How about you?
Called up a friend I haven’t been in touch with for a year or so. Old norm you could do that and it would be all about catching up and carrying on as though the time and distance didn’t matter.
New norm political-in-speak and “don’t you agree” openings.
Gap too vast.
Me: No. I don’t think society would be better under matriarchy.
Gap too vast.
Friend: Well you have to agree with, political point followed by the hate display of “opposing” party. Don’t you?
Hm… One Part >> my era of bootcamp >> Desert Storm. – Training included not having a political preference, because the pledge was to the office and not the person. The pledge was to the Declaration, The Bill of Rights, the nation’s flag, to ALL the people of the nation. The identity was Sailor. Nothing more, nothing less.
One part. I really just wanted to catch up and talk about art. Crushing to have to fit into such a small box to be accepted by an old friend.
I could go on and map the entire “purity test” ; Summarize: I failed. (call you tomorrow never happened) it just gets sadder. So much hate.
(What a hate-filled bubble they must be in if this is how and what they bond-on.)
My friend wont see it about themselves, so busy pointing accusations “Hate-filled ?? Me? No!! It’s Those people Over There!! That boogeyman the TV told me to fear.”
>That person with a different view. That person who was allowed to just be themselves over there doing their lives >> before my friend got radicalized.
Just another stranger on the bus. Just a human like the rest of us. With a different life, a different view, different beliefs, different values, different goals, dreams, ambitions.
Suddenly Now I have to be Afraid of those people because there are the “other side”!!! Boogeyman boogeyman!!
Now she is afraid, because SUDDENLY out of nowhere her friend (she used to like me for my uniqueness) BECAME one of the monsters!
Scenario 2
It was time to build a new cap and the thread I owned was too weak to stitch the bill in place. New thread required. Closest, doesn’t offer beyond basic. I figured I could look for a specialty shop. I know, like any hobbies/craft shop there is a good chance of making friends, >>sewing friends. Group projects, classes etc.
I admit I never wanted to wear the MASK. Not one day of it > was I “okay”< with the whole social experiment, or being an involuntary guinea pig.
>I get that people are immunocompromised.<
I also get that the responsibility of their welfare is on them, not the entire rest of the world.
AND the sign” requested” and not required… I don’t even have a mask in the glove box, not anymore. I really did consider just driving to the name brand a few towns over.
AND when seeing this sign I in future will not just go in and see.
When they Show You… Believe them.
I’ve written this story a few times. Play by play as best as I could recall, looking for the TRIGGER moment. Not while browsing, (although she did not come within 6ft of me) > Not picking the thread I required. Not signing on to the e-mail list. Not while ringing out.
I noticed her shirt. Olive green t-shirt with tan words. My brain registers Marine, (Army would use black ink with words) My brain does not process the slogan on her chest. She stretches the shirt to fully display, pointing at her logo ownership on the slogan, which I am head tilted confused by, and sounding out the words, “If you are not terrified by now, then YOU terrify me.”
Not to support the troops as the color code primed.. (edit: not military… militant) [Terrified Militant] Nope.
My brain is still jamming, and part of my mind really wants this to be about terror-birds and hoping the big reveal is on the back of the t-shirt advertising a museum exhibit near-by…oh please!!
Because.. Even as a militant… terrified isn’t the stance.
She did me the favor stating, “It’s for No Kings Day” as though that would clarify my confusion.
Followed by asking if I had witnessed something a government organization had done (in the news) which is what made me realize the “No Kings” had something to do with America.
Me: Yeah. We settled that back in 1776, was Not the Right Answer.
The AUDACITY of me.
She outlined a brief history of her protest club/subversive organization and its agenda.
Make posters. Scream at traffic.
Me: I don’t see protest as an effective route towards change. More a Direct Action, kind of girl.
She had no interest in doing grassroots work, outreach, or entering politics.
Instead: hate rhetoric, hate rhetoric, and boogeyman (tyrant flavored.)
Me: I agree. That Last Administration did a number on our country! was Not the right answer.
Turns out she only wants to subvert the “opposition.” [Terrified Militant]
(sigh)
She had Talking Points. I’m picturing the tri-fold brochure training manuals for her “movement” and pretty sure she nailed it verbatim.
Me: In rapid counterpoints, indicated on fingertips. Returning to the index finger bullet point 1 to outline and elaborate citing at least 3 sources older than the previous admins re-scripting and in-speak. Moving to the middle bullet point and give it the same treatment. I got to pinky and realized…
I WAS TERRIFYING HER.
Her paper mask was fluttering in a hyperventilating way.
>>> I’m looking at a human completely INCAPABLE of being in the same space with people who are different, believe different, value different, have different kinds of lives.<<<
I asked if she was okay? … if I was disturbing her.
It SEEMED like she wore the slogan to encourage discourse. ?!
Body ridged she obviously shut down to chatting further and squeaks out a submissive, “I’m listening.”
I offered to remove myself from her e-mail list and return the product.
She repeats “I’m Listening.”
(sigh)
When they SHOW you. Believe them.
Lets try this article again with less coddling the abus-ive please. footnotes instead of disclaimer pls and ty.
Roll it Robot.
[O_O]
When Home Grooms for Submission: How Bullies Recreate Their Own History on Fresh Targets
Summary
There’s a pattern that shows up whether the setting is a living room, an office, or a comment section: someone who was once made to submit — through fear, humiliation, or control — turns around and demands the same submission from someone smaller, softer, or less defended than they are. The demand rarely arrives labeled as what it is. It shows up dressed as concern, as accountability, as protecting the group from a “threat.”
Whatever drove them to it originally, the act itself is a choice, made by an intact mind that knows the difference between cruelty and kindness and picks cruelty anyway.1
What makes this hard to watch is the hypocrisy built into it: the same people who invoke “punching up” or “speaking truth to power” are, in these moments, doing the exact opposite — grouping up against someone with less power, less standing, less capacity to defend themselves, and calling it justice. They know what they’re doing.
People know when they hate.2
That knowledge is exactly what removes the excuse — it isn’t an unconscious reflex sneaking past them, it’s a decision made in daylight.
Once the pile-on is actually at the door — fabricating stories, rallying an audience, demanding compliance — the mechanism is doing real damage, full stop, regardless of what’s in anyone’s past.
History can explain how someone learned the moves. It cannot authorize them to use those moves on someone else.3
The rhetorical engine underneath all of this is consistent: name a threat, keep it vague enough to attach to anyone, repeat it until repetition substitutes for evidence, and make neutrality cost more than participation. Fear does the work argument can’t.
Side by side: how the same mechanism scales
| Stage | Toxic family | Toxic workplace | Mass / online pile-on |
| The frame is set | A standard for “acceptable” behavior that’s vague or keeps shifting, so the target is never fully safe | A policy or norm applied selectively, enforced unevenly depending on who’s in favor | A “threat” or boogeyman named vaguely enough to attach to almost anyone who steps out of line |
| Bait / provocation | Digs, double-binds, moving goalposts until the target reacts | Setups, public undermining, being positioned to fail in front of others | Selective quoting, mockery, or flooding designed to bait a defensive or angry response |
| The reaction becomes the record | “See how she talks to me” — years of provocation vanish, only the outburst is remembered | The write-up documents the one visible reaction, not what led to it | The screenshot or clip is repeated until it is the story |
| Witnesses are cultivated, not neutral | Triangulation — other family members positioned as witnesses to the reaction only | Coworkers/HR positioned as objective observers who “just saw it happen” | Followers and other accounts amplify — volume simulates corroboration |
| Outside reference points get discredited | “You’re too sensitive,” “nobody else has a problem with me” | Dissenters are quietly sidelined or told “you don’t have the full picture” | Anyone defending the target gets pulled into the frame — “if you’re not against them…” |
| Self-policing sets in | Target pre-emptively manages their own tone and presence | Employees self-censor, avoid the topic, over-signal compliance | Bystanders self-censor, distance publicly, signal loyalty to the in-group |
| Institutional laundering | Stays inside the family, but “reputation” enforces it for years | HR action or termination — looks procedural, was manufactured socially | De-platforming or public statements of disassociation — “the discourse” is treated as evidence |
| The infrastructure outlives the incident | “That’s just how she is” gets invoked in unrelated conflicts for years | Follows the person into new roles via institutional memory | The clip or label is permanent, searchable, self-reinforcing |
The through-line
At every scale it’s the same move: provoke a reaction, strip the provocation from the record, treat the reaction as proof, and make neutrality cost more than joining in. What changes is only the number of people needed to make the frame feel like consensus, and how permanent the “evidence” becomes once it exists.
Bullying doesn’t get a beginner’s exemption and it doesn’t get a volume discount. Whether it’s someone’s first cruel act or their thousandth, whether one person is doing it or a crowd, the target experiences it the same way. Frequency is not a defense. Neither is history.
Footnotes:
Genuine psychopathy and sociopathy (clinically, antisocial personality disorder and related traits) describe a real structural deficit in empathy or remorse — and that population is small. Most people who join a pile-on or scapegoat someone weaker are not that; they have working empathy and chose to override it. Calling ordinary cruelty “pathology” borrows weight the word hasn’t earned, and it dilutes the term for the rarer cases where it actually applies. ↩
^-.-^ Ordinary Cruelty… ?! Do you even LISTEN to yourself? No… it will have to stay… I’ve already spent too long correcting your auto-Enabling. I will try to bear in mind that there may be novice soooooo new to mental health ideas *that there is such a thing as * ordinary cruelty and they require knee and elbow pads when approaching new ideas. Got it.
[O_O]…
Identification with the aggressor — absorbing an abuser’s tactics as a template — is a documented pattern, but most people who experience abuse do not go on to inflict it; the majority break the cycle. So the pattern explains how a minority of people arrive at cruelty. It does not make the act involuntary, and it does not mean the person is unaware of what they’re doing in the moment. ↩
“Mass formation” (Mattias Desmet’s term for a group losing individual judgment to a shared anxiety-driven narrative) is a proposed lens, not an established clinical diagnosis — many psychologists consider it an overreach when applied broadly to group behavior. It may describe how a crowd loses perspective; it does not excuse what any individual in that crowd chooses to do to a target.
^-.-^ And the Art!! Just bought myself this new little beauty!! The Fleet Grows!… or what I have been playing with for a few days.
Traveler Chimiru 
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