We have a hard time believing things we don't want to believe

“Essentially, a short con involves taking the pigeon for all the money he has on his person, while the big con sends him home to get more.” -Luc Sante, 1940

The list of conservatives denying reality continues to grow:

* Roy Moore wasn’t a sex predator

* The Russia scandal is made up

* Trump’s accountant says the new tax plan will hurt Trump

* Football players are kneeling because they hate the military

* Obama was born in Kenya and was responsible for Hurricane Katrina

* There were WMD’s in Iraq

The list goes on and on...

Are these people idiots? Trump even boasted that he could stand in the middle of 5th avenue, shoot someone and not lose any supporters.

The good news is that they have just been conned. It’s that simple. The bad news is that it is hard to “unconn” someone. The final good news is that some proven tools exist that can help you make progress with your conservative friends and relatives. Let’s discuss:

CULTS & CON ARTISTS GET US TO DO ALMOST ANYTHING AND THANK THEM FOR IT

David Maurer in his classic 1940 book The Big Con says:

“A mark, once hooked, is often most difficult to ‘unhook.’ If operators once get his confidence completely, he is so sure of the deal in which he is involved that he will not listen to reasonable advice even if it is given to him.”

Some examples Maurer gives:

“C.H. Hubbell of McPherson, Kansas who was tied up with the Christ Kid when the officers arrested the Kid. He was being played for $50,000 and was most indignant at the interruption. Even when he learned that he was being played on the rag, he refused to believe it and insisted on posting bond for both the Christ Kid and his insiderman”

“I thought I’d knock him good so I wrote him that he’d been trimmed and that it was no use looking for us and we were going to Europe. About a year later I bumped into him on the street. He shook my hand and said, ‘Mr. MacAllister, you can’t get away with it. You can’t let me down now...Now I have dug up ten thousand more. You can’t keep me out of the deal this time.’”

Why does this happen? Ego! Ego! Ego! Marks convince themselves that they are right and they can’t fathom the idea that they are wrong. Cons prey upon the things we really want to believe are true.

Steven Hassan in his book Combatting Cult Mind Control says that cults ask for your life savings for 2 reasons:

1. To get your money

2. To leave the cult, you first need to come to grip with the painful realization that you just gave away all your money.

It is easier for the human mind to make up excuses than confront painful reality. It’s easier to deny climate change if you get all your money from oil. It’s easier to think of yourself as a “job creator” when asking for tax cuts.

Maurer writing from 1940 tells us a lot about those in charge today:

“Most marks come from the upper strata of society, which, in America, means they have made, married or inherited money. Because of this, they acquire status which in time they come to attribute to some inherent superiority, especially as regards matters of sound judgement in finance and investment. Friends and associates themselves social climbers and sycophants, help to maintain this illusion of superiority.”

A Great Story About Life on the Moon that People Wanted to Believe

We choose to believe stories we like, whether it is the story that we are “honest”, “smart” or that people live on the moon. Maria Konnikova in The Confidence Game notes the story of the Moon Hoax of 1835 that was printed in the latest technology of the times: Newspapers. Readers were treated to fantastical stories and pictures about life on the moon (see picture here). Even after the hoax was revealed, many readers still believed it was true. Many of the pre-Alex Jones readers said that it was all a government cover-up. They did this for the same reason people believe the world is flat, etc: because they wanted to believe the story!

Researcher Stephanie Hall has this to say on the Moon Hoax

blogs.loc.gov/...

“Disclaimers and attempts to disprove legends can often spread the story further. Hoaxes sometimes work in much the same way, perpetuated as much by the interest of those who disbelieve a story as those who believe it. [emphasis added]

HAVE YOU EVER BEEN CONNED? IF SO, YOU LIKELY WILL NEVER KNOW

There is only so much you can do because Konnikova notes that con artists play on who you are.

“What are you confident in? The con artist will find those things where your belief is unshakable and will build on that foundation to subtly change the world around you. But you will be so confident in the starting point that you won’t even notice what’s happened”

In an interview Konnikova was asked if she has ever been conned. She gave a great answer: “I don’t know.” If a con artist is good, you will be conned and you will never know. You might remember that you once tried to buy tickets off Craigslist but it didn’t work out, but you think it was because of an error at the gate, not because that nice Math student conned you.

TECHNOLOGY GIVES CON ARTISTS SUPER POWERS

Konnikova writes that these same con men have a new modern friend: technology. She quotes a con artist who says:

“What I did fifty years ago as a teenage boy is four thousand times easier to do today because of technology. Technology breeds crime. It always has and always will”

It used to be that a con artist had to walk up to your house in the fields of rural South Dakota to get at your life savings. Now they can just talk to you over Skype, YouTube or Trump’s favorite: Twitter.

Steven Hassan in his book Combatting Cult Mind Control says

“Mind-control organizations routinely sponsor websites and that purport to provide help, empathy ... Because vast amounts of personal information are now available online, cult recruiters (as well as ordinary scam artists) can now go online and develop extensive profiles about future targets”

CAN’T WE JUST USE FACTS? NO

As a liberal, part of me keeps hoping that if we can just give conservative the right information their behavior will change. If we can just prove Russian collusion or show that the tax plan benefits the 0.01% mainly , things will be better. Before being a liberal, I was a borderline 9/11 conspiracy theorist and I did the same thing. I have the truth and if people will only listen to the facts about the second tower or Iraqi oil people will change their behaviors.

Cognitive Dissonance at Work

But that’s not how people work. We don’t care about information — at least at first. We like people and stories we trust most of all.

As smart, information- and fact-based people (“reality has a liberal bias”) how do we communicate with our co-workers, friends and loved ones? Is it all a lost cause?

It’s not a lost cause because I experienced the change. I was a Rush Limbaugh listening Republican when I was a young man and I changed. It took a lot of love and care from people to get me to change but I did. Did anyone ever sit down and give me all the answers? No. I never said “You know, You are totally right. I see it right here in the newspaper. I am a fool.” Liberals expect that outcome, but that will never happen.

In trying to understand my own conversion and the current GOP/Trump mindset, I did a bunch of reading on cults, con artists, FBI negotiators and salesmen- anyone who changes minds. Here are some proven tools that you can use this Holiday season to make some progress:

TOOLS TO USE

1. ARGUING — EVEN WITH GOOD FACTS — MAKES THINGS WORSE. DON’T DO IT.

Hassan says this about arguing with a cult member:

“Another common error is trying to argue the person out of their involvement by using a condescending, confrontational approach. This direct approach is doomed to failure. Rational argumentation is simply not effective with someone who has been indoctrinated….Add condescension or arrogance, and you are playing right into the cult recruiter’s hands.”

When us humans get into a fight, a funny thing happens, we gear up and defend our position: arguing with a conservative only solidifies their beliefs.

Hassan notes that cultists have been preparing for you and your facts. When you come at them with facts, this is the fight they have been preparing for. They have their own facts. They want to battle you on twitter or wherever. Right wingers are the same, they have been prepping in the gym of talk radio, blogs, etc. getting their (often stupid) talking points just right. Don’t fight this battle! Its the one they have been programmed to want.

In fact, even if you are going to meditate a lot first and remove all arrogance from your tone, simply presenting facts alone is still counterproductive. Research into vaccine use shows us:

www.psychologytoday.com/...

...cognitive psychology has taught us that when we are trying to debunk a myth ...the memory networks associated with the misinformation are activated and strengthened. Because it takes more cognitive effort for people to update their beliefs in light of new information, such strategies often just end up reinforcing the myth.

In other words:

2. REALIZE YOU ARE TRYING TO CONVINCE THE MORE POWERFUL ANIMAL MIND

Daniel Kaheman in Thinking Fast and Slow makes an important distinction between (1) our animal mind which is fast, instinctive and emotional and (2) our rational mind which is slow and logical. Turns out that a vast majority of our behaviors happen because of the first mental system. Focus on changing that first. To do that, first you have to

Our animal mind if more important to what we do

3. ESTABLISH RAPPORT

How do we avoid the animal mind going into fight or flight? How can we talk to the rational mind? Loving connection is the key but I need more specifics than that because I’m not so good at those things.

I’m often bad at being nice but you know who is less touchy feely than me? Old school FBI agents. These are the people that brought us botched negotiations in Waco, TX and elsewhere. Turns out the new breed FBI negotiators have learned a few touchy feely things.

Former FBI negotiator Chris Voss in his book Never Split the Difference says that the FBI needed a new playbook beyond rational arguments because “have you ever tried to devise a mutually beneficial win-win solution with a guy who thinks he’s the messiah?” Answer: you can’t

The FBI developed tools to “calm people down, establish rapport, gain trust, elicit the verbalization of needs and persuade the other guy of our empathy.” All of these are crucial and it starts by establishing rapport with these tools.

Konnikova says that any good con artist knows that a con “requires the creation of empathy and rapport...an emotional foundation must be laid before any scheme is proposed, any game set in motion. Only then does it move to logic and persuasion”

Hassan lists building rapport with cult members as the #1 key to unlocking mind control.

So use a nice calm voice and make friends first.

A. MIRROR TO ESTBALISH TRUST

Voss says “We fear what is different and are drawn to what is similar”

Dale Carnegie and Tony Robbins self-help gurus agree and have a lot to say about mirroring.

Who else does? Con artists! They see this as essential step. Bernie Madoff and others were experts at a type of fraud called “Affinity Fraud”. The SEC defines this as

www.investor.gov/…

“The fraudsters involved in affinity scams often are – or pretend to be – members of the group...These scams exploit the trust and friendship that exists in groups of people. Because of the tight-knit structure of many groups, outsiders may not know about the affinity scam.” [emphasis added]

You can see this all the time in Trump and his other con artist friends, they wear cowboy hats or hate Mexicans or do other things to signal they are on the inside of a group. They want to convince us they are one of the right (in the case of Trump, the “white”) group. I always love the moment, Trump says he “learned” how to solve crime in Chicago

www.washingtonpost.com/… “I went to a top police officer in Chicago who is not the police chief, and he — I could see by the way he was dealing with his people, he was a rough, tough guy, they respected him greatly. I said, how do you think you do it? He said Mr. Trump, within one week we could stop much of this horror show that’s going on.”

When talking to your Trump loving neighbor you first need to convince her that you are worth their trust. You like their group and are part of it in some important ways.

FBI agent Voss and cult deprogrammer Hassan both list “mirroring” as the place to start building rapport. Things you can do to mirror

1. Similar clothing or appearance

2 . Imitate posture and other physical ways of being . Match a weak handshake with a weak handshake. Lean forward when they lean forward.

3. Listen and repeat the last 3 words (or the critical one to three words) of what someone just said.

I understand that these can seem manipulative and in the hands of con artists, they are but we can try to use these in authentic ways. For example, listening and repeating the last few words is also a nice way to actually listen to them. Which bring us to:

B. LISTEN TO THEM BEFORE THEY CAN LISTEN TO YOU. GET THEM TO SAY “THAT’S RIGHT”

Voss: “When individuals feel listened to, they tend to listen to themselves more carefully and to openly evaluate and clarify their own thoughts and feelings. In addition, they become less defensive and oppositional and more willing to other points of view”

This is very simple. Most of us have things we want to say. We won’t listen to someone else’s viewpoint until we feel that we have been heard. So it is our job to listen first.

Voss has a simple system, first label any objections using non-confrontational language:

“It seems like you are very angry”

“It seems like you think taxes are too high”

The great thing about this language is that you are state someone’s objection without agreeing. “It seems like you don’t like democrats”

The idea here is to get them talking. If you can get them talking long enough, you can find places where you can connect. “So medicare is very important to you?” “So you want the VA to be fully funded”

Once you get where they are going try to restate their language. Voss says the goal is to get to a place where your conservative friend will say “That’s right” Bingo!

Only then can they listen to you.

4. ASK “HOW” AND “WHAT” QUESTIONS TO GET THEM TO ARTICULATE THEIR THINKING

The bad news is that there is no way that I know of to tell people what to think that works in the long term. Instead what you are trying to do is develop their sense of critical reasoning. Victory can simply be planting the seeds of doubt.

After the election, I would simply ask Trump supporters questions like

“How will things get great?”

“Do you think he is going to try to get medicare and social security?”

My goal wasn’t to convince them I was right, but for them to take a stand and hopefully they will see how what they want isn’t what is happening.

Hassan says this about convincing cult members:

“I give people a toolkit for helping them make their own decisions and taking back their lives. I help people detect and remove the virus of mind control on their own. This is something they ultimately need to do themselves, for themselves, not something do to them …. [The goal is] to empower the individual to be their own person: to think critically, to evaluate, and to reality-test and exercise their own free will. The person leans to listen to their inner voice, rather than the instructions of an authority figure”

Questions do this and also have the non threatening upside of giving the other side the illusion of control. Voss recommends that all your questions start with “How” and “What”. “How can we solve this problem?” “What is the objective?” “What about this is important to you?”

“Who”, “What” and “where” questions are simply answered with facts. No good to us here. “Why” questions sound accusatory.

Voss calls these “calibrated questions.” In other words you really need to think through the questions you are going ask and calibrate them to your audience. Questions give you the ability to frame situations, so take them seriously. Ideally you can calibrate them to...

A) GET THEM TO THINK FROM OTHER PERSPECTIVES

Hassan uses questions in cult deprogramming to get cult members to look at reality from different perspectives. For example: “How should your parents feel about you being in a cult?” We can do this also by asking questions such as “How would you feel about Trump’s rhetoric if you were black?” “What should a working single Mom do if she can’t afford healthcare?”

My favorite question is “What is a time you acted to stop racism?” This question has the upside of working within the frame of racism exists and is a problem. It allows the friend to see themselves as a hero fighting for justice. The downside of this question is if they start talking about “racism” against white people. Find a way out of that!

B) HELP THEM TO DISCOVER THEIR ACTUAL VALUES RATHER THAN RIGHT WING PROPOGANDA

The conservative answer to these questions will obviously be brutal and naïve because much of their thinking has been captured by right wing propaganda. The goal isn’t to debunk the lies but rather to let your friend come to the conclusion that these lies are as gross as they are. They know the answer, they just need help accessing their true values.

The goal is to actually have them to say out loud “The single mom should go bankrupt and die if she doesn’t have healthcare” or whatever crap has been fed to them in a non-confrontation setting. Remember that the conservative “cult” identity is talking and not your friend. It is important to try to ask them questions that would access their true thinking: “How would you have answered this question before you starting reading infowars?”

There are some great resources on how Fox News acts like a cult and creates a new identity for its “victim.” One is the movie below in which the daughter succeeded in getting her old day back by changing his news sources (amongst other things):

x YouTube Video

5. KEEP BEING A SOURCE OF UNCONDITIONAL LOVE. KEEP THE LINES OF COMMUNICTION OPEN.

In cult rescues Hassan looks for the family member who maintained unconditional loving ties with the cult member. This is the person who decided to love their family member even if they join a wacky cult. This is the person who can still communicate and get the person to listen to other points of view. Don’t cut off communication.

“I found that people who were able to walk away without intervention were those who had maintained contract with people outside the destructive cult. When people could maintain communication with outsiders, valuable information that could change their life could penetrate cult-constructed mental walls”

Maybe it’s best if you cut off ties with your Nazi friend. I know I would have a hard time maintaining ties but if you cut them off, then you can’t help them anymore. Keep loving the person you knew, not the right-wing identity.

A) GIVE CRITICAL INFORMATION IN AN INDIRECT WAY

Hassan has learned not to ever give negative information about a cult member’s own cult. Instead talk about other similar groups. Hassan notes that cults install “thought-stopping” ideas into members so that when someone attacks their cult, they are triggered. In addition, they are told that their cult a) is not a cult and b) is superior to all other groups.

So mention other con men if you want to talk about Trump’s activities. Talk about ISIS to discuss religious fanaticism. Talk about how other countries can afford universal healthcare.

B) ASK BEFORE GIVING CRITICAL INFORMATION

If you are going to give a bunch of zingers on Russian collusion, don’t ambush them. Allow it to betheir choice to listen to your facts. You could be playing with fire here so be careful and try to use sources that are trusted by your friend. If WorldNetDaily has some good articles on prison reform, use it. Hassan:

“My preference is always to have someone ask the cult member if they would be willing to hear a little of the other side of the story and see what reaction this elicits. However, such a request needs to come from a sibling or a friend, rather than from a parent, so that it seems much less threatening.”

6. “CRAZY” IS JUST A SIGN POST FOR WHERE TO LOOK FOR THE THING THAT CAN HELP

Voss defines “black swans” as critical pieces of information that are unknown until you talk further and keys to negotiation. For example, maybe someone is really looking for recognition or maybe they are worried about their health care costs.

Voss sees these things most in the places we think someone is “crazy.”

“But the moment we’re most ready to throw our hands up and declare ‘They’re crazy!’ is often the best moment for discovering Black Swans that transform a negotiation. It is when we hear or see something that doesn’t make sense — something ‘crazy’ — that a crucial fork in the road is presented: push forward, even more forcefully.”

I imagine the Black Swan in many cases of conservatives is more of the White Swam of racism. This is going to be hard to listen to but it is important to get your friends to talk about their underlying assumptions and it is your job to help them see if they agree with these views.

As a former conservative guy who is white and straight, I feel like my motivation stemmed from fear, racism, sexism etc along with some legitimate grievances with how my white working class community was let down by liberals. “White guilt” is a real thing and it stinks. It is also true that it stinks to be a working person whether you are black or white. Some PC people are jerks, especially privileged rich white people. There are real truths that need to be acknowledged before a conversation can move on. Hopefully you will learn and grow as well.

My 10 year old daughter has a best friend who is anti-Muslim and homophobic because of her family. She simply asks her friend questions about why she believes this or that. While it’s important that we don’t agree with our conservative friends its also important we don’t walk away. We talk about the questions to ask her friend. It’s a process!

There is a saying in negotiations that “He who talks most loses”. Keep them talking!

7. BE THERE IN CASE THEIR IDENTIY CRASHES AND DIES

The death of a belief core to one’s identity seems to be similar to the feeling of death. (My pet theory is that a lot of the opioid crisis is a white identity death crisis)

Sports stars are great case studies in identity deaths:

theweek.com/...

“There's an oft-repeated phrase in sports, its recurrence having washed away its origin, but the premise is this: Athletes die twice, and the first death comes in retirement …. This is an unkind and inescapable truth for athletes. The identity, the celebrity, the adoration, the money, everything they've attained is ultimately diminished, if not lost completely.” [emphasis added]

The 5 stages of grief mirror the journey one has to take to come to a new belief about the world. First we deny and along the way we may break down in tears before we can move to acceptance.

On the face of things Rhonda Rousey should be happy. Sure she just lost a big fight but she is healthy, rich, gorgeous and has nothing material to worry about.

Yet, losing her recent big fight almost destroyed her:

x YouTube Video

“Honestly, my thought was like .. in the medical room and I was down in the corner and I was like ‘What am I anymore if I’m not this?’ and I was literally sitting there like thinking about killing myself and the exact second I’m like ‘I’m nothing. What do I do anymore? and no one gives a shit about me anymore without this.”’

Con men know this about our minds and stand ready to exploit our beliefs. Maurer notes that old time con men used to literally put advertisements in newspapers looking for “honest” men.

“The mark’s ego is flattered at the start, while at the same time he feels a sense of security in the deal because he is convinced that the men he deals with trust and admire him for his honesty...Often his rationalization mechanisms are so perfectly developed that he never admits, even to himself, that he is fundamentally dishonest.”

THE DEATH OF THE CONSERVATIVE IDENTITY WILL INVOLVE TEARS

Fox News is a living embodiment of the 5 stages of grief about white racism (well maybe 4 of the 5). It goes from Tucker Carlson’s denialism to more honest moments when Melissa Francis broke down in tears after being confronted with her own racism. The co-host’s response is actually pretty good. It is as loving an embrace as could be reasonably be expected.

Crying Fox News host Melissa Francis after defending Charlottesville Nazi types

“I know what’s in my heart and I don’t think anyone is different better or worse based on the color of their skin but I feel like there is nothing any of us can say right now without being judged”

Cohost good response that doesn’t demonize but rather provides a loving embrace:

“You know Melissa there have been a lot of tears on this network and across the country….It’s a difficult place where we are but it’s not where we’ve been. It’s where we are. This is not 1950. We can do this.”

8. DO OTHER STUFF THAT WORKS

This is really as far as I’ve figured out. It’s enough to get you through the holidays without causing any problems and sew some seeds of doubt. If you have ideas on what to at this point, please let me know.

Here are some suggestions from my readings and experiences

1. Fact check one story together. I had a conservative co-worker go on about uranium one so we did research together rather than debate each other. He got to see that HRC had little power to approve the deal at all. I don’t know if we solved anything but at least it wasn’t a fight. I could tell he wanted to debate “facts” not have a reasonable discussion about sources of information. He knew that infowars was garbage when we actually starting looking together.

2. Humanize the pain. Give human stories showing the real impact of terrible conservative policies have also been shown to be effective. If you can talk about the real life stories of sexism, racism, etc. Better yet introduce them to people targeted by Trump’s policies so they can hear real human stories.

3. Mental health is at the core of a lot of this. Just having your father go see a therapist and working on his anger issues will likely yield results in the long term as he learns to deal with his anger instead of channeling it at the Fox News targets. Personally I had to work through a lot fear and anger before I could even think about politics. My political change was a happy result of my personal growth.

4. Encourage news from printed sources. Turn off the TV. Lots of studies have shown that TV sends scary images that trigger the fear parts of our brains and overrides rational thinking. I was an anti-war Iraq activist back in the day. What saved me was not watching TV. Whenever I would watch TV, I would find myself thinking “maybe this was is OK after all.”

5. Both sides don’t do it. Lots of great thinking at DailyKos and elsewhere has occurred on how the press creates a false “both sides are bad” narrative.

6. Organize! Vote and fight! Don’t spend all your time helping Right Wingers feel better. We need to get our voters out there so don’t get too caught up in all this.

CASE STUDY: HOW A MORMON CONVERTED

Here is a story that reflects a lot of the principals discussed and my own story of conversion. From rapport to labelling to questioning it shows how the power of helping others see rather than arguing. This is a former Mormon caller into the (very funny) Majority Report. Here are some good quotes starting 5:35 into the video

“My recommendation would be to build relationships, I know that our instincts right now are to like run away from the crazy uncle and some of those people are not going to be saved so to speak, I think people should build interpersonal relationships offline.”

“If you can get them to articulate their most crazy positions and then sort of calmly place little seeds of doubt that’s the best way to do it.”

On a disarming meeting over coffee with a liberal: “You are trained to have an automated response in Mormonism and also everything is you know oh Libtards or fake news or whatever and it becomes reflexive and he stopped me and he said ‘No I want to hear what you think about this not what you’ve been told like what you should say or what you are supposed to think’ and that was like a defining moment in my personal life cause I had to stop and look inward and say ‘Oh OK I need to do some work on this and um and so …. I think very few people are convinced online or in flame wars that sort of thing but if you can meet with these people are try to start personal relationships and dialogues I think that helps.” [emphasis added]

Other cool stuff if you care to look further

There is a lot of stuff out there. I like old school George Lakoff and Drew Weston for the psychology of our politics. Check out Derrin Brown the hypnotists to get scared by how easily our mind can influenced.youtube.com/… Cognitive Dissonance is a well researched area that is worth looking into further. A good TED talk by Cortney Warren is here

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Good luck! It’s not easy but progress can be achieved. It’s just going to take patience time and caring!