> This and a few other sections make me wonder how much introspection the guy has and whether he ever concedes that he is wrong.
Our culture is currently at a moment where it confuses the faux confidence of narcissism with strength, and promotes those people to positions of leadership. However, it's pretty much the opposite of that, it is escaping into an imaginary persona with faux infinite confidence, because you are too afraid to be a real person that has faults like everyone else.
I don't think it's appropriate to conflate having an antisocial personality disorder with just generally being "weird." Especially in the current context, where authoritarians are especially adverse to non-conformity.
However, while it's absolutely not a new thing that people with these personality traits rise to positions of power, e.g. see "The Prince" by Machiavelli, it ignores the uniqueness of the current moment.
We have a widespread far-right movement right now that has a particular ideal of strength and masculinity, which is exactly the symptoms of narcissism, and has formed a cult of personality around a particular malignant narcissist. This is something new that has formed over the past 10-15 years, starting out of certain internet communities including 4chan, 8chan, and "the manosphere" and is a marked cultural departure from how things were ~20 years ago.
Our culture is currently at a moment where it confuses the faux confidence of narcissism with strength, and promotes those people to positions of leadership. However, it's pretty much the opposite of that, it is escaping into an imaginary persona with faux infinite confidence, because you are too afraid to be a real person that has faults like everyone else.