"Gaslighting is a tactic in which a person or entity, in order to gain more power, makes a victim question their reality. It works much better than you may think. Anyone is susceptible to gaslighting, and it is a common technique of abusers, dictators, narcissists, and cult leaders..."
"...They wear you down over time...They know confusion weakens people...They project...They try to align people against you...They tell you everyone else is a liar..."
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/here-there-and-everywhere/201701/11-warning-signs-gaslighting
TW: Our elections were held over two weeks ago. The results but for a handful of local races are well-defined. The results for Democrats were nationally far from ideal especially in the Congress.
Yet that is not enough for our gaslighting Potus abetted too frequently by many Republicans elected officials and far too many but not all conservative media. Daily now increasingly ridiculous, unsubstantiated claims are made which tear at the integrity of our nation, the integrity of anyone not agreeing with a Trump victory and ultimately the integrity of the majority of Americans who voted against this person.
He and his allies are engaged in a classic gaslighting effort. Read the characteristics (some of which were mentioned above), every single one of them are being blatantly employed in this effort to usurp American democracy and overturn the results of, not all the elections, just the one involving Trump. All the other elections where the Republicans won receive no mention. All the great results for the Republicans receive no mention. Just that one for some reason.
I see far too many on FB, pouring their own fuel on the Trump gaslighting. The Trump fan sites post every fact free utterance by the Trumpian gas lighters with tremendous adulatory excitement. Meanwhile individuals on FB post the missives of the crackpots employed by Trump with comments like "Hmmmm...Take your bets. Posturing or valid? If these claims of fraud turn out to be true, then this will be a mess." and "Relax everyone we got this" or "We have not fully engaged the enemy!"
And since FB and Twitter no longer provide sufficient validation for their increasingly unhinged beliefs they eagerly advertise their desire to migrate to MeWe and Parler, platforms with no standards and little regulation so that only the most conspiratorial will participate to reverberate the falsehoods with no counter-arguments whatsoever.
All of this can be as the Psychology Today article mentions, disorienting and depressing. But that is the gaslighter's goal. Frankly if folks want to burrow themselves even more deeply into a Trumpian echo chamber whose primary news source are tomes such as the Epoch Times (a den of conspiracy mongering associated with amongst other nutbags Steve Bannon), perhaps they should just move on, am sure Parler and MeWe can show plenty of cute pet pictures just like FB. In the mean time, we need to get rid of this Trump person so the rest of us can get on with our lives and our nation can resume its role as a rational world leader.
