Excessive Drinking and Conspiracy Theories: How Yoon Made His Massive Martial Law Mistake

On December 14, to everyone’s great relief, South Korea’s National Assembly managed to impeach President Yoon Suk-yeol. The Constitutional Court now has to deliberate on whether Yoon’s six-hour martial law in early December warranted impeachment. Although short-lived, his declaration of martial law disregarded constitutional provisions, and the military, following his command, assaulted the parliament.

Based on precedent, it takes about two to three months for the court to give out a ruling following a National Assembly impeachment.

While the nation restlessly awaits Yoon’s removal from the presidential seat, murmurs of disbelief and resignation are rife. How in the world did we reach this point? What on earth was Yoon thinking? These are the questions punctuating the dinner conversations of many.

It was abundantly obvious that Yoon hated having his agenda scuttled by the National Assembly, which has been controlled by the opposition parties for his entire term. As for the opposition, they wouldn’t negotiate with the Yoon administration and the ruling People Power Party (PPP) so long as the government kept hindering investigations into Yoon’s and the PPP’s scandals.

This dynamic has been frustrating to watch, as politics stagnated for more than two years; of course, Yoon was foaming at the mouth in fury. But Yoon turned to martial law to clear the stalemate, a decision that shook even his closest aides and PPP members.

Most people had the same gut reaction: He has literally lost his mind. In the weeks that followed, how Yoon plunged so deep into irrationality started becoming clear.

First, Yoon has a drinking problem – an unfortunate reflection of South Korea’s status as the country with the highest population of alcoholics in the world. From his days as a prosecutor, he has drunk almost every day late into the night, according to associates. “His judgment must have been clouded from long ago,” someone close to him told News1 Korea.

When Yoon was campaigning for the presidency in 2022, his drinking habits confounded his staff, as two former members of his team recounted on a Korean news channel, NewsIN. Everywhere he went stumping, bottles of alcohol accompanied him. Yoon would get drunk, adversely impacting his schedule for the next day.

Even as president, he reportedly drank hard liquor on a daily basis, According to The Hankyoreh, Yoon was frequently late to work in the morning due to hangovers, sending in a fake motorcade to the presidential office on time to make it look like he was punctual. He was seen drinking even on days when North Korea fired ballistic missiles or when a soldier died of an officer’s abuse.

A doctor who analyzed Yoon’s drinking problem told The Hankyoreh that chronic intoxication can damage the frontal lobes and hippocampus of the brain. The frontal lobe, in particular, checks impulses and carries out rational thinking. A person is prone to emotional outbursts and outrage when their frontal lobe is impaired.

Yoon’s background also contributed, apparently creating a sense of entitlement to exercise power. Throughout his career as a hotshot prosecutor, then chief prosecutor and finally president – the only three positions he’s held all his life – Yoon wielded power and people complied. When he was a famous prosecutor and then chief prosecutor, subordinates did his bidding and people went to jail according to his whims. Beyond his alcohol addiction, Yoon may have been addicted to power.

However, being a president has been a very different experience for Yoon. As the National Assembly blocked every policy he wanted to implement and pried into his scandals, he was impeded on a scale he had not experienced before in his entire career. As president, Yoon ironically found his power was more open to public scrutiny and more limited by political opposition and due administrative and legislative procedures than when he was a prosecutor.

Yoon began to lose his temper over the slightest dissenting voice. He has been known to scream at his people in person and on the phone when they wouldn’t say the things he wanted to hear. It was the same on the night he declared martial law. According to widespread reporting in South Korea, based on testimony from Yoon’s former ministers, he convened a hasty cabinet meeting on December 3. According to Prime Minister Han Duck-soo, Yoon didn’t want to have the meeting at all, but Han managed to convince him to hold one because the law requires it before declaring martial law. At the meeting, all the ministers present objected to martial law. According to the accounts of attendees, Yoon shouted at everyone, stormed out within five minutes, and declared martial law to the nation in a televised address.

A drinking problem makes people more susceptible to outbursts of emotion. One expert speculated that South Korea wouldn’t have had to experience martial law had Yoon gotten timely medical help with his alcoholism.

Finally, in this compromised state of mind, Yoon fell victim to and took comfort in conspiracy theories. He hardly reads newspapers or watches network news. Instead, people close to him say that Yoon was addicted to watching far-right YouTube channels peddling conspiracy theories.

Major conspiracy theories Yoon adheres to are that North Korean spies have infiltrated the opposition parties and some liberals are receiving orders from Pyongyang; that North Korean instigators staged the Itaewon tragedy; and that the National Election Commission (NEC) either rigged the April general elections in favor of the opposition parties that gained the parliamentary majority or North Koreans hacked the NEC’s ballot-counting algorithm to neuter conservative votes. The presidential office even personally contacted one of the YouTube channels that peddles these baseless narratives.

Yoon’s brief martial law declaration reflected his belief in these conspiracy theories by implying a connection between the opposition and “pro-North Korean” forces.

Yoon aired another national address on December 13, the day before his impeachment, to justify his martial law. He elaborated on this conspiracy theory regarding the NEC. His explanation was copied verbatim from a far-right firebrand active on YouTube. (During martial law, he in fact sent some hundred special forces to major NEC branches to gain access to their data.)

In addition to the unfounded allegations against the NEC, Yoon’s overall speaking style reflects the wordings of ultra-conservative online rabble-rousers. In his address on December 13, Yoon said that the opposition parties are “dancing frenzied sword dances.” It’s not only uncomfortable to hear shamanistic terms from a secular president but it’s also something far-right personalities spew in their posts.

As alleged in his declaration of martial law, anyone critical of Yoon belongs to “pro-North Korean forces” and “anti-state forces” – the same phrases adopted by far-right conspiracy theorists. Yoon also mentioned “wickedness” a lot, and claimed the National Assembly has become a “criminal lair” and a “monster.” He hurls extreme terms such as “plunder” and “principal evil” at those voicing legitimate concerns about the Yoon administration.

This level of hatred and unprofessional word choices hardly befit a rational president of a developed country and a commander-in-chief of forces that rank fifth in the world for military power. They are more characteristic of an aggrieved conspiracy theorist.

Shortly after Yoon declared martial law, South Koreans wondered what political calculations must have gone into the decision. Increasingly, it appears there were none; Yoon simply lost the capacity for reason and logic. With his rational mind weakened by alcohol addiction, he has been consumed by delusional conspiracy theories that soothed his aggrieved ego – and eventually, in his mind, justified martial law.

He’s now facing multiple investigations and subpoenas and even potentially detention. Will that force Yoon to sober up – literally and figuratively?