic personalities, malevolents are the least attractive antisocials. Belligerent, rancorous, vicious, malignant, brutal, callous, vengeful, and vindictive, they perform actions charged with a hateful and destructive defiance of conventional social life. Like the paranoid, they anticipate betrayal and punishment. Rather than merely issue verbal threats, however, they seek to secure their boundaries with a cold-blooded ruthlessness that avenges every mistreatment they believe others have inflicted on them in the past. For them, tender emotions are a sign of weakness. The goodwill of others is never genuine, but instead hides a deceptive ploy for which they must always be on their guard. Where sadistic traits are prominent, they may display a chip-on-the-shoulder attitude and a willingness to confirm their strong self-image by victimizing those too weak to retaliate or those whose terror might prove particularly entertaining. When confronted with displays of strength, malevolents are experts at the art of posturing and enjoy pressuring their opponents until they cower and withdraw. Most make few concessions, and instead escalate confrontations as far as necessary, backing down only when clearly outgunned.
