The political landscape that we are witnessing today, is a result of generations of calculated grooming; individually and collectively.
For the purposes of this discussion, Grooming can be defined as a process (often covert) through which an offender manipulates someone else to gain their trust, in order to abuse or exploit them. Grooming is generally understood as something that predatory adults do to children. This is true and widely prevalent, as the Adult to Child relationship structure under Capitalist Patriarchy is Hierarchical and Authoritarian. However, grooming is also a tactic that has been normalized as “Business As Usual” amongst adults, in particular when dynamics of Class Power and Control are at play.
Grooming is not possible without an ecosystem of exploitation and complicity to operate within. Capitalism is a descendent of Colonialism, who is descended from Imperialism, which is an extrapolation of Patriarchy, all of which are founded upon the oppression and exploitation of those most vulnerable. Our current Hegemonic world order of Capitalist Patriarchy, serves as the ideal environment to normalize grooming while perpetuating it generation after generation, through coercive control and plausible deniability.
Those who are victims of grooming, may often go on to become a perpetrator. Thereby reinforcing the cycle of abuse and furthermore, enabling the impunity of their abuser, whom they may never view as abusive. Such is the complexity of trauma, particularly in a High Demand Society/Culture (colloquially referred to as Cults).
When we recognize that most figures whom American Society uphold as successful; from entertainment to politics, are the victims and perpetrators of years of coercion, control, blackmail, and abuse - it forces us realize that the propagandizing and manipulation go far deeper than we have acknowledged.
A note on the recent news surrounding Tulsi Gabbard - I am interested in exposing people like Chris Butler; the predators and puppet masters. It will be tempting for people to sensationalize Tulsi, as a Woman of Color who is explictly not Christian. I prefer to step away from that kind of fetishizing perspective, to demonstrate that Tulsi’s Cult-Like relationship to Chris Butler is actually not a curious anomaly at all but rather, as American as apple pie.