Brian Klaas: Why Are There So Many Psychopaths in Politics?

Summary

Podcast Summary: Brian Klaas: Why Are There So Many Psychopaths in Politics?

Episode Title: Brian Klaas: Why Are There So Many Psychopaths in Politics?
Release Date: June 10, 2025
Host: Charlie Sykes
Guest: Brian Klaas, Associate Professor of Global Politics at University College London, contributor to The Atlantic, author of Fluke, and Substack newsletter writer for The Garden of Forking Paths.

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Introduction

In this episode of To The Contrary with Charlie Sykes, host Charlie Sykes engages in a profound discussion with Brian Klaas about the alarming prevalence of psychopaths in modern politics. The conversation delves into the structural flaws within political systems that inadvertently attract individuals with psychopathic traits, and explores the broader implications for democracy and global alliances.

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The Toxicity of Modern Political Systems

Brian Klaas begins by highlighting the inherent toxicity of current political systems, which discourages ordinary, service-oriented individuals from entering politics. He posits that the only individuals willing to endure the rigors of political life are those who are power-hungry, often exhibiting psychopathic tendencies.

"We've engineered a system that is so toxic that normal people don't want to do the job."
[03:39]

Klaas explains that power, viewed as an end rather than a means for service, attracts psychopaths—individuals driven by a relentless pursuit of authority without regard for ethical considerations. He identifies three key traits commonly found in politicians with psychopathic tendencies:

1. Psychopathy: An inherent desire for power.
2. Narcissism: An inflated sense of self-importance.
3. Machiavellianism: A belief that the ends justify the means.

"Psychopathy is one of the three traits, alongside narcissism and Machiavellianism, that coalesce in many politicians today."
[05:27]

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Historical Shifts in Political Aspirations

Charlie Sykes probes whether this trend is a recent phenomenon or has evolved over the past few decades. Klaas reflects on a generational shift, noting that previously, politics attracted idealistic individuals inspired by figures like John F. Kennedy.

"There's a generational gap that has shifted where both sides take for granted that a large proportion of those in public office are not there to simply help others."
[06:48]

He attributes this shift to systemic issues within democracy, such as gerrymandering and campaign finance dynamics, which prioritize power retention over genuine public service.

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Impact of Donald Trump's Presidency

The discussion transitions to the influence of Donald Trump's leadership on the political landscape. Klaas argues that Trump's tenure accelerated existing toxic dynamics, further entrenching psychopathic leadership by setting a litmus test for loyalty over competence or integrity.

"Trump accelerated all of the things that were there and are there in political systems generally."
[08:16]

Klaas observes that the Republican Party has become a bastion for individuals who prioritize allegiance to Trump over effective governance, leading to a cycle that continues to attract unfit leaders.

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The Global Perception of American Politics

Charlie Sykes brings up concerns about how the rest of the world views American politics amid these internal challenges. Klaas explains that international allies are increasingly wary of relying on the United States, given its unpredictable foreign policy and internal turmoil.

"A lot of countries that have been historic allies now view the US as a part adversary."
[19:49]

He cites examples such as Denmark and the UK's contingency plans in response to potential US antagonism, emphasizing the long-term damage to global alliances.

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Militarization of Politics and Authoritarian Tendencies

The conversation shifts to recent events in Los Angeles, where Trump has federalized the National Guard to address protests sparked by aggressive ICE raids. Klaas warns that such actions signify a dangerous step towards authoritarianism, blurring the lines between military and political power.

"When you can just federalize troops and send them into American cities, it's very dangerous."
[22:46]

He underscores the historical significance of such moves, citing the unprecedented nature since Lyndon Johnson in 1965, and the potential erosion of constitutional norms.

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The Role of Media and Public Distraction

Klaas introduces the concept of the "Banality of Crazy," drawing parallels to Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. He suggests that society's obsession with entertainment and distraction allows for severe political misdeeds to go unchecked.

"Modern consumption of information has a soma-like quality that keeps people distracted long enough that the government doesn't need to impose authoritarian measures."
[45:07]

This incessant focus on trivial matters prevents sustained attention on critical issues, thereby undermining political accountability and enabling authoritarian practices to flourish.

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The Elusive Nature of Accountability

The duo discusses the diminishing capacity for accountability in politics, noting that scandals and abuses of power rarely have lasting repercussions due to momentary public attention spans and the prevalence of conspiracy theories that obscure truth.

"Nothing moves the needle anymore because people are just completely worn down."
[42:07]

Klaas expresses concern that ongoing norm violations erode democratic principles, making it increasingly difficult to hold leaders accountable for their actions.

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Conclusion and Final Thoughts

In wrapping up, Charlie Sykes reflects on the complexities of combating the rise of psychopathic leaders in politics. He acknowledges the challenges posed by entrenched power structures and the pervasive culture of distraction, but underscores the necessity of addressing these issues to preserve democratic integrity.

"When the electorate ceases to be serious, they elect unserious leaders, leading to a country that's disengaged and dysfunctional."
[46:53]

Klaas concurs, emphasizing that democracy's survival hinges on restoring accountability, fostering genuine public service, and reengineering political systems to attract ethical leaders.

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Notable Quotes

• "We've engineered a system that is so toxic that normal people don't want to do the job." — Brian Klaas [03:39]
• "Psychopathy is one of the three traits, alongside narcissism and Machiavellianism, that coalesce in many politicians today." — Brian Klaas [05:27]
• "Trump accelerated all of the things that were there and are there in political systems generally." — Brian Klaas [08:16]
• "Modern consumption of information has a soma-like quality that keeps people distracted long enough that the government doesn't need to impose authoritarian measures." — Brian Klaas [45:07]
• "When the electorate ceases to be serious, they elect unserious leaders, leading to a country that's disengaged and dysfunctional." — Charlie Sykes [46:53]

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Final Remarks

This episode offers a compelling analysis of the intersection between political structures and the prevalence of psychopathic traits among leaders. Brian Klaas provides insightful perspectives on systemic failures, the impact of leadership like Donald Trump's, and the broader societal issues that enable such dynamics. The conversation serves as a critical examination of contemporary politics, urging listeners to reconsider the foundational elements that shape our governance and global standing.

Transcript

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[Charlie Sykes]

I'm Charlie Sykes. Welcome to the to the Contrary podcast. Are people still talking about Trump Derangement Syndrome? Because at this point, almost everything that we said was going to happen has happened and maybe even has happened more quickly than than we thought. So to examine all of this and where do we start, we're joined by our good friend Brian class, who joins us from. You're in London now, right? I mean, you are speaking to me from London. Okay, time zone. Brian is of course an associate professor of Global politics at the University College of London, a contributor to the Atlantic, the author of the book Fluke, and most importantly of all, the Substack newsletter, the Garden of Forking Paths. So good to be with you, Brian.

[Brian Class]

So thanks for having me on.

[Charlie Sykes]

Okay, so I'm trying to debate where do we start today? Do we talk about what's happening in la? You know, Trump dispatching the National Guard. They're talking about putting active duty Marines on the streets of an American city. Should we talk about the travel ban being back from last week, which is almost under the radar. It's so strange. We talk about the extraordinary Trump Musk breakup, which is still, I mean, still ongoing, but becoming more and more interesting. I mean, there's the corruption, I mean, where. But let's start here because you kind of did an umbrella piece a couple of weeks ago. Why are there so many psychopaths in politics? You know, this is something I've been wondering about. I've been wondering about what it is about our politics that has broken so many people's brains. Also, whether or not we're just attracting just a new class of, well, for better lack of a better word, psychopaths. And you did a kind of a deep dive into that. So give me the short version. Why are there so many psychopaths in our politics? Which, by the way, explains so much of what we're going through right now, doesn't it?

[Brian Class]

Yeah. So, I mean, I think the way to start this is to say that when I often will ask people, you know, would you change positions in your life with a politician, right? Like if you could swap careers and they take your job and you take theirs for the rest of your life, how many of you would do that? Like, you end up in Congress. And almost nobody raises their hands, right? And what that says to me is that we've engineered a system that is so toxic that normal people don't want to do the job.

[Unknown Speaker]

Right?

[Brian Class]

Now if you look at power as a vector for service, then you will be turned off by a realm in which you feel like all that you do in Congress is self serving corruption, you know, amassing power and sort of playing the game. Whereas the person who's a psychopath who sees power as the goal in itself, which is very much part of psychopathy, the sort of, you know, mental condition, the sort of brain disorder that it is, where the amygdala doesn't function correctly. Those people are very power hungry and power is an end in itself. And so they don't, they don't care, right? They don't care that they just have to play the game because that's the reward itself. So the short version of the argument is that we've created a process by which the system is so toxic that the only people who are willing to subject themselves to it are those who covet power above all else. And the last thing that I wanted to just mention about this is that there's three traits that tend to coalesce around psychopathy. Psychopathy is one of them. The other two are narcissism, which is sort of, you know, the ego aspect of things, thinking you're the greatest thing on earth. And then Machiavellianism, which is sort of this. This personality trait of thinking the end always justifies the means. Whatever you need to get to the goal, which is, in this case, you know, getting elected, you do it. And so if you think about it like, the person who wants power is disproportionately likely to be psychopathic above all else.

[Unknown Speaker]

Right.

[Brian Class]

The person who is good at sort of running campaigns is often Machiavellian because they are able to sort of do whatever it takes to get elected. And then the narcissists really pay attention to the sort of way people perceive them, which often helps them stay in power. So they. There's a whole bunch of things about our system that attracts the wrong kind of personality traits. And it's both that we have a broken system and that people who are attracted to that are disproportionately likely to have broken brains.

[Charlie Sykes]

Okay, two things about this. First of all, if you would have asked that question 30 years ago, would you have gotten a different answer? Or has something happened that has made this. Because I remember an era in which lots of young, idealistic people wanted to grow up and they wanted to go into politics. That's what you did. You looked at a John Kennedy or something, and you wanted to emulate that. When did that switch get flipped?

[Brian Class]

You know, I've been wondering that for a while, too, because I sort of thought, you know, when I was a kid, I thought maybe I'd be able to go into politics and do public service. I mean, you know, it's one of those things where I think there's just a generational gap that has shifted where, you know, I think it's sort of taken for granted by both sides of the political spectrum that a large proportion of the people in public office are not there to simply help others.

[Unknown Speaker]

Right?

[Charlie Sykes]

Yeah.

[Brian Class]

And I think that that is. It's a really sad reflection of the society that we've engineered for ourself. I mean, we've built this. Right? I mean, it's a democracy, so obviously there's disproportionate power for certain kinds of groups and so on, but it is up to us, and we elect these people.

[Charlie Sykes]

Right.

[Brian Class]

Sorry, excuse me, but what I was going to say is that there's an aspect to this where. When I think about the sort of Republican in Congress now, and I always try to describe this in the UK because people can't really make sense of the Trump phenomenon. Why do these people go along with this? And what's so obvious, I think, and take it for granted by Americans now is that most of these people, a significant proportion of them, especially those who have been in Congress for the pre Trump period, they know exactly what they're doing, right? Like they do not believe that Donald Trump is a good person. They do not believe that his agenda is good for America. They have made a calculation that they would rather have power and stay in office than serve the country. And the problem is that Trump accelerated all of the things that were there and are there in political systems generally, because there was a litmus test that basically got formed around 2016, which was, are you willing to sacrifice your dignity, your principles and service and in order to win a Republican primary and do anything Trump says? And that's what happened. Right. So the people who stood up to Trump are gone. They either died or they got defeated in a primary or they bowed out of office because they knew what was going to happen to them and everybody else survived.

[Unknown Speaker]

Right.

[Brian Class]

And so the survivors in the sort of modern Republican Party are the people who have by design said that whatever Trump says is gospel. I mean, it was, it was the RNC's platform. Right, whatever Trump says. So, so it's accelerated this in a bad way.

[Charlie Sykes]

Well, then it accelerates and then it becomes more of a pattern because as you lay it out, there's kind of a self selection then that the people who want to get into public service go, no, I don't want to be a congressman. And it continues to attract the Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert types who are willing to do this. So it becomes kind of a non virtuous cycle. But I want to ask one question, maybe push back just a little bit because I get the formula that this attracts people who are megalomaniacs and who are narcissists and people who want power. And yet most of these people don't have that much power. In fact, what's Mark, you know, what marks the modern politician is how willing they are to give up their power. And so many of these figures that are attracted now not only don't do any public service, they don't do much of anything. It's all performative. And you know, it is a kind of a new class of politics. I mean, when I grew up, there were a lot of policy nerds who were in Congress, people who were, you know, chairman of committees, who did a lot of the work behind the Scenes now it seems as if even those people are in eclipse. And it's the people who are on social media who can be the celebrities, who can get on TV and get on radio. So there's something else, right? It's not just power, it's also just kind of this faux celebrity influencer thing.

[Brian Class]

Yeah, I couldn't agree with you more about this. And I should have been more precise, right? Because when I interned on Capitol Hill a long time ago, it really struck me how much power, you know, the 20 something and 30 something staffers had, right? They could change legislation and then the sort of senator would sort of just sign it, you know, sign off on it and that would become a law. And you're right, not just Congress abdicating their power, but also a lot of the sort of individuals in a, you know, in a body of 435 people are not that powerful individually unless they're a swing vote. But it's social power and vanity, right? So they have massive status. They have a massive ability to turn that status into wealth. And that has. You hit the nail on the head with the influencer point, right? That like the people who are in Congress now are much closer to influencers than they are to legislators. They are people who, their career goal is to get eyeballs, right? It's not to change lives. Like, I don't think they measure their success based on how many people are no longer in poverty. I think they measure their success by how many clicks they got on their video on social media or how often they're on Fox News primetime. And so, you know, like, whenever I say this, I mean, I think people all agree. I think there's not that many people who push back and say, no, no, no, we have a class of, you know, grand statesmen. But, but you never sort of zoom out and think, like, how did we get to this position, right? Like, we have the most powerful democracy in the world and we have a series of political influencers who are running the show. It's an absurd, absurd and really grotesque moment that we're in. And you know, I think we have to sort of step back and think, how can we re engineer a system that might attract better people?

[Charlie Sykes]

Okay, well, that's an interesting question. I mean, you could say that this is a function of redistricting. It's a function of the modern media, it's a function of campaign finance. Ultimately, we do get the kind of, the American people, the voters get the kind of government they deserve, right? I mean, vote voters. So what is it Yeah, I mean.

[Brian Class]

There'S so, yeah, you're right. I mean there's some things that could help, right? I mean, there's no silver bullet, but one thing that could help is, as you say, redistricting and gerrymandering. Because if you live in a 9010 district, you know, 90% Republican, 10% Democratic, the recipe to lose is in the primary.

[Unknown Speaker]

Right.

[Brian Class]

And it just means that the second you don't do what Trump says, you will face significant electoral consequences. And that means that like there's a built in structural incentive to just become a lackey. So if you had more competitive districts, you would have, you know, people who are less prone to those dynamics. The other one is money in politics.

[Unknown Speaker]

Right.

[Brian Class]

I mean, I think it's just something where a lot of people who are not personally wealthy, they look at politics and they rightly assess that what they are going to do on a day to day basis is call people and ask for money every day. It's call time. It's what politicians do. So you have a system where the kind of person who wants to go in and think about legislation and reorienting society towards justice and so on, the second they actually get there, they're like, I am on the phone to rich people all day asking them to write a check and then the second that the cycle ends, I have to do it again. Because we have a congressional cycle every two years. Right. So I think there are ways to make being a politician a little bit more attractive and that's part of it. But it's a chicken or an egg problem, right? It's like.

[Charlie Sykes]

No, it is, yeah.

[Brian Class]

I mean the same dynamics. Sorry, sorry. Go ahead, Charlie.

[Charlie Sykes]

No, I mean I've seen so many of the sort of the best and the brightest, I mean the smartest, most conscientious members of Congress who are the rising stars in a different universe would have been future speakers like. Well, the Congressman from Wisconsin named Mike Gallagher, who was highly respected and just reached a point, I think where he said, I just don't want to be in this caucus, I don't want to deal with this bullshit. I am out of here. What I thought my career was going to be is completely different. And so you have the self deportation of a lot of these substantive folks and it must be very, very hard to, to recruit a serious person to this. So I think, I think that's, that's part of, that's part of the process. So let's just talk about some of what's going on right now. And again, I Want to get to what's happening in Los Angeles with the National Guard, the Elon Musk and travel ban and everything. But you have a unique perspective of a lot of our guests. I want to get some. I mean, it is so mind boggling being an American, waking up every day watching this. What is the rest of the world thinking about America right now? What, when they watch all of this, are they just puzzled, like, what has happened to you Americans? What is going on there? And I mean, and again, we feel this way here, but what does it look like to the rest of the world?

[Brian Class]

Yeah, I mean, it's baffled, bewildered, sad, saddened by what's happened to the US Scared, you know, people who are worried about what the US Is going to do to their country. It's like Americans feel upset about this stuff, but, you know, we had a vote. So if you're, if you're seeing all this stuff unfold and this affects every country in the world, and all of a sudden your mortgage is more expensive because the central bank has adjusted things based on, you know, the Trump tariffs. I mean, there is no vote there.

[Unknown Speaker]

Right.

[Brian Class]

It's just, your life just sucks. Sucks more because Donald Trump has decided to slap some tariffs on your country. So all that type of stuff, you know, is, is really problematic. What I think is really interesting though, and this is something that maybe Americans don't clock if they, if they don't spend a lot of time outside the US There is not a significant debate about Trump in Europe in the sense of is this a good or bad thing? And I think the reason for that is because there's no parallel information system that is constantly bombarding them with propaganda that says it's no big deal, that he's a felon. Maybe. January 6th was manufactured by the feds. Right? Yes. Dan Bongino is the right person to run, you know, the FBI. So if you don't have that information vortex, which is, you know, a huge apparatus in the United States, very well funded, very influential.

[Charlie Sykes]

Yeah.

[Brian Class]

You know, you end up with situations like you have here in the UK where it's like you just instantly assume that people don't like Trump and you're basically right. I mean, the polls suggest it's probably 9010 in most European countries, if not 95,5. So, you know, there's a huge number of people who are right wing that think Trump is a joke, but like a really dangerous joke. And so, yeah, that's, that's, that's the stuff where it's just, you know, I Read the news here, obviously, and you just don't get the sort of smokescreen for Trump.

[Charlie Sykes]

So the most interesting question, I think that I've heard people debating is whether or not, I mean, we have alienated our allies, we have insulted our allies. I mean, just the fact that in the last hundred days we have gone to war with Canada of all places. And I continue to, I have yet to meet the single American who's mad at Canada or who really wants to show Denmark who's boss. Do you have a sense, though, that those alliances will go back to normal? Will people get over it when Trump leaves? Will or is this, is this a more fundamental, historic, secular break?

[Brian Class]

Yeah. So I think, I think it is historic. I will say, by the way, I was in Denmark four days ago and, you know, there was a shop that was selling Donald go home shirts and hats and so on. And it's, you know, it's, I think it's a nerve. I mean, you know, they're trying, like if you're, if you're from Denmark and they're trying to steal Greenland for no discernible reason. But to the substance of your point, here's the issue from the perspective that I've observed and I've talked to a lot of people in the British government and so on and done briefings in the British government, and the sense that I think a lot of people have, policymakers had was the Trump phenomenon was sort of an accident of history in 2016 where 80,000 people go the other way. It's not the comey letter. People try this whole thing, it's crazy. It ends in January 6th and then it goes away. And then the US becomes, you know, a bipartisan commitment to NATO comes back.

[Unknown Speaker]

Right.

[Brian Class]

And I think one of the most astute quotes I've ever seen that captures the dynamics now is there was an EU official, he didn't want to go on the record, but they said an unnamed EU official said the days are over where we leave our security up to voters in Wisconsin every four years. Right, I saw that. Yeah. And what they're capturing there is it's just we cannot risk our sort of safety, security, economic well being and so on, on the goodwill of the United States anymore, because we know that one party, you know, I, I think, I think the base really dislikes Europe. I don't think it's something where they're sort of like annoyed at them. I think they, like, they think that Europe is everything they don't want to be. And so this is not like a A flash in the pan. This is going to be. Whoever wins the White House, US Foreign policy will either be out, you know, alliance building, or it'll be antagonistic. And I think a lot of countries that have been historic allies, you know, and we're, we're three, we're recording this three days after the, you know, 81st anniversary of D Day. Those countries that, you know, we stormed the beaches with view the US As a part adversary now. It's really depressing. I mean, you know, I feel terribly, terribly depressed about it because I have British citizenship as well as American citizenship now. And, yeah, I mean, the British government is trying to make contingency plans about what to do if the US Becomes an enemy. And it's not like a far fetched notion. So I'm really worried about the long term implications of it.

[Charlie Sykes]

Yeah, well, I'm sure you've heard David Frum's quote about all of this, that the rest of the world looked at 2016 and said, okay, the Americans mixed Quaaludes with tequila. They did it once, but they said they would never do it again. But now they've done it again. So maybe they have a long term problem here. I mean, on D Day, you know, I am struck by the fact that D Day in many ways was a repudiation of America first, because America first, the original America first, was all about we don't need to defend Europe, we should make Fortress America. And D Day was not America alone. I mean, there were the Brits there, the Canadians that were there. There were, I mean, 13 allied countries were there. And you wonder whether we're ever going to go back to that. So let's talk about just some of the things that are happening right now, you know, sort of in the context of this, you know, and again, none of this should come as a shock to anybody because Donald Trump has been lusting to use the US Military or the National Guard against protesters in blue cities from the first term. And so now he has decided that he's going to target Los Angeles. There have been increasingly aggressive ICE raids there, which have then sparked protests. Now we have troops in the street, 2,000 National Guardsmen, he's federalized them. Normally in our system, you go through the governors, the states control the National Guard. It's one of these many, many, many loopholes in the laws. I think it's a step toward his eventual use of the Insurrection Act. But your sense of what's going on on the streets of LA right now, because this really is the fight that Donald Trump wants. This is the show he wants, isn't it?

[Brian Class]

Yeah. I mean, so I think this story in la, to me, captures the dynamics of the Trump presidency in a nutshell, where he picks a political fight that will really rile up the sort of Democratic base, but will win over people who are independents at the same time that he's grabbing power that are powers that are not allocated to him.

[Unknown Speaker]

Right.

[Brian Class]

So it's like you, you pick a political fight that gives you a wedge issue and in the process you also accelerate authoritarianism.

[Unknown Speaker]

Right.

[Brian Class]

So that's, that's basically what's happening. It's, it's sort of let's break a norm at the same time that we sort of win a political fight. And I think, you know, this is where it's very difficult for people who are resisting Trumpism because these things are twinned in such a way that you either have to, you know, end up being in a position where you start defending, you know, things that are potentially going to lose you swing voters. I'm not talking specifically about la, but in lots of these situations, right, he has, he has a fight where the Democrats going all in on this are going to potentially lose swing voters, but you have to push back because otherwise the power is gone.

[Unknown Speaker]

Right.

[Brian Class]

And like the precedent set that you can just federalize troops, send them into American cities over the, you know, relatively, comparatively small disturbances in the grand scheme of things, you know, it's, I think, very dangerous. So it's very dangerous. Yeah.

[Charlie Sykes]

I mean, but I think this is, this is, as you point out, this is more complicated than I think some people give it credit for, because it is extremely dangerous. The constitutional issues, the legal issues, the precedent of using the military. And the fact is we have not, no president has sent the national, has, no president has federalized the National Guard or without the permission of the governor since lyndon Johnson in 1965, who did it to protect civil rights workers. It does not happen a lot. And the consequences of having the US military in city streets, I mean, there is the Posse Comitatus law. Unfortunately, having read too much about it over the last 48 hours, it feels like it's a Swiss cheese of loopholes. On the other hand, let's play a little bit of real politic. And I, and I do worry whether the progressive bubble does not fully understand the Trump show here, that you can have these massive peaceful protests over here. They are not going to be the image on television, particularly right wing television. What's going to be on television will be the fires, will be the Smoke bombs, the tear gas, it will be the mask, mask protesters on motorcycles waving Mexican flags in front of a burning police car, which, by the way, the right wing media is just eating up. The problem is, and I think you touched on this, it's hard to say, okay, let's just have a mass peaceful movement. Because you know that number one, in, even in the best mass peaceful movement, there's going to be somebody that's going to throw a rock and that's what they're going to focus on. And so again, this is, this is part of the dilemma to do this because if you're Donald Trump, you, this is exactly the fight you want. You don't want to be talking about Elon Musk. You don't want people focusing on the fact you're about to blink with China. You don't want to focus on maybe you got some political problems with the BBB, which is going to get passed sooner or later. You don't want people necessarily talking about the corruption. You want the theater of the street, the bad guys, the thugs and my strong military. Right.

[Brian Class]

Yeah. And it's, I mean, it's a formula that has been used not just in the United States, all over the world. Right. This is the most authoritarian power grabs have pretexts. And so when you, when you latch onto a pretext that has good optics. And you know, I saw, even in the BBC, I saw the Mexican flag images, right. And I looked at that and I was like, you know, this is, this is Trump's, you know, fever dream because it is the idea that he's attacking, you know, trying to deport people who are in the United States illegally, who are, who are then symbolizing this with a Mexican flag. It's, you know, I mean, it's exactly what he wants to happen. And it puts the Democrats on the defensive. And that's, that's an issue where I think, you know, to some extent, though, one of the points that I try to make, you know, whenever I do speak to Democrats is to say you have to pick your fights not based on what you think is going to win an election in 18 months. Some of this stuff is so existential that you just have to decide, you.

[Charlie Sykes]

Know, you have to do it.

[Brian Class]

Yeah. Like we have to have the fight.

[Unknown Speaker]

Right.

[Brian Class]

And it's not about protecting, you know, people who are burning police cars. It's about protecting the Constitution. And I think, you know, you, you, you can see this with some of the overreach that Trump did with deporting people to El Salvador for Example where it's like, yeah, okay, look, the optics are the ones that Trump wants. But people do, they can take a sophisticated argument. They can say like, look, it doesn't matter who the guy is. You can't just send somebody to El Salvador.

[Charlie Sykes]

He was losing that, too. Yeah, that was actually a mild surprise. Right. That when people were asked about, you know, Brego Garcia, they actually, there is a residual sense of no due process is something that we care about.

[Brian Class]

Yeah. And I think that's where, you know, Democrats don't give voters enough credit sometimes in saying, like, look, we don't have to defend all the stuff that Trump is picking a fight with. We have to defend the Constitution. And there's a principle here now. I mean, Trump wants to have that argument. You know, it's often the case that when you're explaining, you're losing. So if you're explaining due process and people are looking at Posse Comitatis and all this stuff, you know, it's not, it's not ideal. But you know, I also just think there's a bottom line here, which is that if you try to make every decision about what's going to play well to swing voters in the midterms, you're going to lose the country in the process and you're also going to lose the election. You have to have a backbone at some point. And so, you know, I, like, I do worry about the optics of some of these things, but there's no alternative. The fight's there.

[Unknown Speaker]

Right.

[Brian Class]

Like he's sending in the National Guard. So you have to say this is not okay. And I see, I saw, I think before we started talking Newsom suing him.

[Charlie Sykes]

So he knew some respect that.

[Brian Class]

Yeah. So presumably there is a little bit of pushback. But, but it's, yeah, it's, it's a very, very dangerous situation. And the worry is, of course, that it just takes one person to shoot a National Guardsman and then all of a sudden, you know, all hell will break loose. So it's just, that's why it's so dangerous.

[Charlie Sykes]

Well, I was thinking back on this because I'm of a certain age, thinking back to the anti war protests, you know, the Vietnam War protests, you know, in 1970, right around 1970, when they, when there was an undertone of violence, the country turned against them. I mean, one of the decisive moments, of course, was at Kent State where National Guardsmen who had been authorized by the local governor governor killed four students, four college students. And you would think that that would have been a real Turning point. And yet Richard Nixon went on to win, you know, huge reelection. So people should not assume that even atrocities are going to turn things around. On the other hand, I honestly don't know. I mean, I look, I know how those images of the burning cop cars and the guys with the Mexican flags and stuff, I know how that plays. But on the other hand, Trump, if Trump actually does get himself all tumescent about sending National Guard troops into all the blue cities, you know, Stephen Miller saying, well, do it in Cincinnati and do it in Milwaukee and do it in Detroit and do it in all these places. You know, I don't know how the American people are going to feel about armed troops coming out of, you know, you know, armored cars, helicopters over the cities. Because those of us who've been arguing about authoritarianism, that's been very abstract, that will now become very, very tangible. You know, particularly the week or two before his big military parade. What do you make of the big military parade on June 14? Have you seen the pictures of these long convoys of howitzers and tanks going into Washington, D.C. on one level I want to laugh about it is like, you know, your 12 year old, you know, 12 year old fever dream. On the other hand, right now, we're seeing the militarization of politics by Donald Trump on a massive scale.

[Brian Class]

Yeah. I mean, you know, I think the main thing that worries me is even though this is one day, you know, I've seen people who have argued, oh, it's just a parade, you know, don't read into it any more than that. I mean, I disagree with that because I think there's one of the most important principles that separates democracies from authoritarian regimes is that the military is fully depersonalized.

[Unknown Speaker]

Right.

[Brian Class]

It is not. There is civilian control of the military, but it is not something where you serve an individual, you serve the country. And, you know, you can have a person who's the commander in chief, who's, who's giving the orders, but the, the sense that you are marching in honor of a person, which, you know, I think there's a pretty thin pretext here about what's going on for the timing and all this sort of stuff. Oh, yeah, yeah. And, you know, it's stuff that I've written about previously where it's like, you know, how Trump says, my generals, okay, you can't get whipped up about everything. But there's a mentality here.

[Unknown Speaker]

Right.

[Brian Class]

He thinks that this is his military. And, you know, this is the stuff where, as we've seen, norm violations add up to something, right? Like the first term. The way I would describe where we're at now is the first term is a series of norm violations that made it possible for the second term to happen. And I think if Trump had lost in 2024, you could have made the argument. Even as someone who was really, you know, I wrote one of the first books about Trump's authoritarianism, you could have made the argument that, okay, it actually was okay, right. There was January 6th and all these, you know, but things didn't go into full dictator mode, anything like that. But I think that what I was always saying was, yeah, okay, this takes time. You know, Erdogan destroyed turkey over 20 years. This is a sort of slow process. And every time you don't push back against a norm violation, it lays the groundwork for something more severe in the future. And that's what I see the parade as. It's not itself like a five, you know, five alarm fire, but it is something that's just another step down that road to the personalization of the military.

[Charlie Sykes]

Yeah. And, you know, speaking of which, I was just reading earlier this morning an account from the first term when Donald Trump wanted to use the military to go after some of the George Floyd protesters. And I don't have the exact context. Maybe it was when they were, you know, around Lafayette Square. But he's having a shouting match with General Milley, who at that time was the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. And he's basically telling me, you know, you know, just go out there. I don't know. Was that was when he said, you know, shoot them in the legs. But Milley is basically saying, I cannot do certain things with, with the troops. And Trump is saying, well, you're in charge. You can do anything. And Milley is in a room with other grownups, including lawyers, and he says, no, I don't have the power to do all of this. And other people in the room, including the then an attorn general, then tells Trump, no, there are laws, there are legal limits. And he backed down. None of those people are around anymore. And that's the other thing about personalizing the military. You do wonder now, is there anyone in the Oval Office or anyone who can get close to the Oval Office or the people who are advising the generals are going to be able to uphold these norms? I think that one of the first things the Trump administration did that was what could have tremendous implications. They fired all of those lawyers in the military, the people who would tell the generals and the admirals no, you can't do that. They're all gone now, aren't they?

[Brian Class]

Yeah. I mean, this is the thing. I think. I think the American public has gotten educated in the principle that checks and balances are not things that are magically reinforced from parchment.

[Unknown Speaker]

Right?

[Brian Class]

They're people. Checks and balances are people. And if you get the wrong people in positions of power at the wrong moment, the checks and balances don't exist anymore. And I think that's really the lesson of the second Trump term, and it's something Trump learned, Right? I mean, the reason why his Cabinet and the appointments are so much more appalling in the second term is precisely because he learned that checks and balances are people, and that's why he got rid of them. So, you know, it's the kind of thing where there's various people who I think are, you know, didn't perform particularly well in much of the time. But in the critical moment, you know, Mike Pence did the right thing around January 6th. You have people in, you know, in the Oval Office who, you know, really stood up to Trump at critical moments. And, you know, as, as, as we discussed earlier, those people are gone. They're just. They were purged from the party or Trump just didn't appoint them. You know, and the idea that Dan Bongino is the thing that's like, you know, going to stop Trump from doing something illegal, I mean, it's insane, right? It's like, it's just. Yeah, I don't know. I don't. I don't know what to make of that. That's one of the craziest appointments ever. But, yeah, I.

[Charlie Sykes]

Well, by the way, I totally agree. That's one where if somebody would have said that before the election, that this is what you're going to have. I mean, I'm trying to remember, where was I when I heard Matt Gaetz was going to be the Attorney general? And then someone said, well, what about Tulsi Gabbard for Director of National Intelligence? These are so absurd, these ideas. Somebody actually asked me the other day, so is anybody talking about the 25th Amendment? And I said, have you been paying any attention whatsoever? There is nobody in that Cabinet of Shows who's ever going to break with Donald Trump. Okay? So, speaking of these various norms and everything, I am struck by the fact that last week, and I think it was part of his often very effective campaigns of distraction, he had that one night where he was dropping one shiny object after another, including a massive travel ban on people coming into the country, and it barely caused a ripple. I actually realized afterwards, over the weekend that I had done a weekend review and I didn't even mention it. And so give me your sense of this, because in Trump 1.0, the travel ban was one of the biggest, most defining moments of his entire presidency. This time, he drops it in the middle of the week, and it feels like it's not even part of the news cycle. Your sense?

[Brian Class]

Yeah, I mean, he's, he's gotten savvier and the public has gotten warier. I mean, there's just sort of. There's, there's. It takes more to provoke the same reaction, right? So there are mass protests, mass spontaneous protests at the airports around the travel ban the first time around. People do forget, by the way. I mean, December 7th of 2015, Trump said he wants a total and complete shutdown of Muslims coming into the United States. He explicitly said that. So even though the travel ban was not exclusively Muslim majority countries, that was the original intent of the ban. You know, and I also. It's just, it's punitive in a way that's so ridiculous. Like, one of the countries on there is Togo. And I. I've spent a. I spent a summer in Togo. And, you know, it's, it's, it's an. It's just the government's very weak, right? It doesn't have a very strong government. But it's just the idea of just saying, these people, none of them can come to the United States now. I, I just, you know, it's. It's such a. It's, it's a. It's a problem that deserves a scalpel. And you're using an ax. Right? It's just. And he is, sadly, he's repackaged it into something that he claims is no longer tied to anything around religion.

[Charlie Sykes]

But I do think, though, that there has been this numbing about it. I mean, the big tell, of course, of this was that this occurred after a terror attack against Jews in Colorado perpetrated by somebody who was from Egypt who had overstayed their visa. But of all the countries that were not included on the travel ban, Egypt wasn't there. It was like. Okay, so you can't even connect the dots here. So this is so strange. You and I are talking on Monday. Monday, four days after the most spectacular breakup between Donald Trump and Elon Musk. I mean, this is Shakespearean. This is, this is the stuff of. This is the stuff of Game of Thrones. And yet, if you look around the news cycle Right. Now, we've already moved past that because of LA and a variety of other things, but give me your sense of, of Elon Musk. I mean, obviously this was fated, this was going to happen, this was predicted, but damn, now it does appear that Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, is backing off. He's deleted some of his tweets, but give me your sense of how that got so ugly so fast and where you think it might be going.

[Brian Class]

Yeah, I mean, it was faded, Right. It's two megalomaniac narcissistic man children who are, you know, basically thinking that they, they run the world and it's sort of a showdown between who actually does. You know, I think the one thing that I think is interesting about it is that they each could damage each other pretty significantly, which is why, you know, sort of a lot of people on the left were sort of grabbing their popcorn because Musk does have leverage, right? I mean, he could form a new political party that even if it got 5% of the vote, would really be bad news for the Republicans and the midterms X has become very influential in the right wing media sphere. And, you know, Trump can really do a lot of damage to Musk too. I think one of the things that's striking to me is I've been making this argument for a very long time that Elon Musk is not nearly as smart as people believe him to be. And like, I think this is just another data point, right? Like, he did not game this out. He is, he has killed himself for perpetuity to anyone who is left leaning. I mean, his brand, his personal reputation is absolutely toxic to anyone who does not like Donald Trump. And then now he's torching his brand with the Trump voter. And he's also putting at risk his greatest source of financing through the government with SpaceX and the sort of subsidies and all this stuff. I mean, he hasn't gamed this out very well.

[Unknown Speaker]

Right.

[Brian Class]

And so I think that's also very interesting is that it's part of the reason why he's probably deleting the stuff that he posted. Not just because it's childish and inflammatory, but also, I mean, he's not in the strongest position and a lot of his net worth is tied up in stocks. So, you know, he's in some ways a paper billionaire. You know what I mean? He could really have his empire collapse. So we'll see how it plays out.

[Charlie Sykes]

Yeah, I mean, the way I looked at the state of play was it seems pretty obvious that Donald Trump can make Elon Musk less rich. It's not at all clear that Elon Musk can make Donald Trump less powerful. But that doesn't mean he doesn't have cars. It doesn't mean that he can't do some damage. And he clearly wanted to do some damage. And I do think that sort of, in the back of my mind, I'm thinking, oh, okay, the Jeffrey Epstein thing, what are we gonna learn about that that we don't know? Now, part of me is so cynical as to think nothing's going to move the needle. The MAGA folks are not going to care about it. Plus, we pretty much know that Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein were good buddies. But it is one of those moments I found myself scratching my head going, okay, really? Why was that not a bigger deal? I mean, I suppose in a world in which we have elected a convicted felon as President of the United States, in which we've elected somebody who tried to overthrow the government, United States, the fact that he hung around with sex traffickers and was diddling, you know, young, young girls, maybe not that big a deal, but it was interesting that it was there. And I think that, that there's going to be a. Maybe it's going to be like a rash, an irritant out there as there's pressure going. Well, what is in those files? Because on the right, there was a big obsession about releasing the Epstein files, at least up until then. Right. I mean, there's kind of a, there's kind of a sub, subculture of people on the right who have been developing conspiracy theories about that.

[Brian Class]

Yeah. I mean, I think the problem is that conspiracy theories are. They always have a permission structure to absolve whoever you want to involve.

[Unknown Speaker]

Right.

[Brian Class]

I mean, they're extremely malleable. I mean, you know, Charlie, you, you have very generously supported my, my, my phrasing of the banality of crazy in the past, and I love that. You know, I mean, it's, it's. That's what's going on here, right? And so, like, what. Since I wrote, I wrote that piece like two years ago where I described, look, nothing moves the needle anymore because crazy things have become completely commonplace. I think the update to that is that nothing moves the needle anymore either because people are just completely worn down.

[Unknown Speaker]

Right.

[Brian Class]

The news is just exhausting. They want the Trump show to be over on the left, on the right. They're excited about things, but they're also sort of like, this is an insane period as well. I think they're just totally normalized. It's totally normalized for them as well. So even the Epstein files, I mean, yeah, people might get curious about it and then they'll latch onto the LA stuff and then it'll be something tomorrow. I mean, it's just the attention span that social media has engineered in us as well means that we can only really think about one idea at a time and then the next one comes in. And I really worry about that because those things are the things that produce accountability in politics.

[Unknown Speaker]

Right?

[Brian Class]

Like the scandal is sustained for long enough that it actually bites. And I don't know, the last time a Trump scandal lasted for more than a couple days. I mean, we don't talk about the fact he's a felon anymore, Right. I mean, unless you're on the left.

[Unknown Speaker]

Right.

[Brian Class]

So it's like you can get to.

[Charlie Sykes]

A pretty bribes in broad daylight.

[Brian Class]

I mean.

[Charlie Sykes]

No, but by the way, by the way, I actually wrote a piece that now I'm slightly embarrassed about, you know, when he was finally convicted, saying, well, whatever happens, he'll still have the stigma of being a convicted felon. Wrong. I mean, it's not, it's not even mentioned anymore.

[Brian Class]

Well, it's worse than that. He's got the mug shot in the White House. Right. I mean, he's got, it's now become a symbol of. It's like. Yeah, it's just crazy.

[Charlie Sykes]

Yeah, it is. Okay, so I got to go back and reread the Banality of Crazy because it really did define the era. Okay, so briefly, in the time that we have left, you wrote a piece with a very, very provocative title that I'm fascinated by this framing. You're wondering, where am I going on this? You wrote that we are living in Brave new world, not 1984. Now, for the literary people there, they're going to have to look some of this stuff up. But what do you mean? Because I think the knee jerk approach was that everything is 1984, everything's big brother, everything's surveillance society. But why do you think we are more like Brave New World?

[Brian Class]

Well, I think part of the problem is that we are viewing so many things that are consequential as entertainment. So Brave New World has this sort of drug soma that keeps the masses permanently happy no matter what's happening to them, basically. Right. And I sort of, you know, I look at this and I'm like, you can watch the world falling apart in countless ways. You can see a felon in charge of the most powerful country in the world wielding nuclear weapons that can make us all extinct. And yet, you know, like, we get on with it and like watch the Masked Singer and we're really happy about that. You know what I mean? There's this sort of, or we just scroll TikTok videos and I think there's this aspect about modern consumption of information that has that soma like quality that sort of keeps people distracted long enough that the government doesn't need to put the jackboot on people's heads. It just sort of says, you know, why don't you watch another reality TV show? Don't worry about the fact that we're going to take Medicaid away from a lot of people. And for the overwhelming majority of Americans, they're not aware of that.

[Unknown Speaker]

Right.

[Brian Class]

I mean, that's the thing, is that the tens of millions of people who watch, you know, sort of brainless stuff on TikTok are not following the policy minutiae. They just think, oh, Trump's big beautiful bill, that sounds great.

[Unknown Speaker]

Right?

[Brian Class]

And that's, I think, the era that we're living in.

[Charlie Sykes]

Well, you're sort of updating the argument that Neil Postman made that we're entertaining ourselves to death because he also made this contrast between the brave new world, that we're just kind of, we're being overwhelmed by trivia as opposed to jackbooted oppression. And that does feel like that. And you see, going back to our original comment, why are there so many psychopaths in politics? The way that politics has become subsumed by entertainment, that it is just a form of performance. And you, you think about some of the people that are the most prominent, they're not prominent because they've done anything or accomplished anything. They've done something because they've slipstreamed in behind that kind of entertaining ourselves to death trivia culture, you know, performance culture, attention, eyeball clicks culture. Haven't, haven't they?

[Brian Class]

Yeah, exactly. And I think that's sort of the distraction aspect to this is really overwhelming, that there is a lot of stuff that can happen in a country to destroy democracy that doesn't require tanks in the streets. And I've been arguing this for a long time that I always talk about authoritarianism and I think sometimes it's dismissed by people on the right as fantasy because they assume that I'm talking about goose stepping Hitler Youth now, we will have a military parade shortly. But aside from that, mostly what democracy dies with is the sort of thousand cuts of norm violations where accountability disappears. You know, where accountability disappears. And there's no ability to constrain the government when it does stuff that's illegal. And that's what's happening.

[Unknown Speaker]

Right?

[Brian Class]

The government is continually pressing the limits. Go ahead. Yeah.

[Charlie Sykes]

Or in a democratic society when the electorate just simply ceases to be serious and they then and as a result an unserious country then elects unserious leaders. And that's the way you know that there are no problems that are being solved. There's no intelligent discussion that's taking place. We are elsewhere. And that that explanation does seem to explain a lot. You know that that distraction. Brian class, thank you so much for making time in your own in many, many time zones from here to talk with us. I appreciate it very much. Love your stuff. Have to go back and read the piece about the banality of crazy again though.

[Brian Class]

Thanks for having me on the show, Charlie. It's great to be with you.

[Charlie Sykes]

And thank you all for listening to this episode of to the Contrary podcast. I'm Charlie Sags. We're doing this. You know why? Because we need to be reminded every single day that we are not the crazy ones. Thanks.

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