Dance with the Devil

Original Epilogue

I finished the main manuscript of Dance with the Devil: Love in the Age of Covid in January 2021. However, the events of January, February and beyond resulted in my adding an epilogue that grew and grew concurrent with my alarm.

Admittedly, that epilogue took an unexpected left turn away from the primary story and social commentary on the dynamics of a relationship with a narcissist. Yet, it did fit in an unanticipated way. Despite feeling it was an important contribution to the conversation circa summer 2021, I allowed my associates to rein me in and ultimately after several rewrites, I published a much truncated version in the book. I even changed the associated song from Eve of Destruction to Times Like These.

The rationale for my self-censorship was the aggressive attacks on anyone who voiced any opinion that in any way cast shade on the sanctioned narrative, attacks which included censorship by technological platforms.

At this time, I think it is worthwhile to make the original unpublished version of my epilogue available here, as it is no longer so controversial.

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Epilogue 

2021: Eve of Destruction composed P.F. Sloane  (1964)

Narcissism in Government ¹

In the United States, 2021 began with a narcissistic president encouraging his army of flying monkeys to march to the Capitol in order to stop the ceremonial counting of the electoral college ballots prior to the installation of President Elect Joe Biden and Vice- President Elect Kamala Harris. Their leader told the army that he called to Washington on that January day that they needed to remain brave and strong, and that they were special and he loved them. He told them their loud voices could stop the crooked Democrats and disloyal Republican leadership who were set on stealing the election from him. This was triangulation on a grand scale.

Whether the thousands who scaled the barricades and occupied the Capitol were narcissists themselves who shared the president’s delusion or brainwashed and traumatized victims of his relentless repetition of debunked rumors that support his fantasy is immaterial. The result is that for the first time in over 200 years, the American Capitol was under siege and legislators had to flee for their lives. One of the insurrectionists was shot to death in the halls of the Capitol while three others died of medical emergencies in the melee. A Capitol policeman died later that night from injuries sustained during the insurrection.

Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Narcissists crave power and control. Their confirmation bias has minimal if any connection with reality. They confabulate, they make things up. Propping up their false image of themselves and never admitting to being wrong are what matter to them. They are delusional and have the capacity to draw others into their delusion.

Criminal actions and mayhem resulted from the narcissistic behavior of the lame duck president and his political cohorts which included many in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. Narcissists and psychopaths don’t care about the pain they cause to people around them. They break the law and violate accepted morality without remorse whenever it suits their agenda.

Narcissism in Medicine

Covid 19 is a human tragedy that has resulted in too many deaths and prolonged illnesses. It is a bonafide collective trauma event that also resulted in devastating unexpected economic and mental health consequences for millions beyond the staggering number of illnesses and high mortality. (Author’s Note: Evidence of data manipulation suggests the number of illnesses and mortality rates were inflated to fit the narrative from the outset, consistent with the pattern of narcissists to lie and confabulate in order to gain power in support their dystopian world view and grandiose false self image.)

Some countries fared better than others in the first wave of illness and death. By the end of 2020, it became increasingly apparent that all interventions intended to slow or stop Covid infections had complicated repercussions. No political party or medical authority had the perfect answer for managing this modern plague. We are all vulnerable to the virus and to the psychological manipulation of altruistic narcissists who believe they know the answer.

The vaccine as a magic potion narrative is seductive. It offers a semblance of control to the defenseless. The vaccine narrative has all the elements of a drama game - victims, villains, and heroes. And like all drama games, it is often difficult to tell who is who.

Like seductive narcissists, vaccine champions love bomb us with promises of an idealized fake future if we only accept the vaccine.² Many of us are skeptical of the Covid vaccine for valid reasons. Like typical naive and vulnerable targets for whom fear, obligation, and hope are their over-riding emotions, governments and media are ignoring red flags while assuming the role of flying monkeys for the pharmaceutical companies.

The vaccine promoters may be less overtly violent than those set on overthrowing the American democracy at the behest of power hungry politicians, but they are no less guilty of coercion and dishonesty. Also in the first week of January 2021, the New York Times refused to publish a reply from civil rights activist and law professor Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to a factually incorrect and defamatory article they had published which was written by his niece, Dr. Kerry Meltzer.³ The topic was Covid vaccines.

More than a few scientists, doctors, and critical thinking non-medical people warn that repercussions from the vaccine programs may be worse than the virus, whether you get the vaccine or not.

• Promoting vaccination with aggressive media and government reporting to counter what is pejoratively labeled vaccine hesitancy, vaccine skepticism, and toxic individualism denies the valid concerns of those with food and drug allergies or intolerances, autoimmune or auto inflammatory disease, or anaphylaxis. Vaccine promotion tactics are perspecticide intended to brainwash people into submission.⁴

• Being told every day by the media, public health authorities, and friends that serious adverse effects to the novel Covid vaccine are so rare that they shouldn’t worry anyone isn’t science, it is invalidation and gaslighting.⁵

• Listening to lawyers argue that businesses and schools are within their legal rights to deny access to anyone who is unvaccinated is a violation of boundaries and an attack on civil and human rights.⁶

• Changing recommendations from government and news reports about ‘injecting confidence’ into people that emphasize robust communication and building trust through education initiatives designed by public relations experts aren’t about vaccine safety, they are propaganda style marketing campaigns.⁷

The aggressive vaccine promotion at the dawn of 2021 by both American political parties and governments around the world is arrogant narcissistic behavior typically seen in totalitarian regimes. It is the antithesis of Light Triad qualities - ethical treatment of all people, respect for the dignity and personal agency of individuals, and positivity. ⁸

In short, the hypocrisy of those who reject racism and misogyny, celebrate democratic principles, and claim to believe in science and trust the experts while demanding acceptance of the sanctioned narrative of widespread vaccination with the novel Covid vaccine as the only solution to the Covid pandemic rattles many vulnerable and thoughtful populations who recall the words of George Orwell:

"In a time of universal deceit - telling the truth is a revolutionary act."

Closing

Not all narcissists are evil people, even if they all do harm, but Evil is arrogant, entitled, unempathetic, manipulative, coercive, contemptuous, and dishonest. Evil walks among us looking for opportunities to support its grandiose facade. Evil is a member of the Dark Triad. Evil, and the Devil, are narcissists.

God willing, we don’t discover in five or more years that the Covid vaccines caused irreparable harm to millions of recipients. God willing, we heal from the physical, economic, and psychological harms that were visited on the world because of Covid.

Ultimately, all any of us can do is gratefully learn the lessons of our past, mindfully live in our present, and bravely look to our future.

1. See the following reports from CNN:

• Joe Lockhart, “What Americans deserve to know after the deadly Capitol riot,” CNN,

  January 7, 2021.

• Chris Cillizza, “Why it's too late for Republicans to say sorry,” CNN, January 6, 2021.

• Stephen Collinson, “Fears over unstable Trump's fitness for office in final dangerous days,” CNN, January 7, 2021.

• Elle Reeve, Samantha Guff, Deborah Brunswick and Steve Almasy, “Inside the mob that swarmed the US Capitol,” CNN, January 7, 2021.

• Veronica Stracqualursi, “Former Trump communications director says President lied about 2020 election and should consider resigning,” CNN, January 8, 2021.

2. Future faking: A technique to gain control over others using imagined but unrealistic promises of reward. Narcissists promise a wonderful future in order to control their targets’ actions in the present. Vaccine champions abetted by the media claim that mass vaccination will get us back to normal. We will be able to see grandma again, go to restaurants, and return to lives that were upended in March 2020. After the general acceptance of that vaccine promise, some health experts including those at the highest level began saying that we’d still need to wear masks and socially distant well into 2021 and perhaps beyond. Most people are willfully blind to the moving goal post of when we could be less socially distant and abandon face masks. However, since the first Covid vaccines do not eliminate contagion but only reduce symptoms for an undetermined period of time in most recipients, social distancing and face masks, inadequate as they are, may continue to be considered as necessary protocols. If any immunity is possible, natural immunity from a continuously circulating virus will stabilize hospitalizations without the vaccine - perhaps as early as spring 2021 in America which makes the vaccine moot from a scientific standpoint. Nevertheless, from a psychological perspective, the magic potion narrative that gives a sense of control to victims will always be the preferable solution, however false it may be.

3. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., “New York Times Declines My Rebuttal to Defamatory Op-Ed on COVID Vaccines,” The Defender, January 5, 2021.

4. The speed in which the Covid vaccine came to market meant there were no long term safety studies. Neither were there multi-generational animal studies. Beyond that, the much hyped vaccines did not prevent infection or transmission. Limited studies by the manufacturers on test populations which excluded people like Julia, only suggested that the symptoms of infection would be milder in those people matching the profiles of the test subjects. There was no data on the duration of that effect. Pathogenic priming which could result in tens or hundreds of thousands of deaths and perhaps millions of incidences of autoimmune disease in the future is a real Covid vaccine issue that is documented in the scientific literature. Serious and potentially lethal reactions occurred on the first day of the December vaccine rollout in the UK and in the first week of the rollout in the US, including in people with no history of allergy. See Children’s Health Defense, Green Med Info, Mercola.com, MedPage Today, and Medscape for more information on the gaps in the Covid vaccine trials and subsequent government sanctioned campaigns to increase vaccine acceptance that ignore valid medical and ethical concerns

5. Public health authorities have confirmed that mental health issues such as depression and anxiety have been exasperated by the effects of the Covid virus and the impacts of public health measures to control the virus. The aggressive vaccine promotion campaign and indirect vaccine mandates are another assault on mental health.

6. See the UNESCO Universal Declaration on Human Rights, specifically the articles concerning bioethics and individual medical consent, two of which are:

• “In no case should a collective community agreement or the consent of a community leader or other authority substitute for an individual’s informed consent.” - Article 6 (2010)

• ”The interests and welfare of the individual should have priority over the sole interest of science or society.” - Article 3 (2005)

7. Essentially all news outlets promote Covid vaccines and dismiss criticism of the vaccine which is an example of perspecticide. Some occasionally report on vaccine issues, but skillfully sidestep addressing them in an example of gaslighting. See:

• Op-Ed: Why Did Fauci Move the Herd Immunity Goal Posts? - Scientists play a dangerous game when they tailor factual statements to promote policy goals, by Vinay Prasad, MD, MPH. MedPage Today. December 29, 2020.

• ‘TRUTH’ With RFK, Jr. and David Martin: Fauci’s Checkered Past, Moderna’s Warp Speed Vaccine, by Children’s Health Defense Team. The Defender. Nov. 9. 2020.

• New York Times Declines My Rebuttal to Defamatory Op-Ed on COVID Vaccines by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The Defender. January 5, 2021.

8. See bibliography for resources on psychology and dishonest manipulation of science, and Appendix for narcissism checklist

Maggie Russo is the author of “Dance with the Devil: Love in the Age of Covid”