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other in fickle and short-lived alliances, ultimately their goals will collide and the relationship deteriorates into mutually self-defeating conflicts. This, too, acts as negative selection and maintains the low frequency of this peculiar phenotype. On the other side of the conflict is the selective pressure on the rest of society. Because sociopaths are rare, the intensity of the pressure on society to detect and neutralize them is correspondingly weak. Weak pressure leads to poor adaptation, while sociopaths experience strong pressure and become highly adapted. However, as the sociopath phenotype finds evolutionary success, the pressure flips back the other direction as the rest of society experiences increasing pressure, adapts, and then pushes the frequency of the sociopaths back down to the basal level. In human culture, this pendulum swings in both the long time scales of genetic evolution and the short time scales of cultural evolution. In both contexts, the conflict is cyclical. With this evolutionary framework in mind, we can now return to the question of President Trump. Clearly, he attracts devoted supporters. When it serves him, he can be affable, charming, and flattering. He reads people well and can maneuver through his relationships in order to obtain the best “deal” for himself. While many question his capacity for emotional empathy, his skills in cognitive empathy are undeniable. However, he also has maintained an unwavering pursuit of wealth, influence, and power, even by his own admission. He has never participated in regular religious observance, is not outwardly pious, and shows no allegiance to political party. It is well documented that his views have shifted, sometimes repeatedly, on the most central political questions of the day such as abortion, government involvement in healthcare, military interventionism, federal drug policy, and LGBTQ rights. While only his critics view him as racist and xenophobic, even his supporters see him as fiercely nationalistic and his own campaign slogan of “America First” underscores this. And finally, he aggressively pursues his own biological fitness through the placement of his children in top positions in both his business enterprises and his presidential administration. Thus, an evolutionary analysis reveals that he is clearly not a psychopath. Whether or not he is a narcissistic sociopath, then, depends on the answers to questions about his conscience or lack thereof, commitment to truth and transparency, sincerity in his religious beliefs, fidelity to political ideals, and tendency to cheat, deceive, and coerce. These questions are more like Rorschach tests in which his supporters and detractors come to the exact opposite conclusions. However, for the most part, the answers to these questions do not require a psychological analysis of the President. There is abundant evidence in the public record. HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_033325