Tamara says:

here’s a puzzler:

It’s a cardinal sin in the progressive weltanschauung to deny someone the validity of their own narrative.

Unless their narrative is “I’m doing this for Islam and the caliph!”

It’s not really a puzzler. Let me explain in a roundabout way.

I received an email a few weeks ago which said in part:

Standard progressive technique against non-progressives is the “basket of deplorables” attack: accuse them of *-ism and watch them wilt as they do a mad scramble trying to show they are actually good people.  What the victims of those attacks don’t realize is that the attack has no connection to fact, and denials aren’t helpful because it isn’t about evidence or truth.  Harry Reid knew this well and used it against Romney, as did many others.

My reply, in part, was:

The psychology of the progressives is that of a personality disorder. If you were to read the book Stop Walking on Eggshells I would bet you would see, as I do, amazing parallels between Borderline Personality Disorder and the political left in this country. I don’t have the book in front of me right now but here are some things that I remember:

• It is always your fault when something goes wrong.
• They create or maneuver things such that you are put in “can’t win” situations.
• They are at high risk of hurting themselves (riots damaging their own neighborhoods is my analog of this) if they get mad at you.
• They constantly start fights over nothing.
• The attempted use of facts will result in accusations of “You always have to get your way”, “You need to compromise.”, or increase the verbal and/or physical abuse.
• There is no successful treatment.
• The best you can hope for is to expend less energy/time dealing with them without complying with their crazy demands (or as Barb says, “Getting on their crazy train.”)

The basics of how you deal with them, as individuals, is to tell them you aren’t going to tolerate their misbehavior. They will go ballistic at this, after all, it is all your fault, not theirs. They have done nothing wrong. Then ignore them, walk away, or otherwise disengage and do your own thing when they inevitably misbehave. You must not give in to their misbehavior. They will only encourage them to misbehave more.

…

I just wish there was a way to divorce ourselves from the political left. I’m tired of the constant abuse and crazy talk.

Back to Tamara’s puzzlement.

These people are nuts. Barb and I have both had decades of experience attempting to deal with people like this and spent time talking to counselors getting help dealing with personality disordered people. Several times a week during the first year or so we were together one of us would tell a story and ask, “Why did they do this?” It took a while but it finally reached the point where the other person would say, “Don’t try to make sense of it. You will go crazy if you try.” That shortened to, “You are trying to get on crazy train with them.”

We mostly have the stories out of our system and it is now rare for one of us to tell one. And if one does come out the response is just, “Don’t get on the crazy train.”

And that is what our response to these sort of puzzlements should be. Give them “that look” and tell the sane people attempting to appease or understand the progressives, “Don’t get on the crazy train.”