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@duty2warn

Mar 18

THREAD
1 - Before invading, Putin made assessments. One was that America was badly divided and fractured. Putin had experienced four years of Trump. What a godsend! Arrogant America electing a useful idiot! Without HIS assessment of OUR division, this war would NOT be happening!

2 - Putin's desire to reconstruct the USSR is an overstated narrative. What he is really obsessed with, is America, NATO, and most of all - Democracy. What's his goal? TO DIMINISH THEM. Why? Because if he can, the rest falls into place! Ukraine was the democracy on his doorstep.

3 - So after he saw the great America elect a moron, he saw the GOP willingly embrace his help i an unbridled lust to regain power. He's seen millions of Americans buy into false narratives and strongman propaganda. He saw potential for American democracy ITSELF to be controlled.

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Duty To Warn 🔉

@duty2warn

Mar 16

THREAD
1- Trump supporters validate who they are by "their beliefs." Well, that makes it easier! If you say you believe something and a lot of others say they believe it too, you think it's real. And who can tell you what to believe? Belief is emotional, requiring minimal thought

2 - Think about it - why work so hard to discern information and knowledge when it's simpler to seek validation for feelings? And it's so easy to mov from that to false equivalencies. "I don't believe in vaccines or masks" becomes equal to "I don't believe in Bigfoot."

3 - Once you adopt a belief system not anchored in truth, and you assign more importance to the belief than you do to fact, it becomes easy to do it again. And AGAIN. Before you know it, you're addicted to the validation you get from whatever media source confirms your beliefs!

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Duty To Warn 🔉

@duty2warn

Mar 15

THREAD
1 - In days leading up to Putin's invasion of Ukraine, Biden and Blinken were AWESOME and ON POINT combating Putin's FALSE pretexts for invading - WITH specificity, IN ADVANCE. This, along with compelling heroism from Zelensky and Ukrainians, created LOTS of global unity.

2 - Meantime, here at home, while most of the GOP changed their pro-Putin stance to a pro-Ukraine stance - purely and temporarily in response to polling data, there's still Trump, Carlson, Tulsi Gabbard, and a few others parroting and amplifying various Kremlin talking points.

3 - For our part as behavioral psychologists, we are continually awestruck by similarities between Russia (as to Ukraine), and the GOP (as to America). It's autocratic fetishization. And winning being everything. And rampant disinformation. In America, it's morphed into a cult.

Read 13 tweets

Duty To Warn 🔉

@duty2warn

Mar 14

THREAD:
1 - We need to take aim at our TRUE FOE! It's not Trump. It's not Putin. But it's a thing we HAVE to defeat! We call it TRUMPISM, because it echoes his malignancies, but it's a much larger thing than TRUMP himself. It keeps metastasizing. It's now a full-on apparatus.

2 - Enablers. Amplifiers. Grifters. Opportunists. Fox News. Talk radio. Right wing podcasts. Performative elected officials. Foreign actors, like Putin. Social networks like Facebook. It's spread like a plague, largely through fear mongering, to millions of our most susceptible.

3 - TRUMPISM emotionalizes, starting with fear. Then it places blame. Then it demonizes who it blames. And this produces hate. Lies become false narratives and then conspiracies. Projections. False equivalencies. We ALL know some people who were manipulated and co-opted.

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Duty To Warn 🔉

@duty2warn

Mar 13

THREAD
1- When we marvel or roll our eyes at Trump supporters, we're often asking the wrong question. Instead of asking: "How can they believe this nonsense?" Better we ask: "What do they get out of being part of Trumpism that makes them so willing to suppress reasoned thought?"

2- There are a lot of answers to the question of what they get out of Trumpism. First and foremost is "the need to belong." They can dislike and defy the same people, share common grievances, do stuff together. It's a brotherhood of purpose. It's easier to "believe" than think.

3 - We're often asked if Trumpism is a cult. The short answer: YES, it is. A cult is defined by an unusual, unwavering interest or belief in a particular personality or goal, where devotion transcends reasoned thought. And when you do that, you transcend science, math, and facts.

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Duty To Warn 🔉

@duty2warn

Mar 12

THREAD

1 - REMEMBER THIS and REPEAT IT often: The GOP is the party of Putin! Go back to the day of the invasion. Trump, the useful idiot, spewed Putin-friendly fuel on the fire. So did Pompeo! Carlson STILL does. Russian state media plays Trump/Pompeo/Carlson ON VIDEO LOOPS!

2 - Thank God for Biden and Blinken! They created solidarity in NATO. And the Ukrainians showed bravery. Putin stumbled and polls showed support for Ukraine. ONLY THEN did the power-crazed GOP change tune. Humanitarian reasons? No! POLLS made them flip TO Ukraine AWAY from Putin.

3 - The GOP cares for NOTHING above power! Oaths? Hah! Constitution? Double hah! Even though they act against Putin now, they know Putin probably isn't going anywhere, and they're thinking they'll wait this out and assuredly welcome his help interfering with US midterm elections!

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