Denialism is A Strategy. It is a Conscious Choice in…
By: Jack Rainier Pryor
Tags: Covid 19, Mental Health, Politics, Climate Change, Self Care

It’s Not About Freedom. It’s About Power and Control.

Source: Amazon

Revised Nov. 11, 2020.

Widespread conspiracy theories. Disbelief in fact and scientific reasoning. Suspicion of experts. Targeted suppression of marginalized individuals and groups. Gaslighting on a mass scale.

These are the themes of our times. These are the actions of power and control abuse.

From systemic racism, to COVID-19, to vaccines, to climate change, to natural selection, and to even an ellipsoid Earth, deniers distort, subvert, and obfuscate both honest debate and forward progress on these issues and more. They even deny the existential threats to their nations.

A common counterargument to all these obtuse, obfuscating, and false positions is that its messengers are deluded, cultist, tribal, and furthermore bamboozled.

What if I posited something else to you? What if these folks who disbelieve in empirically supported facts and theories weren’t joking? That they weren’t tricked into it either? Consider instead they have staked out these positions because their disbelief is dependent on the pertinent factor being untrue.

Denial is powerful. It’s a fundamental coping skill involved with trauma and grief. Denial lets the aggrieved sort out their routines in preparation for the coming stages. In denial, people realize the shock, but it hasn’t landed yet.

As psychologist, Dr. Heather Neill, states,“Denial is a defense mechanism, and it’s an instant, non-reflective process” (2020).

Deniers though are using rationalizations — like the examples described in this article — to justify power and control behaviors. While denial is a stage of grief, denialism is different. It is psychological abuse. Perpetrated en masse, it is a power and control strategy.

It’s common to label deniers as fools. I propose a person isn’t fooled into taking outrageous stands like the Sandy Hook shootings being faked or the September 11th attacks being planned by the US government. One is coached into believing them, for sure, but grooming is not the same as tricking.

Grooming is a process where you convince someone slowly, so in a while you don’t have to trick them at all. They’re ready to accept the lie willingly. There are numerous examples of grooming out there, but when it comes to neurotypical adults with full, legal agency? Ones spreading baldfaced lies? Ones making conspiratorial charges toward their enemies? Ones claiming there are “illegal” and “legal” votes — and the legal ones just happen to only count for their leader?

There has to be a significant position which is aided by their disbelief. That position is power and control.

COVID-19 and the Sinister Dangers of Denialism

Consider a typical COVID-19 denial stance. Usually it goes like this:

“COVID-19 is either…”

a) a hoax

b) a bioweapon created by China’s government or a Chinese company

c) a milder disease, like seasonal flu

d) any of the above

The denier’s position is staked on the predicate that COVID-19 has to be any or all of these options. They have been groomed into taking one of these or option “d”.

Deniers are convinced that the economy is being destroyed by lockdowns. Their freedom is infringed by wearing masks. That social distancing is mass social control. These positions are a false dilemma. They were groomed to accept them by powerful & political entities who need them to believe it.

The powerful need people scared for their homes and food supply, so they will want to reopen businesses and go back to work. They need people to care about this more than the probability of catching COVID-19. Therefore a COVID-19 denier’s position rests on the disease being less contagious, less dangerous, or outright fake.

Consider how particularly insidious the essential worker status is in this situation:

There is no federal level pandemic planning or team as of Nov. 2020, to study and qualify worker essentiality. Pres. Trump dissolved that team. There were millions working at their job sites, putting their health at risk under the auspices of essentiality. After lockdowns ended, most people returned to work and school. Exposure, spread, and infection rates have topped 100,000 new cases per day, as of Nov. 2020.

This sinister abuse of power has allowed corporations to force workers to the office. It has meant service workers cutting hair, serving food, and pouring coffee for unmasked customers, inside facilities incapable of supporting social distancing postures.

It has meant hospice, nursing home, and in-home caregivers coming into regular contact with the immunocompromised, the disabled, and elderly, the ones most susceptible to COVID-19 infections and death.

“Essential” now includes school teachers, who are responsible for the students pouring into schools across the country. Most school buildings were never planned for social distancing. Often schools are older structures with poor ventilation, especially in poorer districts.

Schools have scrambled late into rolling out remote learning, because of neglectful and absentee leadership — all of whom are empowered by their toxic relationship with deniers.

Further locking deniers into their positions is the belief that government is inherently tyrannical and dysfunctional, and thus incapable of helping people. That the only way to beat this disease is to exercise personal choice and individual responsibility. This take exempts the powerful from culpability for their shortfalls, ignorance, and greed. The powerful run government. They need deniers to believe the government is broken by nature, and that is an untreatable character defect.

Louis Gohmert, a US Congress Representative caught COVID-19 in late July 2020, and he hasn’t changed his positions on the pandemic. He has alluded to COVID-19 conspiracy theory and used xenophobic rhetoric about the disease. On August 5, 2020, a Georgia school student caught COVID-19 the day after schools reopened. Georgia state Governor, Brian Kemp has not reversed his position on masking orders. He sued Atlanta mayor, Keisha Bottoms for implementing a citywide mandate.

South Dakota Governor, Kristi Noem and North Dakota Governor, Doug Burgum have refused to implement mask orders or other measures. Neither has Nebraska.

Last summer, Gov. Pete Ricketts had threatened to withhold CARES Act funds from any city or county which imposed one. He has threatened to sue Douglas County, whose officials are considering a local mask order. Omaha has issued one and renewed it through February 2021. As of November, Ricketts has still refused to implement a statewide mask order — even after coming into contact with an infected person.

What does this mean? It means…

Deniers are validated by terrible leadership. They can see the actions of these politicians, argue the government is useless, and only individuals can counteract the pandemic. Their resolution then is to force people back to work. Of course, there have been workers active this whole time.

Deniers are unmoved by empiricism. It is not enough to provide qualified data and evidence. They will cherry pick only the data which fits their narrative, while rejecting the rest.

Deniers are not persuaded by empathy. A denier reserves none for anyone who doesn’t agree with them. They are suspicious of others as a rule. It is a fool’s errand to entreaty, cajole, or entice a denier. They already see your attempts as patronizing transactions meant to demean them.

Recovery empowers denialism. It gives deniers a reason to state the disease isn’t that bad, while minimizing 240,000+ American deaths (Figure dates from Nov. 11, 2020).

The denier’s position is dependent on people worrying about their personal needs more than infection risk and community good. They want people to believe government is inherently inept. The sinister outcome: mass confusion and fear. Denialism is a power and control strategy geared to this outcome.

If people believe their government is broken and corrupt not as a matter of circumstance but by nature, then they don’t question why government is failing them. They don’t ask why there aren’t better options than going to work and sending their children to school, despite the observable and measurable actions taken in other countries which produced better results than in the United States.

Why Denialism Aides Power and Control

Why do deniers hold onto dangerous positions like these, despite being told by qualified information sources, direct and personal observation, and even personal experience with calamity itself?

On a personal level — i.e. people you know — the locus of their very identity depends on reality being untrue. It’s a self-preservation move with destructive results but they refuse to budge. They feel powerless and denialism gives them the illusion of power and control.

Deniers in your family or local community have woven their denialism into their identity and worldview. They’ve shaped their community and relationships with it. This makes denialism a strategy to protect all of these. It’s a strategy to gate-keep from outsiders, gaslight the insiders, and attack intruders.

On a systemic level, denialism is used by authoritarians to gaslight and demoralize people. This lets them swindle, dismantle, and defraud communities and nations. Systemic rot requires systemic reform and resistance. It can’t be accomplished by individuals or small groups alone.

Redemption from Denialism is Hard

For someone to cease denialism, they have to be willing to change. Deniers have been abused themselves, just like in any other dysfunctional system or relationship. Self-awareness and courage are needed to develop the will to leave an abusive situation. Leaving denialism is a process, not an act. It’s akin to leaving a cult or an abusive spouse.

A human being’s basic needs involve comfort and shelter within a community or family. Losing the known is terrifying. Entering the unknown requires support, empathy, and strength from a new network.

Like with denial in grief, a denier has to open up and confront their changed world. They have to be ready to move to the next stage.