Human Nature

[Sheldon]

It seems to me that people have been given a type of permission to let their negative sides show...thanks in large part to Trump not only saying the quiet things out loud but also by encouraging it.

What seems to be dying is civility.  There was a time, not that long ago, that other than the most hateful among us knew to tone it down.  Now, the bigger bigot you are the louder you can scream it from the rooftops.

I have lived from the free love times to the hate is the answer time...and I don't like it one little bit.

My wife recently sent me this link, about how our leaders affect us:

[Article: https://neurosciencenews.com/dark-triad-...ion-28648/ ]

This supports your perspective, and many of our intuitions about the situation we face.

I would not have thought that large numbers of people would be so easy to manipulate, but I apparently over-estimated people's understanding of their own psychology.

I think it is easier to manipulate a crowd, than it is an individual. Mob mentality and tribal instincts are generally not pretty, and rarely produce sound reasoning. 

I seem to remember some research, that demonstrated we are hardwired to conform to a group, even when we know they are wrong. In the research they asked simply question to a group, but only one of the group was a test subject, the others were plants, and the test initially answered correctly, but then when the fake members started giving deliberately incorrect answers, the test subjects started amending their correct answers to conform with the group. 

Ah I found the experiment:

"Asch Conformity Experiment"

"The Asch conformity experiments were a series of psychological experiments conducted by Solomon Asch in the 1950s. The experiments revealed the degree to which a person's own opinions are influenced by those of a group."

CITATION