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Jane's avatar

Ditto, Ruth, a great analysis on the psychology of cult followers going to extremes to save face, and this also provides guidance for those who are grieving loss of family and friends who’ve been seduced into the Trump/Q cult(s). Personal story: my daughter is getting married next week. Her fiancé is estranged from his family, all of whom are Trump followers. Vaccinations and masks are required for our wedding guests, but all 6 of his family members refuse to get vaxed. So they’re no longer invited- a call my daughter and I made with *no lectures* about the dangers of being unvaxed attached.

This is so painful for my future son-in-law, as he’d like his family to be present for this joyous day…but he’s trying to move toward accepting that they’ve so stubbornly backed themselves in a corner- in their need to save face —-that they’re going to miss a celebration that they’ll never get back. The healthiest thing he can do is to detach with love, so bitterness doesn’t own him — That’s a lot of emotional labor, and we’re trying to be as supportive as we can be. Maybe some day they’ll come around - if they notice what they’re losing out on. But we’re not holding our breath.

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Joel Denney's avatar

"One of the saddest lessons of history is this: if we have been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We're no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It's simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we've been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back."

--Carl Sagan

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