What dysfunction of conscience and empathy make these guys think they have the right?

• to take power after a legitimate election?
• to control key national industries?
• to gouge the citizenry?
• to lie, cheat, and steal?
• and yet call themselves Buddhist? Or Christian? Or anything based in decency and ethics?

While I’m thinking of Burmese generals first, I’m also thinking of the Trumpists, the big tech moguls, the Bolsonaros & Dutertes, the Limbaughs & Tucker Carlsons. In all these cases pathology is at work. And in all these cases, many people are suffering because of pathological drives for power.

What puzzles me is how easy it is for the majority of us, and of mainstream media, to tolerate these behaviors, gradually accommodate them, and eventually normalize them. The road to hell is paved with indifference, fear, and self-centeredness.

These usurpers have no legitimacy, which is revealed by their ubiquitous lies, from which they distract by projecting their own mendacity onto their critics. We must deny their legitimacy, repeatedly and consistency. Treating them as legitimate gives them a purchase that they will cynically exploit and enlarge. Hold up mirrors to their naked ambition, narcissism, greed, paranoia, and whatever else drives them. We will not swallow their lies.

And denying them power is a necessary step for their own healing.