# Do sociopaths/psychopaths have a political orientation? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 25, 2017, 9:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-sociopaths-psychopaths-have-a-political-orientation/794635 "2017-08-25T09:33:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2017, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-sociopaths-psychopaths-have-a-political-orientation/794635/22 "2017-08-25T14:48:50Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > All true, but again, and just to be 100% clear on this, no one gets diagnosed as a psychopath in the sense that John Nash was diagnosed was schizophrenic. That is all. Yes, I just wanted to note that although the precise nature of psychopathy is a controversial question, it’s definitely something specific and “real” to scientists in these fields, rather than just being a loose colloquial term for an evil/crazy person as portrayed in the movies. ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2017, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-sociopaths-psychopaths-have-a-political-orientation/794635/23 "2017-08-25T15:12:31Z")
Moderator Note– I’ve moved this to Great Debates because I don’t see it possible to give only factual answers. **samclem** , moderator of General Questions. ---
**Author:** ![Corry\_El](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecae2f/32.png) [@Corry\_El](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Corry_El)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2017, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-sociopaths-psychopaths-have-a-political-orientation/794635/24 "2017-08-25T15:26:37Z")
> [@protoboard](#): > > I would suspect sociopaths and psychopaths are more likely to be politically conservative, because conservatism tends to be more about self-interest while liberalism/leftism is concerned with social justice That could be a parody, except reading it here, I bet it’s not. 🙂 Complete nonsense. I know I’m piling on in a way, but some other countering posts have been tit for tat distortion (or over generalization anyway) of what people on the left want as selfish. Saying as person A you think B, richer than you, should be taxed more to give to C, who is poorer than you is, I believe obviously, morally neutral. And it doesn’t become strictly moral just because it happens you’re actually as rich as B and the tax would apply to you too, or even as poor as C so the greater govt benefits would accrue to you. In the first case you could have been voluntarily giving just as much as you feel B’s should have been taxed all along if you were really ‘not about self interest’. In the second case you could still be thinking about other C’s not strictly yourself. It’s just not a moral question mainly. Other posts have hinted at this, ‘it’s less expensive in the long run if such and such social benefit is increased’. That kind of practical argument is fine, not that it’s always convincing. ‘You’re selfish’ (not even ‘you’re a psychopath’ 🙂 ) to anyone who doesn’t believe in an ever bigger welfare state OTOH is a crap argument. ---
**Author:** ![Bone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bone/32/407_2.png) [@Bone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bone)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2017, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-sociopaths-psychopaths-have-a-political-orientation/794635/25 "2017-08-25T15:26:49Z")
> [@samclem](#): > > Moderator Note– > > I’ve moved this to Great Debates because I don’t see it possible to give only factual answers. > > **samclem** , moderator of General Questions. Gee thanks, **sam**. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2017, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-sociopaths-psychopaths-have-a-political-orientation/794635/26 "2017-08-25T15:31:50Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > All true, but again, and just to be 100% clear on this, no one gets diagnosed as a psychopath in the sense that John Nash was diagnosed was schizophrenic. That is all. …and, in fact, there is _not_ 100% clarity on this. People are diagnosed as psychopaths. There is the narrow point that the DSM does not choose to use the term, but it uses APSD. APSD overlaps and is arguably equivalent - which would make it simply a question of terminology, not concept. And, particularly among criminal psychiatrists/psychologists, the Hare PCL-R is widely used, with “psychopathy” (in so many words) as the clinical diagnosis. > **[Psychopathy: A Clinical Diagnosis](https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/wicked-deeds/201610/psychopathy-clinical-diagnosis)** > > Psychopathy is a continuum ranging from those who possess all of the traits and score highly on them to those who have the traits but score lower on them. ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2017, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-sociopaths-psychopaths-have-a-political-orientation/794635/27 "2017-08-25T15:34:01Z")
> [@Bone](#): > > Gee thanks, **sam**. 🙂 He’s not lacking in empathy, he _understands_ how painful this will be for you. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2017, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-sociopaths-psychopaths-have-a-political-orientation/794635/28 "2017-08-25T15:50:34Z")
For what it’s worth, I believe Ted Bundy was involved in the Republican Party for a while. That being said, I could see psychopaths being motivated by left-wing views; for instance, an eco-terrorist being obsessed with the world being overpopulated and seeing it as his/her mission to reduce the world’s population by killing as many people as he/she can. “Social justice” could morph into “taking revenge on the privileged class.” There are plenty of points on the left-right political spectrum that a serial killer or psychopath could fall into. ---
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2017, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-sociopaths-psychopaths-have-a-political-orientation/794635/29 "2017-08-25T16:05:25Z")
Ted Bundy was a Republican and John Wayne Gacy was a Democrat. Political ideology would not track with sociopathy because any sociopath who was interested in politics would do so out of a desire to advance personal interests and not ideology. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2017, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-sociopaths-psychopaths-have-a-political-orientation/794635/30 "2017-08-25T16:13:07Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > Ted Bundy was a Republican and John Wayne Gacy was a Democrat. Political ideology would not track with sociopathy because any sociopath who was interested in politics would do so out of a desire to advance personal interests and not ideology. Absolutely. Fanaticism in a cause isn’t psychopathic. Using the excuse of a cause to advance one’s own interests is more like it. Better yet, using the excuse of fanaticism in a cause to indulge one’s sadism. What the cause is ought not to matter. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2017, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-sociopaths-psychopaths-have-a-political-orientation/794635/31 "2017-08-25T16:17:28Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > Ted Bundy was a Republican and John Wayne Gacy was a Democrat. Political ideology would not track with sociopathy because any sociopath who was interested in politics would do so out of a desire to advance personal interests and not ideology. Do you think it’s all that different for anyone? Ideology is a personal interest for most people, even if it’s just to make themselves feel good when their side wins or the other side loses. ---
**Author:** ![Hector\_St\_Clare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5ac83/32.png) [@Hector\_St\_Clare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hector_St_Clare)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2017, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-sociopaths-psychopaths-have-a-political-orientation/794635/32 "2017-08-25T17:39:10Z")
First of all, ‘liberals’ and ‘conservatives’ don’t exhaust the possible spectrum of political opinion, especially outside of America. A reactionary monarchist Catholic isn’t a liberal or a conservative. Neither is a Marxist. Neither is a Black Nationalist, or an Islamist, or many other sorts of people. Second of all, taking the American political spectrum for granted, I don’t think it works very well to capture sociopaths. Liberals tend to be higher in empathy and concern for fairness, conservatives tend to be higher in tribal loyalty, obedience to authority and adherence to conventional moral norms. Sociopaths aren’t very interested in empathy and fairness but they also aren’t very interested in loyalty to the tribe, obedience to conventions and norms, etc… (sociopaths tend to believe rules don’t apply to them). I don’t think a sociopath would naturally find either the liberal or the conservative moral framework a natural fit, because sociopaths _don’t have a moral framework_. ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2017, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-sociopaths-psychopaths-have-a-political-orientation/794635/33 "2017-08-25T21:58:03Z")
> [@protoboard](#): > > I would suspect sociopaths and psychopaths are more likely to be politically conservative, because conservatism tends to be more about self-interest while liberalism/leftism is concerned with social justice, which very few psychopaths would take interest in unless it was to make themselves look good. > > I’d guess that libertarianism and Objectivism are especially popular among sociopaths and psychopaths, since selfishness is viewed as a virtue in these ideologies. > > Then again, if an individual psychopath was part of some minority group they might be a liberal because they value their own rights. The psychopathic will exploit what they can for power. Paying lip service to so-called liberal or conservative ideals is a useful way of gaining power. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2017, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-sociopaths-psychopaths-have-a-political-orientation/794635/34 "2017-08-25T22:14:24Z")
As much fun as it would be to jump in and argue that conservatives are sociopaths because they’re more selfish (which they are - _duh_. It’s right in their political dogma that society is served by them acting in their rational self-interest) I think I have to concede that sociopathy would seem to be apolitical. Either side offers opportunities to be twisted to one’s own personal gain. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2017, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-sociopaths-psychopaths-have-a-political-orientation/794635/35 "2017-08-25T22:32:37Z")
> [@protoboard](#): > > I would suspect sociopaths and psychopaths are more likely to be politically conservative, because conservatism tends to be more about self-interest while liberalism/leftism is concerned with social justice, which very few psychopaths would take interest in unless it was to make themselves look good. > > I’d guess that libertarianism and Objectivism are especially popular among sociopaths and psychopaths, since selfishness is viewed as a virtue in these ideologies. > > Then again, if an individual psychopath was part of some minority group they might be a liberal because they value their own rights. Well, if we look at the whole political spectrum I suppose you could make an argument that leftwing has had more psychopaths/sociopaths than right wing governments have wrt extreme slaughter. I mean, if we look at the top 20 killers wrt leaders of nations, over half of them can easily be fit into the leftwing, so that clearly means lefties and liberals are obviously psychopaths and/or sociopaths. Plus, they dress funny. 😛 Ok, this was mainly tongue in cheek, but it was mocking with a purpose…this is the way you can twist any sort of logic to fit ones preconceptions and arrive neatly at the place you wanted to go all along. The moral of the story here should be that while there can be conservative (or liberal, or even, dare I say, moderate) psychopaths/sociopaths (if we can use those terms without splitting hares, which is always messy when making hasenpfeffer), neither political viewpoint is. Individuals are those things, not political systems. Though I think the Communists are really pushing this effort not to paint in broad brush strokes… ---
**Author:** ![The\_Dope](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ccd318/32.png) [@The\_Dope](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Dope)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2017, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-sociopaths-psychopaths-have-a-political-orientation/794635/36 "2017-08-25T22:36:39Z")
trump is a psychopath, and he’s a republican - so, there’s that ---
**Author:** ![igor\_frankensteen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/839c29/32.png) [@igor\_frankensteen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/igor_frankensteen)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2017, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-sociopaths-psychopaths-have-a-political-orientation/794635/37 "2017-08-25T23:12:14Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > As much fun as it would be to jump in and argue that conservatives are sociopaths because they’re more selfish (which they are - _duh_. It’s right in their political dogma that society is served by them acting in their rational self-interest) I think I have to concede that sociopathy would seem to be apolitical. Either side offers opportunities to be twisted to one’s own personal gain. A couple of people have said some variation of this. The choice of declared political affiliation by a sociopath, would be subject to the person’s selfish goals, never an idea which they would alter their own desires in order to show allegiance to. In other words, a psychopath doesn’t say to themselves “I am a psychopath, therefore I should join the psychopath party.” They ask only “what vote, or other act, will most serve my personal goals?” Whichever party appears to reflect that at the moment, will be the one they vote for. And there is no reason to expect them to be honest about reporting their politics when asked either. They will also only REPORT what is most beneficial to them. Speaking of Trump, it appears to me, that he only CLAIMED to be Republican, because that was the easiest Nomination to win. The GOP had spent the last thirty years, instilling their core followers with belief in knee-jerk loyalty, and in accepting many outright lies and paranoia-based falsehoods. This is why Trump’s strategy of spouting off a list of exactly what the Republican leadership had been PRETENDING to support for decades (while never acting on any of it once in office), as spicing things up with various extreme rants, he could spark the bulk of the GOP faithful fairly easily. And that did indeed work. ``` Now that he is President, he is trying to do whatever personally benefits HIMSELF, and is repeatedly stunned and angry whenever anyone suggests he consider any other factors. ``` ---
**Author:** ![Thing\_Fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecb155/32.png) [@Thing\_Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing_Fish)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2017, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-sociopaths-psychopaths-have-a-political-orientation/794635/38 "2017-08-26T00:13:22Z")
Politics is ultimately about trying to make society better, which sociopaths couldn’t care less about. So I doubt a sociopath would ever really be a committed adherent of any political ideology. Of course, if they see a chance to gain power for themselves personally, they might well become involved in politics, but then they would just adopt whatever “principles” seemed most advantageous for them. ---
**Author:** ![Latro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a87d85/32.png) [@Latro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Latro)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2017, 6:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-sociopaths-psychopaths-have-a-political-orientation/794635/39 "2017-08-26T06:46:15Z")
> [@Thing\_Fish](#): > > Politics is ultimately about trying to make society better, Bwahahahaha… ---
**Author:** ![etasyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9f8e36/32.png) [@etasyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/etasyde)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2017, 6:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-sociopaths-psychopaths-have-a-political-orientation/794635/40 "2017-08-26T06:48:01Z")
> [@protoboard](#): > > I admit “conservatism = selfishness” is overly simplistic If only it were. Most conservatives swear by Ayn Rand, who saw selfish behavior as “the highest moral imperative.” Randian conservatism is pretty gross stuff, and it’s rampant. She’s quoted enough in congress so as to defeat any argument that “only hipster kids recite rand.” In answer to the OP, they are whatever political affiliation happens to help them the most at the time. Now you can argue that, because the higher up you go on the “success ladder,” the more common psychopaths and sociopaths become, and that because the higher up on the ladder you are the more likely you are conservative… It really _does_ seem to be the party of sociopaths. But not because they agree with the philosophy, but because it’s useful to them. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2017, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-sociopaths-psychopaths-have-a-political-orientation/794635/41 "2017-08-26T16:53:48Z")
> [@ExTank](#): > > I’d actually say that liberals are more selfish than conservatives; liberals want social welfare, provided by The State, and paid for by _other_ taxpayers. IOW, something-for-nothing. Conservatives are more selfish than Liberals. Conservatives care only for their own gain, and have no interest in ‘promoting the general welfare’ of citizens. They want all of the benefits of living in a society, but squeal like stuck pigs when they’re asked to pay for those benefits. Liberals understand that benefits must be paid for, and they spell out the means of such payment. Conservatives want to steal from the poor and give the money to the rich. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-sociopaths-psychopaths-have-a-political-orientation/794635.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-sociopaths-psychopaths-have-a-political-orientation/794635.md?page=3)