I am not a political scientist, but I felt compelled to coin a new term to describe the new form of governance we see emerging around the world.

I refer to this model as “psychopathocracy” a term which describes the rule by psychopaths, those who are mentally unstable in a sense that strips them of their humanity and makes them incapable of determining what is in their own interests, or in the interests of others.

This state often features paranoid obsessions.

When Donald Trump’s National Paranoia Advisor John Bolton spoke with Martha Raddatz  of ABC News and stated that he was convinced that not only Russia, but Iran, China and North Korea would meddle in the Midterm Election, he was giving voice to precisely such paranoid views (granted their political value to him).

Bolton stated,

“I can say definitively that it’s a sufficient national security concern about [in addition to Russia] Chinese meddling, Iranian meddling and North Korean meddling [in the coming election] that we’re taking steps to try to prevent it, so it’s all four of those countries, really. I’m not going to get into the – what I’ve seen or haven’t seen, but I’m telling you, looking at the 2018 election, those are the four countries that we’re most concerned about.”

We have to wonder whether that election will ever take place.

I also want to mention Thomas Mann’s insight:

“The insipid is not synonymous with the harmless”

Mann suggests that many mistakenly assume that because the actions of certain people are foolish, dreary and banal they are therefore of little consequence. But as Mann learned in Germany of the 1930s, the banality of political discourse has nothing to do with its potency, or with its destructiveness.