The Atlantic
The Narcissists Who Endanger America
Opinion by Tom Nichols • Friday
The FBI yesterday arrested Jack Teixeira, a 21-year-old Massachusetts Air National Guard employee, for posting highly sensitive Pentagon documents online. Teixeira, at this point, seems to have had no reason for spilling national secrets to a chat group other than that he wanted to show off, impress his friends, and establish himself as an important person in a small community of digital gamers. This, from the available reporting, seems different from the cases of other young people who compromised national security, including Reality Winner, Chelsea Manning, and, of course, Edward Snowden.
But all of these cases—as well as the notorious cases of much older people who betrayed their country, such as Aldrich Ames and Robert Hanssen—are bound by the common thread of narcissism. Teixeira, if early reports prove accurate, might be the dorkiest of these cases, but make no mistake: The damage he is alleged to have caused looks to be immense, all because he reportedly wanted to be the boss among a clique of online pals.
Brainless bragging so far seems to apply in Teixeira’s case. But my assertion about betrayal and narcissism will infuriate those who see Winner and Snowden as noble whistleblowers who should have been honored rather than persecuted. Winner, they might note, suffered for her choices (and got a far stiffer sentence than most of the January 6 insurrectionists). Snowden fled—or, as his apologists would argue, had to flee—to Russia to remain beyond the reach of an American state determined to punish him for revealing government misconduct.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/the-narcissists-who-endanger-america/ar-AA19ReIx
