In a comment to my recent article about how much Trump-like corruption the American people will tolerate, Sabrina Haake (who writes the “Haake Take”) wrote:
“I really want to see a deep dive on how power affects the brain. A strong addiction, as you say. but it deserves a special study in the age of Trump, given its complete takeover…”
It’s a great question, and the revelations of the Epstein connection to Trump and numerous — perhaps hundreds — of rich and powerful men and their abuse of powerless children again highlights how this addiction warps behavior, destroys lives, and kneecaps democracies.
For most of our history, Americans have believed that political power is something granted — temporarily — to leaders who serve the public good.
But modern neuroscience and social psychology are revealing something more dangerous and more sobering: power doesn’t just sit in someone’s hands; it reshapes the human mind itself.
And — as Trump’s masked secret police abuse people with total impunity and his toadies celebrate it with bizarre videos, as Republicans vote for more tax cuts for billionaires while cutting off health care and food for the poor, as Ghislaine Maxwell is treated like a princess while her victims are demonized — we’re seeing how this has twisted and damaged our nation.
Put a man in uniform and give him unaccountable power over life and death and it changes him. Give a president complete immunity for any crimes he commits and it unleashes a darkness no country should have to suffer.
As our democracy strains under the weight of Trump’s relentless need for dominance, the science raises a disturbing question: Are we witnessing the consequences of a dark addiction to power, and, if so, what does that mean for the future of our republic?
Researchers from Berkeley to Columbia have discovered that when people feel powerful, the brain shifts into what scientists call an “approach state.” Dopamine-driven reward circuits fire more easily. The world seems simpler, brighter, even easier.
Confidence rises. Caution fades. And empathy, that quiet internal tuning fork that vibrates in response to other people’s feelings, becomes less sensitive.
Many remember when the world’s richest man — who oversaw the destruction of USAID, which has already led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people — highlighted what wealth and power had done to him in a revealing comment to an interviewer:
“The fundamental weakness of western civilization is empathy. The empathy exploit. They’re exploiting a bug in western civilization, which is the empathy response.”
In one remarkable experiment, scientists used brain scans to measure how automatically the brain “mirrors” — deeply feels/understands and can empathize with — others’ experiences. People who were praised, flattered, and told stories that put them into a high-power mindset showed less mirroring, meaning their brains became less attuned to the people around them.
Historically, this has been a definition of evil. Less connected. Less empathetic. Less concerned for others because they’re no longer able to actually feel within themselves what others are experiencing.
This neurological shift doesn’t necessarily make powerful people behave as if they’re immoral, but that’s often the case and when it does it can produce tragic results for those around them or those they have power over.
And here’s where modern politics — and particularly the Trump era, Epstein, and the politicians at the center of today’s GOP — enter the picture.
Psychologists have long identified a trio of personality traits known as the Dark Triad: narcissism, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism. People high in these traits crave status and admiration. They feel little guilt. They view relationships transactionally.
For them, power isn’t a tool to shape policy: power is the point itself. It’s the reward. The psychological oxygen.
When people with these characteristics gain power, dominance becomes patriotism, cruelty becomes strength, and attention becomes fuel.
And we can see that this hunger for power hasn’t just shaped Donald Trump’s life. It’s reshaped the entire conservative movement. The entire Republican Party. Even — particularly those average people who spend hours with rightwing media — our national narrative, the story we tell ourselves about who we are and what our nation means.
And neuroscience gives us one more warning: losing power can feel like withdrawal.
We’re seeing this right now as Donald Trump thrashes about, losing his grip on his party and his followers. Calling a reporter “Piggy.” Sucking up to a foreign tyrant who’s handing his family billions.
We see it as Republican senators slip into legislation a clause that forces the government to give each of them millions of taxpayer dollars, or help cover up Epstein’s crimes.
For someone whose identity is fused with dominance, losing an election — or even facing accountability — can feel intolerable. The result is a frantic attempt to reclaim power at any cost, even if it means attacking institutions, undermining elections, or convincing millions that democracy itself can’t be trusted.
This is how republics falter, reflecting the “narcissistic collapse” that I’ve written about before.
It often begins with a psychological spiral when one leader’s desperation to hold onto power merges with millions of his followers’ fears and grievances, until the nation itself becomes trapped inside his addiction.
So, what do we do? It turns out that the antidote to the danger of power is democracy itself.
Shared power. Checked power. Transparent power. A system of checks-and-balances where no one person becomes the sun around which the nation must orbit.
So the question we face today — the question both science and history force us to confront — is this:
“How will We, the People respond as Trump, his MAGA movement, and the GOP lash out at us as they’re losing the near-absolute power they now enjoy and has been handed them by six corrupt members of the Supreme Court?”
Or will we as a nation — like the Germans and Italians did in the 1930s, like the Russians and Hungarians did over the past two decades, like most of today’s GOP are doing right now — surrender to power addiction and decide that having a “Dear Leader” and single-party state is okay?
The choice is ours.