Above: Marcel Danesi, a professor of semiotics and linguistic anthropology at the University of Toronto
By Hal Brown
There's a new version of Godwin's Law about Hitler which should read that it's impossible to discuss how people are hardwired to believe things that aren't true without invoking the name of Trump. Consider this except from the subsription required NY Times article Why Trump is so hard to beat:
It’s populist. It’s conservative. It’s blue collar. It’s convinced the nation is on the verge of catastrophe. And it’s exceptionally loyal to Donald Trump.
As defined here, members of Mr. Trump’s MAGA base represent 37 percent of the Republican electorate. They “strongly” support him in the Republican primary and have a “very favorable” view of him.
The MAGA base doesn’t support Mr. Trump in spite of his flaws. It supports him because it doesn’t seem to believe he has flaws.
Zero percent — not a single one of the 319 respondents in this MAGA category — said he had committed serious federal crimes. A mere 2 percent said he “did something wrong” in his handling of classified documents. More than 90 percent said Republicans needed to stand behind him in the face of the investigations.
There have been many expert explanations of why the country, indeed many counties, are in deep deep democracy-threatening doodoo.
This morning there was a scientist interviewed on "Morning Joe" (see photo above) which led me to read an article he wrote in Politico.
Marcel Danesi, a professor of semiotics and linguistic anthropology at the University of Toronto, wrote in Politico: What Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin and Viktor Orbán Understand About Your Brain.
Why do people believe some politicians’ lies even when they have been proven false? And why do so many of the same people peddle conspiracy theories?
Lying and conspiratorical thinking might seem to be two different problems, but they turn out to be related. I study political rhetoric and have tried to understand how populist politicians use language to develop a cult-like following, divide nations, create culture wars and instill hatred. This pattern goes back to antiquity and is seen today in leaders including former President Donald Trump, Hungary’s Viktor Orbán and Russia’s Vladimir Putin. These leaders are capable of using words and speeches to whip people into such an emotional tempest that they will do things like march on the seat of Congress or invade a neighboring country.
The conclusion:
People with strong convictions will have a hard time changing their minds, given how embedded a lie becomes in the mind. In fact, there are scientists and scholars still studying the best tools and tricks to combat lies with some combination of brain training and linguistic awareness.
Not all hope is lost, however. History has shown that disruptive events — such as the toppling of a regime or the loss of a war — can force a new perspective and the brain is able to recalibrate. So it is at least possible to change this pattern. Once the critical mind is engaged, away from the frenzy of fear and manipulation, the lie can become clear. This is the uplifting moral tale that can be gleaned from history — all the great liars, from dictators to autocrats, were eventually defeated by truth, which eventually will win out.
But the bad news is that you need that kind of disruption. Without these jarring events to bring a dose of reality, it is unlikely that people with strong convictions will ever change their minds — something that benefits the autocrat and endangers their society.
In Salon Chauncey DeVega interviewed Danesi:
"Train and socialize": Expert on linguistic anthropology explains how Trump is warping MAGA minds
The implications stretch far beyond Donald Trump — and are ominous for American society
These concepts are similar to what is explained in the Raw Story article by neuropsychologist Seth Norrholm "A neuroscientist asks what Jason Aldean, Ron DeSantis and Josh Hawley are so afraid of".
Excerpt:
These two previously mentioned white fears – women and joblessness – lead to the now well-documented case of the former president who is by many firsthand accounts a severe narcissist. A malignant narcissist lives in a world of fantasy and grandiosity with an exaggerated sense of importance whose deepest fear is often exposure for being a fake, fraud, or con man. So for Trump, there is a clear rationale for a sense of white fear because he is at a greater risk for exposure than he has ever faced. He has propped himself up behind a wall of lies and enablers.
In closing, the question is then, how much of the white fear that we are seeing in society today is related to a fear of being exposed for who you really are or what your weaknesses truly are? I would argue that the fear of admitting one made a mistake and the failure to admit one is wrong that is observed in many public, white, male figures is that the admitted mistake will reveal other mistakes, flaws, or fraudulence – which, in turn, could collapse the sense of self or one’s identity. That could be truly terrifying and I would also argue why many remain in the cult of Trump.
This is also similar to what Bobby Azarian wrote the other day in A neuroscientist explains why RFK Jr. has cast a spell upon millions.
Here's an excerpt:
What we need is a systematic approach to determining truth, and that can be provided by a method known to scientists and statisticians as Bayesian reasoning. The term sounds complex on the surface, but it can be applied in a simple form by anyone. This may be necessary, as studies have shown that the human brain tends to believe things as a default because it simply takes more mental effort and cognitive resources to reject something as untrue compared to just accepting it.
Obviously not everyone sits at home at 5:00 AM like me watching "Morning Joe "and reading "Raw Story" or "Politico" at the same time. It sure isn't anyone who has been brainwashed into the Trump or MAGA cult.
Consider this from the Norrholm article:
These two previously mentioned white fears – women and joblessness – lead to the now well-documented case of the former president who is by many firsthand accounts a severe narcissist. A malignant narcissist lives in a world of fantasy and grandiosity with an exaggerated sense of importance whose deepest fear is often exposure for being a fake, fraud, or con man. (my emphasis)
Many people not in the mental health or a related field learned what a malignant narcissist was over the past few years and how Trump met this defintion in spades. The term was used early on by Duty to Warn founder Dr. John Gartner in his May, 2017 USA Today article Donald Trump's malignant narcissism is toxic: Mental health professionals have a 'duty to warn' about a leader who may be unfit to serve. Now just about informed anti-Trumper knows why someone with this diagnosis is dangerous, and the more power they have the more dangerous they are.
So what are we to do?
As individuals only very few of us can do anything except act as educators. At the most basic level we can use what we learn to figure out ways to sway the beliefs of MAGA-cult people in our lives to persuade them that they need to open their minds to new ways of thinking.
The people who design campaign strategies probably already know what they are up against and hopefully are working with experts in the inner working of the human mind to craft their strategies.
In some ways the mission is the oposite of what commercial and poltical advertisers have done since there even was such a thing. The idea of promising a chicken in every pot or that a certain product would make you irrestible to the oposite sex was positive. Now MAGA is using negativity, fear, to sell themselves.
The Democrats have not been particularly successful in convincing MAGA cultists that they ought to be afraid of authoritarianism.
In Dec. of 2017 the editor of "The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump," Yale forensic psychiatrist Bandy Lee briefed Democratic and a few Republican members of Congress about the message of the book: Yale psychiatrist briefed members of Congress on Trump’s mental fitness . Hopefully those in charge of Democratic Party message have been following up their education by keeping up with article like those referenced above.
I am a firm believer in Sun Tzu's well known quote: "Know the enemy and know yourself. Your victory will be painless. Know the weather and the field. Your victory will be complete." The more I learn the better. However, I sometimes feel like I'm an iceberg expert on the Titanic who was unable to convince the captain to be very careful of the harmless looking icebergs.
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