Political Inoculation

A certain well-known politician has quite a regular practice of accusing his political opposition of offenses that are more properly attributed to him. Some like to label this as “psychological projection”, which Wikipedia describes as “a psychological phenomenon where feelings directed towards the self are displaced towards other people.” I don't even disagree that projection is probably in the mix somewhere. Still, calling it projection also misses something important that I wanted to put a better name to.

I refer to it as “inoculation.”

“Inoculation is the act of implanting a pathogen or other microbe or virus into a person or other organism. It is a method of artificially inducing immunity against various infectious diseases.”
 —Wikipedia (Inoculation)

For example, when a hypothetical politician—let’s call him Ronald— accuses an opponent of trying to fix an election, and you're thinking “Oh, Ronald's just projecting,” consider that he might be doing more than just waving a big flag saying “Hey, fixing an election is what I'm doing.” Ronald might be planting an idea he thinks he'll later need to refer back to as part of a defense against claims of election fixing on his own part. He's thinking ahead to when his own ill deeds are called out.

One strategy Ronald might use if later accused of election fixing will be simply to deny such accusations. “Faux news!” he might cry—or something similar.

But another strategy he'll have ready is to suggest that any claims that he (Ronald) is election fixing are mere tit for tat, that the “obvious” or “real” election fixing has been the province of his opponent. Ronald will claim that his opponent is just muddying the waters with a claim of no substance that he is doing such an obviously preposterous thing, that he's just enduring rhetorical retaliation for having accused the real culprit. It's a game of smoke and mirrors, he'll allege.

So at the time of this original, wildly-false claim, that his political opponents are acting badly, he's doing more than projection, more than spinning what for him is a routine lie. He's not just compulsively projecting, he's being intentionally strategic by planting the idea that maybe his opponents are the guilty ones—so that he can later refer back to it as distraction from his own guilt.

“They're just saying that because I called them out on their election fixing,” Ronald will say, alluding back to his made-up claim. By making this wild claim pro-actively, ahead of accusations against himself, he is immunizing himself against similar accusations to come. And he knows such accusations are coming because he knows, even now, that he is actually doing the thing he's expecting to be accused of.

His supporters won't be worried about that, though. They're not waiting to hear something true, they're just waiting to hear something that sounds good. So all will be well for him in the end because Ronald knows how important inoculation is to keeping himself immune.

 

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Author's Notes:

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