On The Manipulation Of Weak Psychologies Like John Roberts, Mitt Romney, And Other Unreliable RINOs

A flashback to the recap of how Roberts came to support Obamacare.

It is the how, but not the why. It seems highly likely Roberts is compromised, obviously. But I suspect there is also a psychological component to this flashy, moral-preening behavior that makes Republicans attack other real conservatives to try and gain the favor of a craven fake news media.

I wanted to expound on this more, because with Romney, and Roberts, and even Kasich, we may see more of this as time goes on, and thus a better understanding of it may be of use. In my mind, I have been reviewing my own interactions with my Narcissist Bob, who was much like Roberts and Romney in this regard, divining what would have been going on in his head, to see what light it would shed on the phenomenon.

As far as I can tell, the mechanism behind their thought process would go like this. It begins with an ironclad certainty (borne out of desperate need), to believe they are supremely logical/correct/smarter/moral/etc in their thought processes. That need arises from the panic of insecurity over a fear they may not really know how to be supremely logical/correct/smarter/moral/etc in their thought processes. Tough to say where it comes from. Sibling rivalry with a smarter sibling they envied (and hated to lose to), abuse from fellow students at school, parental shaming like with Elliot Spitzer – the circumstances which condition it through repetition in childhood can probably be quite varied.

Regardless, the end result is, if you could show them to be illogical/wrong/stupid/immoral/etc, they will panic, because that trigger is imbued in their head just like encountering the alien from Alien in a closed space, would trigger fear in you. That panic is what drives them to create a contrary, ironclad belief in their logical/correct/smarter/moral/etc nature, which shields them from ever coming near experiencing that doubt and associated panic. You can actually see them execute the cognitive defense when they use the phrase “that is ridiculous!” to reject something threatening that defensive narrative – a very emotional rebuke if ever there was one. I suspect Roberts would say that very phrase if you ever presented this piece to him.

There is also some aversion in them to being seen as emotional. One great way to screw with a narcissist’s head is to accuse them of being emotional as they try to argue. They will immediately jump up and deny being emotional at all, often screaming it at you, with great fury that you have accused them of being anything but purely logical.

If you want to see the opposite effect (and I recommend doing so once just to see the profound effect of amygdala-relief), stop in the middle of an argument with a narcissist, and sincerely tell them how impressed you are with how unemotional they are, and how purely logically they think. Watch them melt in the afterglow of your praise, as their amygdala completely relaxes. I suppose deep in their mind, they realize if they acknowledge an emotional nature, they will be unable to cling to the notion of themselves as supremely logical or moral. It is possible being prone to hyper-emotion and panic, they more than anyone recognize the poisonous nature of it.

That understanding of them must be augmented by a recognition of the practical emotional drives borne of the type of emotional, amygdala-driven cognition that characterizes one prone to such mental panic at an ephemeral ego-threat. And finally, one must realize, the narcissist always lies most of all, to themselves, to assuage their own panic when confronted by an uncomfortable truth about themselves. Your opinion is actually a secondary concern, and actual reality a distant third.

The result of all this is, you have somebody whose practical actions can be driven by desperate emotions, yet who has a burning desire to be able to tell themselves after the fact that they were logical – in a way which is logically consistent to them. That need to be able to tell themselves they are logical/correct/smarter/moral/etc produces a situation where if they act in emotion in some way, they will rewrite the motivations afterward to tell themselves it was not emotion, but rather pure logic which drove them. They alter their perception of what they were thinking, to explain their emotional drives with a logical reasoning, to make them feel logical, even if the logic is completely wrong. This can actually cause them to adopt logical ideologies which are bizarre, even contrary to what they espoused previously, but which they need to believe in logically in their mind, to reaffirm to themselves that they did not act out of emotion.

Thus Roberts, who was wooed by Obama, enjoyed feeling bipartisan by not critiquing him, because he felt it showed a total lack of emotion and a pure logicality and focused moral purpose. That is what the media drilled in his head, and that would control his behavior. When Roberts sees Trump criticized as partisan, and Trump then makes a statement criticizing some leftist, he comes out and attacks him, expecting that same afterglow he gets when he feels particularly superior. He will even say something which transcends incorrect, passing well into the realm of stupid, like no judge is ever partisan, because his entire focus is on attaining the afterglow.

Guys like Trump by contrast, aren’t looing for that affirmation afterglow. His afterglow is a concrete, tangible change in the environment for the better. His kind are the mechanists, who are only concerned with the facts and the details of the mechanism in front of them – and when they are good people, using their mechanisms to make others happy and free. Any concern with how others view them is not even on their radar. So when Trump immediately points out the Ninth Circuit, an argument nobody can even begin to touch without looking stupid, he saw it because he saw the mechanism and its realities which Roberts did not even register. Roberts was so busy espousing vacuous platitudes which would make him feel supremely logical and moral, he never even considered that his assertion that no judge is ever partisan was laughably stupid and betrayed a man so self absorbed he is probably almost incapable of anything but emulating holding morals. When Trump raised it I am sure Roberts felt a pang of panic at having looked dumb, and he realized fighting Trump was a losing battle. I am also certain he assuaged his amygdala by saying something like Trump was too partisan to be a good and wise leader like Roberts would be.

I think the adherence to what the group seems to espouse as logical, or moral, or right may be these types trying to take a shortcut to the end result of being able to see themselves as right/logical/moral/superior. Because they need that mental validation and its afterglow, they grow accustomed to the shortcut of adopting the assertions of “authority figures” who they think have the reputation of what they want to be seen as. Because it is panic driving them, this makes them highly prone to manipulation. But attempts at that manipulation can also backfire.

The first method to manipulate them is simple – it is the amygdala hijack. You can back them off a position this way, exactly as Trump did, but it comes with a catch. If you induce too much cognitive dissension, by making them look too inconsistent with their prior beliefs, or you create too powerful an emotional force conflicting them, they can decide to assuage the dissension by reversing their underlying beliefs to bring them into line with explaining the inconsistency. It is important to realize they are not driven by logic, or beliefs, or even ideology. There is nothing solidly anchored in them intellectually or morally. Nothing in them is ironclad, except the need to find a plausible logical reasoning that assuages that amygdala.

But there is another way to manipulate them that is less about pushing them off a position, and more about pulling them to adopt one.

I distinctly remember two articles (here and here)printed shortly before the Obamacare ruling, both with the same theme – that Court watchers saw a possibility Roberts would “rise to the moment,” and rather than produce a divided court that ruled along partisan lines and contributed to the divisions in the country, he could produce a bipartisan consensus which would unify the members of the court.

Read these articles in full after you finish this article, visualizing in your mind feeling panic at being shown to be stupid, or having made logical errors, or acting selfishly out of emotion. Feel the afterglow of relief and pride at the thought of having proven beyond all doubt that you acted selflessly for morals and logic. Understand that this type of panic drives a sort of perfectionism, where even small inconsistencies are grounds for immense triggering. Feel how Robert’s chest would puff out and his chin would rise and set with pride as they lauded him, and he basked in that afterglow part of the article. Then feel the coldness of feeling that all slip away by just being a normal conservative partisan and ruling the way you were expected to.

Imagine how far from your mind the pure mechanism, and logic, and cold hard facts, and even a logical analysis of right and wrong would be as you ride those emotional waves of afterglow and depression. None of that would even be on your radar. I see that psychology every time I look at Robert’s incredibly pained, panicked, desperate eyes, with those little muscles under the lower eyelid almost spasming with instability, whether here, or here, or here, or here. That is not a stable mind, working from a position of zen to analyze facts and accomplish a concrete objective. It is a mind that will do anything to relieve whatever is happening to those eyes.

These articles were weapons grade manipulation material made up specially for this psychology, and I will bet they were given to the WaPo to publish by leftist pros in the field, who devoted great mental resources to analyzing and manipulating Robert’s specific psychology. Notice how the articles throw out previous things Roberts said about consensus and bipartisanship, and affirmed them as being noble, logical, and right. Even as it triggers the afterglow, that sets those statements as anchors he cannot escape without being logically inconsistent.

That may be one of the most powerful ways to manipulate this psychology, because these characters highly prize logical consistency. Just as Trump backed Roberts off with panic, this argument threatened panic if Roberts deviated from his prior claimed thought processes. But it also offered the carrot of the afterglow. So if you want to move one of these characters toward a position, find an old quote, affirm their wisdom and nobility to initiate the afterglow and anchor them to it, and then make a case that if they act against you they are being illogical and inconsistent with their prior thinking. Suddenly they are not only having the threat of the afterglow removed, they are being threatened with amygdala over being logically inconsistent. That becomes a threat to their ego and its investment in being logical and stable.

This is particularly powerful, because with these psychologies, their quotes will not be based on logic or reason, but rather specifically formulated in their mind to establish their ideal ego-image of themselves. So they will have done most of the work for you by analyzing themselves and their own psychology from the inside, realizing (and feeling firsthand) on some level what is most motivating to them, establishing a position that perfectly fits their psychology and presses their psychological buttons, and then cementing it in their mind by speaking it in public, and making that position integral to protecting their ego. First they find it for you, then they lock it in and give it strength by espousing it publicly. A logical mechanist could change their statements and positions in the face of new facts or reasoning, but no these characters. Unless they encounter massive cognitive dissonance that forces a change, they are locked in. It is a massive gift to the knowledgeable persuader who knows how to use it.

Once you have the quotes, you have the psychological leverage. You merely need to show how doing what you don’t want would be triggering due to being logically inconsistent with prior statements, contrary to their massive, noble, and deeply held principles, and borne of emotional drives, while doing what you want would be the perfect way to demonstrate the principles they spoke of, allowing them to elicit the wonderful, warm afterglow they feel when having shown themselves to be the highly logical and moral paragons which the world will revere for all of history.

As in the articles above, you want to fill it with ego boosting, and especially visual imagery of how they will be lauded by the public for adhering to the ideals they have already espoused, as well as subtle, mournful acknowledgements, presented visually, of how it could all go wrong and leave them tragically misperceived by everyone as just another hack. In their minds they have probably already visualized those various courses of events as producing those effects, so you just have to link all of that to your goals in the imagery, cement it in their mind, and put it out to the public so they feel as if everyone is watching to see if they hold to their principles.

To be clear, I hate this psychology. I really, deeply despise it. Doing this would be painful, compared to just amygdala-hijacking the shit out of them and watching them twist in agony. But there will come times when you will need to accomplish something, and you may need to turn one of these characters to your advantage. I think this is the best blueprint to date of how to do it. Use it in good health.

Spread r/K Theory, because the knowledge of psychology is more powerful than the pen