Counter-Narcissist Cheat Codes: False Bravery - Part III

Self-Defense Class - Using a Psychological Lens

Author’s Notes: I want to thank everyone who went down this long and winding false bravery rabbit hole with me, but completely understand if you didn’t, because it went quite a bit longer than expected. Fortunately, Part III provides the primary cheat code by itself because this current psychological lens was originally the only part that was expected to be covered, so no need to go back if you just want to learn the basic lesson.

While educational rabbit holes are meant to be embraced, current CNI philosophy dictates the next several months need to be utilized very wisely if we hope to preserve our freedoms and democracy, so please note efforts will be made until the U.S. election to have few if any long or down the rabbit hole philosophical pieces. If you take home one lesson today, it should be to know that every little thing we do between now and then, counts positively or negatively to that end.

Certainly it can be a struggle translating psychological abstractions, complexities and hidden truths into fewer words, which is why it is important to keep reaffirming how your shared time here is highly valued. The CNI process itself often needs to be slow and methodical for depth and accuracy purposes, and is a part of why valuing time is such a key component of the CNI philosophy.

Once again, thank you for your understanding when interesting questions, answers or angles occasionally turn a bit long-winded, stream of consciousness when coming upon mostly unexplored and fable-worthy dark narcissistic rabbit holes. Until this series, I never directly thought about how much all narcissists, sociopaths and psychopaths wittingly and unwittingly specifically weaponize false bravery one way or another to serve themselves, legitimize their allies and pump up their puppets.

Hopefully this extended series still mostly fulfilled our commitment to only share the most useful, therapeutic, entertaining and essential Counter-Narcissist intelligence at the moment, in as thorough yet tight and concise “common tongue” format as possible.

Counter-Narcissist Cheat Codes: False Bravery - Part III

Self-Defense Class - The Psychological Lens

Indeed Part I and Part II were a long way to get to a false bravery cheat code that was inspired by a sickeningly sycophantic narcissist making unwittingly moronic false bravery proclamations about their likely psychopath ally, after the likely psychopath declared themselves an American white supremacist to that very brown-skinned narcissist’s face. Mic drop, right?

However, from a CNI perspective, it was worthwhile to go down memory lane and remind everyone that just one Republican President ago, a somewhat less malignant and disturbed Republican Party weaponized another spoiled, entitled, and silver spoon narcissistic rich kid into saying and doing terrible things, while other narcissists, sociopaths and psychopaths kept proclaiming how brave and courageous he was for doing all the unpopular things that benefited them personally, with the levers of American power.

Just like trump, Bush Jr was able to charm the less intelligent, propagandized and/or true believers with his false “courage” and false “man of the people” routine. So much so that he succeeded in manipulating much of America into believing his “war of choice” started “on the wings of lies” was a strong, smart and necessary move at the time. In contrast, few today would argue against his war being the biggest military blunder in U.S. history.

For those of us who knew they were selling lies from the get go, it was like watching a long, sad and painful slow-motion train wreck, with all the usual lessons wannabe Alpha male Republicans always forget to remember, when they are being falsely brave.

What a non-surprise that very same Republican President and Republican Party’s false bravery and psychopathic courage ideology also took the world to near-economic collapse with the Great Recession. It is another non-surprise because by definition, narcissists believe their own bullsh*t, so their false bravery either tricked them into believing our economy could survive letting banks, insurance, Wall Street and most other large industries and economic entities regulate themselves, or they just did not care.

If any average person making economic policy is thinking historically, wisely, logically and not narcissistically, they would know that throughout American history, Wall St. has crashed on its own arrogance virtually every time it is given a sugar rush of no regulators minding even the most basic common sense rules of economics or markets.

Any reasonably intelligent person chosen to make U.S. economic policy should know that throughout history, virtually every person on Wall Street is literally in it for the money, and malignant narcissists, sociopaths and psychopaths are most drawn to money and power, so the odds of them regulating themselves should be recognized by all as a narcissistic delusion and/or false bravery illusion in itself. These realities are certainly easily understood when viewed through any basic CNI-type psychological lens.

While Republicans pretend it never happened, Bush Jr’s Presidency is highly relevant today because if there is one thing we consistently hear from trump and his maga Republican cult of sadists, greed monsters, narcissists, fools, or all of the above, it is them falsely telling everyone how incredibly brave they all are for being such “tough” (cruel) and “business savvy” (completely self-serving) group of “stable geniuses” (Dunning-Kruger narcissists).

It is so gaslighting of them to tell us we should all just “trust” them to do the right thing as they openly tell us they must destroy the rules of law, the Presidency and democracy so they can do vague and uncertain things that will “Make America Great Again, when trump is always and only about making trump great again.

This sociopathic, NPD poster child, used car salesman and demented orange clown wants to live out his hitler fantasies, and it is truly terrifying that the Republicans are helping him to pull it off.

So yes, in comparison these Republicans are far dumber, more narcissistically broken and an even more sinister group racist fascists than the past pathetic, tough-talking and treacherous Republican NeoCon mafia.

This is why it is so essential that America and the world truly start seeing and stop these threats to global democracy through the prism of empirical narcissistic disorders, far too many of them seem to so perfectly and consistently mimic IRL.

Psychological Lens

Unlike the mainstream media and academia’s political and ideological lenses that now seem castrated to the point of uselessness, the lens that seems shockingly and vastly under-utilized outside of security services, intelligence, nefarious political outfits and tech firms are CNI-type psychological lenses.

In fact, it almost seems conspiratorial that the lenses that can be used to better inform and guide the public and honorable public servants on how to safely and wisely psychologically defend “We the people” and our democracy with empirical psychology are not being taught or even shared with the public. The fact that this now seems to be mostly only done by our intelligence services is such a naive or willful ignorance of the threat American society currently faces.

Please note this is not revealing things most nefarious forces do not already know and weaponize. From a CNI perspective, it seems the only people who do not know this is part of our reality are the unsuspecting public, kind-hearted naive politicians, and the ones who are hired because they are such stupid narcissists that they don’t know how stupid they are, so they think they are smart, aka Dunning Kruger. Looking at you Tommy Tuberville, Lauren Boebert, MTG and pretty much the entire ironically yet accurately named Free-dumb (people) caucus.

It is no surprise we got here because there are global efforts of psychopathic psy-ops that are being regularly presented to us as innocuous news, entertainment or whatever, when it is really some form of Overton window shifting, gaslighting, narcissistic brain hacking and mind control. I certainly can’t speak for the entire country but it seems most of the local and national news now has become a daily dark parade of trauma porn, and taking a wild guess what the main cause of narcissism is? You guessed it, trauma!

In hindsight, this has been and still is highly suicidal thinking on the parts of the American Psychiatric Association et al who continue to remain gagged about our governments, media and economies under psychological attack as they cowardly hide behind the Goldwater rule. The only other explanation seems to be that they are co-conspirators in the decades old Republican plan to create a large enough ignorant and easily manipulated segment of the public to win elections, or will at least storm capitals to overturn elections when they are lost.

Too Much? Roger Ailes created Fox News because he believed that if there was Republican media at the time, his old boss President Nixon would not have had to resign because of Watergate. Sadly, trump lasting a full term in office and still being the GOP presidential nominee today proved sociopathic predator Ailes right.

Here’s the thing, a big part of what this false bravery cheat code is all about, is for you to never give Ailes or any other malignant forms of narcissists credit for what their psychological disorders were driving them to do anyway. In other words, there was no real thinking or bravery on Ailes’ part. Fox News and other pro-Republican media were nothing more than his narcissistic need and he compulsively worked for decades to make it happen.

Certainly, every grandiose narcissist’s forever dream would be to have their own personal global propaganda outfit, which helps prove that Ailes’ “great idea” to push his belief system is actually every narcissist’s pathology, just as Rupert Murdoch’s “vision” to fund it was. Again, every grandiose narcissist’s forever dream would also be to own their own personal global propaganda outfit. The only things that could have stopped them were firm barriers or lack of resources. A modern fairness doctrine could be a good firm barrier.

In the meantime, while we are waiting for the politicians, media and academia to catch up with our obvious poli-psych realities, by utilizing various lenses of Counter-Narcissist-type philosophy, we can almost always see and decipher new psychological angles, vectors, hidden tells and motivations towards more effective and permanent levels, in the effort to help the forces of good better understand the people, threats and circumstances we are all currently forced to deal with.

I know this to be true because before I had a psychological enlightenment while learning about narcissist psychology, I already had a well-educated, well-traveled and well-tuned international relations lens, and in short order it became obvious over time that the psychological lens answered many to all of the questions my political lens never could, and accurately revealed so much more about the true reasons behind the pathological actions of narcissistic leaders.

I consistently kept finding myself saying, “It all makes sense now.” If you don’t quite see it yet, a good first step is to get past the most fundamental misunderstanding about narcissists. Every single day I focused and refocused my political lens and yet I had no idea how much better I could understand and predict the behaviors of the very same people I thought I understood well, if only I also had a precision psychological lens in my analytical toolbox. Now, I can only imagine how scary the political world is without a psychological lens.

What the increasingly precise CNI psychological lenses have been perceiving for years is a political party that has been increasingly run, owned, and operated by people who seem to match virtually all the traits, tells, symptoms and behaviors of malignant narcissists, sociopaths and psychopaths.

Just to prove this theory, ask yourself what other kinds of people would completely surrender themselves to the whims of a demented narcissistic orange madman. How this dynamic has played out over the years and needs to be addressed currently is covered in CNI’s foundational analysis, trumpism is Narcissism.

Fortunately, with this latest current example, we can show how what is often falsely portrayed as “courage” or “bravery” on one side can consistently be revealed as fiction and manipulation when seen through a psychological lens. Indeed CNI consistently proves with the scorecard of time, that when we put self-serving people, groups and concepts through the prisms of hidden meanings and motivations of clinical-level narcissists, we can very consistently predict and translate their words, behaviors and intentions, because after all if they have compulsive maladaptive behaviors, they are by definition, pathological.

The Trigger

As noted in Part I and II, the specific incident that inspired this cheat code was when a likely malignant narcissist said a likely psychopath ally had “courage” for being publicly honest about being racist. This particular psychologically illogical claim triggered the somewhat connected crystal clear memories of how all the Republicans kept falsely declaring the “bravery” an “courage” of the Cheney/Rove puppet-mastered, Iraq invading, economy crashing, self-serving simpleton, Bush Jr.

While the trigger couple are a bizarre yet fairly well-known twosome, frankly this is not about the who. It is about a likely malignant narcissist’s tone-deaf gift of a transparent real world example of declared false bravery, because once one realizes how and why the claim of courage is psychologically inconsistent, this knowledge will hopefully become a touchstone that will remind you how to better recognize these kinds of false bravery manipulations and tells of dishonest politicians, political operatives, malignant narcissists, sociopaths and psychopaths via a CNI psychological lens.

The Cheat Code

As noted above, a big part of what this false bravery cheat code is all about is to share the axiom that you should never give any form of malignant narcissist, sociopath or psychopath any bravery credit for what their disorders pathologically drive them to do anyway, because there is no real thinking or bravery involved whatsoever. With the rarest of exceptions, everything a clinical level-narcissist does is to fill some narcissistic supply hole, need or compulsion, and the entire meaning of their life is to work 24 / 7 / 365, to acquire such things to fill their emotional emptiness.

Just like with the bravery heaped onto Bush Jr by Republicans for doing what he wanted to do, was incentivized to do, or was compulsed to do was a false manipulation of his and the nation’s narcissism, a psychopath is technically incapable of being brave or having courage because virtually by definition, they do not feel the emotion of fear.

In other words, empirical narcissist psychology highly infers that there is never any courage or bravery involved in a psychopath saying or doing virtually anything, let alone anything cold, callus, cruel, narcissistic, sociopathic, psychopathic, or just plain old racist, because they are normally incapable of feeling shame, guilt, remorse or even fear on an emotional level, so never have to overcome anything with courage or bravery to begin with.

Hence, declaring a psychopath brave or courageous for anything is a psychologically inconsistent red flag because they have no fear to overcome, just as it was a psychologically inconsistent red flag when all the Republicans heaped false bravery praise on a much lower level entitled narcissist with affluenza like Bush Jr, for doing all the things he and they consciously and subconsciously wanted to self-servingly do anyway. No fear requires no bravery, just as being completely self-serving deserves no credit for courage.

Psychopaths vs. Sociopaths and Malignant Narcissists

Psychopaths usually can eventually understand fear and empathy on intellectual levels, thus they learn how to mimic and manipulate others with them, but the emotional part of a psychopath’s brain did not fully develop, became physically damaged or was never there to begin with, so emotions are almost never part of any of their equations.

Again, since a psychopath’s brain never feels the emotion of fear, they are always being their primal, transactionally driven selves, with zero courage, bravery or any other feeling involved. Frankly, almost all declarations of bravery or courage for the actions of virtually any kind of malignant narcissist or sociopath also rings hollow, but for slightly different reasons.

While malignant narcissists and sociopaths can feel fear, they normally become completely numb to most emotions due to extreme trauma, psyche self-preservation, or their foundational delusions, thus like psychopaths, they are also completely driven by their narcissistic needs and compulsions, so virtually nothing they ever do is out of courage or bravery either. Sadly and ironically, most at least subconsciously know they will psychologically collapse if they ever did try to deal with their issues, fears or traumas honestly and openly, which is part of why they will almost never consciously acknowledge any fear.

So just like for entitled narcissists like Bush Jr and for apparent clinical-level narcissists like trump and Ailes, the cheat code is to always remember that there should never be any courage or bravery credited to them when all they have ever done is what they are compelled to do by their personal weaknesses, trauma conditioning or psychological disorder.

Additionally, anytime anyone praises one of these types of narcissists for being brave or courageous for doing what they are psychologically compelled to do anyway, each occurrence is a potential narcissistic big red flag regarding the person saying it, and the likely dishonest nature of who they are as a person, simply and clearly based on falsely claiming something self-serving is being ‘bravely” accomplished.

If there is one thing you can count on besides false bravery from all forms of malignant-type narcissists, they consistently and with complete conviction, over-promise and under-deliver, all the while declaring how courageously they performed, especially when the opposite is true.

Always remember, most pathological narcissists by their very nature cannot handle reality, so they must make up fantasies about how brave they are, just to get through the day. After a few years of studying their psychology, the true nature of pathological narcissists didn’t fully click for me until I saw someone being so obviously yet obliviously selfish that I blurted out to myself, “I finally get it now! It’s all about you.”

Indeed people all about themselves are the vast majority of these self-serving political and economic narcissistic senders and receivers of false bravery. It is who they are and all that most seem capable of, because they are compulsively disordered to always serve themselves. The sooner every society more fully understands these psychological realities we are confronted with and acts accordingly, the sooner life in every nation will be better for all its people, except the narcissists. We don’t want them to have bad lives. We just need to keep them from destroying everyone else’s lives, today more than ever.