Make no mistake: politics is thinking about you. How it is thinking about you, and how you in turn should be thinking about politics, may hold the key to finally understanding the underlying dynamics that make up the political world we humans have created, and are destined to live in.
Theoretically, politics is supposed to answer collective needs to organize people into orderly societies so everyone benefits. But how politics organizes people is often captive to personal idiosyncrasies that may benefit the politician more than the people.
Taking a step deeper into political theory, and stripping down politics to its basic elements, we find that politics is a potential powerhouse of control by the few over the many. It is this reality that should concern us. However, it may not if we see politics as merely something other people do, or ignore the fact that politics forms the very social environment within which we humans struggle to survive. In other words, politics is directly tied to raw, human self-preservation.
But who sees it this way? However, when we do, we realize that politics cannot be held solely in the hands of “other” people. It must be held in our hands for we are the ones lessened in value and harmed when politics turns against us.
But what does politics turning against us really mean? What does it look like?
What can we do about it?
We can do little if we the people do not become active, informed participants. In other words, we can’t leave politics to politicians.
Politics can do wonderful things in the name of everything good, but can do terrible things—also in the name of everything good.
When politics rises to create a better life for its people, or sinks to exploit the very people it swears to help, looking to political theory, politicians, or political explanations is a dead end. If we want answers that make sense, and answers we the people of America can work with, we have to examine realities of the human mind like, for example, the impulse to control other people.
Politics is more than an ideal scenario for controlling people; it is the only scenario for the overcontrolling mind whereby one can grab the four perks of political control: unlimited power, unlimited riches, influence, and the chance to be adored by an admiring public—and hold them for a lifetime. Where else can you get that? Having one or more of these perks, e.g., if you are wealthy, is no guarantee that you will have all four—for as long as you live.
Then there is this: The human need to control people can be a very serious psychological problem. Not only is it overlooked by mental health professionals and the public, its pathological side is underrated, if not ignored. We can’t look to politics for explaining this. We need a hand’s-on, practical, no-nonsense study of the political mind that clears out academic clutter to give we the people of America a solid foundation of understanding that will make significant differences in how we see politicians and the politics they create.
There’s a caveat: If we focus on the mind of the politician, politics has to make room for a study of the mind: psychology.
That may strike you as good or bad, depending on how you view either one. But including them together? That may take a bit of getting used to. Nonetheless, if we want clear answers to what is actually happening to American politics today, like it or not, we’ll have to examine politics via the political mind with a psychology. That’s where this book comes in.
Let me explain.
America, as a constitutional or representative republic, is collapsing under the weight of a political juggernaut relentless in its quest to control you and me and transform the values America once stood for. Sadly, too many Americans are unaware, or don’t care. Even if they are aware, they may not appreciate the serious nature of this threat assuming that its machinations are just reflections of politics as usual that Americans will correct with the next election.
Political improvements of any kind, of course, will help, but they can’t stop this threat from pulling America into chaos. The deepest subterranean forces driving today’s political conflicts are not political; they are psychological (in the mind). Personalities of politicians, and the people who support them, play far more significant roles in America’s destiny than the bad laws, capricious judicial decisions, or harmful regulations political personalities create. If we Americans care enough to save our republic from itself, we’ll have to rethink our political world in a new context of psychological realities to clearly understand how and why today’s America is collapsing.
This raises an interesting question: Does today’s psychology have the wherewithal to expose bad politics, and the personalities driving it? It does not; therefore, we need a psychology that does—precisely what this book is offering.
To co-opt a popular political slogan, I believe this is our best shot to truly make America great again and keep it great for generations. What do we have to lose? Politics is failing us because it is ignoring the very political personalities that are making sure America will transform itself into something it never was.
The “forked tongue” of politics (saying one thing while intending something else) is this threat’s political weapon of choice. However, there is more that should concern us. We have to fully understand how this threat’s supercharged propaganda machine, organized around its own invented, illegitimate psychology, carefully shapes, and then controls, how we think until all Americans will, someday, be too helpless to resist.
I’m speaking here of the early signs of political tyranny. Unfortunately, such signs are easily overlooked, especially if the tyranny sets the stage, as it were, by penetrating the public mind to sensitize it to tyrannical lies and false promises while rendering it insensitive to fact and common sense.
Today, signs of tyranny are all around us. There is the politician who is driven to do anything by any means necessary to scratch his way to the top of the political heap.
We hear promises that are, on their face, ridiculous. Facts are twisted into sophisticated lies that make sense only to the apathetic or incurious mind. We find people speaking in emotional tirades rejecting reason, and reacting defensively to anyone who disagrees. “Comedians” have abandoned humor to become political shock and entertainment shills. Political or economic programs to solve problems only create more problems (e.g., welfare or government health care). Resources are taken from vital institutions (e.g., the military) so unnecessary, but politically favored institutions can proliferate. More people are dependent on government. Then there is the most destructive sign of tyranny: government targeting its most needy and disadvantaged citizens for exploitation.
Suffering people are psychologically at risk for believing any political lie that empathizes with their suffering. They will ignore what they are told to ignore, believe what they are told to believe, and vote as they are told to vote—if government perks keep coming. Yet with so many signs of political trickery swirling about us, some Americans are convinced that this threat is the only possible answer to America’s personal, economic, social, and political problems.
On the other hand, none of this should surprise us. History tells us that the tyrant’s goal is never to improve the people’s quality of life; it is always to improve the tyrant’s quality of life and lives of his closest, obedient, followers.
Societies that have collapsed (e.g., Ancient Athens or Rome) decayed over time from within without its citizens realizing what was actually happening. Historians cite many causes, politics being one. Is America next?
This is not an idle question. Our thinking patterns are under siege. Many Americans no longer sense America as exceptional. Even well-intentioned Americans are surrendering their liberties and freedoms so a powerful few can enjoy their personal liberties
