THE FANTASY CRISIS TRIAD
How do high-conflict narcissists and sociopaths—our HCP Wannabe Kings—persuade so many people to vote for them given how dangerous and deceptive they can be?
We have learned that they communicate primarily emotionally and that the high-emotion media powerfully enhances their messages. But what do they communicate that makes people give them so much power?
First, they start by convincing you that there is a terrible crisis. They may believe it themselves or they may know that they’re making it up. Either way, the HCP’s strategy is the same.
In a crisis, we think differently than we do when we are doing ordinary problem-solving, because there’s no time to think. We just need to act. We fight, flee, freeze, or follow!
Also, in a crisis, we usually have to work together. In order to work together most efficiently, we need to have a leader—someone who can show us the way and tell us what to do.
In a crisis, we are willing to give up our individuality—to shut down our independent thinking—in order to save our skins. This is why every army has a chain of command that must be strictly followed. So, in a crisis, we follow the leader automatically. It’s part of our social DNA.
Stop Thinking
Here’s an example of how history’s most infamous HCP—Adolf Hitler—got the German people to stop thinking and believe in a crisis that was actually a fantasy.
Edgar Mowrer, an American reporter in Germany in the 1930s, reported the following conversation:
“Everybody in Germany knows that the Jews are our misfortune,” one of the Nazis replied.
“But just how? Why?” Edgar persisted.
“There are too many of them. And then, Jews are not people like the rest of us.”
“But in my country the proportion of Jews is much higher than in Germany. But we lost no war, have not starved, not been betrayed to foreigners; in short, have suffered none of the evils you attribute to the presence of the Jews in Germany. How do you account for this?”
“We don’t account for it. We simply know it is true,” the Nazi replied.
“Is that logical, is that clear thinking?”
“Ach, thinking!” the exasperated Nazi replied. “We are sick of thinking. Thinking gets you nowhere. The Fuhrer himself says true Nazis think with their blood.”
And this lack of thinking was everywhere.87
Hitler created a fantasy crisis with a fantasy villain—Jews—and a fantasy hero—himself.
Likewise, at Donald Trump’s presidential inauguration, Trump insisted that America was facing “carnage” (which he didn’t define). Then he uttered a classic Wannabe King line: “I alone can fix it.” (On hearing this, former President George W. Bush allegedly said aloud, “That was some weird s--t!”88)
Today’s real problems can rarely, if ever, be fixed by one person. That’s why modern politicians and presidents need to have many skills including cooperation, complex problem-solving, leading, and inspiring the efforts of others. They can’t just dominate others to solve problems in the real modern world.
Everything’s a Crisis
HCPs tend to see most crises—whether they are real or invented—in very simple terms: someone or some group is the sole cause (the villain), and that person or group needs to be controlled, removed, or destroyed. That person or group then becomes the Wannabe King’s Target of Blame. All of this is part of the HCP’s all-or-nothing thinking and extreme behavior. For them, problems don’t have nuances and complex parts. The enemy just needs to be destroyed or defeated.
In ancient times, when the dangers included a pack of wolves or a boatful of Viking invaders, this approach often worked. It was always an adversarial world, even for us humans: kill or be killed, eat or be eaten. In addition to having Targets of Blame just like modern-day HCPs, the ancient narcissistic HCPs persuaded everyone that they were the greatest of leaders and that everyone should follow them. The sociopathic HCPs conned people into following them and ruthlessly fighting their real or supposed enemies. As a result, they became the leaders of their villages and eventually kings of the kingdoms.
To persuade people to follow them, Wannabe Kings employ what I call the crisis triad:
• There’s a terrifying crisis!
• The cause is a hideous villain, who is totally evil and must be destroyed.
• We need to follow a wonderful hero, who will vanquish the villain and solve the crisis quickly.
This crisis can be entirely real, totally manufactured by the Wannabe King, or something in between.
High-conflict politicians seem to innately know this drama—and how to use it—in their blood and bones. They have an instinctive talent for declaring (or manufacturing) a crisis, defining a villain (or a group of villains), and promoting themselves as the heroes everyone desperately needs.
Although the crisis triad may have helped ancient adversarial leaders deal with some genuine crises, today very few real crises require us to stop thinking and simply and blindly follow one leader as we fight, flee, or freeze. Today’s problems often require research, analysis, and many trained experts calmly (as much as possible) working together.
Table 2 shows the difference between real crises, real problems to solve, and pure fantasies. (See Part 2 for the stories behind many of these fantasy “crises.”)
Fantasy Villains
Unfortunately, over the past thirty years, many of our movies, news sources, and political parties, in addition to our culture of blame in general, have taught us that our problems—including some of our real problems—are simply caused by evil villains. These villains might be specific individuals, foreigners, people who think or look or talk or live differently than us, members of the opposing political party, and so forth. With intense and frequent emotional repetition, the media essentially advertises (for free) the Wannabe King’s interpretation of events—their Fantasy Crisis Triad.
Fantasy Heroes
We’re also mistakenly taught that problems and crises are mostly solved by individual heroes. We’re mildly interested in groups of people who work together heroically, such as a platoon of soldiers in battle or the first responders to a natural disaster. But we’re especially awed by unique individual heroes—certain special human beings who are exceptionally powerful, insightful, strong, or talented.
Don’t believe any of this promotion. You’re being set up to follow HCPs and their simplistic all-or-nothing thinking. That’s where politicians, celebrities, and newscasters often eagerly join in. They tell us who the villains and heroes are—or, at least, who they should be. Usually they also tell us that the problem and the solution are simple, because they don’t have much air time to explain anything in detail. They then repeat and repeat and repeat these simple problems, their equally simple solutions, and the names of the clear-cut villains based on what they have been told by the HCP politicians they interview.
These Wannabe Kings also continuously repeat that they are the heroes everyone wants and needs—and the sole human beings with the ability to vanquish the villains. Because of the reach and speed of modern media, this simple drama then ripples quickly around the nation and the world. Even media outlets that recognize its bogus nature help spread it, because it’s considered news to be repeated—simply because it comes from a dramatic and compulsively verbal Wannabe King.
Over time, each Fantasy Crisis Triad feels more and more real. Eventually it takes hold, infecting us like a virus.
Two Responses to Human Problems
Our politicians regularly tell us how strong they are and how hard they will fight for us, which is fine: strength, commitment, and perseverance are all important. Often, they are precisely what we need.
Just as often, though, what we need instead—or in addition—are wisdom, creativity, nimbleness, vision, an ability to analyze complex problems, and a talent for building and maintaining alliances.
Although some problems can and should be solved by fighting and overcoming an enemy, most of today’s problems can’t begin to be addressed until people stop fighting. For our survival, we need to be able to think and act in both ways. Indeed, our brains are wired to operate in both. But not both at the same time.
Table 3 is a comparison of these two ways of addressing problems.
Table 3: Solving Real Human Problems
FLEXIBLE PROBLEM SOLVING |
CRISIS REACTING |
You approach the situation as a problem to solve or address. |
Your response can only be all or nothing—you fight, flee, or freeze. |
Your feelings are mild so you can concentrate. |
The situation feels dire and extreme, whether it actually is or not. |
You understand the importance of analyzing the problem. |
You intuitively understand that survival lies in fast action, not analysis. |
You see the problem as potentially complex, involving multiple aspects. |
You see the problem as bad or evil people who must be avoided or destroyed. |
You recognize the larger context in which the problem appears and understand that any response may have ripple effects and larger consequences. |
You deal with the problem in isolation from other problems, issues, and contexts. |
You see compromise as normal, so you are flexible and open to a wide range of solutions and approaches. |
You see compromise as weak, dangerous, and possibly life-threatening. |
You are able to manage your fear and anger and recognize that these emotions can interfere with making wise decisions. |
Fear and anger are all-consuming and can only be relieved by reacting quickly, decisively, and perhaps overwhelmingly. |
The way our brains are hardwired, only one of these approaches is dominant at any given time. We literally can’t access both approaches at once; that is how and why high-conflict politicians often trick us and bend us to their will.
Nuances of the Fantasy Crisis Triad
Most high-conflict politicians either invent a crisis or take a real problem that needs to be solved and blow it out of proportion into something far more threatening; people then confuse this conflated problem with a crisis that requires them to blindly follow the leader.
And that’s why it’s so important to scrutinize their ostensible villain and hero.
If the villain is clearly and simply defined—that is, Mexicans, Jews, Republicans, Democrats, gays and lesbians, China, Communists, corporations, fat cats, Muslims, fascists, political correctness, capitalists, or straight white men—consider this to be a huge red flag. The candidate doing the finger pointing is very likely an HCP. Remember their character trait of all-or-nothing thinking.
Another reliable sign of a Fantasy Crisis Triad is if the candidate discourages any real analysis, debate, or examination of the facts. That’s what Hitler did in the earlier example to get so many Germans to blindly follow him. He was able to distract the German people from thinking—about the absurdity that Jews were the evil and powerful villains he said they were—so they just believed him.
The biggest and clearest giveaway, though, is the third part of the triad: I and only I can solve the problem. The Wannabe King rarely talks about analyzing the problem and addressing it through cooperation, strategic alliances, or any other joint effort. Instead, they insist that no one else running for the office—perhaps no one else on the planet—has the wondrous ability to make everything better. They and only they do. Either vote for them or face certain doom.
In actuality, the Wannabe King usually has no clue about how to solve the problem, because it’s a fantasy crisis. They may never have thought about it. To them, that’s fine. Because they don’t actually care about the problem—the very problem they insist is ruining your life and putting the country in peril. All they care about is winning and gaining power. We will look at several real-life examples of this in Part II of this book.
Choosing Targets of Blame
After the crisis is identified, the HCP chooses a villain—just the right target. Then, they publicly and relentlessly hammer that target with derision. A malignant narcissist—an HCP who is both a narcissist and a sociopath—has just the right combination of character traits to do this: a complete lack of empathy, ethics, and remorse; an overwhelming desire to dominate other people and be seen as extremely superior; a preoccupation with blaming others; and a sadistic pleasure in destroying their Targets of Blame.
Most of us don’t strategically select our enemies; most of the time, Wannabe Kings do. Some do it quite consciously and deliberately; others do it reflexively and intuitively. But they always seem to use the same criteria.
A Wannabe King’s villainous group needs to be
Somewhat familiar to voters so that the villains require no introduction or explanation.
Relatively few in number, or living elsewhere, or otherwise not part of most voters’ daily lives, ensuring that most voters have little first-hand contact with members of the villainous group. They won’t really know the reality of most group members’ benign behavior.
Easy to define in a word or two, for example, Muslims, Jews, infidels, welfare queens, rich pigs, and so on. It makes no difference that it may be impossible to identify members of this villainous group on sight—or even after repeated contact.
Widely viewed as extremely powerful, when they are really weak, vulnerable, and a very small part of the population (typically only 1 to 3 percent) so that voters can hate them without much fear of retribution.
Already the target of some resentment, so that voters don’t need too much training to hate them intensely.
If possible, resented because of their recent progress or achievement, which makes it possible for the Wannabe King to blame the fantasy crisis not just on the villains, but on those villains’ success. This encourages voters to feel envious and angry as well as resentful.
Connected to money, finance, land, secret power or entertainment in some way, so the villainous group can be made to seem powerful and influential. If this connection can’t be made, the Wannabe King typically cooks up a conspiracy theory that declares the group to be secretly ultra-powerful, despite their outward appearance as a vulnerable group.
Conclusion
Fantasy Crisis Triads created by Wannabe Kings are effective at escalating emotions so voters believe in their fantasy crises, which escalates their level of fear and emotional decision-making. Because of emotional repetition from the HCP, voters who dislike the fantasy hero have absorbed that the fantasy villain (the opposing candidate) is also so bad that they come to think of both of them as equally objectionable. In that case, Moderates tend to vote for their usual party’s candidate, Resisters reject both opposing candidates by throwing away their votes on third-party candidates, and Dropouts simply don’t vote.
All of this is assisted by the high-emotion media, which tend to favor HCPs, because they are more entertaining and put more energy into building an emotional relationship with their viewers and listeners. The result is that the emotional warfare of HCPs is endlessly repeated and they are often elected.
To counter this, we need to repeatedly ask ourselves—and encourage everyone we know to ask themselves—these three questions:
Is this really a crisis?
Is this really a villain?
Is this really a hero?
In Part II we will see how the development of increasingly viral forms of high-emotion media has enabled HCP Wannabe Kings to promote their Fantasy Crisis Triads worldwide.