Don’t blame the rioters; they were robots conditioned through the application of the laws of persuasive messaging

As a student (and sometimes teacher) of persuasive and motivational messaging, what happened in the nation’s capital on Jan. 6, 2021 was predictable. Those of us who research and analyze the elements of persuasion and motivation clearly saw it coming. Last week, after watching one of Trump’s televised invitations for his base to come to D.C. on Jan. 6, I actually envisioned rioters on the Capitol steps.

Why? President Trump and his supporters ever since Nov. 3 have been consistently applying to his base at least three of the seven laws of persuasive messaging, as defined by the guru himself, University of Arizona Professor Robert B. Cialdini, Ph.D.

The three laws are authority, liking and social proof. That is:

1.     People will blindly follow an authority figure who they respect, and in this case, revere as near-godlike.

2.     The members of the group being motivated are alike, share many common characteristics, social status, hopes, dreams and fears; and even “like” each other.

3.     And finally, the persuasive messaging law of social proof or social validation, the most dangerous one, implies that if everybody is doing it, I must do it too. (“Let’s all march down Pennsylvania Avenue together and storm the Capitol. He told us to.”)

Students of history know that authority figures have applied these laws and others (including threats) hundreds of times over the centuries to get people to take certain actions, in many cases, fatally.  

Thus, you can conclude – as difficult as it may be to say it – that the rioters were not to blame. Over and over and over since Nov. 3, through misinformation and lies, they have been provided every justification, the right, and the reasons to act, and finally direct orders by their respected permission-giver.  Their brains essentially were saturated with validation and motivation. By the evening of Jan. 6, they were fully on auto pilot, without a shred of consideration for the consequences; again, a predictable outcome given the rain of propaganda they had endured over the past two months.

Trump and every other election-denier bear the blame for the riots of Jan. 6. While no one can justify the mob violence and anarchy we witnessed, I actually feel a bit sorry for the Americans Trump and his supporters manipulated and misled, turning them into mindless lemmings.   Analysts are decrying what happened on Jan. 6 as an assault on democracy. My opinion is that’s giving it way too much credit. Rather, it was simply the predictable result of skillfully conditioning a certain demographic into believing they were justified in taking actions suggested by their authority figure. In the 1950s, we called it brainwashing. But by any name, what we saw on Jan. 6 proves it still works.