Ls&Cs: How Big Lies are more easily believed than small ones; Supreme Court predictions

Two pieces about politics, but not for their political content, exactly. Plus an endpiece.

Salon, Matthew Rozsa, 3 Feb 2022: The psychological reason that so many fall for the “Big Lie”, subtitled, “There’s a counterintuitive explanation for why big lies may be easier to believe than small ones.”

…psychologists and sociologists throughout the twentieth and twenty-first century have been intrigued by the success of the Big Lie strategy — meaning a story pushed by a political leader that is clearly bald-faced, yet so grandiose as to make it hard to believe that someone would fabricate it. Indeed, it is an intriguing question as to why this works politically, and why so many millions are so quick to believe Big Lies — be it about voting fraud or Jewish conspiracies. The counterintuitive nature of the Big Lie tactic is perhaps what is most peculiar: wouldn’t a small lie be easier to pass off than a large one?

Not necessarily, psychologists say.

“Repetition is important, because the Big Lie works through indoctrination,” Dr. Ramani Durvasula, a licensed clinical psychologist and professor of psychology who is noted as an expert on narcissistic personality disorder and narcissistic abuse, told Salon by email. “The Big Lie then becomes its own evidence base — if it is repeated enough, people believe it, and the very repetition almost tautologically becomes the support for the Lie.”

(…)

“What’s especially helpful is repetition in a variety of contexts,” Bowers-Abbott wrote to Salon. “That is, not just the same words over and over — but integration of an idea in lots of ways. It builds its own little web of support.”

…

“You might think I’m kidding, but…. Nothing sells the Big Lie like novelty t-shirts, hats and banners,” Blanchard told Salon. “These items are normally associated with sports teams, not life-and-death political issues. But [former President Donald] Trump and his circle have deftly used these items to generate the kind of unbridled loyalty Americans associate with pro football.”

(…)

“As I said above, ‘belief’ is always predicated on usefulness, and useless beliefs do not survive.”

Lee compared disabusing someone of the falsehoods in a Big Lie to treating regular delusions. One rule: Don’t put them on the defensive.

“Confronting them, or presenting facts or evidence, never works,” Lee told Salon. “You have to fix the underlying emotional vulnerability that led people to believing it in the first place. For populations, it is usually the pain of not having a place in the world, which socioeconomic inequality exacerbates. Deprivation of health care, education, an ability to make a living, and other avenues for dignity can make a population psychologically vulnerable to those who look to exploit them.”

Trump critics are wary of comparing him to Hitler, but the article quotes a psychological profile of Hitler done in 1943 by psychoanalyst Walter Langer. His summary follows. Sound familiar?

[Hitler’s] primary rules were: never allow the public to cool off; never admit a fault or wrong; never concede that there may be some good in your enemy; never leave room for alternatives; never accept blame; concentrate on one enemy at a time and blame him for everything that goes wrong; people will believe a big lie sooner than a little one; and if you repeat it frequently enough people will sooner or later believe it.

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This one is especially interesting for its specific predictive aspect. We will see what happens soon enough.

Washington Post, Paul Waldman, 2 Feb 2022: Opinion: Republicans say they have open minds on the Supreme Court. Don’t believe it.

Before the nominee is announced, they’ll pretend they might vote for her, if Biden makes the right selection. Once she’s named, they’ll say they were disappointed in Biden’s “partisan” choice, but they’ll still claim they could see their way to supporting her, if she says the right things.

These will be lies.

But they will be offered without shame or hesitation because Republicans are so practiced at spewing unending quantities of baloney during every Supreme Court nomination process.

The foundational lie they tell during every confirmation process is that they have no policy agenda they want the nominee to pursue on the court. They merely want someone who will respect the divine wisdom of the Framers and won’t “legislate from the bench.” Even today, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) manages to say that “the cornerstone of a nominee’s judicial philosophy should be a commitment to originalism and textualism” without bursting out laughing.

…

When Biden picks someone else, [Lindsey] Graham will say with the deepest regret that he could have supported [J. Michelle] Childs, but he can’t go along with this person.

Inevitably, Republicans will resort to the “Look what you made us do” justification: We might have supported this nomination, but Democrats forced us to oppose her. Maybe it was something Biden said, or Democrats on the Judiciary Committee asking questions we didn’t like, or an unfortunate segment on MSNBC that really made us mad. Or maybe they fear she’ll “legislate from the bench,” a sin of which only liberals can be guilty. Whatever it is, it isn’t our fault.

Endpiece

(Already posted on Fb.)

Yesterday we visited the Berkeley Rose Garden, another place like last weekend’s Piedmont Park (described in my blog post of 30 Jan) that we had never been to.

Alas, I don’t know roses, and so perhaps I should have anticipated that, in February, it would be mostly bare. Most rose bushes cut back, only a very few in bloom, and those with wilting petals. Still, a nice walk. The garden is built in a natural amphitheater, a stream running down the middle, with lots of paths up and down, and a pergola running around the top. Two of three gates from the street down into the garden locked. Quite busy, despite the season. Across the street are playgrounds, lots of children. Nice walk, though we’ll have to go back in six months to see the roses.