CommentsMY TURN-I particularly like this image as it accommodates both the blind following that the conservatives/Republicans are known for – and -- it is a picture of what the conservatives want as the “perfect” American: white and light hair color. If this sounds familiar, reference pre-World War Germany and the actions that they took with ethnic cleansing.
For anyone not familiar with the term “hive mind”:
A group of people who act or think in unison as if they are all the same individual.
A group of people who think the same thoughts as and/or carries out the objectives of either one Leader or each other.
While conservatives love to place liberals in this type of category, we don’t fit. If this was the case, in the 2016 election, everyone would have voted for Hillary Clinton, and people such as Jill Stein and Bernie Sanders would never have even made the cut. It has happened in almost every election. Liberals pride themselves on being critical thinkers, and in the world of politics, this is exactly what conservatives hope for. Liberals outnumber the conservatives and by slicing up the vote, liberals undermine any liberal candidate and allow the conservatives to win.
You see, conservatives are part of the hive mind. They will line up and vote for anyone that has an “R” beside their name. If you don’t believe it, look at the low level, bigoted, racist, sexist slime that is in the White House with an agenda of pure hate.
This topic gets even stickier when it comes to those that profess to be “Christians.” This segment of society is already accustomed to believing anything and everything that their leaders tell them, and when the leaders support a party that has absolutely no interest in “we the people”, they buy into it without question. I refer to these religious fanatics as “pseudo-Christians” and since religious-based propaganda worked so well in the past, they ply it on with layer after layer of outright lies which are then confirmed with government-approved media such as Fox.
America’s Founding Fathers Were Individual Thinkers and Liberals
Republicans and Libertarians are constantly spewing references to both the Constitution and our founding fathers. However, they typically shut up when I ask them one question:
If you lived during the time of the development of our country’s independence, whose side would you be on? The Crown or the founding fathers?
You see, those involved in the rebellion were radicals as well as intellectual and independent thinkers. They were overthrowing the rule of the oppressive British government, establishing guidelines that offered freedom for the people, and were creating a concept that validated their own beliefs that the Christian religion had no place in government. Yes, that’s correct. Those that established our government did NOT want religion involved in any of the decision-making processes. Almost all of the founding fathers shared a belief in “deism,” but did not align themselves with Christianity.
In fact, Thomas Jefferson didn’t really believe all of the doctrines of Christianity; so much so, that he created his own version of the New Testament. Jefferson had a devotion to the prophetic teachings of Christ, but that was about it. His 84-page volume entitled The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth was hidden, by his own request until it was donated to the Smithsonian by his family.
The reason that I am including this little tidbit of information is to demonstrate that not only were our founding fathers incredibly independent of the ruling status quo, but that they were rebellious people that were not aligned with the Christian doctrine. I know this probably chaps every evangelical around the country, but then, they live in their own little cherry-picked universe.
Think “Borg” as a Hive Mind Comparison
Almost all of us are familiar with the Borg from STNG. These creatures operated with one shared mind and specific sets of instructions for their purpose to achieve success for the collective. I telling fact was that none of the members of the Borg could think of themselves as individuals; they never said “I”, but always referred to themselves as “we” or “our.”
One of the major portions of the hive mind mentality enters the psychological realm of cult behavior, and those that are professionals in this modality have studied the conservative mind and found that there is a reason that they buy into the lies and misinformation that is constantly being spread to their group, whereas a majority of the liberals question and require fact checking. This may be painting with a broad brush, but as a whole, it’s pretty much true. This can be demonstrated with their loyalty to media sources such as Fox/Limbau/Sinclair, et al. Each of these are known for not only creating their own information, but deliberately sharing misinformation.
I include a psychological review of the conservative mind and the influence that the right wing media has had on them in my article: How Fox Brainwashed Conservative America where I include:
In an article by PsychologyToday which stated:
“An interesting study by Fessler et al. (in press) found that conservatives are more receptive to believing false negative information regarding hazards (relative to benefits) than liberals. This is called negatively-biased credulity. The study was covered in The Atlantic by Olga Khazan in “Why Fake News Targeted Trump Supporters.”
It should be noted that the purveyors of these foreign and domestic fake news sites admitted that they couldn’t do the same thing with standard liberals as they were caught when they “fact checked.”
If you question this, ask why conservatives seem to scream the loudest about any moral factors but in their actions that they not only allow, but approve of the depravity of behavior, as long as they are Republicans? The sickest part of it all is that they don’t even see that they are hypocrites. In their little minds, they are justified in their decisions.
Unlike the Borg, who had no choice in becoming part of the collective, conservatives do have a choice. They have bought into the propaganda in the same way that people did in pre-WW II Germany. The reason? It fits their agenda. They want to believe that liberals are evil, and yet many of the benefits that they enjoy is due to liberals. They want to believe that their own representatives are trying to keep the nasty government controls away, when in reality they are passing legislation to allow money to flow to the wealthy, the destruction of our environment, and nothing but pure profit for anyone but the very constituents that they hope won’t notice.
Trump and his cohorts stir the pot of lies, deception, hate, bigotry, racism, and sexism, and those media sources that are making money off of the idiocy of the supporters validate what he is saying. The further confirms the hive mind as they are all in agreement.
I cover this topic in one of my other articles: Supporting Trump: The Psychology of the Lie.
“To find out why so many lies have become not only acceptable but completely believable by the Trump supporters, you have to delve into how our brains process lies. This is explained in a NYMag.com article:
‘Upon first hearing a lie, your brain must accept it as truth. Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert has theorized that to do the work of separating truth and lies, our brains first must accept the false statement as if it were true; otherwise, it’s impossible to engage with it. ‘For instance, if someone were to tell us — hypothetically, of course — that there had been serious voter fraud in Virginia during the presidential election, we must for a fraction of a second accept that fraud did, in fact, take place,” [psychologist, Maria] Konnikova explains. ‘Only then do we take the second step, either completing the mental certification process (yes, fraud!) or rejecting it (what? no way).’
If you hear a lie often enough, it starts to sound true. According to what’s called the “illusory truth effect,” the more you hear a false statement, the truer it starts to sound. This is even true when you should know better. In a fascinating, if disheartening, 2015 study, researchers showed that if people repeated the phrase ‘The Atlantic Ocean is the largest ocean on Earth’ enough times, the Atlantic Ocean did indeed begin to seem like the largest ocean on Earth.’
‘A constant stream of lies becomes so mentally taxing that your brain gives up. ‘It’s called cognitive load,’ Konnikova writes, meaning that “our limited cognitive resources are overburdened.’ Lie detection is difficult work, and your brain can only handle so much.’”
The Question of Our Lives: Are Americans Smart Enough to Stop This?
We can only hope that the interference in our voting structure has not become so entrenched that this kind of insanity will continue. We can also hope that the average American is smarter than the rabid crowd that drools, screams, and supports the violence and hate that Trump has brought on and that the Republicans refuse to denounce.
Are Americans, in general, smart enough to see what is being done to our country? Or are they too involved in their own daily lives to really care?
How bad does it have to get before the hive mind cult mentality is shaken off? The answer to that remains to be seen, however, typically, it’s when the devastation hits them on a personal level. Conservatives are known for the “I’ve got mine, to heck with the rest of you” attitude, but when they are being forced to suffer in the same way as others, things just might take a turn.
For the rest of us, liberals from all sides of the spectrum need to stand up with gloves off. The Republicans have devoted years to cheating the system so that they can win. From gerrymandering to voter suppression, and now blatant approval of voter influence and hacking, as long as it benefits their agenda, they really don’t care how low things get.
We also have to remember that “we the people” are the government. The elected officials work for us, not the other way around. It’s time to fight back in any that we have to and overturn the horrors that have infiltrated our government.
(S. Novi is a journalist that worked in the media and continues to seek out truth and integrity. A liberal and one that is suspicious of cults and empty promises. Her posts originate at Medium.com. She is a contributor to CityWatch.) Prepped for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.
