Forum Post: Cognitive Dissonance and the Theater of Politics

Cognitive Dissonance - pioneered by psychologist Leon Festinger, it's the common, and often perpetual, brain-fart that occurs when reality clashes with your beliefs, teachings, preconceived notions, or brainwashing. Or as Richard Pryor once famously put it, "Who you gonna believe <expletive>, me or your lyin' eyes?"

The Body Politic - was: "We the People" (our founding fathers, ca. 1770), but now: "The bewildered herd" (Walter Lippman, ca. 1920).

The Theater of Politics - not to be confused with 'Political Theatre.' One concept suggests politicians, in their public persona, are by and large playing 'roles,' all the while furthering the objectives of private entities, with little if any regard to the wishes of their constituents (other than throwing an occasional bone). In the US for example, politicians play the role of "Democrat," "Republican," or "Independent" and will switch roles to achieve specific political aims.

Psychology has been weaponized. And it takes a particular set of characteristics - a healthy dose of skepticism, an ability to read between the lines, and making connections between seemingly disparate, even contradictory facts that set apart those that can see the bigger picture and sift thru the bullshit, from those that cannot. It's not a higher intelligence per se, although an extra 10 or 20 IQ points would certainly go a long way.

Two more integral pieces of the big picture are 'globalism' and 'collusion.'

Globalism - central because it's my view that it minimizes and seeks to eliminate the nation-state, and by extension the power and relevance of individual, and indeed blocks, of regional politicians, in favor of a unified whole. The individual politician becomes a figurehead, pandering to its constituents.

Collusion - a deal struck between two or more factions. When done publicly, often called "bipartisanship." And as Walter Karp compellingly argued in his book Indispensable Enemies cooperation between the so-called opposing parties (especially at the local and state levels), as well as outright sabotage of fellow party members, is not only commonplace but often seen as necessary for political survival:

(pg. 22): " . . . A party organization has no choice but to be self-serving. Should it lose control over elected officials, the power of those officials can only, in time, work against it. From the point of view of a party organization, every elected official is a potential menace.

"Suppose, for example, that a party's candidate for governor wins the election. Nothing in principle prevents him from ignoring the party entirely, from using his patronage to build up a purely personal following, from attempting to oust local party leaders, from bringing new men into the party ranks, from passing reforms that weaken the party organization, from winning public support so strong that the organization cannot deny him renomination. This was done by Robert La Follette of Wisconsin, Hiram Johnson of California and a half-dozen other insurgent Republican governors who overthrew Republican organizations in the Western states in the years before the First World War. So far from gaining power by the mere fact of winning an election, a party organization may see its power threatened and even destroyed. There are times, therefore, when losing an election becomes an absolute necessity.

"Should the party organization fail for some reason to prevent an insurgent candidate from winning an important primary, its first recourse is to prevent him from winning the election. When Democratic insurgents in Connecticut-former supporters of Eugene McCarthy's insurgent bid for the Democratic Presidential nomination in 1968-succeeded in nominating one of their own, Reverend Joseph P. Duffey, in the 1970 Senate primary, John Bailey, the state boss of the Connecticut Democratic party, had former Senator Thomas Dodd run as an "independent" to split the Democratic vote and ensure the election of a Republican. In Vermont, in that same year, the Democratic bosses could not prevent the Senate nomination of former governor Philip Hoff, who had also supported McCarthy in 1968. Since his election would have strengthened the non-bossed fragment of the losing Vermont Democracy, the party bosses openly campaigned for his Republican Senate rival. This is nothing new. Throughout the years between 1918 and 1922, insurgent party candidates imperiled so many state party organizations in the West that dumping elections became a virtual routine.

"Party organizations cannot afford to take chances. They will even try to defeat a party hack if his victory would prove inconvenient. In 1956, Richard Daley, Democratic boss of Cook County, was still consolidating his hold over the Illinois party, and he feared that any Democratic governor might stand in the way. Unfortunately for Daley, open scandal in the Republican administration made the election of a Democratic governor highly likely. To help ensure defeat, Daley gave the nomination to a machine hack with proven lack of statewide appeal, namely the former Cook County treasurer. By mid-September, however, when it became clear that the Democratic candidate was faring well, the newspapers were mysteriously provided with proof that the former Cook County treasurer had been fiddling with public funds. Having supplied the proof, Daley now indignantly demanded that the guilty man step out of the race. In his place Daley put up an even more obscure figure, who averted danger to the Democratic organization by narrowly losing."

(pg. 26): "The grass-roots political activity of the citizenry and its inseparable adjunct, the entry into public life of non-organization politicians, is a constant threat to party organizations. It spurs political ambitions outside their control. It opens new avenues to public renown. It encourages outsiders to enter party primaries and gives them a chance to win. It opens to officeholders themselves the opportunity to win public support on their own and thus render themselves independent of the organization. It is therefore the perpetual endeavor of party organizations to discourage and even squash grass-roots movements.

"... The moment Republican and Democratic leaders saw Senators and Congressmen scrambling to address peace rallies during the October 1969 Moratorium, the two national party syndicates again closed ranks like a drill team. Spokesmen for the Democratic opposition became spokesmen for President Richard Nixon's Vietnam policies. Hubert Humphrey pointedly paid a visit to the White House to demonstrate his support of the Republican President, and the Democratic Speaker of the House, John McCormack, had a House resolution passed to do the same. Uniting against the peace movement at the exact moment when it began attracting elected officials, the two party organizations then "took the Vietnam war out of politics," as the newspapers put it, for the duration of the 1970 election campaign, although every poll showed it was uppermost in the minds of the voters. The party organizations did not do this because they were afraid of the peace issue; what they feared, as always, was the independent activity of free citizens. Not until the peace movement was dead did organization Democrats come out against the war."

J. Davis, in his review of this book gave another prime example. From his review:

" . . . In the state of Florida in 1998, half of the congressional seats were not even contested (several other "contests" simply have write-in candidates with zero chance of winning). This was despite the fact that both parties knew winning an extra seat or two might well determine who controlled the next Congress. Unfortunately, this fact is overlooked by not only the public, but all of the so-called experts on TV. Right now, the public perception still is that the parties fight like dogs to win elections at all possible costs . . . One quote from former Democratic speaker Sam Rayburn demonstrates this principle; when faced with a coming landslide for his party and a gain of many seats for his party, he ruefully says :"I'd just as soon not have that many Democrats, they'll be difficult to control." (emphasis mine)

If one were to expand on Karp's original premise it becomes even more relevant now than it was when it was originally published in 1973. MNCs and the 0.01%, the TBTFs and the MIC - these are today's "party bosses."

Those remaining members of the body politic still hooked on DOPE (Denial of Political Existentialism) can often see and understand the individual pieces, but not the big picture. Trees and forests. Once they understand their problem is more internal than external and rid their minds and bodies of the poison that now controls them, well then maybe, . . . just maybe . . .

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gR9JMwzxybE

Disclaimer - the preceding worldview is solely the opinion of the author and should not be construed as being an official forum position, nor that of its individual owners, creators, operators, forum members, viewers, passersby, DNC or RNC operatives, hacks, shills, trolls, agents provocateur ad nauseum and may contain a slight bit of sarcasm. In these waning days of the forum, don't judge too harshly, heheh.

"To understand something is to be liberated from it" (from the close of the must-watch documentary "Four Horsemen")

"In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way." President Franklin D. Roosevelt

"When a well-packaged web of lies has been sold gradually to the masses over generations, the truth will seem utterly preposterous and its speaker a raving lunatic." Dresden James

~BumpyTheSock~