Vincent Bertolini-Felice / 6.1.24 / “Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.”
-George Orwell
On October 27th, 2018, Robert Bowers made one final post to his Gab account. The fringe social media platform used mostly by those banned from Twitter, Facebook, and other mainstream social media networks has developed a reputation for being a hotbed for radical hate speech that would alert censors on large networks with extensive moderating networks.
On this Saturday morning, the account @onedingo made this post
“Screw your optics. I’m going in.”
An admittedly cryptic post when left as a standalone. Scrolling through the account would provide more insight into this vague message; the bio reading, “jews are children of satan”, would set the stage for an account plagued from top to bottom with incoherent rants riddled with slurs, accusatory threats about the state of the U.S. government, and angered comments about foreign governments and/or peoples.
Approximately an hour after Bowers made this final post, he would walk into the Tree of Life Synagogue in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and open fire with a Colt AR-15 Semi-Automatic Rifle. From 9:50 to 9:59, Bowers would roam around the synagogue, killing ten members and wounding six. He would engage with police and SWAT for over an hour, before surrendering at 11:08 A.M. Upon receiving medical care, when asked why he would commit such a horrid deed, he responded calmly, as if rehearsed, “The Jews are committing genocide against my people.”
Bowers story is a dangerous sign about the warnings of extremism, and the proliferation of violent rhetoric in modern politics, a warning sign to those ignorant of the impact harmful rhetoric can have in influencing abhorrent action.
While Bowers story is an extreme of an extreme, and in no ways indicative of the mindset of the average individual, he is a domino in a long line of fallacious brainwashing that has impacted millions of people throughout time and is arguably no more pressing than today.
In 1965, Jacques Ellul published Propaganda, a guide to the historical biases that are reflected by sources of power throughout history. Propaganda details the ways in which leaders from opposite sides of a political spectrum use similar principles to influence the masses. Stalin took an objective guiding material for the Soviet Union (The Communist Manifesto) and took the subjective interpretations certain individuals may have of it as a fundamental threat to the nation. Trotsky and his “revisionist” thoughts were the guise for his assassination as well as the ousting of several members of the Soviet Communist Committee under the veil of threats to stability. Hitler was able to establish a principle of the “master race” to justify the elimination of those who do not fit his perception.
However, the most important tool used by these two as well as many leaders throughout time is their isolationism at the extremes. A tale that feels truer now more than ever is that of the societal belief that one side resides in reality whereas the other has reclused themselves into a tunnel of subjectivity. It’s an easy belief to fall victim to, “The trans movement has gone too far”, “the right are cultists”, and others are mentalities that are not only easily attached to but vindicated by those people surround themselves with. After all, it is easier for three people to justify an atrocity than one and harder for someone forced to grapple with these thoughts alone to accept them. I feel as if it’s of the upmost importance for people to understand the ways in which they are both manipulated by those with a platform to conform to isolationism.
I hate cops. That may sound like a disconnected rant indicative of some political biases or deep-rooted trauma. The policing system within the United States is morally bankrupt and made that way by design. The subjectivity of situations police are left to requires individual police officers to use personal moral judgement to navigate these situations. To be a cop, it is inherent that you view yourself as a better perpetrator of moral judgement than the masses. This, when looked at through a statistical lens, is inherently untrue. Roughly 40% of police officers had been the malefactors of domestic violence (fatherly.com), around 15 times the natural average. According to Reuters.com, approximately thirty percent of violent crime cases involved misconduct, and over 3,000 were overturned in the past decade solely from the use of Case Integrity Reports. Approximately 2,700 police officers were arrested in the year 2019 (WashingtonPost.com), with over 85,000 active police officers being reprimanded for some sort of misconduct.
While this only reports about one in nine police officers perpetrating some act of misconduct, these statistics indicate an issue with the subjective view of oneself as the proper medium for morality and the just reality that they often fail to fulfill the promises they are called to do by the badge. This disconnect extends further than police officers and those in positions of power and seeps down to the lowest levels of society, infecting the individuals.
People are ultimately driven by themselves. That is not to say self-interest, rather a guiding principle that fundamentally affirms a perception of reality. This is not inherently a bad thing as it makes the most sense for us to abide by what we feel is objective. However, problems emerge when this is manipulated to redefine what we feel to the degree in which it redefines reality.
In Propaganda, Ellul details how this is subverted and redefined. Those who seek control advocate to the masses by calling out individually, made to feel alone in how the world they observe tangibly is different from the world they used to know, the world they can only see through rose-tinted glasses. They are made to feel misunderstood, that the world is trying to impress a dystopian reality onto them. Yet in this isolation, their only problem is they have been isolated from their savior; whether that’s a concept, an ideal, or a person, their only sin in being misunderstood is not finding this savior sooner.
This populist appeal breeds complete subservience to this person who can remedy their isolation allows their savior to buy an excessive degree of conditioning. If your life can be improved simply by listening to what this concept may have to offer, the means in which to accomplish this seem more reasonable. This promise of improvement can make any atrocity seem like a necessary step to accomplish greater means; the holocaust, the dictatorship of the proletariat, and any other steps of atrocity are already bought by the psychological conditioning.
Despite the amount of attachment bought in this line of rhetoric, it becomes increasingly difficult to maintain when there is not a threat that hinders the improvement of the followers’ lives. The vague promises of a never-coming improvement would eventually ring hollow if not for the immense degrees of internal and external opposition hindering the state from fulfilling its promises. The Orwellian conditioning of the state is no longer an outrageous step, simply a necessity to eventually better the lives of the masses.
This cements the cycle that every powerful body from authoritarian states to capitalist preservationists use to win the commitment of the masses to an imaginary cause that lives and dies with the will of the few and the powerful. The genius in this cycle can be seen in the 21st century with the widespread communication of the masses. The vindication of the “oppressed” many in believing that there was a constant threat to their way of life no longer necessitates a big brother to provide that affirmation.
The comments on Robert Bowers Gab page prior to the events of October 27th served to assert Bowers in his delusion.
“Someone just needs to take care of them.”
“(About the Charlottesville Klan Riots in 2017) Can only go so far (,) glad theres some real people out there”
Bowers was engrained in the illusion that Jewish people were actively involved in worsening the lives of the many. That a cabal of elites were conspiring against the true Americans and that some action needed to be taken.
Robert Bowers spoke incredibly fond of President Trump and cited him several times in many of his rants when speaking of the disenfranchisement of the Americans that deserved to be there. The rhetoric that promotes the promise of a future for those who don’t recognize the world they exist in had won over the undying worship of Robert Bowers as it has so many.
While most are incapable of acting even close to Robert Bowers, his story in belief is the same as many others. They view themselves as the objective source of truth in a deluded world, they are made to feel isolated as only a few understand them, only to be shown a light that can lead them to a group of many others who know the same truth they do. This light leads them to a crowded arena covered in a mono-colored sea of roars all ceasing at the command of the words that please them.
In writing this, I see no opportunity for my input to serve purpose in guiding the masses because like all victims of societal brainwashing, I have been conditioned to believe that I am the perpetrator of objective truth. I pray in my partial viewpoint; a reader is able to take away bits and pieces of impartial truth to reflect on the oligarchy that breeds division.
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