• On authoritarianism and religion
  

Cougardoodle The police started harassing [the unarmed woman who rescued her kids during the Ulvade School Massacre] and the community joined in.

For conservatives it seems clear that obeying their perceived social order is more important than saving their children.

This jives with Whilelm Reich's seminal works on the conservative mindset, which concludes it's primarily driven by anxiety based on fear of not having rigid social roles.

African_Farmer Honestly this explains a lot. The need for religion, religious virtue-signalling, performative patriotism, rules for thee not for me, beliefs that the rich and powerful "deserve" their wealth and power.

All because they believe in hierarchies and that people should stay in their place, unless it's them personally moving up the hierarchy.

Curious_Fox4595 They need those hierarchies so much. There's some interesting stuff out there discussing how the power differential of the vertical system of Christianity forms the basis of how they think everything should work. It doesn't matter if the rules make sense or cause harm, they need to be followed, not questioned, or heaven forbid, changed. They come down from a higher power, which means you obey, and you like it.

acfox13 It is exactly operant conditioning.

Links on authoritarian abuse and brainwashing tactics:

authoritarian follower personality (mini dictators that simp for other dictators):
https://www.issendai.com/psychology/estrangement/summary.html#authoritarian
It's an abuse hierarchy and you can abuse anyone "beneath you" in the hierarchy. Men are above women, adults above kids, parents above child free, religious above non-believers, white's above BIPOCs, straights above LGBTQ+, abled above disabled, rich above poor, etc.


Bob Altemeyer's site:
https://theauthoritarians.org/


The Eight Criteria for Thought Reform (aka the authoritarian playbook):
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought_Reform_and_the_Psychology_of_Totalism


John Bradshaw's 1985 program discussing how normalized abuse and neglect in the family of origin primes the brain to participate in group abuse up to and including genocide:
https://youtu.be/B0TJHygOAlw?si=_pQp8aMMpTy0C7U0


[Theramin Trees](https://youtube.com/@TheraminTrees?si=lROe-8D6cLa8Sa8r ) - great resource on abuse tactics like: emotional blackmail, double binds, drama disguised as "help", degrading "love", infantalization, etc. and adding this link to [spiritual bypassing](https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-spiritual-bypassing-5081640 ), as it's one of abuser's favorite tactics.


DARVO
https://dynamic.uoregon.edu/jjf/defineDARVO.html
DARVO refers to a reaction perpetrators of wrong doing, particularly sexual offenders, may display in response to being held accountable for their behavior. DARVO stands for "Deny, Attack, and Reverse Victim and Offender." The perpetrator or offender may Deny the behavior, Attack the individual doing the confronting, and Reverse the roles of Victim and Offender such that the perpetrator assumes the victim role and turns the true victim -- or the whistle blower -- into an alleged offender.



Issendai's site on estrangement:
https://www.issendai.com/psychology/estrangement/missing-missing-reasons.html - This speaks to how normalized abuse is to toxic "parents", they don't even recognize that they've done anything wrong. 


"The Brainwashing of my Dad" 2015 documentary:
https://youtu.be/FS52QdHNTh8?si=EWjyrrp_7aSRRAoT


"On Tyranny - twenty lessons from the twentieth century" by Timothy Snyder

Here's his website: https://timothysnyder.org/on-tyranny

Here's a playlist of him going over all twenty lessons: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhZxrogyToZsllfRqQllyuFNbT-ER7TAu&si=au1efIEgMdmqMNNl


Cult expert Dr. Steve Hassan

His website: https://freedomofmind.com/

His YouTube channel: https://youtube.com/@drstevenhassan?si=UZsPskGALAY9viKe


"Never Split the Difference" by Chris Voss. He was the lead FBI hostage negotiator and his tactics work well on setting boundaries with "difficult people".
https://www.blackswanltd.com/never-split-the-difference


>"If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you." - Lyndon B. Johnson

kittenTakeover There are two things that most Trump voters don't comprehend. First, people are the most important resource of a country and investing in the people of a country, via healthcare, childcare, education, emergency assistance, healthy environments, etc. lifts the whole country up. Second, bosses at the top of corporations are not your ally. Empowering them will not enrich you. Rather, it will enable them to exploit and pillfer you to a greater degree.