Yeah, I actually know a LOT of people like that... they don’t really have any concept of other people as individuals whose feelings and well-being are of any importance. They are simply cardboard cut-outs propped up to face them and be an audience, or a target, or a helper, or a source of something, or furniture to be rearranged at will... it’s pretty common. But when you combine this mentality with power and/or money, these folks are lethal.
The scary thing is that Jessica Mitford worked for the US Government in Washington DC. I’ve forgotten where I read it, but she either worked for the Pentagon, or the State Department while her husband at the time joined the Canadian Air Force. Her husband never returned from a bombing raid and was declared dead. So, she married Truehaft and moved to California. But, she was already an avowed Communist before she went to work for the US Govt. during WW II.
Appalling.