The American mind has been hijacked.
Many Americans have been left in a state disillusionment, sadness and anger in the aftermath of the breach of the Capitol Building. Rightfully so. It is a sad time.
What many Americans experienced wasn’t really about liberal versus conservative or Democrat versus Republican, it was about entitlement and a series of manipulations by political forces. There is the old saying, “if it bleeds, it leads.” From the media to the White House, many Americans have been deceived by forces into fighting amongst one another, disastrous wars, destruction of our international standing and neglecting initiatives that are badly needed at home.
Whatever happens in 2021, I believe that these failures will haunt America for generations to come. And, the consequences of this deception by the media and government will not end when Donald Trump leaves the office.
In the field of psychology, we use a term gaslighting which is a form of psychological abuse, where a victim is manipulated to deny their own perception. When an individual places their beliefs in another human hoping they will change something they don’t like, even if their belief is totally unfounded, all the facts in the world will not dissuade them. Gaslighting is an insidious and calculated set of psychological manipulations that undermines an individual’s perception of reality – the way you think, feel and act. This is the assault on the American mind.
The term gaslighting comes from the movie Gaslight, which is a 1944 psychological movie where a psychopathic husband tries to drive his dependent bride insane by manipulating her environment, making her confused and uncertain about her reality. With a combination of seduction, deception and bullying the husband warps his wife’s reality. The wife then begins to accept the husband’s suggestion that she is losing her mind as truth.
This is what has happened to large segments of America. Many individuals have been bombarded with mixed messages through various outlets that has left many feeling confused and suspicious. People have a hard time tolerating any type of ambiguity or uncertainty about events, and gaslighting exploits these vulnerabilities.
We Think With Our Feelings
One of the biggest problems with America’s state of mind is that it involves more than our minds. People tend to think with their feelings and vote the same way. Demagogues can whip the masses into a frenzy and get them to vote for anything, regardless of their stances on certain issues. When people are searching for a resolution to confusion, they’ll buy into anything. Mob mentality can sway people who might normally make rational decisions by themselves. Impressions carry more weight than facts. This was first evident in the debates between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon, where radio listeners thought Nixon was the clear winner and television viewers thought Kennedy was the clear winner. Impressions often matter more.
The field of psychology provides a window in learning how the mind works. You would think that the mind follows the rules of logic — A to B to C. However, what I experience with clients in the room is that the mind is made of a collection of loose associations, symbols, feeling states, fears and wishes. Our mind moves from one state to another according to that person’s intrinsic rules. At the core, many individuals are driven by primitive feelings of fear, aggression, sexual desires, envy – most of which lay in our unconscious. This is what shapes Americans minds and view of reality, and has become a driving force in political behavior. It transcends all sense of logic and rationale.
The methods of gaslighting have become so deeply entrenched in our political system. It is not going away anytime soon. We simply can’t put the genie back in the bottle. Therefore, unless we learn how to defend ourselves against the psychological manipulations in place, we will succumb to them. It entails learning how our feelings states affect us in our political behavior.
Ultimately, Americans want hope and equanimity. What gaslighters want is chaos and a revolutionary society where the most one can hope for is an illusion. When all of our minds are strengthened with the richness of your internal truth, then you can be free from a state of terror. Such a mind can withstand and tolerate a sense of uncertainty, allowing you to choose what to do or how to respond. This is the greatest antidote to living in a perplexing world.
