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Gaslighting
Gaslighting

Gaslighting

A form of psychological manipulation that seeks to sow seeds of doubt in a targeted individual or in members of a targeted group, making them question their own memory, perception, and sanity. Using persistent denial, misdirection, contradiction, and lying, it attempts to destabilize the target and delegitimize the target’s belief. The term originated from the 1938 Patrick Hamilton play Gaslight and its 1940 and 1944 film adaptations, in which the gas-fueled lights in a character’s home are dimmed when he turns the attic lights brighter while he searches the attic at night. He convinces his wife that she is imagining the change. The term has been used in clinical and research literature, as well as in political commentary. Sociopaths and narcissists frequently use gaslighting tactics to abuse and undermine their victims. Sociopaths consistently transgress social mores, break laws and exploit others, but typically also are convincing liars, sometimes charming ones, who consistently deny wrongdoing.1

Gaslighting only works if we fail to recognize it. In her book Gaslighting: Recognize Manipulative and Emotionally Abusive People – and Break Free, Dr. Stephanie Sarkis details how gaslighters typically use the following techniques:

1. They tell blatant lies.

You know it’s an outright lie. Yet they are telling you this lie with a straight face. Why are they so blatant? Because they’re setting up a precedent. Once they tell you a huge lie, you’re not sure if anything they say is true. Keeping you unsteady and off-kilter is the goal.

2. They deny they ever said something, even though you have proof. 

You know they said they would do something; you know you heard it. But they out and out deny it. It makes you start questioning your reality—maybe they never said that thing. And the more they do this, the more you question your reality and start accepting theirs.

3. They use what is near and dear to you as ammunition. 

They know how important your kids are to you, and they know how important your identity is to you. So those may be one of the first things they attack. If you have kids, they tell you that you should not have had those children. They will tell you’d be a worthy person if only you didn’t have a long list of negative traits. They attack the foundation of your being.

4. They wear you down over time.

This is one of the insidious things about gaslighting—it is done gradually, over time. A lie here, a lie there, a snide comment every so often…and then it starts ramping up. Even the brightest, most self-aware people can be sucked into gaslighting—it is that effective. It’s the “frog in the frying pan” analogy: The heat is turned up slowly, so the frog never realizes what’s happening to it.

5. Their actions do not match their words.

When dealing with a person or entity that gaslights, look at what they are doing rather than what they are saying. What they are saying means nothing; it is just talk. What they are doing is the issue.

6. They throw in positive reinforcement to confuse you. 

This person or entity that is cutting you down, telling you that you don’t have value, is now praising you for something you did. This adds an additional sense of uneasiness. You think, “Well maybe they aren’t so bad.” Yes, they are. This is a calculated attempt to keep you off-kilter—and again, to question your reality. Also look at what you were praised for; it is probably something that served the gaslighter.

7. They know confusion weakens people. 

Gaslighters know that people like having a sense of stability and normalcy. Their goal is to uproot this and make you constantly question everything. And humans’ natural tendency is to look to the person or entity that will help you feel more stable—and that happens to be the gaslighter.

8. They project.

They are a drug user or a cheater, yet they are constantly accusing you of that. This is done so often that you start trying to defend yourself, and are distracted from the gaslighter’s own behavior.

9. They try to align people against you.

Gaslighters are masters at manipulating and finding the people they know will stand by them no matter what—and they use these people against you. They will make comments such as, “This person knows that you’re not right,” or “This person knows you’re useless too.” Keep in mind it does not mean that these people actually said these things. A gaslighter is a constant liar. When the gaslighter uses this tactic it makes you feel like you don’t know who to trust or turn to—and that leads you right back to the gaslighter. And that’s exactly what they want: Isolation gives them more control.

10. They tell you or others that you are crazy or dangerous.

This is one of the most effective tools of the gaslighter, because it’s dismissive. The gaslighter knows if they question your sanity, people will not believe you when you tell them the gaslighter is abusive or out-of-control. It’s a master technique.

11. They tell you everyone else is a liar.

By telling you that everyone else (your family, the media) is a liar, it again makes you question your reality. You’ve never known someone with the audacity to do this, so they must be telling the truth, right? No. It’s a manipulation technique. It makes people turn to the gaslighter for the “correct” information—which isn’t correct information at all.

The more you are aware of these techniques, the quicker you can identify them and avoid falling into the gaslighter’s trap.

Source: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/here-there-and-everywhere/201701/11-warning-signs-gaslighting

Political Gaslighting

In politics, the word “gaslighting” is increasingly used to describe the left’s efforts to push a false view of reality and to convince mainstream Americans that their common-sense views are somehow extreme. Bill Whittle’s popular video Gaslighting exposed the left’s use of the gaslighting tactic to spread false information about issues such as Benghazi and Obamacare.

Note that gaslighting is a far more insidious tactic than political spin. Spin merely attempts to shift the interpretation of a real situation by presenting it in a different light. Gaslighting presents a completely false alternative to reality and is intended to erode the confidence of the target in his or her own perception.

Imagine two people standing outside in a severe rainstorm.

SPIN: “You say this is a downpour? It looks more like a heavy sprinkle to me.”

GASLIGHTING: “You say this is a downpour? What are you talking about? It’s sunny and pleasant. Are you feeling OK? You’re acting a little strange.”

Because it presents a false picture of reality, two elements are especially important for gaslighting to succeed. First, those doing the gaslighting must display confidence and audacity in pushing their view of reality and must persevere boldly in the face of evidence that contradicts their claim. Second, the target must be psychologically isolated and denied validation by others who see the same reality. The left’s dominance in the cultural institutions of education, news, and entertainment has given them both elements.

Consider the video by the Family Policy Institute of Washington in which Seattle University students were asked if there’s a difference between men and women. Instead of answering, “You’re kidding me, right?” these students actually took the interviewer’s question seriously and, even worse, they struggled to answer it. Some went so far as to parrot the far left’s narrative that the distinction between male and female is merely a social construct imposed on people by society and that it has no real significance otherwise.

Has news about who has the babies not reached Seattle? Or have those students been so browbeaten by the gaslighting of their leftist professors and the leftist culture on campus that they are hesitant to admit publicly to what their own eyes, their own bodies, and their common sense tell them?

That is the power of gaslighting, and the left’s institutions have been audacious in using it against those who question their agenda.

In the left’s alternate reality, the police are threats to law and order and rioters are victims of the system. Mainstream Americans who supported Trump are ridiculed as “anti-immigrant” even though we made an immigrant our next First Lady. The belief that refugees should be carefully vetted in order to keep more terrorists from exploiting our generosity is attacked as “xenophobic.” And leftists casually use both “homophobic” and “Islamophobic” to attack their opponents without even a moment’s reflection on Islam’s position on homosexuality.

After all, in gaslighting, it is the effect of words on the intended target that counts and not the truthfulness or logical consistency of those words. If the target is isolated, demoralized, and fearful of opposing the left’s agenda, the tactic has worked.

One of the reasons for Trump’s Electoral College landslide was that he validated what tens of millions of Americans had been thinking in spite of the gaslighting efforts of the left. The light of liberty has indeed been flickering. We weren’t just imagining things. The political elite really did have an agenda other than promoting the interests of the American people. We weren’t crazy.

With their power threatened, the left’s gaslighting has passed audacious and become desperate. In 2016, a man who has never held elective office  trounced the Clinton machine and their echo chamber in the media. And what does the left tell us? The Russians did it. A blatant lie. (See HERE also)

The left calling Donald Trump “racist” while pushing a divisive racist agenda that goes back to the democratic roots, censoring the speech of right while claiming to be defenders of free speech, claiming globalism doesn’t exist, etc. These are some of the political gaslighting tactics of the globalists. Alex Jones and David Knight discuss the hypocrisy and censorship of the left, then explain gaslighting (beginning 23:45) in the video below:

When DCCC Democrats tell us that criticizing other Democratic candidates is creating disunity, that it’s divisive. It’s a talking point that is being drilled into establishment partisans, as well the more credulous Democrats who listen to these party mavens. So if we point out that Kamala Harris’s actual prosecutorial record is damning, we are being divisive. If we point out that Joe Biden is no friend to women or black people, based on his record, or that he takes mad money from corporate and financial interests, we are being divisive. If we note that Pete Buttigieg supported gentrification and attended meetings with the Center for American Progress (which actively and openly seeks to destroy the Sanders candidacy) . . . we are being divisive.

In other words, as long as WE (the establishment) employ millions of dollars and countless hours in the effort to torpedo the Sanders candidacy, Sanders supporters are to remain silent . . . in the interest of party unity. Anyone who’s seen this “flip” in personal relationships, knows how it goes. I hit you in the name of our marriage, but if you hit back, or even complain, you are the dis-unifier, the splitter, the divisive one. It’s just your (pick one) inexperience, maturity, or sanity that’s telling you otherwise.

Source: Townhall