[Column] In the name of Korean democracy, I rebuke Yoon Suk-yeol!

A massive rally takes place in front of Gyeongbok Palace in Seoul on March 22, 2025, calling for the removal of President Yoon Suk-yeol from office. (Yoon Woon-sik/Hankyoreh)

President Yoon Suk-yeol has some tried-and-true ways of responding to political scandals arising from specific incidents. Given how frequently such behaviors have been observed during his presidency, they seem to be habits of mind. So presumably they can’t and won’t be fixed.

Yoon’s behavioral responses to scandals can be generally categorized as follows.

First, he makes it seem like nothing happens. Second, he refuses to apologize even if he’s undeniably in the wrong. Third, he attacks the person who raised the issue and shifts responsibility. Fourth, he doesn’t listen to other people’s advice. Fifth, he takes legal measures or vents his spleen.

This pattern has played out so frequently that I presume it will be recognizable to most readers without further elaboration. Nevertheless, let’s look at a few examples.

First, we have the hot mic scandal in which Yoon used vulgarity and a garbled word that may have been “Biden” and may have been “nallimyeon” (roughly meaning “if things blow up”). If, as Yoon argued, his vulgarity was targeted not at the US Congress but at Korea’s National Assembly, he ought to have apologized to Korean lawmakers.

But that’s not what Yoon did. Instead, he tried to shift the blame to MBC, the broadcaster which first reported on the gaffe, which he claimed had deliberately tried to undermine Korea’s alliance with the US. A few months later, MBC journalists were banned from riding on the presidential plane with other members of the press pool.

Another example was allegations that the president had exerted pressure on the Marine Corps’ probe into the death of a corporal surnamed Chae during a rescue operation. A key element of this scandal was testimony by several witnesses that Yoon had lost his temper over the handling of the probe by Park Jeong-hun, head of the Marine Corps’ investigation.

Once again, Yoon never apologized. Instead, the Ministry of National Defense disciplined Park for insubordination.

Yoon’s wife Kim Keon-hee has been the subject of various scandals, including her acceptance of a luxury handbag, the presidential office’s hiring of people linked to her, and her alleged meddling in nominations by the People Power Party (PPP). Yoon has offered a vague apology about these scandals, but without specifying what she did wrong.

In fact, the pastor Choi Jae-young, who made an issue of the luxury handbag, found himself under investigation. Former PPP leader Han Dong-hoon, who asked Yoon to rein in the first lady, eventually turned up on a list of people who were supposed to be arrested in Yoon’s botched martial law declaration on Dec. 3, 2024.

Similar patterns of behavior are evident in the martial law scandal (for which Yoon is charged as an insurrectionist). As always, the president’s response has been slippery and shameless. He deliberately lied throughout his testimony before the Constitutional Court.

He glibly said that his declaration of martial law and his deployment of troops to the National Assembly and the National Election Commission were supposed to “enlighten” the public — a pun based on the similarity of the Korean words for martial law (gyeeom) and enlightenment (gyemong). He also totally rejected the impeachment trial and insurrection investigation as being like “chasing around the reflection of the moon on the surface of a lake.”

Yoon further said that the impeachment and insurrection investigation represented a scheme to bring him down orchestrated by “anti-state forces,” including opposition parties and labor groups, who he claimed were acting on orders from North Korea.

Yoon told these lies so blandly and plausibly that uninformed individuals could easily have fallen for them. He could well be called a master of deception.

The president also exhibits symptoms of confirmation bias and conspiratorial thinking that appear to be rooted in his steady consumption of far-right content on YouTube, as well as symptoms of paranoia and a victim mentality.

But there’s one card that Yoon hasn’t played yet. To use the mildest possible term, I’m talking about him losing his temper.

The only thing keeping his temper at bay is that he was in jail, and is now awaiting the decision by the Constitutional Court. If Yoon is reinstated as president (a prospect I shudder to even contemplate), he’ll launch a spree of retribution.

The clenched fist that Yoon raised to his supporters on the day he was released from trial was disturbing. It’s hard to credit whatever promises he may have made during his final statement before the court, because he’s already lost our trust.

Psychologists speak of the “dark triad” — the three malevolent personality types of Machiavellianism, narcissism and psychopathy. Machiavellianism can be described as the mindset of “the ends justify the means” and an amoral propensity for lying, scheming, and undervaluing other people. Narcissism is represented by arrogance and self-centered behavior. Psychopathy is expressed through the lack of empathy and impulsive, reckless, manipulative and aggressive behavior. Anger is a feeling that’s frequently experienced by psychopathic individuals.

University College London professor Brian Klaas, who has studied the psychology of power, says that most people have these characteristics in small, harmless doses.

The trouble comes when extreme levels of the three characteristics coincide in a single individual. When someone embodying the dark triad becomes the leader of a nation, society is plunged into chaos. That’s exactly where Korea is right now.

It’s time for the Constitutional Court to stop vacillating. The justices mustn’t let themselves be intimidated by the forces of falsehood or distracted by procedural objections raised by legal eagles. I hope for all our sake that the court trusts the people and makes a swift judgment grounded in truth and justice alone.

The Constitutional Court is entrusted with the sacred duty of safeguarding the constitutional order based on the ’87 Constitution, the political fruit borne of the June Democratic Struggle of 1987. If such a hallowed institution fails to bring to justice a president who desecrated our laws and Constitution and betrayed the public’s trust, its days will be numbered. To let a man like that return to power would be the ultimate betrayal of Korea’s democracy.

Korea stands at a crossroads between backsliding to the days of dictatorship and pressing forward to a stronger democracy. As one of the people in which the sovereignty of our republic resides, I rebuke the return of Yoon to power!

By Park Hyun, editorial writer

Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]