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Madeline Taylor, PhD's avatar

Thom, a lot of people who have a need to create chaos are driven by less observable, unconscious processes like old fury that is being displaced onto contemporary scapegoats. This is a more psychological way of understanding people then a description of their overt behavior. In his book, DISORDERED MINDS - How Dangerous Personalities Are Destroying Democracy, Ian Hughes describes rulers like Hitler and Stalin as having a drive for absolute power over others and no conscience about how they achieve that end. These SOCIOPATHS are a small percentage of the population but they are attracted to positions of power in places like police departments, big business, and politics. As adolescents and young adults these, mostly men, join gangs and militant groups to find a sense of belonging and empowerment. They spread chaos to express their childhood rage at authority and assert their dominance. This is how they reassure themselves that they are powerful, unlike how they felt as children. Trump and Putin crave dominance and have no conscience about how that is achieved. So do many of the people who align with them.

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Jessica Benjamin's avatar

I find this extremely helpful and clarifying. If the liberal media does nothing to vanquish the myth of the BLM riots and then the Dems acquiesce in increasingly militarized policing there’s no way out of this disaster. The Rightwing media have successfully spread this racist idea of “law and order” while sowing chaos and violence.it’s Orwellian: violence is law, chaos is order. Strenuous and intelligent opposition to that strategy has been lacking. As we saw in the ridiculous montage at the 2020 Dem convention attempting to assuage the protestors while doubling down on police. How can we widely propagate your points here?

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