Rant about hypocrisy and bullies
Virtue Signaling and VP Kamala Harris
This is rather rambling, but the take away is: It isn’t over. Bullies, who by definition have narcissistic characteristics, continue unabated by seemingly taking the high-ground with insincere virtue signaling— and they include voters and presidential candidates.
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In summer 2024, many of us are still dealing with former real-world friends who use social media to bully us.
My friendenemy, “Nicole,” loves posting about “strong women who speak their minds” and “respect.”
She defended Biden as “sharp as a tack” and a must-win candidate, posted screenshots from Wikipedia to “prove” Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. was a “kook” whose family has disowned him, and then when Biden withdrew from the presidential race in favor of VP Kamala Harris, Nicole posted that Biden did not withdraw due to cognitive decline. She then quickly transitioned to we MUST support pro-Choice Kamala. God forbid, she admitted what even Nancy Pelosi and the mainstream news media were forced to admit after the June Presidential debate, that Joe Biden is failing, badly.
All the while, the mainstay of Nicole’s comments on my posts were: all vaccines are safe and there is no evidence that the Covid vaccine caused any deaths or serious harm, except for perhaps one in a million, and that’s a “greater good.” She wrote that any doctor who says otherwise is a quack and any science to that effect is fake as she condescendingly commented on my ignorance.
Ad hominem attacks, intimidation and invalidation were her favorite tools. She told me everyone was mad at me, that I should “do something productive” with my time like “take up gardening” rather than spreading disinformation that harmed people, that she refused to read any science or other link that I posted because I was an “extremist.” Items she refused to read included my links to PubMed and SCOTUS.
In other words, Nicole is a bully.
When I agreed with Nicole that freedom of choice per abortion is an important medical freedom (a passion of hers), but so is medical freedom important when it comes to vaccines, she was incapable of seeing the similarity. When I told her that I have family who were disabled and died after the Covid shot, she laughed at me and parroted that vaccines save millions of lives and she’ll never change her mind. She repeatedly said she will not waste her time reading about things she knows are untrue, and she (an elementary school teacher aide) knows vaccines are safe because she has medical people in her family, i.e. people who work in hospital labs (a bizarre claim that I couldn’t address without insulting her, so I didn’t respond.)
She told me if I wanted a cause, I should do something “important” like support women’s rights or protest war or volunteer in schools. I said that, in my opinion, fighting for medical freedom re vaccinations and fluoridation was the most important thing I could do with my time. She wrote, “You are wrong. You need to just stop it. You are hurting people with your disinformation.”
The irony is that I have volunteered in schools, city government and community initiatives all my life. I was active in feminist politics and war protests in my teens (she is 20 years younger than me.) I am also an avid gardener, as she should know.
I twice told Nicole that since we can’t agree, I’d not comment on her FaceBook posts and she should stop commenting on mine.
You guessed it. When I posted something about the Republican National Convention being an inside look at the operations of a personality cult, and that the other two large American personality cults in play are the Democratic Party and the Cult of Tony Fauci, she couldn’t resist making a snarky comment.
I replied with content and mainstream media links regarding Fauci’s confabulation, testimony to Congress, and his “I am Science” self-aggrandizement consistent with narcissism. She persisted. I ignored her, but some of my other friends jumped onto the thread. Nicole responded to them with the following staples: “conspiracy theorist,” “crazy,” “absurd” in a two day exchange.
I admit it. Although I am the patient sort, I can be baited. I commented that I walked by her house recently and noticed weeds and vines taking over her front yard - that per her earlier comment to me, perhaps she should take up gardening.
She promptly blocked me. 😂
However, I knew it wasn’t over for her. In earlier threads, when I’d let her have the last word when it was getting heated, she not only had to have the three last comments, she’d go to community pages and post how she was being victimized online in order to virtue signal and garner support, i.e. she employed triangulation strategy.
So, since I am an administrator for a couple of FaceBook pages, I changed my identity and took a few peeks at her page after she blocked me. She bragged about using blocking to protect herself against someone who was attacking her, complete with memes.
Her commentary, which is intended to be hurtful, is really laughable. The thing that gets me is the virtue signaling1. It’s all hypocritical narcissistic projection that demonstrates a total lack of personal insight.
In addition to the above and similar items, my old friendenemy is posting at least half dozen memes a day in support of Kamala Harris.
I want to like Kamala, I really do. She is young, female, multi-racial and usually articulate. However, her record as California Attorney General isn’t as good as she’d have us believe. More recently, the turn-over in her VP office is alarming with her former staff making some serious claims about her lack of due diligence and bad behavior.
See the three items below:
1 - Tulsi Gabbard v. Kamala Harris (2020)
2 - Kamala Harris claimed she “did the work,” but a NY Times article claimed she was often on the “wrong side of history.” See “Kamala Harris was not a “Progressive Prosecutor’” by Lara Bazelon, The New York Times, January 17, 2019.
3 - Her reputation as VP is pretty bad. See“92% of Kamala Harris’ Staff left in first 3 years as VP ” by Monroe Harless, The Federalist, July 23, 2024
Kamala Harris’ office has had a staggering 91.5 percent turnover rate since she became vice president, an investigation revealed on Monday. Of the 47 staff members hired when Harris took office in 2021, only four reportedly remained in her employment as of March 2024.
Staffers in Harris’ office have reported a toxic work environment since 2021, when The Washington Post spoke with 18 individuals in Harris’ orbit. Descriptions ranged from “uncomfortable” to “soul-destroying.”
“One of the things we’ve said in our little text groups among each other is what is the common denominator through all this and it’s her,” former Harris aide and Democrat strategist Gil Duran told the Post. Back in 2013, after just five months of working for Harris, he quit. “Who are the next talented people you’re going to bring in and burn through and then have [them] pretend they’re retiring for positive reasons.”
“It’s clear that you’re not working with somebody who is willing to do the prep and the work,” a former anonymous staffer told the Post. “With Kamala you have to put up with a constant amount of soul-destroying criticism and also her own lack of confidence. So you’re constantly sort of propping up a bully and it’s not really clear why.” 2
Lacking confidence and constantly dishing out soul-destroying criticism while failing to do work that doesn’t appeal to them is a pretty good description of vulnerable narcissists. I doubt my former friendenemy will bother to look beyond the surface for three reasons:
Nicole, like many of us, still makes up her mind based on facile narratives and logical fallacies
Nicole refuses to do her homework and goes along with the in-crowd. She is not interested in facts or truth contrary to her world-view
Bullies like narcissists and other antagonistic personalities hang together, i.e. Nicole and Kamala are a match.
Maggie Russo is the author of “Dance with the Devil: Love in the Age of Covid”
Virtue signaling refers to the act of publicly expressing opinions or sentiments intended to demonstrate one’s good character or the moral correctness of one’s position on a particular issue. It involves showcasing one’s supposed moral superiority, often through social media, to garner approval and admiration from others.
Key Characteristics
Insincerity: Virtue signaling is often accused of being insincere, as individuals may express opinions solely to appear morally upright rather than genuinely holding those beliefs.
Grandstanding: It involves drawing attention to oneself by proclaiming one’s moral stance, often without engaging in meaningful action or substance.
Social media amplification: Virtue signaling frequently occurs on social media platforms, where individuals can easily broadcast their supposed moral virtues to a large audience.
Moral posturing: It involves adopting a moral tone or language to impress others, rather than genuinely grappling with complex issues or engaging in constructive dialogue.
From “How Biden’s Mandates were his Downfall” by A Midwestern Doctor, July 24, 2024
This same type of abusive behavior is going on in my community. It has also taken the form of organized harassment. A whole group will bully an individual. The people who participate apparently lack insight to the extreme. They are unwilling or unable to see how abusive their behavior is. Although they are basically pathological liars and bullies, some of these folks convince themselves they are doing something good. (Whipping up a hate mob and violating your neighbors rights, always a good thing, right...)
There are Nicoles in every bunch. She believes in her point of view. I believe in mine; I also have been wrong in my view point many times. She is the barbell to practice detachment and avoid the traps of defensiveness and reactivity that takes one down rabbit holes, it can easily get very petty. I can't believe some of the attacks I have received by men on anti-feminist sites, such as it is my personal fault that young boys are suffering in the culture, (I don't subscribe to ideologies, just fairness) and attacks on every site as a matter of fact. What a revelation! We don't have the kind of choices we all would like for candidates. I know the Republicans are engaged in a merciless smear campaign against her, detracting from themselves. The biggest issue for me, is how the new vaccine passports in five countries in Europe put in the works by Tedros will affect the entire world. Will the U.S. follow? We have other huge national issues, but they will have a different flavour if the U.S. is under the control of Global governance.