Psychological Political Strategy 2024
Psychological Political Strategy 2024
Nice guys lose democracies.
Yesterday morning, Robert Reich put out a new piece, Welcome to (gulp) 2024 -10 rules for the next 10 months. I have observed Robert give analysis for decades and he seems like a very nice and wise man. America is full of nice people like him making heartfelt suggestions to bring out the best in us, and how we as a generally good people can unite and move forward together as a country.
The current flaw in this thinking is that for most of the kind people in America and the world, the complete and utter shameless compulsions of narcissists, sociopaths and psychopaths to get what they crave is almost inconceivable to them, so they do not recognize the sharks circling our bloodied democracies for the existential dangers that they really are, and the completely bottomless lengths they will go to achieve power and domination over any of us, and all of us.
This lack of dark imagination is in large part due to the fact that most people with a functioning conscience who want to be good know they will feel shame for being selfish, greedy, cruel or evil. Indeed most kind folks like most people see the world primarily through their own prism.
That is why it is very understandable how it is practically unimaginable to most self-aware people that a sizable percentage of other humans are exempt from self-awareness, shame, guilt or remorse, and act purely out of predatory instinct and self-interest 24 / 7 / 365. Of course another big reason why even wise people often lack this political danger awareness is because the Psychiatric and Psychological establishments are continually failing us and democracy in their ‘duty to warn.’
Certainly, Robert’s 10 suggestions for, “What can the rest of us do between now and the election to help save American democracy” are good general advisements for the next 10 months. However the reason for this additional CNI strategic analysis is there are also a few major logical fallacy mistakes in #5 that nice people regularly make when it comes to fending off the narcissistically disordered types currently threatening our democracies.
Ten suggestions:
1. Become even more politically active. For some of us, this will mean taking more time out of our normal lives — up to and including getting out the vote in critical swing states. For others, it will mean phone banking, making political contributions, writing letters to editors, and calling friends and relations in key states.
2. Do not succumb to the tempting anesthesias of complacency or cynicism. The stakes are too high. Even if you cannot take much time out of your normal life for direct politics, you will need to organize, mobilize, and energize your friends, colleagues, and neighbors.
3. Counter lies with truth. When you hear someone repeating a Trump Republican lie, correct it. This will require that you prepare yourself with facts, logic, analysis, and sources.
4. Do not tolerate bigotry and hate. Call it out. Stand up to it. Denounce it. Demand that others denounce it, too.
5. Do not resort to name-calling, bullying, intimidation, violence, or any of the other tactics that Trump followers may be using. We cannot save democracy through anti-democratic means.
6. Be compassionate toward hardcore followers of Trump, but be firm in your opposition. Understand why someone might decide to support Trump, but don’t waste your time and energy trying to convert them. Use your time and energy on those who still have open minds.
7. Don’t waste your time commiserating with people who already agree with you. Don’t gripe, whine, wring your hands, and kvetch with other anti-Trumpers about how awful Trump and his Republican enablers are. Don’t snivel over or criticize Biden and the Democrats for failing to communicate more effectively how bad Trump and his Republican enablers are. None of this will get you anything except an upset stomach or worse.
8. Don’t decide to sit this election out or vote for a third-party candidate because you don’t especially like Biden and you’re tired of voting for the “lesser of two evils.” Biden may not be perfect, but he’s not the lesser of two evils. Trump is truly evil.
9. Demonstrate, but don’t confuse demonstrating for political action. You may find it gratifying to stand on a corner in Berkeley or Cambridge or any other liberal precinct with a sign asking drivers to “honk if you hate fascism” and elicit lots of honks. But this is as politically effectual as taking a warm shower. Organize people who don’t normally vote to vote for Biden. Mobilize get-out-the-vote efforts in your community. Get young people involved.
10. Don’t get distracted by the latest sensationalist post or story by or about Trump. Don’t let the media’s short-term attention span divert your eyes from the prize — the survival of American democracy during one of the greatest stress tests it has had to endure, organized by one of the worst demagogues in American history.
I cannot overstate how critical the outcome of the next 10 months will be to everything we believe in. And the importance of your participation. We must win this. And then continue to do the work of making our democracy and economy work for the many, rather than the few at the top.
Again, # 5 - “Do not resort to name-calling, bullying, intimidation, violence, or any of the other tactics that trump followers may be using. We cannot save democracy through anti-democratic means,” is all good general advice, but we must also strategically call out people for the psychological disorders they are consciously and more often unconsciously following to take over every democracy. Otherwise, we have already seen how they will control the news cycle narrative with grooming, gaslighting and other Orwellian-level lies all the way to dictatorship.
As distasteful as it is and they make it, we must expose and call malignant narcissists, “malignant narcissists” or we are helping to hide the damage they will pathologically inflict on anyone and everyone they have power over. If one sees that as “anti-democratic” "name-calling,” so be it.
Additionally, since the only things that even give narcissists pause from their selfish obsessions are firm barriers that intimidate them into not doing something greedy or evil, we do need to intimidate them more "to put the fear of God (exposure, fines and/or jail) into them." If one sees these things as “anti-democratic” “intimidation,” so be it.
Also, while it is true most trump tactics are sickening and immoral, there are some that are just the kind of hardball politics fire we need to burn their toxicity to the ground with, so dismissing every tactic out of hand because trump or his people use it is very naive strategic thinking.
Let us not test the “nice guys finish last” theory with American democracy hanging in the balance. Let us fight their immoral “burn it all down” fire with our morally righteous unifying fire, because that is a big part of what is required psychologically and kinetically to save democracy at this moment in time, and into the foreseeable future.
Conclusions
When I was younger and had the pleasure of winning a lot in games and sports, I used to say, “If you need to cheat me to beat me, you need it more than I do.” Sadly, this contention was far truer than I realized, and it has become far more revealing psychologically than I could have ever imagined.
Indeed, most pathological narcissists and sociopaths psychologically need to win at anything and everything at any cost because their massively fragile egos cannot handle even the smallest defeat. This is a big part of why they will usually lie, cheat and steal to win.
The alternative of admitting they are the loser is in complete conflict with the lies they tell themselves and everyone else, and having to accept defeat is one of their worst psychological nightmares. Just imagine if a malignant narcissist became a President who lost an election. Empirical narcissist psychology practically guarantees they will refuse to accept defeat and keep lying to themselves and everyone else so they never have to admit or accept being a loser. Oh wait!
Indeed, fighting honorably by Marquess of Queensberry Boxing Rules will lose every time to shameless and dirty fighters until you learn how to protect yourself, are sure the referee will punish fouls and know how to fight back against those who go to war without rules or honor. Only a fool would keep fighting by Marquess of Queensberry Rules when criminal ninjas are relentlessly shooting poison darts at them from the shadows.
Ask yourself, how do you stop sharks who smell blood from attacking you and eating your democracy? Certainly staying silent and not yelling “shark” when there are multitudes swimming in your waters will get your freedoms and liberties eaten.
Ergo, staying silent about the disordered predators of our democracy does not help anyone except those psychological sharks and the even bigger predators out to destroy our “government of the people, by the people and for the people,” so they can rob us and rule us.
Indeed love and kindness should eventually win out, but how is a “Mr. Nice Guy” defense going to win over the pathological power cravings of malignant narcissists and those they have a strong mind-control over in Election 2024?
To be clear, we do not need to behave like these psychologically disordered toxic people. We just must be open-minded, clever, wise and strategic in using their narcissist psychology against them, in fighting their evil with our righteous fire, and we certainly cannot let anyone’s black and white obsession with being limited to the most honorable fair play cost us our democracy.
We are currently in a war for the future of humanity and if we do not win, there will be no democracies left where love and kindness can win out in the end, because beyond their empty promises, love and kindness is always a one-way street for a dictator.
When will we learn that some people are just no damned good. There are aliens that walk among us. They may look like us, they certainly try to act like us. But they’re not like us. Their brains work differently. They have hard-wired neural grooves/templates that were laid down VERY early in life and that set the stage for a lifetime of desperation. Desperation to get their infantile needs met. Every day, every hour, at the expense of anyone that isn’t a pawn or an instrument toward their objectives. It’s astonishing to me that there is a plethora of these human wrecking balls out there, affecting our society in so many deleterious ways, yet no PSAs or public education about them.
"The current flaw in this thinking is that for most of the kind people in America and the world, the complete and utter shameless compulsions of narcissists, sociopaths and psychopaths to get what they crave is almost inconceivable to them, so they do not recognize the sharks circling our bloodied democracies for the existential dangers that they really are, and the completely bottomless lengths they will go to achieve power and domination over any of us, and all of us."
THANK YOU!!!
I am for love, I advocate love but I am also about strategy and self-defense!
We can't pussyfoot around these ogre's--they are not playing by the rules--they think rules are for suckers. If you want to beat a Barbarian at war you must understand how a Barbarian thinks. You don't have to resort to their tactics but by gum you can't expect you will win if you truly believe they care about what happens to you and others.
There is a divine madness in doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. We have always played the gentleman to a room full of monsters and it has led us here. Now it is time to thrown down the gauntlet and fight for our very lives. The soul of not only the country but the world at large is now at stake.