This strategy, employed by dictators and autocrats, is as ancient as history. Caligula did it, as did Nero. Mussolini, Hitler, Putin, and Orbán achieved and exercised power using fear
An excellent article -- thanks Thom. Right up there on the level of your reporting about the treasonous Republican presidents since Eisenhower which, by the way, received glowing recommendations from documentary-maker Michael Moore on his podcast (Rumble, Episode #286).
So, let me see if I've got this right -- MTGreene is warning us of God's wrath being inflicted on the evil-doers; this as Jewish billionaire Soros is "out to get" anything Maga-related. The Jews are God's nation, so that must mean that God is out to get Maga? To inflict wrath on Maga and MTGreene for their evil behavior? Sounds about right. She put her foot in her mouth again.
Yes Soros is code for Jew,and the right is antisemitic, except when it comes to their Jews, like Weisselberger, lawyers, financiers,donors I guess there are bad Jews (Soros) and good jews like Steven Miller, Rupert Murdoch, Steve Wynn, the Addelsons, Mercers, Kushner. Apparently Jews are not so concerned and don't take the "Jews will not replace us" rants and antisemitism seriously.
Thom’s linking fear to infancy is a bit too Freudian for this psychologist. However, research has reliably shown a simple shift in brain activation from reasoning centers to emotional ones occurs when confronted by something fear-arousing or disgusting (loathsome). The late journalist Hunter Thompson wrote books about how the GOP uses fear and loathing to attract votes away from Democrats. That is because it works! People in high states of emotional arousal are unlikely to question the validity of the message that triggered it. They are most likely to unquestioningly avoid the identified threat – in this case radical, liberal Democrats.
Most parents would find it unsettling to be told that trannies and queers are coming for their children or that illegal aliens are coming to rape their daughters and wives while addicting your kids to drugs. Once such statements trigger fear, the listener is less likely to question it rationally. We do not stop and question why we have never before heard of “Transgenderism” movement supposedly infiltrating every city and town. We do not question why drag show performers are grooming our children to become gay or transgender even though drag performers are NOT transgender and many are heterosexual. Most adults are unlikely to check to see how many transgender people there are (only 1.6 million Americans over age 13 or about .005% of the US population – way short of even 1 percent). Sadly, voters are likely to remember that the speaker blamed this horrific situation on radical liberal Democrats than to question the validity of such preposterous assertions.
Bad versions of Sigi used to be common fare on TV shows and movies. They look labored now as a plot device. Plain old alarms and alerts tend to gain attention, though.
The oldest sales device works the attention/alarm game:
1 - you have a problem (that I happened to have spotted, thank goodness, in time)
2 - I can fix it (me)
3 - pay me (me again)
Works for original sin, arm-pit hair and bad breath, just for the barest of starters.
Often the alarm is something you would never have known about, even when you are right next to the "alarming" category. Once in a while I let people know that I "identify as" - - straight. Once having been a "member" of the group titles "12 gays and a straight." That is back in the 1970s. I worked in a restaurant with mostly gay wait staff. I was the bartender and not gay but invited along for social outings. Back then (maybe still?) if a group of people went to the "Rocky Horror Picture Show" you could give yourselves a name. So, the guys got together and decided to call us "12 gays and a straight" with me being the straight man (pun accepted). Those gay guys actually introduced me to the term. I was naive enough that were they "grooming" and if being gay was just about being around anyone gay or attending lectures and making a decision to be gay, that I could have been groomed. But, of course not. They were fun, and funny and more than that, generous, and lovely. Far from threats, they have simply been part of my world and collaborators on many projects. That includes the full list of LGBTQIA "categories" (which we didn't really have back then)
On the other hand, as bartender back then I watched a lot of fundamentalist religious conventions sold to the town, hit the hotel I worked in (winter/spring 1978). The women on the street said they had more business than the (benchmark) Shriners (sorry, Shriners, but you have/had a rep) and the maids said they had more of the little, pocket-sized liquor bottles to clean out of the trash cans. We had some big name conventions, from Billie Graham (ran into him on the service elevator with his bodyguards, to the crystal cathedral guy Schuler, to Kenneth Copeland. As a bartender they avoided my bar (appearances) but would go off explosively on hotel staff like waitstaff at small things. (power and proximity)
The Russian "Z" you see on all their tanks reminds me of the zombie movie, 'World War Z' post-apocalyptic zombie movie.... Talk about delusion and fear! But that's how Putin sold the Ukraine war to his people; if we don't attack Ukraine, we're all gonna die! Same goes here; fear is, '...a corrosive, evil thread running through the fabric of our lives,' Alcoholics Anonymous. I just drove all night across the country from CO to GA. All the talk radio was extremist, right-wing fear-mongering. The one guy, Joe someone, talked incessantly about Remdesivir, Ivermectin and how Remdesivir was invented to poison us and Ivermectin was the only thing that worked against Covid. Total BS, fear-mongering and Dude, just get your jabs, as the Brits say and none of this is relevant. But as Thom said, Radio is now monopolized by these crazies. And the trash they talked about Fauci....ugh!
Oh yes. I drive back and forth from Kansas City, MO to Hays, KS on a regular basis and sometimes Garden City. I try to put on CDs. The radio frequencies are dominated by those stations. Absolutely brain washed. With a big emphasis on the "absolute."
They really shotgun the topics, but always with a single aim, dominance. The topics are just distractions from the destruction their hate/fear-mongering brings.
Fear alone is not the problem. I fear climate change denial. I fear economist who promote population growth because cheap labor serves the primary goal of capitalism which is near term profits. I fear scientist who promote material well being without regard to the evolutionary well being of the Earth. In other words I fear science with no moral and spiritual content. I fear State promotion of war. I fear war. The common thread of these fears is disinformation and misinformation which is most fearful.
Of course fear. It's been long known that the great motivators are fear and greed. Greed has to be carefully tuned. It is directed at the people (mostly dark-skinned) who are worse off and coming for the MAGAs' goodies, and they are a good target of fear. In the end, it's all about keeping the rubes' greed deflected from the paymasters.
Yeah they're going to have a white board of state supervisors appoint the judicial staff and judges for Jackson Mississippi which is 90% African Americans 🤔
Today's SCOTUS probably will refuse to consider it as a case if it reachs appeals that far. We can all thank McConnell and Trump for that, although it won't get the orange behemoth off the hook 😉
I am thrilled that there is a realization that the GOP is the party of the amygdala and the Democrats the party of of the pre frontal cortex. Unfortunately in the battle twixt the two, it is the amygdala that inevitably wins.
2020 is proof of that assertion. 81 million people were so frightened of Trump that they turned out to vote him out of office. A head of cabbage could have beat Trump then,and can in 2024 unless SCOTUS rules in favor of Moore v. Harper and legalizes the indepenent legislature ideo.
It looks like the deep State billionaires that the Republicans love are sponsoring more political parties to break up the independent vote. Here in Arizona they just broke the law to get a no labels party, I believe there are more Independence in Arizona than there are Republicans.
Yes fear and anxiety are always great attention-grabbing political tools. We have seen gop politics float from one boogie man to another, down a continuous chain.... from saddam to soros, there always must be a boogie man who is trying to get you.
There is this great song by the clash with the line "fear is just another commodity here."
When the MAGA crowd is not discussing what people should be afraid of, they are obsessing about fighting. They really don't have time for decency, diversity, and tolerance with all that on their plate.
So if they all move to Florida, Texas, and other southern states, they will have plenty of other people to fight with. Please excuse that brief flight of fancy.
People all over the world dealing with autocrats and dictators are sick of the fear and loathing and are starting to let the scumbags know they have reached their limit. What Trump, DeSantis, and MGT are selling is not being bought by our youth, women, and LGBTQ+ community. I agree we are watching a backlash in motion, much of it with independents. Now that they have come to the light, I hope they go to the polls. Keep your eyes on Wisconsin.
An excellent article -- thanks Thom. Right up there on the level of your reporting about the treasonous Republican presidents since Eisenhower which, by the way, received glowing recommendations from documentary-maker Michael Moore on his podcast (Rumble, Episode #286).
So, let me see if I've got this right -- MTGreene is warning us of God's wrath being inflicted on the evil-doers; this as Jewish billionaire Soros is "out to get" anything Maga-related. The Jews are God's nation, so that must mean that God is out to get Maga? To inflict wrath on Maga and MTGreene for their evil behavior? Sounds about right. She put her foot in her mouth again.
Yes Soros is code for Jew,and the right is antisemitic, except when it comes to their Jews, like Weisselberger, lawyers, financiers,donors I guess there are bad Jews (Soros) and good jews like Steven Miller, Rupert Murdoch, Steve Wynn, the Addelsons, Mercers, Kushner. Apparently Jews are not so concerned and don't take the "Jews will not replace us" rants and antisemitism seriously.
Thom’s linking fear to infancy is a bit too Freudian for this psychologist. However, research has reliably shown a simple shift in brain activation from reasoning centers to emotional ones occurs when confronted by something fear-arousing or disgusting (loathsome). The late journalist Hunter Thompson wrote books about how the GOP uses fear and loathing to attract votes away from Democrats. That is because it works! People in high states of emotional arousal are unlikely to question the validity of the message that triggered it. They are most likely to unquestioningly avoid the identified threat – in this case radical, liberal Democrats.
Most parents would find it unsettling to be told that trannies and queers are coming for their children or that illegal aliens are coming to rape their daughters and wives while addicting your kids to drugs. Once such statements trigger fear, the listener is less likely to question it rationally. We do not stop and question why we have never before heard of “Transgenderism” movement supposedly infiltrating every city and town. We do not question why drag show performers are grooming our children to become gay or transgender even though drag performers are NOT transgender and many are heterosexual. Most adults are unlikely to check to see how many transgender people there are (only 1.6 million Americans over age 13 or about .005% of the US population – way short of even 1 percent). Sadly, voters are likely to remember that the speaker blamed this horrific situation on radical liberal Democrats than to question the validity of such preposterous assertions.
Bad versions of Sigi used to be common fare on TV shows and movies. They look labored now as a plot device. Plain old alarms and alerts tend to gain attention, though.
The oldest sales device works the attention/alarm game:
1 - you have a problem (that I happened to have spotted, thank goodness, in time)
2 - I can fix it (me)
3 - pay me (me again)
Works for original sin, arm-pit hair and bad breath, just for the barest of starters.
Often the alarm is something you would never have known about, even when you are right next to the "alarming" category. Once in a while I let people know that I "identify as" - - straight. Once having been a "member" of the group titles "12 gays and a straight." That is back in the 1970s. I worked in a restaurant with mostly gay wait staff. I was the bartender and not gay but invited along for social outings. Back then (maybe still?) if a group of people went to the "Rocky Horror Picture Show" you could give yourselves a name. So, the guys got together and decided to call us "12 gays and a straight" with me being the straight man (pun accepted). Those gay guys actually introduced me to the term. I was naive enough that were they "grooming" and if being gay was just about being around anyone gay or attending lectures and making a decision to be gay, that I could have been groomed. But, of course not. They were fun, and funny and more than that, generous, and lovely. Far from threats, they have simply been part of my world and collaborators on many projects. That includes the full list of LGBTQIA "categories" (which we didn't really have back then)
On the other hand, as bartender back then I watched a lot of fundamentalist religious conventions sold to the town, hit the hotel I worked in (winter/spring 1978). The women on the street said they had more business than the (benchmark) Shriners (sorry, Shriners, but you have/had a rep) and the maids said they had more of the little, pocket-sized liquor bottles to clean out of the trash cans. We had some big name conventions, from Billie Graham (ran into him on the service elevator with his bodyguards, to the crystal cathedral guy Schuler, to Kenneth Copeland. As a bartender they avoided my bar (appearances) but would go off explosively on hotel staff like waitstaff at small things. (power and proximity)
The Russian "Z" you see on all their tanks reminds me of the zombie movie, 'World War Z' post-apocalyptic zombie movie.... Talk about delusion and fear! But that's how Putin sold the Ukraine war to his people; if we don't attack Ukraine, we're all gonna die! Same goes here; fear is, '...a corrosive, evil thread running through the fabric of our lives,' Alcoholics Anonymous. I just drove all night across the country from CO to GA. All the talk radio was extremist, right-wing fear-mongering. The one guy, Joe someone, talked incessantly about Remdesivir, Ivermectin and how Remdesivir was invented to poison us and Ivermectin was the only thing that worked against Covid. Total BS, fear-mongering and Dude, just get your jabs, as the Brits say and none of this is relevant. But as Thom said, Radio is now monopolized by these crazies. And the trash they talked about Fauci....ugh!
Oh yes. I drive back and forth from Kansas City, MO to Hays, KS on a regular basis and sometimes Garden City. I try to put on CDs. The radio frequencies are dominated by those stations. Absolutely brain washed. With a big emphasis on the "absolute."
They really shotgun the topics, but always with a single aim, dominance. The topics are just distractions from the destruction their hate/fear-mongering brings.
P.S. So cool that you still have a CD player in your vehicle! I cannot for the life of me deal with the whole 'stream from my iPhone' business;)
Fear alone is not the problem. I fear climate change denial. I fear economist who promote population growth because cheap labor serves the primary goal of capitalism which is near term profits. I fear scientist who promote material well being without regard to the evolutionary well being of the Earth. In other words I fear science with no moral and spiritual content. I fear State promotion of war. I fear war. The common thread of these fears is disinformation and misinformation which is most fearful.
Of course fear. It's been long known that the great motivators are fear and greed. Greed has to be carefully tuned. It is directed at the people (mostly dark-skinned) who are worse off and coming for the MAGAs' goodies, and they are a good target of fear. In the end, it's all about keeping the rubes' greed deflected from the paymasters.
“Mississippi Legislature Passes Bill Creating Unelected Court in Jackson”
https://www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/mississippi-legislature-passes-bill-creating-unelected-court-in-jackson/
Yeah they're going to have a white board of state supervisors appoint the judicial staff and judges for Jackson Mississippi which is 90% African Americans 🤔
Today's SCOTUS probably will refuse to consider it as a case if it reachs appeals that far. We can all thank McConnell and Trump for that, although it won't get the orange behemoth off the hook 😉
“Republicans will vote to expel three Democrats from the Tennessee Legislature following gun control protest”
https://wpln.org/post/republicans-bar-three-democrats-from-committees-following-their-gun-control-protest-on-tennessee-house-floor/
I am thrilled that there is a realization that the GOP is the party of the amygdala and the Democrats the party of of the pre frontal cortex. Unfortunately in the battle twixt the two, it is the amygdala that inevitably wins.
2020 is proof of that assertion. 81 million people were so frightened of Trump that they turned out to vote him out of office. A head of cabbage could have beat Trump then,and can in 2024 unless SCOTUS rules in favor of Moore v. Harper and legalizes the indepenent legislature ideo.
And the simple reason is, Because it Works. They tap into one of humanities basic fears from birth and capitalize on it. The worst of the worst!
It looks like the deep State billionaires that the Republicans love are sponsoring more political parties to break up the independent vote. Here in Arizona they just broke the law to get a no labels party, I believe there are more Independence in Arizona than there are Republicans.
Yes fear and anxiety are always great attention-grabbing political tools. We have seen gop politics float from one boogie man to another, down a continuous chain.... from saddam to soros, there always must be a boogie man who is trying to get you.
There is this great song by the clash with the line "fear is just another commodity here."
https://songmeanings.com/songs/view/53137/
So well put.
And Pastor Dave Barnhart's quote is epically brilliant, too.
Thanks.
When the MAGA crowd is not discussing what people should be afraid of, they are obsessing about fighting. They really don't have time for decency, diversity, and tolerance with all that on their plate.
So if they all move to Florida, Texas, and other southern states, they will have plenty of other people to fight with. Please excuse that brief flight of fancy.
People all over the world dealing with autocrats and dictators are sick of the fear and loathing and are starting to let the scumbags know they have reached their limit. What Trump, DeSantis, and MGT are selling is not being bought by our youth, women, and LGBTQ+ community. I agree we are watching a backlash in motion, much of it with independents. Now that they have come to the light, I hope they go to the polls. Keep your eyes on Wisconsin.