The easiest thing to do is to persuade people to accept something. Maybe they’ll turn a blind eye, or maybe they’ll nod and think “sure, okay”.
People accept things all the time, from sincerely-concerned environmentalists driving fume-spewing cars to fervent anti-socialists wondering when their next stimulus cheque is coming from the government.
Harder than that is persuading people to believe something.
Beliefs are rooted in the human need to externalise failings, justify inadequacies, comprehend the unknown and find hope where little realistically exists. The greater this need, the more irrational the belief that can be held.
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Hardest of all is persuading believers, once you’ve got them, to act.
That’s the sort of trick that can lead to 918 cult members committing mass suicide as happened in Jonestown in 1978, or the followers of Aum Shinrikyo releasing Sarin gas on the Tokyo subway in 1996, killing 13 people.
Over the last four years, a tiny percentage of followers of US President Donald Trump have been climbing this very ladder. On January 6 they reached the top.
How the hell did they get there?
One of the driving forces behind the Capitol Hill riots has been followers of the far-right QAnon conspiracy theory. At the heart of it is the belief that the government is populated by Satan-worshiping elites who, with the support of the media and business leaders, run a cabal of child prostitution rings. Key players are supposed to include Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and George Soros. Trump is supposedly a saviour waging a secret war against them, and his election as president meant that a day of reckoning called “the Storm” was on the way.
This narrative tied into existing bizarre claims like Pizzagate — a conspiracy theory suggesting that Democrats were using a DC area pizza restaurant called Comet Ping Pong as a front for human trafficking and paedophilia. One North Carolina resident grew so concerned that he took a gun into the store and fired three shots while searching for the children he was certain were imprisoned there.
Over the course of Trump’s time in power, he has repeatedly refused to distance himself from groups like QAnon. His claims of “fake news” have supported the idea that media stories can not be trusted and that what was really happening was kept secret, only to be revealed to anonymous internet posters and far-right conspiracy theorists like Alex Jones, host of the wildly popular Infowars.
Why the darkest of government secrets should have been accessible to a dodgy health supplement peddler is unclear, but perhaps that was all part of the plan.
Trump himself was asked repeatedly about QAnon in the media, with the frequency of such questions increasing in the run-up to the 2020 election. While he stopped short of endorsing followers’ beliefs, he did say that he knew they liked him, and that they were doing good things. For several years they had been claiming in their online enclaves that he was sending them coded messages in his public speeches.
Once the election had been lost, facts no longer mattered. An enraged Trump had nothing to lose and took to social media in a tweetstorm, claiming that the election was rigged. This openly encouraged the conspiracy theorists and in December they urged him to #crosstherubicon; or, in other words, take military action.
At his ill-fated “Save America” rally on January 6, Trump spun fantasies of fraud and media lies to the seething crowd, then told them to march. Rudy Giuliani, his long-time lawyer, told them it was time for “trial by combat.” There is no doubt that both men knew exactly what they were doing
This was the final push needed. The true believers had reached the top of the ladder of persuasion. The whole world knows what happened next: he was impeached.
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Trump started the “rigged election” lie before the 2016 election, claiming that was the only way he could lose. Then it was the reason he lost the popular vote in that election. Then the only reason he could lose in 2020, then the reason he lost. Tell a lie often enough…
When you’re a deluded, divisive and dangerous demagogue the crowd is but your mob in waiting. He’s been titillating them with violent rhetoric from the very beginning. But, as with all crowds, they have to want what is on offer or they lose interest and move on. The Trump crowds wanted what was on offer. They lapped it up. Finally, they acted on his words. Now every single one of them bears a burden of guilt for the death of a police officer who tried to defend law makers and their staff. Every single one of them, because, without a crowd you don’t get a mob, and without everyone going along for the ride (even if they have second thoughts) a mob fails to gather its momentum.
When will Oz journalists ask PM Morrison of his links to QAnon? Australians have not been listening to warnings in our free press (some Murdoch) about our PM’s QAnon friends.
The Daily Mercury ( Mackay News Corp) 7 Nov 2020 : Nov 7, 2020 — Karen Stewart says her QAnon-promoting brother Tim Stewart is good friends with PM Scott Morrison, and they planned a family trip to Hawaii ..
Tory Shepherd in AdelaideNow (News Corp) Oct 21 2020: QAnon is a dangerous cult and terror threat. Australia hasn’t seen an outbreak of outrage about the PM’s QAnon buddies but it should .Imagine Scott Morrison hanging out with a white supremacist whose wife works in his home.
SBS The Feed 21/10/2020 by Eden Gillespie : QAnon has been identified as a domestic terrorist threat by the FBI, but Prime Minister Scott Morrison hasn’t been briefed about the conspiracy theory by his officials.Tim Stewart, a family friend of Mr Morrison, had his Twitter account ‘BurnedSpy34’ shut down a second time this month after operating an anonymous account that promoted QAnon content
ABC 23/ 12/2020 Joey Watson: But some pastors are taking active measures to fight the potential spread of conspiracy theories within their congregations.The rise of ‘the church of QAnon’Kaz Ross, a researcher at the University of Tasmania, has been monitoring the spread of conspiracy theories online, and says evangelical Christians have been particularly drawn to QAnon.
.And way back in 2019 ,The Guardian ( Christopher Knaus and Josh Taylor) revealed the QAnon conspiracy theorist who is friends with the PM
…
Oct 4, 2019 — QAnon figure BurnedSpy, whose wife works on the prime minister’s staff, has propagated bizarre theories about Alexander Downer and Julie Bishop.
And David Hardaker in Inq Oct 2019 wrote of the PM’s conspiracy theorist friend Tim Stewart having the PM’s earAnd David Hardaker in Inq Oct 2019 wrote of the PM’s conspiracy theorist friend Tim Stewart having the PM’s ear
Today in January 2021, after the tragic weeks in USA , can Australians be assured our free press will continue to investigate this serious Australian leadership issue?
Another morality tale – from the “advertising guru” that sold enough of us on “Honest John” Howard and his government, for 4 elections?
The Clickbait Twins – Toby Jughead & LuxuryEscaped Schwab.
So, do you disagree with this “morality tale”?
“Today on Hannibal Lecter’s Cannibal Canapés ……”
Why’s he peddling his ‘bleeding obvious’ barrow around Crikey? …. How about a spiel on the sort of damage he helped inflict on Oz by gulling enough rubes?
Another opinion piece from another conservative “Rent-a-Schiller” (to go with King).
I’d have loved to have seen him produce a piece on ‘How the ladder of persuasion works – from acceptance to Howard losing his seat. The damage to the country’s moral fibre inflicted by all but 12 years of Howard government and how Oz finally woke up’ – a reign that he played a major part in selling to the electorate.
Yeah, why Crikey runs this dog-eared Tory Marketing filler vaguely escapes me. Tobes is one of those lifelong advertising bull crap artists who just doesn’t get it yet: their time is over, the internet has educated us all way beyond their steam driven legacy advertising world. I’m sure he’s not an evil fellow but reading this tediously rote spam is like suffering the smug info-gurning of clever-wever Todd and Russ on an anachronism like Gruen. It’s as embarrassingly dated as thinking Woody Allen stand-up is edgy, it feels like getting a copy of The Magus from a sleazy Lit lecturer who’s trying to get into your undergrad pants. It’s just…1990’s information in a 2020 Information Age. Ralph needs to brush up on his Christopher Warren.
Incidentally, has anyone ever seen Tobes and Steve Bannon in the same room at the same time? No, thought not.
“Advertising : judging everybody else and their work. Telling them how to “improve” their “miserable little” lives by what they should otherwise be doing, what they should be thinking, what they should be saying – what they should be buying. With no responsibility when those things turn to l’merde. And all ‘For Rent’ – to the highest paying client/John”.
And their own ‘merit’ metrics – ratings, circulation numbers, take-up rates, focus groups – are utter contrived bullsh*t ones anyway. ‘Circulation’ boosted by tens of thousands of free copies dumped in airports; ‘viewer’ numbers = someone leaves the box or radio, on ignored in the corner, just waiting for the footy scores. Cable TV subscriptions consisting of mass deals to clubs, train stations, regional free-to-air. And who says advertising even works as ‘advertised’? That’s right: advertising people. No one else does.
The ‘Ladder of Persuasion’? Ha ha ha ha ha. I give you the Advertising Industry, Toby Ralph: a house of pure bullsh*t, built on a foundation of pure bullsh*t, held together by hot wet pure bullsh*t, furnished with pure bullsh*t, and owned, occupied and lovingly kept by exceptionally impure, endlessly bullsh*tting, pure bull sh*t artists.
You seem to have underplayed the b/s factor.
Very popular with some people, good for roses and worms.
Also broccoli.
I’d suggest the bigger rage in America (after all most of his followers aren’t those crazies) is coming from the realization that so many of them have been driven to poverty and despair by successive governments who claimed they were lifting other nations people out of poverty – at their expense. They forgot to look after their own.
They didn’t forget. They’ve always been about screwing the poor, no matter where they are.
Screwing the poor – gee, who does that sound like?
Totally non discriminatory, Septics are equal opportunity rip-off artists, domestically and globally.
Their Hemispheric Doctrine is “You got a hemisphere, we’re interested in it!”