They hold a city under siege screaming that they lost their freedom

We don’t have a name for the movement, but we know who they are – Fox loving, vaccine hating, pro-Trump, anti-democratic, book-burning, bible-backing, Trudeau triggered “freedom” fighters.  It’s difficult to land on one name for them – intellectuals have referred to them as the disenfranchised – people who live on the fringes of society who feel like they never got an invitation to the main event.  They are often discussed when people talk about the dissolution of the middle class – people who grew up expecting a certain way of life that no longer seems possible.  And sometimes they are mentioned as a new class of people that were shaped by the internet – specifically social media’s engagement-at-all-costs algorithms that leverage anger and hate to drive views and radicalize swathes of people.  But  these labels fail to adequately explain the movement that is sweeping across democratic nations.  These theories are too kind, too self-referential and they miss the point.  The evidence shows that these people are self centered, self pitying, angry control freaks who revel in chaos, power and disruption.  Ironically, they don’t feel like they are on the outside of society, they think they are the heart of society.  They don’t see themselves as the weak and the unheard, rather that they are powerful who have friends in all the right places and they look forward to  the day when everyone around them is forced to acknowledge their true superiority – they are the enfranchised narcissists.  

Insurrectionists, occupiers, freedom fighters have one thing in common – they think they are fighting for the greater good.  They truly believe that anyone who doesn’t think like them must be somehow brainwashed and controlled by larger powers.  They live in a “I’m right” and everyone else is wrong (besides the people that think I am right) world…yes – this point could be summarized in a more logical and concise manner – but logic is for dummies and they know the true heartbeat of society – in fact, they set the pace.  

When the threat of logic comes crashing down on them, when science or real life rears its ugly head, they respond with a garbled fury of mistruths and red herrings that leave the best debaters speechless.  They react with glee as they dumbfound the seemingly intelligent with their factless arguments and feel victory when their perceived adversaries walk away from the fight, never acknowledging that one cannot debate when one side lies.  

The fuel to their fury is their money’d, power hungry brethren, the people who hold office in the rightest of wings. These politicians and podcast jockeys leverage their audience’s gullibility to increase their personal power and wealth. They act as the penultimate bully – stating lies and spewing hatred in a crusade aimed to create undying loyalty from their radicalized followers.

The enfranchised narcissists gather their confederate flags, swastikas, guns, pick-up trucks and trailers and wait for the day everyone can see that they are the true ruler of society – confident that they are smarter than the rest of us.  Some believe wholeheartedly in Qanon and have become adept at reading the encrypted messages from its leader.  Others scour the internet for the suppressed documentation on how vaccines are killing people, forwarding grainy YouTube videos of people convulsing on vaccine clinic floors and finding “censored” obituaries from the newspaper – confident that the government is hiding something.  Each group believes a little bit of the other’s rhetoric, and each waits confidently for the cue to take action, waiting for their close-up while drinking beer and screaming in agreement with Fox News and spewing hatred at anything resembling liberal ideals.  

Enfranchise:  
to admit to the privileges of a citizen and especially to the right of suffrage

These people are not powerless, they often own their home and they almost always own a truck, they often have guns, trailers and boats.  They live in democratic societies (for now), use their right to vote for Trump or other right wing ideologues, they are members of a big global community who they connect with via Facebook and other social platforms, and they are empowered by their very own “news” channel Fox.  They are the disenfranchisers, they threaten and intimidate people who are marginalized in society, new immigrants, the economically unstable, and the physically weaker.  

Narcissists: 

an extremely self-centered person who has an exaggerated sense of self-importance

Narcissists bounce from feeling smarter, better and more powerful than other people to feeling somehow harmed or hurt by the bigger powers that be.  Their exaggerated self-worth and  self-pity manifests in many ways, but most often they project their feelings and shortcomings on others.  They state that the election was rigged even though they actively tried to subvert it.  They claim that their competitor hid emails while they moved truck loads of incriminating materials to their personal estate and tried to flush damning documents down the toilet.  Typical narcissists blame others for their failed relationships, they flaunt rules, lack compassion for others and think they should be given special privileges just for being them!  These personality traits make them easy targets for conspiracy theories, they justify their racial prejudices and allow them to believe that they are smarter than other people including scientists and epidemiologists.  

Let’s take a deep dive into the personality of the enfranchised narcissist – it’s time we see these arrogant, manipulative, condescending people for what they are, domestic terrorists that dream of being the hero in the civil war they create. 

Enfranchised Narcissists – 6 Personality Traits

1.  Bullies 

“All bullies are narcissists, with an inflated sense of self-importance and a marked lack of empathy for their victims’ suffering”

The Atlantic

Bullies haven’t had a great life, in fact, most bullies grow up in homes that are fractured by divorce and are in constant turmoil.  The father is either absent or authoritarian and the mother is often depressed, marginalized or absent.  This combination can produce a toxic mix of entitled bullies that, to stave off their feelings of depression, resort to aggressive behavior that only serves their ego and harms society.  Bullies belittle anyone who doesn’t agree with them, often reacting defensively and with malice.  Logic and reason doesn’t work with bullies, they only respond to force.  

“The narcissist lives in a world populated by two classes of people, the winners and the losers. His constant aim in life is to prove he’s a winner and to triumph over the losers.”

The Atlantic

2.  Pro-Gun

You can’t really be an enfranchised narcissist unless you are packing some major heat.  Their desire to feel powerful has made them amass a small army’s worth of weapons and ammunition.  Believing that they would sooner die than lose the right to bear arms, these irascible menaces justify their stockpile as a means to their freedom, never acknowledging that their right infringes others safety.  They breeze over the studies that prove that bringing a gun into a home increases the likelihood of it’s occupants dyiing from it, by either suicide, homicide or accidentally.  Instead, they are comforted by their stockpile and every night, as they lay their head on their pillow, they count their guns, and ammo and look forward to the day that they get the encrypted message to join the right wing civil war.  Fantasizing about being the protector of their family and extended family, they can’t wait to take their proper place as the true head of the household to be revered and feared.  They long to be admired and catered to, for their every word to be gospel and for the world to know they were right as their democratic nation slips into the civil war they created.

3.  Anti-Women (Misogynist)
There could be an argument that this article about enfranchised narcissists is only targeted to men…well, for the most part it is. Why do these men long for the days of lore?  Why do they don their confederate flags and say things were better back in the good old days?  Well – life is pretty sweet when you are the head of the household and it was understood that a woman’s role was to make her husband happy.  The fact that caring for a child, cooking, and cleaning are not considered “work” only underscores the issues.  There is a link between gun ownership and misogyny, and it’s particularly strong with the insurrectionist freedom loving crowd.  These guys covet their bodies when it comes to taking a life saving vaccine but can’t imagine offering reproductive choice to women.  As the world is opening up and accepting various forms of families and lifestyles these enfranchised narcissists fear they will lose the advantages of their birthright.  Elected officials capitalize on this fear by banning abortions under the guise of saving lifes but really to keep women in their proper place as caregivers.  They also have begun banning books and theories that may empower women and other marginalized groups of people to curry favour from the enfranchised narcissists.

4.  Poor Me Complex “Woe is me”
An incongruous trait of these enfranchised narcissists is their ability to quickly turn the tables and go from intimidating bully to poor victim.  The “truckers for freedom” clogged downtown streets, waved racist threatening flags, blared their horns night and day but when they were confronted, they played the victim.  They doubled down that they were merely peacefully protesting, they cried that their freedoms were being removed (while sitting in the hottub drinking beer and waiting for their burger to cook in the tiki hut).  In their minds they are just good Canadians doing god’s work while having a bit of a party.  Disregarding the shops and restaurants that were forced to close down because they refused to wear masks, caring little for the families in the area that couldn’t escape the ceaseless noise of truck horns.  The poor me complex was leveraged by one of the highest offices in the world when Donald Trump said he was the victim of a witch hunt by the New York Attorney General’s office moments after he lead a mob chanting “lock her up” about his former rival Hilary Clinton. 

5.  Conspiracy Theorists
Conspiracy theories abound with the enfranchised narcissists, from coronavirus being invented by GlaxoSmithKline in an effort to sell money making vaccines and anti-virals to the unbelievable QAnon theories about pedophile rings housed in the basement of a Pizzeria.  People that are prone to believe in conspiracy theories have a lot of the traits of narcissists:

“The personality features that were solidly linked to conspiracy beliefs included some usual suspects: entitlement, self-centered impulsivity, cold-heartedness (the confident injustice collector), elevated levels of depressive moods and anxiousness”

New York Times

An interesting aside is the personality traits of people who don’t believe in conspiracy theories:

“qualities like conscientiousness, modesty and altruism were very weakly related to a person’s susceptibility.”

New York Times

6.  Liars
Enfranchised narcissists can’t help but lie.  They see their truths as the only thing that matters and they go out of their way to try to convince others that they are right – often trying to use fear and ambiguity to persuade their audience.  Why doesn’t the media cover vaccine deaths?  Because it’s a global conspiracy and doctors are forced to alter death certificates or they will lose their job.  Capital Hill’s violent insurrectionists were Antifa, then they were good citizens that Donald Trump will offer pardons to.  Prime Minister of Canada Justin Trudeau was forced to invoke the Emergencies Act because the “truckers for freedom” threatened to die before they moved their blockades yet they pleaded that they are peaceful protesters just trying to defend Canada’s “freedom”.  It’s impossible to argue with these folks – especially when they change their truths. Lying is just another tool in their tool shed that they can use to get their point across, it has little bearing on reality. 

Unfortunately, there is no winning strategy to deal with enfranchised narcissists, they are bullies that play dirty, they define their own moral compass and it lacks compassion or consideration for others that don’t agree with them.  Unfortunately, the centrists and the left leaning folk are often too conscientious and have a hard time believing that people would willingly act in such a destructive way.  They look for deeper reasons for bad behaviour, they blame western society, the eroding middle class, poor education systems but they never blame the actual enfranchised narcissist – they infantilise them by implying they are merely a result of their surroundings.  It’s time to wake up and realize these people are in full control of their decisions and are operating in a large community of like-minded people.  They are looking forward to the next civil war and can’t wait to assert their dominance over the unarmed.  We need to take these people seriously, band together and support laws that limit their harm, ensure that people know that “opinion pieces” are not facts and limit corporate control within the government.  If we don’t, democracy,  our civil liberties will be in jeopardy.