nolongerinbetween

How do you talk to a deluded individual? How do you get inside his brain and pop his narrative bubble? How do you cure his blindness? How do you deprogramme his tunnel vision? When someone is intellectually disingenuous at least there is a break in his defence since deep down he knows he is in the wrong and that he acts in bad faith. So playing the morality card against him might push him back on the path of truth. But someone deluded is not necessarily disingenuous no matter how insane his narrative might seem to us. He believes his falsehoods so, technically speaking, he is not lying and he is acting in good faith. If you listen to these guys storming the Capitol you can be surprised by their conviction that they are doing the right thing and that they are on a mission to save their country. They are genuine in their patriotic insanity. They are violent and murderous but they think they are on the right side of history. Like any entitled crusader. So how do you reach them? How can you make them snap out of their delusion? How do you bridge two minds that don’t share the same reality? And just because they truly believe in their deluded reality does it mean they are absolved of all blame and responsibility? I don’t think so. The road to delusion is a long journey made up of small moments of concession, disingenuity, downplaying, indulging, covering up, looking the other way etc that finally added up. Trump didn’t just happen. He didn’t force himself on us. He got there because some people put him there. He couldn’t keep going without his followers and his enablers turning a blind eye to his insanity at every step. Delusion might be an excuse when the reality you see is what you genuinely perceive as reality through the tainted lens on your eyes. But the lens didn’t get there without your consent.

The refusal of the Republican Party to investigate and condemn the attack of their main democratic institution speaks volumes of their true identity. Underplaying the American Reichstag moment is a national disgrace of historic proportions. To witness firsthand that turmoil and then to claim there was no insurrection but a peaceful protest is beyond belief. To listen to Donald Trump orchestrating the coup and then blaming Nancy Pelosi for it is surreal. To watch the violent uprising unfold in front of your very eyes and then to listen to Donald Trump praising the rioters as if they were some hippies at a Love Fest: “There was such LOVE at that rally. They were PEACEFUL people, these were great people, the crowd was unbelievable and I mentioned the word ‘love.’ The love is in the air, I’ve never seen anything like it.” is almost comical. How on earth can someone listen to any of these without snapping out of their deluded reality? How can someone witness this level of scripted, deliberate brutality and still pretend it was just a peaceful protest that got out of hand? Perception doesn’t just happen to you. You might not have a full control over it but some of your perception is maintained clean and healthy at your will. Delusion is a lame excuse and if you suffer from it you are responsible for it. There’s no such thing as innocent delusion.