Shakespeare Explains the 2016 Election

I don't understand why this NY Times piece hasn't gotten wider play. A Harvard scholar explains that the question of how a sociopath can come to rule an otherwise rational country was thoroughly considered centuries ago by Shakespeare in his play Richard III. It's a brilliant analysis of a brilliant play, and you needn't be an English nerd to grok it easily. This is precisely the missing psychological chunk our pundits frustratingly never seem to supply. Please give it a read, it's short. Excerpt below:

First, there are those who trust that everything will continue in a normal way, that promises will be kept, alliances honored and core institutions respected. Richard is so obviously and grotesquely unqualified for the supreme position of power that they dismiss him from their minds. Their focus is always on someone else, until it is too late. They do not realize quickly enough that what seemed impossible is actually happening. They have relied on a structure that proves unexpectedly fragile.

Second, there are those who cannot keep in focus that Richard is as bad as he seems to be. They see perfectly well that he has done this or that ghastly thing, but they have a strange penchant for forgetting, as if it were hard work to remember just how awful he is. They are drawn irresistibly to normalize what is not normal."