Start Making Sense
Part I - “It’s the psychology, stupid.”
As we recalibrate for what comes next, a quick review of the Counter-Narcissist Intelligence origin story should be useful in summing up and setting a POV that is better understood rather than taken in the wrong way, because as a straight-shooting philosophy, there are just so many harsh things to say.
With CNI having fiercely advocated for far more understanding and use of Counter-Narcissist methods against trump’s party of flying monkeys since 2015, it is only natural that such a species altering loss to such an obvious narcissist, that was not more aggressively fought on the psychological planes is a sore subject. At minimum, it was an arrow left in the quiver of defending democracy that could have worked.
To be clear, Team Harris did solid work across several psychological levels, but if the vote counts are accurate (not hacked by a groomed Elon and his purchased minions), clearly it was not enough, but that is not on her.
Certainly Kamala triggered a narcissist well at the debate and it seemed like she did enough to expose his complete lack of mental fitness, but CNI’s strategic advice has always been that the most certain way to take out a narcissist is to keep triggering them until big men in white coats are needed to come take them away. This would be the kind of made for television moment that would help those propagandized with lies and/or cult members to see their leader is really a looney toons, cliche cartoon villain hiding behind a “Mask of Sanity.”
With the vast majority of post-election reactions and post mortems being merely subsets of the psychology at best, or can easily be psychologically dismissed as useless at worst, this basic understanding of the CNI philosophy will hopefully clarify that harsh reviews and analysis to come are not meant to be disrespectful or I told-you-so’s, even if a little sneaks in subconsciously here and there.
What the philosophy has always been clear on is that I would be a ridiculous hypocrite if I ever made it about me, or ever used the psychology in ways that did not serve freedom and democracy for all good individuals and the world. Indeed the primary mission is to counter unhealthy narcissism individually, locally and globally, so all good people can live in a better world.
Ergo, tough critiques to come are only meant to show how much better psychological analysis can reveal all, should have been used long ago by the forces of democracy to fight off fascism, and is still the key missing ingredient in most post-election assessments and potentially successful battle plans.
Obviously just saying that if the Dems had fully utilized the principles of a Counter-Narcissist philosophy for the last few years they would have won sounds completely self-serving. However, since Republicans used the darkest narcissistic arts to win for decades, it only stands to reason that by the Dems and mainstream media letting them wield these weapons of mass psychological destruction unchallenged years before Kamala even got a chance to fight back, it was clearly too little too late.
Origins
Ever since a twist of fate led to aiding a close friend in their escape from a sociopath’s web in the late 2000s, in addition to helping them reclaim their freedom, I had the good fortune of becoming well-educated in narcissist psychology after a few years of constant study and real world application.
Thankfully, I discovered a natural aptitude and intuitive understanding of narcissist psychology that seemed to integrate itself into my brain once there was a serious mission that required it.
This was in contrast to another discovery that not much relevant or useful psychology had stuck with me before that, despite the fact that I thought I had a pretty good understanding of at least psychopaths from all my detective shows. In reality, almost everything I thought I knew about narcissists, sociopaths and psychopaths was either wrong or a half truth at best, and that is still the status of the vast majority of people in the world.
In my case, it took a strong need to solve a huge problem to make the brain-sticking work. Finding this kind of focal point seems important for everyone hoping to study and use psychology to help explain what happened, because CNI research and polling highly indicates the nuances of narcissism do not stick for most people.
This is why CNI uses pop-culture and any other mnemonic devices whenever possible and firmly dictates that it is basic self-care to have some fun with every dark and dry subject. Obviously, a subject being interesting is perhaps the most important part of keeping it memorable enough to stick, “in the mind’s eye.”
It’s so interesting how some things stick and some things don’t, for all of us. As any well-trained writer can attest and I can confirm, in stark contrast to how well the psychology sticks, the rules of punctuation and grammar have never come easily to me. As Nevermore blogger Enid Sinclair said after her roommate Wednesday Addams declared, “I’ve read serial killer diaries with better punctuation,”
The reason I use the term “good fortune” to describe my forced psychological studies is because while it is 100% true that my friend paid an incalculable mental health price from unfathomable narcissistic abuse, the science I studied to make sense of it all stuck and fully integrated itself into my international relations, artistic and innovative business brain, and eventually birthed the philosophy of Counter-Narcissism.
Most incredible of all, I found a clarity and serenity I never imagined because psychology was able to logically answer all of my previously unanswerable big questions. Then came the narcissistically obvious and transparent trump who I could read like a children’s book from day one. What made no sense at the time was how virtually zero political experts or journalists saw or reported on his obviously disordered traits, tells and symptoms.
To borrow from the famous James Carville quote that in a way explains and sums up trump and trumpism, “It’s the psychology, stupid.”
As the initial research was always laser focused on trying to solve the very real world problems of helping a friend survive massive PTSD-type damage and to free them from a lying, manipulating, gaslighting predator’s cruel trauma trap, that is where I quickly discovered that hiding in plain sight were long lost answers to so many of humanity’s biggest questions, such as “Why do people do unconscionable things?”
All along, the empirical science of pathological narcissism was there to explain how a lot of people are able to act and serve themselves “without conscience.” Specifically those of the narcissistic personality, sociopathy and psychopathy disorder varieties.
As a firm believer in learning from all forms of experts, I read a few thousand survivor stories in early studies. Eventually, it almost felt like reading the same three or four stories over and over because most had similar patterns and themes. Indeed, like what happened to my friend, the vast majority either told a story of being emotionally manipulated with lies and gaslighting into a predator’s trap and/or they were a child of one.
It is key to understand that children of narcissists are groomed, gaslit and traumatized from birth by one or more people who were supposed to be protecting and nurturing them. Tragically, they are instead given the simple choice of submitting to and defending their abuser just to survive, by supporting their abuser’s claim that their completely selfish, toxic, disordered and antisocial behavior is really “just” and “strong,” or they can rebel as a defenseless child who will suffer the vengeful consequences of a petty tyrant.
Indeed most who fully submitted as children now likely support trump because they fell to the dark side of seeing narcissism, sociopathy and psychopathy as strong and manly, while most who rebelled and rose above now recognize the existential danger of a greedy egomaniac in orange make-up, so they will keep fighting for the light.
In this mean time, if you need to enhance your chill, this ambient music is quite nice.
Terrific piece this evening,Sam, I really enjoyed it and will reStack ASAP 💯👍
great piece! Thank you!!