Believe it or not, despite the convoluted nature of politics there has been no such thing specifically identified as ‘political illness’ in the Standard Psychiatric Manual, no formal study of ‘political psychiatry.’ It seems there is no precise framework to pin down the signs and symptoms, nor is there a linear course that the ‘illness’ follows. The closest we have gotten is to diagnose a political leader with ‘malignant narcissism,’ a leader whose love for himself is so much that he is willing to sacrifice the entire nation for his personal gratification. (‘Malignant narcissism’ for the first time was diagnosed by Erich Fromm.) And yet, we can sense that there is some sort of common political syndrome and an accompanying path of behaviors among politicians who reach a certain level of power. Maybe there is indeed such a thing as “political illness.” As with any illness, treatment begins with diagnosis. In this connection, it is noteworthy to mention that Lord David Owen published a book in 2012 titled, The Hubris Syndrome: Bush, Blair and the Intoxication of Power. As a psychiatrist, he coined the term ‘Hubris Syndrom’ in 2007. This was prompted by the Iraq invasion in 2003, pointing finger at George Bush and Tony Blair for having been intoxicated by power and had developed Hubris Syndrome. The Greek term hubris means those who become arrogant, overconfident and do not respect the opinion of others. In other words, those politicians who are drugged by imagining maniacal power, like Bush and Blair cause the killing and devastation of hundreds of thousands of civilians and soldiers without recourse or even remorse. This hubristic condition of the politicians calls on the medical and psychiatric establishments, as well as on the voters, to urgently address and quell the reckless behavior of the political elites, and outrageous arrogant military tragedies before more disasters befall on humanity. In the Second Enlightenment, there must be more political filters in place to prevent leaders from becoming intoxicated by the drug of power.

A proposed diagnosis of ’political illness’ is the syndromic deterioration of the mind of the political leader which occurs as he controls a position of greater and greater power. The leader’s mind progresses from sanity, to power neurosis, and ultimately to political psychosis.

Political illness does not start with any conspicuous symptoms in the eyes of lay people, however, with a psychiatric evaluation by the experts, the profile of the candidates may become detectable earlier on. Only over the course of time do symptoms begin to manifest, and toward the end of political life it becomes almost an incurable syndrome like a metastasizing cancer of power, the illness takes over the leader’s mind and begins to destroy and take over whatever is in its way. It is the psychological picture of someone who systematically takes and holds power, at any cost.

Let us take a closer look at what this illness entails, and how it manifests. Initially, while in the stage of Sanity, the new leader may seem healthy and have good intentions; they sometimes do not consciously wish to become a despotic ruler or take over the world. Sometimes he is legitimately elected by people, and other times he may have taken power by a coup or a revolution. He may very well make many good and useful reforms for the good of people and the country at first. But the more he receives and manufactures compliments and adoration from the people as well as his own entourage, the more deterioration we can expect. As he starts experiencing gratification at how his popular politics is working, he takes more and more credit for successes (often ignoring failures) all the while feeling how ecstatically the crowd loves him. His megalomania starts taking shape. He lets fewer and fewer people be involved in any decisions. In this stage of the political illness, the mindset of the leader begins to shift from Sanity and psychological stability to Power Neurosis.

Time to Detect Political Neurosis

His political illness evolves from possessing power to being possessed by power. It leads to a growing feeling of suspicion toward the staff and close associates; the paranoia of suspicion can range from mild to severe to hysterical. He begins to fire and eliminate his formerly close entourage using different means and methods of elimination in order to remove what now feels like a threat to his power, particularly if they express any ideas or plans different from his own. The consolidation and internalization of his power pushes the leader to express fury at the slightest resistance to his power and leadership. He begins to justify use of violence or control against his real or imaginary opponents. In despotic and ideological systems, the leaders who have particularly severe cases of political illness proceed to victimize and completely purge the opposition. This stage of neurosis is accompanied with a sense of personal ownership of the government and the nation, even to the point of self-identification with the nation itself.

By now, the leader has already gone from living modestly in accordance with his original idealism to living lavishly in line with his metastasizing sense of self, often hoarding objects and wealth out of vanity. At this stage of political illness, these leaders become extremely verbose (“logorrhea”) and fond of their own voice. They love having the stage, and will famously –orate for hours. In a state of self-righteousness with an extreme ‘know it all attitude,’ they subject their captive audience to the illogical reasoning and ranting thoughts of a self-obsessed leader. With such view of the leader, there is a sense of never being able to go back to any kind of ‘normal’ life again.

His desperate obsession with power leads to the complete rejection of the transition of power to any other leader, whether through peaceful or violent means, whether through elections or accession of the next heir in line. Any political option is seen as a coup and an impossibility. These leaders feel they are the favorite of the masses and will remain so for as long as they are alive. Sometimes they even use enormous amounts of state funds to order constructing a monument to themselves in order to ‘live forever!’

This political illness continues in its insidious progression, moving on to the next and final stage of Political Psychosis. Power intoxication, delusion, and self-aggrandizement completely take over the mind of the leader. The illness inevitably reaches its terminal stage, a state of political psychosis where the leader loses touch with the reality of life in his country, both with the new generation of people as well as with a necessary and healthy opposition. It can even be a kind of God-delusion, as the ruler may have taken so much power that he literally has the life and death of the people in his hands, a power that the human mind is not designed for. The end stage is either he is tragically brought down from the pedestal by angry mobs (either literally or figuratively) and he who was formerly beloved ends up being hated, with ‘his’ people being forced into revolting against his despotic rule and despotic mindset. Although, in some instances, the plot of the narrative eventually evolves into a personality cult and mass psychosis, it never lasts forever. Eventually such leaders are toppled, or they simply die, leaving behind a dysfunctional and damaged country.

This illness begins as the story of a man and a country which turns into the story of just the man, as he and the country become indistinguishable in his politically psychotic mind. The country becomes him; he becomes the country. Installing the national flags everywhere is supposed to stimulate a lifeless patriotism. In such a case, people have lost all power and have become captive spectators who have to applaud for his success and the glory of the country in order to survive, until the end finally comes.

Love of Power Leads to All Kinds of Fantasies and Narcissism 

It is not at all difficult to identify politicians who are classic case studies for such an illness. From pre-modern kings, emperors, and tyrants all the way to the modern political leaders exhibit the etiology described above. A ‘brief’ list could include well-known personalities such as Xerxes, Alexander (undeserving of the title “the Great”, considering he was simply another greedy warlord who sought to conquer lands), Caligula, Genghis Khan, Tamerlane, Napoleon, and a number of dictators and despots in the 20th and 21st centuries such as Mussolini, Hitler, Franco (who shocked even Hitler and Mussolini at the scale of genocide of his own countrymen in order to stay in power), Stalin, Castro, Kim Il Sung, Mugabe (a self-designated ‘emperor’ who felt he ‘owned’ Zimbabwe), Khomeini-Khamenei, and Pol Pot all suffered to different degrees, and made millions of their people grieve, due to this power syndrome. Some elected leaders such as Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, Tayyip Erdogan and Benjamin Netanyahu are also suffering from an obsession with power, as well as from malignant narcissism, especially Trump (See the documentary in Sept. 2020 and the news of Trump’s psychiatric condition in various outlets. See the trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKxON_ICAWY). It is not difficult to identify even more leaders from countries around the globe today.

In recalling some of these very powerful politicians in the modern age who have risen to positions of heads of state, even in democratic countries, we can see that they started their career with idealism, with populist or revolutionary promises, with grand gestures of being the patriarchal guardians of their societies. But as we know, none of them ended their reigns peacefully or positively. Those enslaved by power are generally weak people as they sell their honor and dignity cheaply in order to fuel their ego.

We must painfully acknowledge that such leaders become mentally and politically ill because of their own disposition and the masses contribute to their gradual deterioration. Perhaps it can be seen as a sort of co-dependency, where there is also a sort of mass psychosis among people alongside their leader. The psychanalysis of self-deceived tyrants was studied by Manès Sperber between 1937-39 in his book Zur Analyse der Tyrannis, in which he draws our attention to the nature of tyranny by highlighting two contributing currents: the willpower and the mental tension of the leader, and the applauses of the people, which in itself is largely and paradoxically responsible for the establishment and continuity of tyranny. The people’s adoration brings to power a man who eventually makes their lives miserable. In the same line of thinking, Stanley Milgram in the early 1960s conducted series of experiments on ordinary people and their blind obedience to a leader and authorities, as described in his book Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View. Milgram emphasized how the masses are subdued, anesthetized and brainwashed, explaining how people can come under the sway of a charismatic yet neurotic leader. In the same vein, Erich Fromm in his book On Disobedience and Other Essays, discusses the control of thoughts and brainwashing the crowd to the point where they can kill ruthlessly out of conviction. Hannah Arendt went on to analyze the phenomenon of obedience and the danger of a seemingly banal behavior such as following orders.

No Cure but Prevention

We have seen this political syndrome being repeated innumerable times over the centuries, leading to predictable patterns of upheaval and revolution. Therefore, the public needs to be made aware of this pattern in order to find ways to prevent it. In the same way that the public was made aware of the cancer risks involved in smoking, for example, people need to be made aware of the risk of this political cancer of power, which is still fully present and active in today’s world.

There is no cure for this political illness; there is only prevention. This requires inhibiting the metastatic growth of unchecked power. Imposing term limits, holding national referenda, requiring regular constitutional re-evaluations, and setting lifestyle limits for rulers can prevent the political illness of power from following its etiology to the terminal end. The Second Enlightenment is hoped to be an Age of mature political awareness and the end of such political abuses and bloody revolutions.