EXPOSE THEIR FANTASY CRISIS TRIADS
People like understanding what is going on in the world and they really like being able to spot patterns in other people’s behavior.
Some people may recall the moment in the 2016 Republican primary debates when Governor Chris Christie criticized Senator Marco Rubio for having a pattern of just repeating his talking points in response to other candidate’s comments and questions.
Mr. Christie had instructed the audience to listen for what he dismissively called the “memorized 25-second speech,” adding, with a twist of the knife, that it was “exactly what his advisers gave him.”
…
When it was his turn to reply, Mr. Rubio—inexplicably—seemed to fulfill Mr. Christie’s prediction, repeating the main idea of that same memorized-sounding speech about Mr. Obama. Almost word for word.
“This notion that Barack Obama doesn’t know what he’s doing is just not true,” Mr. Rubio said. “He knows exactly what he’s doing.”
Mr. Christie pounced. “There it is,” he said icily, turning to Mr. Rubio and jabbing his finger at him. “There it is, everybody.”267
The crowd then cheered Mr. Christie. They enjoyed learning about someone’s narrow pattern of behavior and then seeing it demonstrated right before their eyes.
From my years of experience teaching people about high-conflict personality patterns, almost everyone likes learning about personality patterns that they can recognize and behaviors that they can expect in the future. Most people will appreciate learning about the narrow pattern of the Fantasy Crisis Triad. Once someone learns about it, it’s hard not to notice it when high-conflict politicians speak. But while this can be enjoyable, it’s also very serious.
The key to explaining this is to focus primarily on the fantasy crisis itself more than the fantasy villain or fantasy hero. The fantasy hero and fantasy villain are mostly about two tribes and the attack-and-defend adversarial process. The fantasy crisis, however, is about reality. Facts and analysis usually clear up whether something is genuinely a crisis or a problem that needs to be solved.
But let’s start out by looking at why we shouldn’t emphasize criticizing the fantasy hero or defending the fantasy villain.
Don’t Emotionally Attack the Fantasy Hero
One of the big mistakes that many fact-focused politicians and their supporters make in response to a high-conflict politician is to point out how ridiculous he is. These disparaging comments are what makes the news, but they actually strengthen the HCPs relationship with his followers.
Remember that the high-conflict politician has taught his followers that they are the victims of a powerful, evil group of people—his Targets of Blame—namely, you and your candidate, party, race, organization, nation, and so on. The HCP teaches people that there are two groups or tribes: Us and Them. Their tribe has a heroic leader, the Wannabe King. At the core of their tribe are their Loyalists.
When you attack their leader, they feel that you are attacking all of them. From the start of their campaigns (if not well before), high-conflict politicians train their followers to respond angrily to their opponents, by yelling at them, chanting about them at their rallies, trolling them on the internet, and so on.
An example of this was described in 2009–2010 when the Affordable Care Act for healthcare considered by Congress was being presented to the American people. At one point, Alaska governor Sarah Palin dramatically said that the ACA would have “death panels” to decide who got healthcare and who didn’t. This was not true and was corrected in the media. Yet here is what happened next:
But the correction actually backfired among Palin supporters. … After receiving the correction, they became more likely to believe that the Affordable Care Act contained death panels. Ironically, the correction intensified their original belief. The study suggests that if members of an out-group support some proposition, their very support might entrench the preexisting beliefs of the in-group.268
This happened because the group had an emotional bond with a leader, rather than a logical, information-focused bond. They got energy from being attacked and responding together. This proves to them that they are on the same team as their loved leader!
This is the strongest human bond there is: joining together in battle against an enemy, working together against the enemy, while also sharing beliefs about the enemy.
In this case, Sarah Palin ran for vice president in 2008 as a Republican and, after losing, she built quite a following by waging war against the establishment of the Republican party as being the cause of many of her fantasy crises. For a time, she was considered a contender for president in 2012, but she eventually demonstrated her lack of experience and her inability to handle real problems. By 2011, even Roger Ailes, head of Fox News, said “she’s an idiot!”269
In their book, New Power, this is what Jeremy Heimans and Henry Timms had to say about the way that Donald Trump inspired his followers:
Trump became the leader of a vast, decentralized social media army who took cues from him—and who in turn fed Trump new narratives and lines of attack. It was a deeply symbiotic relationship. … He drove the intensity of his crowd not by insisting that they read his talking points, but by empowering them to activate around his values. Think of him as a Platform Strongman, mastering new power techniques to achieve authoritarian ends.270
The paradox here is that the more Trump is attacked, the more it strengthens his bond with his followers. It’s not just that they cheer him, but they also—using social media—share a common task in defending him online with the emotional intensity of an army.
People are often shocked at the power of the negative feedback they get from Trump’s followers in response to minor criticisms in social media postings or online news articles or opinion pieces. Pointing out their leader’s lack of knowledge feeds them with an opportunity for a war-like response. Here’s a dramatic example:
Strikingly, according to these social media analysts, the moment during the campaign that expanded Trump’s social media following the most was his campaign’s supposed nadir: the release of the Access Hollywood tape in which he boasted about pussy-grabbing. This moment, with much of the country lined up against him, caused his supporters to rally around him like at no other time in the race.271
The result of all of this, is that emotionally attacking the high-conflict leader
• Reinforces his narcissistic claim that he is being treated unfairly by his opponents, and needs to be defended.
• Strengthens his followers’ bond with him.
• Energizes his followers to fight for him.
• May make you look bad to the Dropouts.
• Changes no one’s thinking, as it isn’t about thinking—it’s about emotional bonds between high-conflict leaders and followers.
Don’t Focus on Emotionally Defending the Fantasy Villain
Since the high-conflict politician has turned the election into an intensely adversarial contest between Us and Them, when you intensely defend your candidate, you are fitting into his construct of the crisis. You feed the highly emotional contest, which reinforces blocked thinking and emotional reactions. It becomes about attack and defend rather than about useful information.
In addition, the high-conflict politician will always be better at attack and defend, because that is all they do and it is often a lifetime skill—a narrow pattern of behavior.
Rather than focusing on defending your candidate (the Wannabe King’s fantasy villain), simply explain your candidate’s skills, experience, and goals. Then, respond to the substantive attacks with useful information, often about the fact that there is no crisis and that you have information about real problems and real solutions.
An Informative Approach about the Fantasy Crisis Triad
What I am recommending here is what I have found works over and over again in legal disputes opposing a high-conflict personality. Take an informative approach, rather than an adversarial one, to teaching the Fantasy Crisis Triad to others.
Explain that the HCP politician appears to have a pattern of believing in misinformation about this situation, just because it feels true. But the feeling comes from high-emotion media and emotional repetition rather than factual information. The real problem is that this politician appears to have a Fantasy Crisis Triad.
For example:
Mr. ________ is misinformed, which is sad and dangerous.
He appears to believe that there is a terrible crisis involving [immigrants committing lots of crimes] [unfair trade with our neighboring countries] [minorities in our country who are out to get us] [some other terrible threat to our way of life].
However, the reality is that good research tells us that [immigrants cause less crime than natural-born citizens] [we don’t have unfair trade with our neighboring countries, but instead, when you include services, we have a trade surplus …] [today’s minorities are more like us than different from us—for example …] [the world we actually live in is much better or safer than the one Mr. ______ is making up]. In other words, there isn’t a terrible crisis. Instead [there’s a problem to solve, but it’s not a crisis; there are methods, policies, people in place already addressing it] or [it’s a total fantasy and unrelated to any real problem today].
BIFF Responses
Here is a simple way to remember how anyone can respond to one of the HCP’s false statements. It involves being brief, informative, friendly, and firm (BIFF). This is a method I developed for the High Conflict Institute that we have taught to thousands of people over the past twelve years. It has helped them deal with family disputes, workplace conflicts, and legal cases more calmly and productively. It really works to take the steam out of false or hostile statements.
BIFF responses can be used to effectively respond to newspaper articles and letters to the editor; Facebook posts, tweets, and other social media posts; angry or argumentative e-mails; and in-person discussions. They are especially useful in dealing with an HCP’s surrogates and Negative Advocates.
SAMPLE BIFF RESPONSES
Here are three examples of hostile messages you might receive from an HCP or one of their supporters, and some sample BIFF responses you or someone else might use:
ON IMMIGRATION
Fearful Citizen:
Mexicans are pouring into this country. They are rapists, criminals, and murderers. Your candidate supports a totally open border and eliminating immigration enforcement. Don’t you care about your country? Don’t you care if citizens get killed?
You:
I agree with you that not everyone should be admitted into our country or given citizenship. That’s why my candidate doesn’t support a totally open border or eliminating immigration enforcement. You’ve been misinformed, because my candidate supports a moderate immigration policy. We want to reward hard work and give reasonable immigrants a pathway to citizenship like we have always done. Lots of research shows that immigrants work hard and cause less crime.
The highlighted phrases in this example, and later ones, can be repeated over and over again in responding to many different hostile comments or emails on the same general topic. The more people repeat the same phrases, the more power they develop.
Fearful Citizen:
Trade agreements are ruining us! The ones the previous administrations have negotiated are the worst ever. They sent jobs overseas and destroyed our manufacturing. Don’t you care about the future of our economy and our workers? You must be a socialist!!
Campaigner:
I agree that our trade agreements are important because they can save us money and expand markets for us. You have been misinformed: the previous deals are not the worst ever and have been successful in many areas of business. Our employment levels are high now and our manufacturing is at an all-time high, although there are fewer jobs because of automation. Of course, trade deals can always be improved, but taking an all-or-nothing approach and throwing them out risks alienating our trade partners and destabilizing economies. As most employers will tell you, a stable world economy needs stable trade agreements.
In this example, more could have been said, but keeping it relatively brief is better. Not everything has to be replied to, such as the socialist comment. It’s best to avoid name-calling while making information the focus.
ON CITY POLITICS
City Attorney:
You’re the mayor and supposed to protect the city from bad pension plan agreements. But you have committed fraud in not protecting our citizens and our budget by allowing a bad pension deal for the city. Someday your fraudulent ways will be exposed. I am telling everyone I talk to at public meetings your fraud is ruining us! Your false and misleading statements will be exposed!
Mayor:
I appreciate the city attorney’s concern about the city’s finances. We are in a hard situation and I share those concerns. Several auditors have looked into some poor pension decisions that were made before my time, and none of them have reached the conclusion that they were fraudulent or criminal. So I hope you will join me, rather than focusing on the past, to focus on the future.
GENERAL BAD INTENT
High-conflict politician:
My opponent has only two interests: raising your taxes and breaking up your family. She’ll deny this, though, because she’s a compulsive liar.
You:
My candidate has no interest in raising your taxes or breaking up your family. She has made several efforts to support struggling families, such as her ______ initiative. You have been misinformed. She believes that the wealthy should pay their fair share of taxes, which should ease the burden for middle class families, unlike the tax cuts of the previous administration. Her opponent likes to make all-or-nothing statements like this to grab your attention. Next time he makes a statement about my candidate, watch for the all-or-nothing statements that provide no useful information.
BIFF Responses get easier and easier as you get familiar with each part: they need to be brief, informative, friendly, and firm. They don’t engage with the emotional side of the other person’s statement but focus on facts. When they aren’t triggered into their emotions, most people are interested in facts and will listen. This avoids the escalation of an emotional back-and-forth, while actually educating people about real life. Information turns fantasy crises into problems to solve and eliminates problems that don’t exist.
Conclusion
Responses that provide information rather than emotional retorts will defuse an HCP or his follower’s upset energy and sometimes even makes others more open to dealing with solving a problem. It’s also a way to simply end an unproductive conversation, which you may need to do if you are dealing with a riled-up Loyalist for an HCP—or the HCP himself or herself. For lots of examples and a more detailed explanation, see my book: BIFF: Quick Responses to High Conflict People, Their Personal Attacks, Hostile Emails and Social Media Meltdowns.