When Anger Trumps All

One of the most dangerous effects of Donald Trump's presidential campaign is the venomous anger his demagoguery has cultivated among his more engaged supporters, to be spewed at anyone who dares to express concern about any of their idol's (yes, idol's) soft spots.

Just click on any article, on any website, critical of anything about Trump, and navigate to the readers' comments. First, notice the unusually large number of them. Then observe the tone: rarely logical, thoughtful, or truly argumentative, the Trump defenders (granting honorable exceptions) simply attack -- personally, irrelevantly, uncivilly -- any writer or fellow commenter, no matter how unimpeachably serious (even Thomas Sowell, for heaven's sake!) who dares to suggest Trump may be a poor nominee.

That's their prerogative, of course, and anyone who writes for public consumption must be thick-skinned enough to stand by his ideas and let the spewers spew. The problem, however, lies in the way this true believer invective is smothering meaningful political discourse precisely when such discourse is most urgently needed.

This is the moment for freedom-loving people to debate the statements and substance of each candidate with all the open-mindedness they can muster, leaving the hypnotized cultist behavior to the progressives, where it belongs. Instead, serious public discussion, which is the heart of the representative element of representative republicanism, has been hijacked by idol-worshippers for whom there is nothing Trump could do or say that would cause them one second of self-doubt. Trump himself highlighted this when he declared that he wouldn't lose any supporters if he shot someone on 5th Avenue. Bizarrely, that may be the best synopsis of the situation. Trump's followers have transcended rational discourse altogether, and are prepared to defend anything, attack anyone, contradict their own principles with regularity, rather than address the arguments

I have long pondered the thought processes of those in a cult and, of course, appeals to the intellect are useless because the victim is in a psychic cage. I have applied this to liberals...people in the 1970s who went through EST, but I am reluctant to indict in general those who support Donald Trump.

I read this when you posted it and ruminated on it for a few days. It's been years since I have even thought about EST, but, yes, I did participate in one of those seminar series in the 70s. I was indifferent about participating, but my fiancÃ© was sold on the benefits of it (he was unable to sleep at night without sleeping pills and was desperate to get that monkey off his back). In deference to him, I agreed to participate.

Even though my fiancÃ© did end up triumphing over the sleeping pill addiction, I soon recognized EST for the brainwashing vehicle it was. And with incredulity, I observed as a huge roomful of seminar goers were sucked into the process -- especially my fiancÃ© who was ordinarily a very intelligent man. He was convinced that EST had conquered the addiction when the fact was that the "agreement" you're required to make at orientation the week before your first seminar was what did it. He made the agreement not to take the pills between orientation and the beginning of the seminar. It was rough the first few nights but got easier. By the time the actual seminar began, he'd already conquered the habit. As far as I was concerned, we could have skipped the rest of the meetings.

To this day, he believes it was EST. I argue that it was his resolve. Trust me when I tell you that he's a smart, level-headed, well grounded, serious-minded man, yet he was able to be brainwashed by the "EST-holes."

All these years I thought I got nothing out of EST. But your post changed that. As I reflected back on those experiences, some of the teachings of the trainers and the willingness to accept those teachings by the trainees, not to mention observing my fiancÃ©, I remember how I became aware of the subtle persuasion that was underway. Despite being young and unsophisticated about the things of the world, I was able to size up the deception even if I wasn't able to fully articulate it. At one point after becoming a Christian, I renounced the teachings of EST, even though they didn't really "take" on me. And now I have a better understanding as to why I can spot a phony a mile away.

I'm glad you brought this to the forefront of my remembrance. Thanks.

Thank you for recounting your experience with EST. I found an old reply of mine from April 2014 which in turn incorporates another reply from 2009 which I reproduce here hoping it captures your interest:

I think this article is far more important than has been demonstrated by the attention it has thus far received. I have been pondering for some years now the forces which impel a person to become a leftist when that worldview is so patently contrary to common sense and good judgment. I have reproduced below a reply posted in which considers some of these questions.

As to the current article, I think it is well worth our considering carefully. I would offer the codicil that it does not consider the positive reinforcement one gains from joining a cult or from submitting to the herd instinct of the left. I think this has to be examined as a researcher would examine every step in the transmission and progression of a virus so that I can ascertain its Achilles heel and destroy it at the point of vulnerability. I think we should do the same with the stratagems employed by the left to gain converts.

A second reservation about this article has to do with solutions the author proffers. I think they are banal and wholly inadequate to the technology currently deployed by the Obama administration especially in the last election. It represents a dark marriage of psychology with modern techniques of social communication like Firefox and Twitter. This sinister application of manipulative psychology to mass communication resulted in the shocking and unanticipated defeat of Romney in critical states like Ohio and undoubtedly marks the advent of a whole new world of electioneering.

[Subsequently, I encountered a three-part article from MIT Technology Review that explores how this happened in detail.]

If we do not thoroughly analyze both the psychology and the technology we will lose again and again.

Here is the reply from 2009 which thinks about the psychology:

You ask, in effect, why do leftists behave the way they do? You rightly cite the suicidal belligerence of the Palestinians and the mindless hostility of American liberals. We are witnessing a cult or tribal phenomenon.

I have been preoccupied for some time with the power that draw well-intentioned people into liberalism and I've concluded that it is the power of the cult. Consider how very difficult it is to pry a teenager loose from the hip and a in clutches of a cult. It requires professionals and an intervention of the most intense level. My first experience with this phenomenon came from exposure in the 1970s to people who had gone through EST. They exhibited many of the characteristics which mark the present day liberal. A smugness, an ill disguised feeling of superiority derived from a belief that they alone are possessed of special insights and truth. A belief that the rest of humanity is benighted and unworthy except as candidates for conversion.

These people were so myopic and yet so convinced of the superiority of their Weltanshaaung that they were obnoxious. We called them, "est-holes."

The est experience consisted of "seminar training" in which the individual was stripped clean of his ego which was replaced by a new belief system imposed on the crushed individual by the est facilitator. This is typical of a cult. It is even typical of the Marine Corps but that is in pursuit of a worthy goal.

This phenomenon is so strong in its appeal because of the "power of surrender."

I believe that the principal distinction between conservatives and statists is that the latter are God players and as such they are in unremitting rebellion against God. Conservatives on the other hand tend to be believers. In the Christian faith where we come to our salvation as an individual experience. One would think that a God player would be an individualist but for some reason which I do not understand they tend to be collectivists. In effect, they find their salvation in the group. Think of the Bloods and Crips. The act of surrender of the ego to the group yields a wonderful feeling of integration and well-being. The individual can renew that feeling by re-immersing himself into the group. That which threatens the group also threatens him. Consider the American Indians such as the Iroquois who were quite loving toward their children and considerate of each other and yet were unbelievably brutal and indifferent to the agony of those prisoners they tortured. They were outside the tribe, they were the "other."

I believe this accounts for the scatological language and the sheer nastiness of the posts one finds in the liberal blogs. There is no restraint so long as one stays within the cult. One of the primary taboos of this cult has to do with race. Liberals consider conservatives to be racists and hence beyond the pale. There is no opprobrium so debased that it cannot be applied to these people [we conservatives] is a will and in who, virtually by definition, are racists.

As new converts get drawn to the flame, they sense the release to be obtained from surrendering to such a group.

Last April there was a report that Obama recommended Americans embark on an environmental "mission." I wrote the following post as an illustration of the phenomenon I am trying to articulate:

Obama: Americans Want to Be on an Environmental â€˜Missionâ€™

April 23, 2009

I think Obama actually believes that the country once summoned will experience a spiritual release through devotion to the environment. This is a little understood phenomenon which motivates liberals in very many of their causes. When the individual surrenders to something other than himself- typically for the liberal that means the "collective," but it can be to virtually anything- he is rewarded with an emotional release, a feeling of integration. This phenomenon has been well-recognized by psychologists.

Recall Hillary Clinton's summons in 1969 for a more "ecstatic" experience. She was trying to articulate the same phenomenon. Think of the calls by liberals in the wake of 9/11 for George Bush to summon the country to a "sacrifice." Instinctively the liberals grope for this emotional experience. It matters not that the summons would have been fatuous. What did they want George Bush to summon them to? To plant victory gardens? To collect old tires? To ration gas? The point, of course, is that the war on terrorism was waged against us to cause us to change our lifestyle. No matter, logic has nothing to do with the emotional satisfaction.

I think we should consider the entire Obama administration to be a mystical call to the nation to join with them in this kind of mystical release that he found as an agitator and group leader for Saul Alinsky.

Yes, we are now being governed as though we were in a giant EST meeting and may God have mercy on all of us.

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