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When Someone You Love Gets Captured

The Beginning: Love Bombing Phase

You watch someone you care about get swept up in what feels like a positive movement. They start talking about how they’re finally around “people who get it”. Intelligent, educated, morally aware people who understand the real threats facing the country. They seem energized, purposeful, part of something important.

What’s actually happening: They’re being love bombed. The system identifies people who need validation. Maybe they’re insecure about their intelligence, maybe they feel powerless in their personal life, maybe they’re going through a difficult time. Then it floods them with messages about how special, how smart, how morally superior they are compared to “those people.”

Your sister posts constantly about being “on the right side of history.” Your college friend shares articles about how educated people understand what’s really happening. Your coworker talks about how they’re part of the resistance against fascism. They’re getting a psychological high from feeling chosen, enlightened, morally elevated above the masses.

The hook: They start to need this validation. Their self-worth becomes dependent on being part of the smart, good, enlightened group. Questioning the group would mean questioning whether they’re actually intelligent, educated, and moral. Something they can no longer psychologically afford to do.

The Isolation: Cutting Away Reality Checks

Gradually, you notice changes in how they relate to people who don’t share their new worldview. Family dinners become tense. Old friendships fade. They start talking about how disappointed they are in people they used to respect.

What’s actually happening: They’re being systematically isolated from anyone who might provide perspective that challenges their new beliefs. The system teaches them that disagreement equals moral failure – that people who question their new worldview are either stupid, evil, or both.

Your mom stops talking to your Trump-supporting brother at family gatherings. Your friend ends a decade-long friendship because their buddy wouldn’t agree that all conservatives are fascists. Your coworker reports colleagues to HR for having the wrong political opinions.

The mechanism: Every time they cut off someone who disagrees, they get social reinforcement from their new community. “Good for you for standing up to fascism.” “You can’t compromise with evil.” “Sometimes you have to choose between family and what’s right.”

They don’t realize they’re being deliberately separated from people who love them and know them well. The very people who might help them see they’re changing in concerning ways.

The Echo Chamber: When Reality Becomes Negotiable

Now they’re getting almost all their information from approved sources. Their social media feeds show them exactly what they want to see. Their friend groups all share the same articles, the same outrage, the same enemies. Everyone around them agrees that the threats are existential and the other side is irredeemably evil.

What’s actually happening: They’re living in a carefully constructed information bubble designed to reinforce specific beliefs while eliminating contradictory evidence. Algorithms feed them increasingly extreme content because extreme content gets engagement. Their social circles become echo chambers where dissent is impossible.

Your nephew can’t understand how anyone could support policies that are “obviously” wrong. Your aunt is genuinely confused about how half the country could be “so stupid.” Your former friend talks about Trump supporters like they’re a different species entirely.

The result: They lose the ability to understand how reasonable people could disagree with them. Since everyone in their information environment agrees the other side is evil, they conclude that anyone who disagrees must be either brainwashed or malicious. There’s no middle ground left in their worldview.

The Programming: How Normal People Become Weapons

Creating Moral Permission for Violence

You start hearing them use language that makes you uncomfortable. They talk about “fascists” who need to be “stopped by any means necessary.” They share articles about how violence against Nazis is always justified. They celebrate when bad things happen to people they’ve been taught to hate.

What’s actually happening: They’re being given moral permission structures for increasingly extreme behavior. The system has labeled political opponents as “fascists” and “threats to democracy,” then taught that violence against fascists is heroic. This creates a psychological framework where normal moral barriers to violence dissolve.

Your daughter cheers when she hears about political violence against “the right people.” Your brother talks about how some people “deserve what they get.” Your friend posts memes about punching Nazis without realizing they now consider half the country to be Nazis.

The escalation: Each step feels morally justified because they believe they’re fighting literal fascism. They’re not becoming violent people – they’re becoming people who believe violence is necessary to save democracy. The more convinced they become of the existential threat, the more extreme measures seem reasonable.

Authority Dependency: When Smart People Stop Thinking

You notice they’ve stopped thinking independently about complex issues. Instead, they wait to see what the approved experts say, then adopt those positions wholesale. They can’t engage with nuanced arguments anymore – everything gets filtered through whether it comes from a trusted authority or not.

What’s actually happening: They’ve been trained to outsource their thinking to approved sources. Independent analysis has been reframed as dangerous “conspiracy thinking.” Their education and intelligence, which they’re proud of, has been weaponized against them – they believe smart people trust experts and only ignorant people think for themselves.

Your spouse won’t consider evidence that contradicts what they heard on their preferred news source. Your parent can’t explain their political positions beyond repeating talking points. Your sibling gets angry when you ask them to think through the implications of policies they support.

The trap: They believe they’re being more rational by deferring to authorities, when they’ve actually stopped using their rational faculties entirely. Their intelligence now serves to rationalize predetermined conclusions rather than evaluate evidence. They’re smart enough to construct sophisticated justifications for whatever they’ve been told to believe.

Identity Fusion: When Beliefs Become Self

Eventually, you realize you can no longer discuss certain topics with them at all. Their political beliefs have become so central to their identity that questioning any aspect feels like a personal attack. They can’t separate criticism of ideas from criticism of themselves.

What’s actually happening: Their sense of self has become fused with their political positions. They’re psychologically unable to consider that they might be wrong because being wrong would mean their entire identity is based on lies. The sunk cost of their investment in these beliefs makes changing course feel impossible.

Your child cuts you off entirely because you won’t agree that all Republicans are evil. Your longtime friend ends your relationship over a single conversation about politics. Your family member sees any attempt at discussion as evidence that you’re trying to hurt them personally.

The tragedy: They genuinely believe you’re the one who’s changed, who’s been brainwashed, who’s become dangerous. From their perspective, they’re protecting themselves from people who’ve become threats to everything they value. They don’t know they’re the ones who’ve been systematically changed.

The System: How It All Works Together

The Perfect Psychological Storm

This isn’t happening by accident. Every piece is designed to work together:

• Social media algorithms that reward emotional content and create filter bubbles
• Educational systems that teach deference to authority rather than independent thinking
• Media institutions that coordinate messaging across platforms
• Political leaders who provide the authoritative voice for what to believe
• Peer pressure systems that make dissent socially costly

Your loved one isn’t stupid or weak – they’re responding normally to an abnormally sophisticated manipulation system. The same intelligence and moral instincts that make them good people have been hijacked and redirected.

Why Smart People Fall Hardest

The cruelest irony is that intelligence often makes people more vulnerable, not less:

• Smart people are more confident in their reasoning abilities
• Educated people have been taught to trust institutional authorities
• Successful people assume they can’t be manipulated
• Moral people want to fight against injustice and evil

The system specifically targets these strengths and turns them into weaknesses. Your brilliant friend’s intelligence now serves to rationalize predetermined beliefs. Your educated parent’s trust in institutions makes them vulnerable to institutional capture. Your successful sibling’s confidence makes them dismiss the possibility they’re being manipulated. Your moral child’s desire to fight evil makes them willing to use evil means against people they’ve been taught are evil.

The Human Cost

This isn’t just about politics – it’s about the destruction of human relationships and communities:

• Families torn apart by manufactured political divisions
• Friendships ended over disagreements that used to be manageable
• Communities fractured into hostile ideological camps
• Children turned against parents and parents against children
• Marriages destroyed by political manipulation
• Trust eroded between people who used to love each other

The people doing this know exactly what they’re doing. They understand they’re destroying the social fabric that holds communities together. They’re willing to sacrifice human relationships, family bonds, and social trust to maintain political power.

Recognizing When Someone You Love Is Being Targeted

Early Warning Signs

• They start using language that doesn’t sound like them – political buzzwords, phrases they never used before
• They begin cutting off people they used to care about over political disagreements
• They become unable to explain their positions beyond repeating talking points
• They start seeing complex issues in purely black and white terms
• They express surprise or anger that people they respect disagree with them
• They begin treating political positions as moral litmus tests for human worth

The Progression

Stage 1: They join what seems like a positive movement with good people who share their values Stage 2: They start judging others harshly for not sharing those values Stage 3: They begin cutting off relationships with people who disagree Stage 4: They become unable to tolerate any questioning of their beliefs Stage 5: They see people who disagree as enemies rather than fellow humans Stage 6: They support or celebrate harm coming to people they’ve been taught to hate

When to Worry

You should be genuinely concerned when someone you love:

• Celebrates or justifies political violence
• Talks about other humans as subhuman or deserving of harm
• Cannot maintain relationships with people who disagree politically
• Shows no empathy for suffering of people on the “wrong side”
• Expresses support for authoritarian measures against political opponents
• Talks about other Americans as enemies who need to be defeated rather than fellow citizens

Fighting Back: How to Help Someone You Love

What Doesn’t Work

• Arguing facts: They’re not operating from a fact-based worldview anymore
• Showing contradictions: Their beliefs aren’t based on logical consistency
• Appealing to past relationships: They’ve been taught that loyalty to family/friends is less important than political loyalty
• Using their own sources against them: They’ll just find ways to rationalize contradictions
• Getting angry or frustrated: This confirms their belief that you’re the problem

What Might Help

Stay connected: Don’t cut them off even when they try to cut you off. Isolation makes the manipulation stronger.

Ask questions rather than making statements: “Help me understand why you believe that” works better than “You’re wrong about that.”

Appeal to shared values, not positions: Talk about kindness, family, community – things you both still care about underneath the political programming.

Share your own confusion and concern: “I’m worried about how angry politics is making everyone” rather than “You’ve been brainwashed.”

Model the behavior you want to see: Show them it’s possible to disagree politically while still loving each other as humans.

Be patient: Deprogramming takes time, and it usually requires the person to have negative experiences with their new belief system before they’re ready to question it.

Why it Matters for Everyone

This isn’t happening to “other people” – it’s happening to people you know and love right now. The political manipulation system succeeds by destroying human relationships and communities. It turns neighbors into enemies, friends into opponents, families into battlegrounds.

Understanding how the manipulation works isn’t about winning political arguments. It’s about recognizing when people you care about are being psychologically harmed, and finding ways to protect those relationships from a system designed to destroy them.

Your love for the people in your life might be the most important resistance to this manipulation that exists. Don’t underestimate its power, and don’t give up on the people who matter to you, even when they seem to give up on you.

The system wants you to hate each other. The most radical act might be refusing to stop loving the people they’ve taught you to see as enemies.