When Systemic Pathology Threatens the Nation
Part Five: Malignant Righteousness
Introduction: When I use the word “you,” I am not addressing any individual reader personally. I am speaking broadly to a badly divided America—and more specifically to those who sense that these words may apply to their own attitudes or beliefs.
Consider this: Which would make you feel more comfortable:
Knowing with certainty that your beliefs about America are moral and sound, or…
discovering that you have been manipulated into sanctioning lies, corruption, injustice, and the physical harm—even the deaths—of innocent people?
This question matters, because it identifies the choice that calcifies America’s sharply polarized society and threatens its democracy.
The Choice Explained: Part Four of this series examined Trump policies in relation to deaths they have already caused or are projected to cause. For millions of Americans, those deaths are tragic and unacceptable. For millions of others, some are tragic. Some they ignore or never consider. Some are justified. And some they applaud.
To those of you whose beliefs, convenience, or emotional comfort lead you to condone, rationalize, ignore, or deny the suffering of others, consider the above question from a different perspective:
Do you respond as you do when policies you support cause others to die because that reaction reflects who you are and have always been? Or might you have been skillfully conditioned over time to react as you do by forces that profit from social division?
This series and these questions are not indictments of MAGA or of human nature.
As a former pro-cures activist during the stem-cell debates, I can attest that America’s liberal Left was once deeply deceived and exploited over stem cells—just as MAGA has been deceived and exploited through its belief in Trump.
I can also attest that pro-life conservatives were used and betrayed in the stem cell debates by leaders they trusted.
In both cases, the Left and the Right were controlled and used through their core psychological traits: empathy and religiosity respectively.
This “divide and control” social mechanism continued to fuel and worsen our polarization over climate change, gun legislation, Covid-19, January 6, and Donald Trump. It now allows a mentally unstable autocrat to sit in the Oval Office.
America may or may not have been brought to this point intentionally by billionaires, powerful special interests, and religious extremists, but it was definitely brought here by structural incentives:
Politicians get elected by casting opponents as enemies.
Media companies and online platforms profit from outrage, fear, and constant engagement.
Corporations and wealthy donors use cultural conflict to distract from economic capture, weakened regulation, lowered taxes, and concentrated wealth.
Lobbyists and interest groups gain influence when citizens are too divided to challenge them collectively.
Religious and ideological organizations increase their social and political relevancy by selectively portraying immorality to only conform with conservative traits.
Authoritarian leaders benefit most of all: decades of increasingly toxic division destroys shared reality, weakens public trust, promotes apathy and complacency, isolates targeted groups, and makes domination easier to justify.
In short: Social conflict keeps revenues flowing, coalitions mobilized, donors scared, media clicking, politicians elected, NGOs relevant, the government controllable, and the public blind. Those who exploit this paradigm for power or wealth deny the social, economic, and environmental harm they cause, or they simply don’t care.
The purpose of this series is to expose the mental pathology—the malignant social sickness—of those who corrupt and exploit the good in others to secure their self-serving goals regardless of the harmful costs.
Consider again the behavioral traits of malignant narcissists:
They define right or wrong according to what’s good or bad for them.
They lack empathy for others.
They feel no guilt if they cause others to suffer.
They see themselves as superior and entitled.
They deny responsibility for causing harm and evade accountability.
They manipulate and exploit others.
They can delude themselves into believing whatever they wish despite reality or factual evidence.
Psychologists and psychiatrists have warned for years that Donald Trump consistently displays these traits. They’re also clearly visible in America’s ongoing corporate, institutional, and political behaviors—in those who engineered and nurtured social division for decades, and now profit greatly from having Trump in the White House.
Summary: No one wants to admit to being conned. Self-righteous certainty is far more comforting. So, do we choose to be comfortable or choose to be honest?
Do we continue to ignore, deny, or rationalize corruption, injustice, and the suffering of others because doing so protects our identities, egos, and emotional comfort?
Or should we refuse to let politicians, corporations, media networks, ideological organizations, and billionaires steer us through the traits that make us “us”—especially since they’ve shown us through their words and actions how unworthy they are of our votes, business, attention, donations, and trust?
Freedom requires more than believing we’re free because we’re Americans. It requires freedom from manipulation.
Only if American minds are free can Americans be truly free.
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Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four
James P. Kelly
author of Weaponized Division: What Broke America — How We Repair It