A little thread about Trump and something I call "Chump Theory."
Chump Theory is the fertilizer that accelerates growing corruption within institutions. @page88 @shoq
Chump Theory is your thought process when you see people around you bending & breaking the rules for personal gain and rarely being punished.
It's especially problematic when you see people below you, at your level, and above you all doing this.
No matter how honest you are, when the norms break down around you and nobody is caught you can't help but feel you are a chump for not participating in the ubiquitous graft.
When even good people get caught up in this it becomes epidemic.
This is one way black markets, for example, overtake legitimate markets. Why pay retail for a new 4K TV when you can buy one for pennies on the dollar that "fell off a truck."
Only suckers and WASPs pay retail, right?
The more sociopathic you are the more likely you are to make daily decisions based on Chump Theory.
This is because sociopaths assume everyone else thinks the same monstrously selfish way they themselves do.
A sociopath doesn't need to witness people breaking the rules for personal gain in order to behave badly because they just assume it's happening anyway.
Their Chump Theory is innate, independent of experienced cultural mores.
Which is why sociopaths are so dangerous to institutions.
They'll spontaneously break rules/ethics/laws/norms. When there is a critical mass of this sociopathic rule breaking it spreads to non-sociopaths because of Chump Theory.
Extreme narcissistic personality disorder always includes strong sociopathic features.
President Trump is just such a narcissist. He's been operating under chump theory since he could gesture for toys as a baby.
He has always felt like a chump in spite of his ridiculous congenital privilege.
He still feels like one, which is why he's so whiny in spite of his control of all three branches of government.
It's why he calls his enemies "losers," another word for "chump."
Now that we have this opportunistic narcissist sociopath as President, and now that he has injected a poisonous army of sociopaths throughout his cabinet and every agency, I worry Chump Theory will take hold in a deep, hard to root-out way, even among good people.
Anyway, happy Monday!
Here's some reading on what it's like to live in a country where corruption has completely subverted the system. newyorker.com/news/swamp-chr…
Here's a classic timely example of Chump Theory in operation among Massachusetts state troopers. They collected overtime pay for hours they never worked, because you're a chump if you don't. wbur.org/news/2018/10/1…
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