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Storming the Capitol: There is no cure without diagnosis - Column

2021-01-10T20:04:51.924Z


Republicans rally about "healing" after storming the Capitol. From a psychological point of view, however, a diagnosis must be made before a cure can be achieved. But this requires therapeutic help, which none of the actors will accept.


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Members of Congress fled the intruders

Photo: Drew Angerer / Getty Images

We all lie, all the time.

The social psychologist Bella DePaulo, who has devoted much of her decades of research to this topic, has shown in studies with autobiographical diaries: People lie every day.

Often harmless or even well-meaning: "I told her she looked good, even though she looked like a zeppelin." But sometimes we also lie to avoid role conflicts - or out of sheer self-interest.

And some of these lies are as mean as they are dangerous.

Christian Stöcker, arrow to the right

Photo: SPIEGEL ONLINE

Born 1973, is a cognitive psychologist and has been a professor at the Hamburg University of Applied Sciences (HAW) since autumn 2016.

There he is responsible for the "Digital Communication" course.

Before that, he headed the Netzwelt department at SPIEGEL ONLINE.

There are even studies of our own on the question of under what conditions and for what reasons people lie in organizations.

They fit in with an urgent question in US politics after Donald Trump and the storming of the Capitol: How could the so-called Grand Old Party, how could the Republicans cover the US president, who was proven to be constantly lying, for four years?

How could they continue to play his obviously highly dangerous game, even after the obvious defeat, undermine trust in the democratic process?

Party with perverted norms

The consequences of these lies should also have become clear to the Republican MPs and senators by storming the Capitol in Washington at the latest: many doubtless feared for their safety.

The very real threat - some of the invaders had plastic quick handcuffs with them, apparently to take hostages in the House of Representatives - may have made it clear to many personally for the first time that one cannot lead millions of voters astray for months with conspiracy theories and untenable claims .

So far it has been worthwhile for Republicans to lie for and with Trump, for the two central reasons that social psychologist Steven Grover cites for lying in organizations: to avoid role conflicts and in their own interest.

Since the party has allowed egomaniacal narcissist Trump to pervert its norms, from the perspective of the organization it was appropriate and necessary to lie along with it.

It is true that deliberate disinformation about alleged electoral fraud collides with the role norms of a democratically elected politician.

But it fits in with the new, perverted norms of the party, which has replaced its program with the person of Trump.

Unsettled voters, that was the problem? 

The second prerequisite for organized lying was also met: even after the election was lost, many Republicans continued to expect personal benefits from lying on.

According to an unnamed MP quoted by the Washington publication The Hill, that was the official party line because of the by-elections in Georgia: "The Republican party leadership repeatedly stated that we needed Trump to bring the voters to the polls." That's why people swallowed their unease about Trump's selfish lies.

According to party leadership Senator John Thune, the problem was not in the lies about electoral fraud per se, but in the "confusing messages" before the by-election: voters were unsure "whether their vote would count or not."

Thune said that according

to

came the storming of the Capitol, in which several people were killed.

Trump had not delivered what was promised of him.

And then put the party in this embarrassing position.

Unsightly.

Some people just don't care about the truth 

What is certain is that the violent attack on Congress would not have taken place if Trump, with Republican backing, had not continued to claim that the election victory had been "stolen" from him.

Some of the right-wing extremists who broke into the building armed and prepared to be hostage-taking probably don't care about the actual election result: they want Trump as dictator for life.  

Many others, however, believed the lies and consequently believed they were right.

US media like “Fox News” and even more right-wing broadcasters like “OANN” and “Newsmax” are complicit: They helped to erect and support the building of lies.

Not surprisingly: The head of OANN wants to continue promoting Trump as much as possible.

Shortly after the Capitol took off, 45 percent of registered Republican voters said they would approve of the attack in a poll.

Among those who believe in the fairy tale of large-scale electoral fraud, it was 56 percent.

Rightly lied

So the party has so rightly lied to almost half of its voters that they live in a parallel reality.

This is not new, but now at the latest it becomes clear what it does.

The storm on the Capitol should prove to be the beginning of a right-wing terrorist movement in the USA.

(Read also the guest article by terrorism expert Peter R. Neumann)

more on the subject

  • Donald Trump and social media: The perfect time for the end of the extra sausage A comment by Patrick Beuth

  • Racism: Trump is the personification of white privilegeA guest post by Mohamed Amjahid

  • Icon: Spiegel Plus Storm on the Capitol: The con artist and his idiotsA comment by Arno Frank

  • Storming the Capitol: The Most Dangerous Movement of Our Time A guest contribution by Peter R. Neumann

The MPs and senators who refused to certify the votes of the electorate after the occupation and devastation knew full well that they were continuing a very dangerous lie.

This, too, is likely to have psychological causes in part: Many of these people have undoubtedly acted against their own convictions for years and, out of selfish interests, glossed over the liar, cheater, adulterer and aggressive people-flayer Trump.

Have all the defense mechanisms against the huge cognitive dissonance that must generate, constantly running at full speed.

Warped worldview

Something like that bends your own worldview in the long run.

Perhaps even to the point that at some point you will believe yourself that a milder moderate like Joe Biden will now introduce socialism.

How else can you justify your own behavior?

Some are at least honest with themselves now. Steve Womack, for example, a Republican MP from Arkansas, told local media, "The president cheered the crowd on with promises and expectations that just weren't true." That insight comes too late.

Too many hold on to the lie

And even after the building was cleared, seven senators and the majority of Republican MPs in the House of Representatives voted against recognizing the legitimate election results.

The members of parliament and senators who then had to flee the Capitol or barricaded themselves in fear in the basement or in their offices should have suddenly realized that with such grotesque lies you can end up creating extremely dangerous situations that damage democracy.

That it doesn't go with her role or her self-interest to continue to hold on to the lie.

But that still only seems to be the case with a minority.

Role conflict and misguided self-interest still seem too strong.

Diagnosis comes before healing

Republican leaders like Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham, who have defended Trump's excesses over the years, rave about "healing." 

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Christian Stocker

We are the experiment: our world is changing so breathtakingly that we stagger from crisis to crisis.

We have to learn to manage this tremendous acceleration.

Publisher: Karl Blessing Verlag

Number of pages: 384

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Before the healing, however, a diagnosis would have to be made.

The diagnosis that the Grand Old Party, with its continued denial of reality, sympathy for conspiracy theorists and disinformation, has led the country to the brink of abyss. 

The Republicans, or at least that part of the party that does not want to become a neo-fascist personality cult over the long term, would have to take four steps from a psychological point of view: 

  • Admit they sustained a dangerous, anti-democratic demagogue

  • Accept that it was a mistake

  • Forgive yourself

  • Tell your voters the truth and ask forgiveness from those voters too

 At the moment it is difficult to believe that this Herculean task can be achieved without individual therapeutic support. 

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Source: spiegel

All tech articles on 2021-01-10

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