Ingrid Bergman in Gaslight 1944

HAS MOTHER NATURE FINALLY REVEALED

THE ADMINISTRATION’S GASLIGHTING AGENDA?

John Fraim

“One of the husband’s tricks is to secretly dim and brighten the indoor gas-powered lighting, while he insists his wife is imagining it.”

Gaslight (1944) / Review

What’s New / Linda Ronstadt

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Most know that the word gaslighting came from the famous movie Gaslight of 1944 in which a husband (Charles Boyer) deceives his wife (Ingrid Bergman) into not believing her own senses.  As Wikipedia notes, Gaslighting is a colloquialism, defined as manipulating someone into questioning their own perception of reality. The expression, which derives from the title of the 1944 film Gaslight, became popular in the mid-2010s. Merriam Webster cites deception of one’s memory, perception of reality, or mental stability. According to a 2022 Washington Post, “it had become a ‘trendy buzzword’ frequently improperly used to describe ordinary disagreements, rather than those situations that align with the word’s historical definition. 

The origin of the term is the 1938 British thriller play Gas Light by Patrick Light which provided the source material for the 1940 British film, Gaslight. The film was then remade in 1944 in America – also as Gaslight – and it is this film which has since become the primary reference point for the term. 

Set among London’s elite during the Victorian era, it portrays a seemingly genteel husband using lies and manipulation to isolate his heiress wife (Ingrid Bergman) and persuade her that she is mentally unwell so that he can steal from her. The term “gaslighting” itself is neither in the screenplay nor mentioned in either the films or the play in any context. One of the husband’s tricks is to secretly dim and brighten the indoor gas-powered lighting, while he insists his wife is imagining it.

Over the years, it has been practiced on a grand scale by the current administration to deny what voters see and feel in their own lives, independent of politics. Prices have shot up through inflation. Illegals are flooding into our cities, being dropped there by the administration. Crime is skyrocketing in our major cities as homelessness becomes greater and greater. The world is blowing up. 

Things are not like they were under the former administration of Donald Trump. It was right there for all to compare with what is going on today to the Trump presidency. Things did not look good for most Americans and the administration had some of the lowest ratings in history. The President was at around 57% disapproval rate. 

As for his VP, Harris’ rating on July 1 this year, had crawled up to 39.4 percent (and the disapproval score had dropped to 49.4 percent). But all that began to change when Biden was forced to stand aside on July 21 amid fears of health and cognitive abilities during the grueling campaign, and Harris subsequently found herself at the top of the Democratic ticket.

After a short, initial drop-in support, by August 1 Harris’ approval rating finally hit the 40s, with an approval rating of 40.5 percent. Her disapproval rating had dropped too, down to 50.6 percent.

* * *

Consider an American a few years into the Biden presidency.

Left with an obvious comparison in life – this presidency versus the one before it. Of course, it becomes a huge issue when the former president is the Republican Party candidate again. Many things were beginning to look better under Trump. Whether interest rates to buy homes, whether a friend of the military and millions of Americans.

There were a few strategic choices for the Biden administration as how to present this reality to not just Democrat voters but the American people. The fact was that many citizens were losing work to the illegals flooding in with party approval. There were riots in American cities and the degradation of beautiful cities like San Francisco where I used to live. As reality was showing all in their daily lives, reality was starting to suck under the Biden-Harris administration. Something had to be done (other than implementing programs that worked for the economic well-being of Americans with inflation at record levels.

The administration chose to use new, hyper-media-infused gaslighting like it had never been employed in America. Of course, the press was needed. All mainstream press that is like the WSJ, the NYT and Washington Post. Not difficult since the Democrats have owned the mainstream press for many years. Outlying the media from mainstream media is conservative media like Salem Radio Network and Fox TV network among many others.

They realized that they needed to shape a new reality to replace the two in the current memory of voters. One was what is happening today in their daily lives. The memory for comparison was years under the previous administration. The comparison method of picking was sure to favor the Republicans as polls were showing Americans were happier under Trump than Biden. So many bad things happening under the Biden administration. For the most part, the administration has chosen not to see what is happening in the nation. What their policies are doing to cities like Springfield, Ohio. 

But better than this for sure was to present an unreality of the way the administration saw the world to the way American voters saw their world. There was starting to get to be grand discrepancies when prices and cost of living skyrocketing to some of the highest on record. The economy was not being managed well. 

Yet the PR person for the administration is always presenting new gaslighting materials to the WH journalists. To hear her field the questions from reporters were the questions many Americans had about food prices, and cost of living, and crime in their city. She always had an answer in the notebook she carried. She became more involved as Biden did hardly any press conferences. 

Presenting this unreality continually on a mass media scale involved the control the administration has over the media. At times, impossible to tell the two apart. 

* * *

This started the rise of political gaslighting. (As my historical mythology of all of this continues onward)

Going back to the old film Gaslighting where the psychological type of deception called Gaslighting got its name. 

In terms of the government it is telling citizens how different life is then the one they’re experiencing. The government works hard at its statistics that show so many things counter to the way Americans feel about things. This comes down to allowing someone else to define your feelings about life. The definition does not come from oneself but from another. A basic freedom given up by this action. The freedom of ownership of one’s feelings about life. 

By the government telling voters how different life is to the lives they have experienced. Letting the government define quality of life. The definition does not come from oneself but from another. This is the basic freedom given up by this action.

Of course, government owns all the reporting and statistical reporting sources that can “prove” their point to the people that things are better for them. 

* * *

Using this method, the Democrat party has moved forward over these last four years. Continually gaslighting the populace that things are fine. This has been their stance. To have their figures disagree with those of the WH reporter’s figures. 

* * *

All these gaslighting methods only reinforced and highlighted by the Biden-Harris administration’s handling of Hurricane Helene.

Too little help. Too late.

Speculation continues to swirl about why the administration and FEMA responded so weakly and slowly. On top of this, the Homeland Secretary says FEMA does not have money to make it through this hurricane season. On top of this, Congress approves $300 million sent to the Middle East. Why can’t they approve money for their own citizens? One answer going around now is that it has approved so much money for housing illegal aliens in the nation. Now, the government can’t help its own citizens. 

The news reporting by many independent sources has shown spectacular bravery considering this great tragedy. Perhaps the worst in modern history. 

Despite all of this, Joe Biden initially claims things are going fine after the story. And soon, his press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre will filed questions about all of this. And in a few days, questions about how the administration handled things after the current storm Milton now approaching the coast of Western Florida.

* * *

On researching this topic, my search under “Gaslighting” on Amazon Books pulls up hundreds of books. I imagine that there is a niche field of gaslighting studies somewhere and maybe something on political gaslighting. I think America’s put up with this through this administration. But I think that much is exposed by the administration’s actions during the hurricane to finally crack to constant gaslighting to them. 

So much was tied up into this gaslighting event for Hurricane Helene. But interviews of citizens on the ground refuted reports from the government. The big amount of money went to the Middle East this week. But FEMA and the government had such a slow response. 

The storm only emphasizes a growing question that many Americans have about the government. The question is posed in the form of a natural disaster that the government’s FEMA says it does not have money to spend. As it has spent for illegals they have brought into the country. The largest intersection of the government’s programs with the welfare of the American populace. And the government has failed massively in this.

Now, Hurricane Milton follows Helen’s destruction. What will be the government’s inaction. Or outward actions of care? Millions of Americans without power or water. Who have lost everything. But FEMA is broke? Spent on illegal aliens?

The Florida Hurricanes might have been the last needed to break this spell of gaslighting the administration has enjoyed over much of the American populace. In effect, acts of Mother Nature had to intervene to disprove all of the gaslighting going on. Appropriately too as perhaps it had taken Mother Nature herself to reveal the fraud that has been the administration’s gaslighting to the American people for the past four years. Gaslighting to them about this great American tragedy.

* * *

But in the end, there is the question overall of this: why the gaslighting phenomena now? And has it been present in other eras of time under perhaps different names?

The wisdom of Carl Jung is with me now when I ask questions into a new context: that of time. During the UFO phenomena in the late 40s, Jung responded with one of his latest books: Flying Saucers: A Modern Myth of Things Seen in the Sky. He proposed various reasons for this modern myth in the sky.

One of the most interesting questions Jung asked about the UFO phenomena was not what it was but why its appearance now by so many. Not about what it was but when it was.

In the same way, we might also ask why all the gaslighting phenomena at this time in culture. Is it because so many might be susceptible to suggestions from others that their reality of life is not the real reality of life? A time when the personality of the individual is under great attack? Have there been other periods of gaslighting in American history?

Might it be cyclic and related to other things in a correspondence of synchronicity? And there is that late quote of Freud that an entire culture might be neurotic. And subject to gaslighting periods of history? Gaslighting increases when current egos in culture decrease and question identity and individualism.