“Loss aversion can significantly impact our own decisions and lead to bad decision-making. As individuals, it’s evident that we don’t want to incur losses. But the fear of incurring losses prevents individuals from taking even well-calculated risks, with potential for worthwhile returns.”
I guess you'd call it cowardice
But I'm not prepared to go on like this
--Sting
In psychology, the theory of loss aversion explains the human need to hold on to an idea, wealth, etc., even when the knowledge that letting go of something might mean much more substantial gains. Think, “getting out of a bad trade.”
In a con, it is next to impossible to admit the loss. If you stood at the table in downtown Manhattan and were certain that you can see where the red queen is, as the three card monte dealer moves the cards across the table, but you lose your $20…you then have to deal with your loss. However, if you are dumb enough to go for a second round, you then must deal with your loss aversion. That is, you would rather protect your next $20 rather than risking it to win that big pile of cash stuffed into the dealers hand.
The Mind Of The Mark
No blasphemy here
Author and renowned poker player, Maria Konnikova, in her book: The Confidence Game: Why We Fall for It . . . Every Time explains how, in the psychology of the con, “…she realized that the romanticization of the con artist — and the blame heaped on victims — might make us more vulnerable to being scammed.” In the age of Trump, his 40-43 percent base has moved well past romanticization. We now have a dangerous cult (Cult45 as it is known) that has concretized Trump as a savior with artists painting images of Trump as the Christ, hanging on the cross, suffering for “us,” for our sins. The QAnon movement has gone from the dark recesses of the internet to exploding Facebook “Groups” where everyday people and, more recently, gullible teens are swallowing a bizarre belief that Trump is hand-chosen by God to save the world from a satanic, child molesting cabal that feasts on the blood of innocent children in order to defy mortality.
Hanns Kerrl, Minister of Religion in the Third Reich, said: "The question of the divinity of Christ is ridiculous and inessential. A new answer has arisen as to what Christ and Christianity are: Adolph Hitler."
There is a deep psychological safety in climbing in to the bizarro world of LSD-like conspiracy theories as opposed to simply admitting that you fucked up, you made a mistake, you got conned. The loss aversion to admitting you have been conned is simply too much to bear, so you choose the easier path of blaming the “other” and dwelling in a fantasy world where “The Storm Is Coming.” In the world of QAnon, when you look around the room, you do not see the mark because each and every one of you are the mark.
Laughing All The Way To The Bank
Televangelists have used these Confidence Man tactics for decades, fleecing millions upon millions of dollars from pathetic marks. Using the tactics of fear and loss aversion, televangelists have used the same psychology used in Germany in the 1930s, to scare their base into giving them massive amounts of money (power)…preaching the “Prosperity Gospel,” which basically states that, if you don’t pony up large amounts of cash to the preacher, you will never gain the riches of the kingdom of heaven. The preacher lives in a $25 million dollar home, has three private jets, a Lamborghini, and pays NO taxes. You, on the other hand, live in a trailer in Kentucky or Oklahoma…but your credit card works when you call the 800 number hotline to “tithe” for your soon to be newfound material wealth.
“Acid, Amnesty, and Apostacy”
In 1972…the Nixon strategy, to hold on to power, was to bludgeon the country with a dark and divisive rhetoric…play heavily on race, and to paint McGovern and the “Demoncrats” as the purveyors of “Acid, Amnesty, and Abortion” The Dominionists that are now in control of the current administration are experts at the con. The difference between 1972 and now is that Nixon was not run by a group of Christian reconstructionists looking to create a totally new government based on Biblical law. The Council For National Policy has been planning for a takeover of the United States government for decades. If you think the Trump as Christ imagery is bizarre and blasphemous, you are only partly correct. This is a well thought out strategy that has been brewing strong for well over forty years.
So, we rinse and repeat the exact same playbook that has been used by authoritarians since time immemorial, division (racial/political/sexual) coupled with rhetoric based on fear and loss. Migrant caravans, Antifa, rapists and murderers, MS13, Socialists, Dark Shadows, The Radical Left, Taking over the Suburbs, Taking away your guns, Cancel culture, Outlawing religion (Apostacy)…the lists goes on and on. Even the QAnon conspiracy itself is just a reboot of Nazi propaganda as recently outlined in Just Security. If you play the Con on loss, you have found your mark. Convince the average mook that the wolf is at the door and you will have them eating out of your hand. Think: I alone can fix it….American Carnage, blah, blah, fucking blah.
So, when you read Anne Applebaum (Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism) and you ask yourself, how is it that the entire GOP could have surrendered to the idea of an autocracy in the world’s oldest democracy, you need look no further than the CNP. They do not just oppose the separation of church and state, they seek absolute control of the levers of government, at every level, in order to make the USA in to a Christian Nation and to once and for all cure the disease of Apostacy.
The Mother of Violence
The Mother of Violence
The squirming by the CNP is spiraling, witness this week’s bizarre Michele Bachmann vomiting up on Kenneth Copeland’s “Victory Channel”: "These are transgender Marxists — transgender Black Marxists — who are seeking the overthrow of the United States and the dissolution of the traditional family…"
“Fear, fear, she's the mother of violence
Making me tense to watch the way she breed
Fear, she's the mother of violence
You know self-defense is all you need
It's getting hard to breathe
It's getting so hard to believe
To believe in anything at all”
--Peter Gabriel
We now live in the world of only one party. It is no longer the party that our fathers and grandfathers knew. The modern GOP is the party of fear, cult of personality, and subjugation to the rule of authoritarianism. Even though US Intelligence officials have identified White Supremacists as one of the most dangerous threats to national security, groups like the Proud Boys, the Boogaloo Bois, Three Percenters Patriot Prayer and American Neo-Nazis are parading around the country in their camo outfits, carrying long guns and inflicting violence on anyone who is not part of “the party.” The Trump-inspired Neo-Nazi terror has grown and gained momentum in the United States…and, it is sanctioned by the Dominionists and, in many cases, by law enforcement themselves.
The question now is, does Russia and Putin already have a grip so tight on American democracy that, no matter what happens between now and November 3rd, we are already in an authoritarian regime? Or, will states run fairly free elections that may well see the end of the attempted takeover of the government by the CNP and the Russians?
Fear of Going Crazy
If you are older than sixty, it might be eye opening to learn that long-time conservative columnist George Will is voting for a Democrat. You have been subjected to four years of non-stop gaslighting and lies….maybe you start to question your own sanity? Or, it may be that you are someone who values a robust two-party system and you relish in high-quality policy debate that draws on intellect, historical references and open-minded thinking that values ideas over ideology. Those things are 100% impossible when one side just yells “Fake News,” “Antifa,” “Deep State.” At that point, there is no more dialogue.
We have BIG problems facing our nation. We have an unmitigated health crisis, a growing and unsustainable wealth gap, a racial reckoning that is long overdue, a climate crisis, immigration policies that need reality-based thinking. It is big boy time in the United States, having a petulant and emotionally crippled narcissist running a scare campaign to satisfy a bunch of extreme right-wing Christians is not the recipe for success. We need people who, not only understand what government is but, know how to work the levers of government to help solve the problems.
If you haven’t already, please check out the following:
Know that it is OK to identify as a “contrarian conservative” or a political orphan now. There is nothing left of the GOP that once was, it has become the infested party of cultists, crazy-pants conspiracy theorists and all-in Trumpists. At the very least, you can accept the loss of the party. Those who will not come to grips with the death of the GOP and everything it once stood for continue to glue crepe paper and bows to its carcass and claim that it still stands for something. Cute. The once “party of ideas” is fresh fucking out of ideas. It has rejected science (200K deaths), rejected history (Germany 1935) and rejected morality…all to serve a cult leader acting as a puppet for the CNP.
Get plugged in. You can register to make phone calls, send texts, write postcards. Be involved. Make change happen. Reject fear. In the words of Doc Rivers: How dare the Republicans talk about fear. Reject this cancerous cult and the entire MAGA “Fuck Your Feelings” crowd and stand for something better, something decent…something human.
It’s Big Boy Pants Time
Most importantly, reject the “Us versus Them” bullshit. This is grown up time, big boy pants time. Yes, it may mean ceding the currently diseased GOP to the cultists and conspiracy nuts, and we may need to create a new party, a Party of Lincoln or a Constitutional party…but that party will remember what it is like to sit down at a table and have a genuine discussion about the problems our nation faces. Discussions where, we do not always agree on policy or ideology but, we agree on what is best for our country…according the oaths we take to defend her.
“Donald Trump is the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people—does not even pretend to try. Instead, he tries to divide us...We are witnessing the consequences of three years of this deliberate effort. We are witnessing the consequences of three years without mature leadership. We can unite without him, drawing on the strengths inherent in our civil society. This will not be easy, as the past few days have shown, but we owe it to our fellow citizens; to past generations that bled to defend our promise; and to our children.” –General James Mattis USMC