CommentsCORRUPTION WATCH-In the 1950s Eric Hoffer wrote about True Believers -- people who stick to their beliefs without regard for the evidence.
Because Hoffer focused on thought patterns without regard to political party or other irrelevant characteristics, his analysis holds up today. In 1984, Robert B. Cialdini, wrote about True Believers in “Influence, The New Psychology of Modern Persuasion.” Doomsday cultists have a pattern of becoming more convinced of their lock on The Truth after their doomsday predictions have been proven utterly false. We see the same True Believer mentality with today’s Democrat Party. (On Nov 6, 2018, many Dems were convinced that doom would fall upon the evil GOP.)
After losing control of the House and the Senate in 2010, the Dems doubled down on their regressive economics and Identity Politics, but fate saved them when Mitt Romney was videotaped trashing 47 % pf the electorate. Thus, Obama won 2012 election which obscured the likely outcome of his regressive economic policies. However, the Dems had lost about 1,000 seats in various state legislatures, allowing the GOP to set up several safe True Believer seats in the House.
All things being equal, the GOP was as locked into its True Believer approach as the Dems were -- until the Orange Buffoon entered the scene and upset the beliefs of both parties. If Hillary had not been so wedded to the racist Identity Politics of the Democrat Party and had acknowledged the harm that Obama’s economic policies had done to the Rust Belt, she would not have called millions of voters “Deplorables.” That political misstep cost her the election, and many say, the Dems deserved to lose.
The Fatal Error of True Believers
True Believers with power tend to destroy for the simple reason that “power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” (Lord Acton) The danger of GOP True Believers and Dem True Believers is that they have no internal checks and balances. They both substitute their deluded interpretations for reality. Today we call relying on absurd myths, “Fake News,” but we never admit that our side’s Fake News is anything other than the holy writ.
Like traditional doomsday cultists, the Dems emerged from the Nov 6, 2018 election claiming a victory. That’s like a football team with a 3-7-0 record declaring a winning season. The actual comparison is not between Monday Nov 5, 2018 and Wednesday Nov 7, 2018 but with yesterday’s results with Nov 2010. Back then the GOP took control of the Senate (so it also controlled who would be next Supreme Court justices) and it took control of the House by winning 67 seats. Let’s be clear, yesterday’s failure to take back the Senate is a double loss since Trump is President.
Four Branches of Government
For analytical purposes, there are four branches of the federal government: (1) the House, (2) the Senate, (3) the federal courts including Supreme Court and (4) the Presidency. The party that does not take control of the Senate also loses the federal courts. Presently, the Dems win-loss record is 1-3-0.
It takes a True Believer to claim that a 1-3-0 record should be counted as a win. I suppose one could reduce it to a 1-2-0 win-loss record since Trumpy was not actually running, but let’s be honest, both the Dems and Trump framed this election as a referendum on him.
The Worse is Yet to Come
Unless the Dems reject Pelosi and the rest of the old guard Dems with their racist Identity Politics, the Dem True Believers will lead us into a civil war.
(Richard Lee Abrams is a Los Angeles attorney and a CityWatch contributor. He can be reached at: [email protected]. Abrams’ views are his own and do not necessarily reflect the views of CityWatch.) Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.
