How then, do you distinguish the sane members of the leftist tribe from the whackos? You start to recognize both versions–the sane and the pathological–by their voices. The sane speak with self-awareness and usually some self-doubt. Irony infuses what they say, as does a willingness to listen to counter-arguments. The whackos speak in one tone of voice, a tone that a dictator would be proud to deploy. (For what is a dictator but a non-stop, obsessive talker who is always right?) It says, I am authority, I am truth and power, listen to me. Their voices sound mechanical, robotic. They sound, in a word, possessed. And they are possessed , by their super-egos.
Mark Edmundson, “The Politics of Possession in America,” Liberties, Fall 2024, 80.