Political conditioning: Taking possession of the simplest and most complicated nervous patterns of man. (Meerloo, 1961, p. 39)
It never ceases to amaze me how conservatives are so accepting of everything Donald Trump does. This morning, there was an article by Blaze Media discussing how Trump continues to endorse so-called swamp dwellers, and people seem surprised by this. It was the same during his last administration. People were clinging tightly to this idea, this deep-rooted belief, that Trump was draining the swamp despite appointing the very swamp-creatures he was allegedly flushing down the drain. Another relevant example is Trump’s recent attempts to merge the ATF with the DEA. Some people are cheering this on as a monumental move to protect the Second Amendment. Truthfully, it isn’t hard to see why people support him so much. In a world where the political opposition has seemingly lost their mind with their transgenderism, constant accusations of racism, incessant support for abortion, and outright hatred of everything American, Trump’s boastful and unashamed proclamations of patriotism, and Pro-America sentiment are a warm welcome. Still though, what is happening today goes beyond support. It has transformed into an unquestioning fanaticism of sorts, where anyone that dares to step out on a limb and question the official narrative is attacked as a liberal hack. This happens to me quite often. It isn’t that Trump supporters are the only ones who display this behavior. That’s the point, Democrats also show a fierce, unquestioning loyalty to whomever they are told to support. Is this natural, or somehow manufactured through a constant barrage of fear-based propaganda? Both Republicans and Democrats seem glued to their respective party’s official narratives, sitting on the edge of their seats waiting for a hero to return our nation to a normative reality that aligns with their beliefs. This is a process of political indoctrination that in essence, conditions us to accept what we normally wouldn’t because what is being presented on one side is so alien to the other’s worldview. What is happening is political conditioning through a mass persuasion strategy known as fear-then-relief.
Saul Alinsky touched on this idea in his book Rules for Radicals. Citing Doestoevsky he said, and I am paraphrasing—when people reach the point of hopelessness, and there seems to be no future in their present circumstances, they can be brought to accept anyone or anything that offers hope. They will become willing to let go of the past and chance the future. This quote is strikingly similar to the description of the fear-then-relief strategy of persuasion. The book, The Dynamics of Persuasion, states that this technique works by placing a target of persuasion in a state of fear, then abruptly removing that stimulus and replacing it with a kind request for compliance. Decades of study, going all the way back to Pavlov, have shown that people, when relieved of great stress and turmoil, are very susceptible to persuasive techniques and behavior changing strategies.
“This is somewhat different from other techniques in that the persuader deliberately places the recipient in a state of fear. Suddenly and abruptly, the persuader eliminates the threat, replaces fear with kind words, and asks the recipient to comply with a request. The ensuing relief pushes the persuade to acquiesce.” (Perloff, Dynamics of Persuasion, p. 464)
America has been living in a continuous state of psychological trauma for several years. We have been in a constant state of war since the September 11 attacks, our national character has been discredited as racist and imperialist, crime is growing out of control, the economy has been in shambles, and the mainstream media is always there to tell us how bad everything is. Joost Meerloo touches on this in his book, The Rape of the Mind. Who was Joost Meerloo? After surviving imprisonment in a Nazi concentration camp, Meerloo, a trained psychologist, worked for the Allied powers studying the effects of psychological trauma and conditioning. He was also an authority on totalitarianism and the psychological processes involved in the loss of freedom, and the acceptance of tyranny. He states that—and this is another quote that aligns with what Alinsky wrote—”If a country suffers from prolonged famine or severe depression, its citizens become bitter, depressed, and resentful, and will more readily accept the visions and promises of the aspiring dictator” (p. 85). I am not necessarily calling Trump a dictator, just offering an explanation as to why everything he does is unquestionable in the eyes of so many people. Meerloo goes onto say that a country will grasp at what he calls—totalitarian opportunity for belonging—when they a reach a point of confusion and uselessness in a system that they no longer understand. These feelings of resentment and confusion are easily taken advantage of by any leader, as it is well known that a population that has experienced mass trauma is much more susceptible to techniques of mass persuasion.
Again, I am not calling Trump an outright dictator. The conditions for a leader—whether on the right or left— to become despotic are certainly present, though. To the Democrats, Trump is a hardcore Fascist. A rightwing extremist whose views are rooted in racism. The conservative right, on the other hand, view the Democrats as anti-American socialists who want to tear down the country as we know it, and install a Communist style government. I tend to view the left that way myself, however, I am beginning to wonder if it is all manufactured that way to keep us in a constant state of back and forth. A system where we are easily controlled by two competing narratives that seem to do little more than leave us clinging to hopes that some “cult of personality” type of leader can swoop in and save us. It seems that the more the left hates Trump, the more unquestionable he becomes. It works the same the other way as well. The only thing I can say for sure is that the material presented in this article, and all the others I have written, exists. It is the result of decades of study into the frailties of the human mind, and shows how susceptible people are to persuasive communications and propaganda. How much of that is applicable to modern times and our current state of politics is purely speculative. Take it for what you will.
