The Daily Signal - INTERVIEW | Former CIA Analyst Stella Morabito on How Anthony Fauci Symbolizes 'Weaponization of Loneliness'

Episode Date: February 2, 2023

Tyrants gain control through weaponizing the fear of loneliness, author and former CIA analyst Stella Morabito says. In America, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the omnipresent voice of the COVID-19 pandemic, is one example of this, she says.  “I believe that he symbolizes for our era the weaponization of loneliness,” Morabito, a senior contributor at The Federalist, says of Fauci. “When you think about what all these COVID mandates did to our society: the lockdowns, the devastation in human relationships, the way that it created hostilities, even among family members."  “When COVID hit, our loneliness, our isolation [grew], especially for people [who] lived alone, being put under house arrest ... for at least months, and some people afraid to come out," she says. "I mean, this was the enforcement of our isolation—literal, blatant enforcement. And I think Fauci symbolizes all of that. More than symbolizes it, I mean, he directed so much of it.” In her new book “The Weaponization of Loneliness: How Tyrants Stoke Our Fear of Isolation to Silence, Divide, and Conquer,” Morabito, who has a master's degree in Russian and Soviet history, explains how the powerful use the fear of loneliness as a tool to gain and maintain authority.  Morabito joins “The Daily Signal Podcast” to discuss how her previous work at the CIA, which focused on studying propaganda, led her to write the book, and how Americans can reject tyranny.  Enjoy the show! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Daily Signal podcast for Thursday, February 2nd. I'm Virginia Allen. According to author Stella Moribito, tyrants use the fear of loneliness to gain and maintain control. So what's an example of this in America? Morabito says Dr. Anthony Fauci symbolizes for our air the weaponization of loneliness. In her new book, The Weaponization of Loneliness, Morabito discusses not only how Dr. Anthony Fauci use the fear of loneliness as a war. weapon, but how this practice has been used by powerful rulers and tyrants for centuries to divide and conquer communities. Stay tuned for my conversation with Stella Morbito as we discuss her new book, The Weaponization of Loneliness, How Tyrants Stoke Our Fear of Isolation to Silence, Divide, and Conquer.

Looking for quick conservative policy solutions to current issues from America's Outpost here in Washington? Sign up for Heritage's weekly newsletter, The Agenda. You'll get top conservative research, a rundown of important events happening here at Heritage that you can watch online and hot takes from our experts. Sign up at heritage.org slash agenda or at the link in the show notes. Stella Morabito is an author on math, psychology, and propaganda. She's a senior contributor at The Federalist, and her new book is The Weaponization of Loneliness. how tyrants stoke our fear of isolation to silence, divide, and conquer. Stella, thank you so much for being here today.

Oh, thank you, Virginia, for having me. It's wonderful to be here. I'm very excited for this conversation, and I'm really excited to hear a little bit about your background. I was very fascinated when I picked up your book to read that you actually worked for a time at the CIA, correct? That's right. That's right.

And there, one of my main focuses was propaganda analysis, media analysis of communist Soviet Union, communist Russia. So this is the sort of thing that I've been following a lot most of my life, actually. I've been fascinated by how easily people are manipulated by psychological operations and propaganda. And so, you know, as you may also know, I have a master's in Russian and Soviet history. And that whole process of propaganda plays really large throughout the history of the Soviet Union, as well as other totalitarian systems. Yeah. Well, your new book, The Weaponization of Loneliness, How Tyrants Stoke Our Fear of Isolation to Silence, Divide, and Conquer. It dives headfirst into this topic.

So let's start kind of big picture. How exactly is loneliness a weapon that powerful people will use to create conformity in culture? How in history have we seen that tyrants wield loneliness in order to gain and maintain control over a group of people or a community? Well, I think first you have to look at human nature and we are really created. We are hardwired to connect with other people. This is a very, very, deep-seated need that all human beings have. We cannot survive in isolation. And so that means that we also have a very primal fear of being ostracized, of being socially rejected and cast out of society. And tyrants, whether they do it instinctively or not, know, or whether they do it consciously or not, know that this is an intense vulnerability that everybody has. especially if they're not really aware of it. And so it's very easy to control people by instilling that fear of ostracism.

And we see it happening all the time throughout history with demonization campaigns. You could see how the mob operated during the Jacobin reign of terror in the French Revolution to get people with the program and the narrative and how it repeats itself. In the Bolshevik Revolution, where there was a very, very blatant, war on private life where children were actually, you know, in the schools, they were encouraged, not just encouraged, but almost demanded to have their loyalty directed at the state and even turn in their family members if they were viewed as enemies of the people. And, you know, And of course, it goes on even through Hitler's Nazi Germany, and you see it very large in Mao's communist system in China, especially during the Cultural Revolution, where he had red guards operate as mobs.

These were young, you know, mobs that would beat and humiliate people who were suspected of being enemies of the people or so-called running dogs of capitalism. They used all kinds of smears. And today we see these smear terms used all the time to shut people up about what they believe, to shut people up and make them even lie about what they believe. Like, for example, bigot, hater, you know, conspiracy theorist is another one. There's like a hundred of these that you can probably list if you think about it. You know, election denier, truth, or, you know, all these terms that are meant to shut people up for fear. of being ostracized. I just want to say one more thing, and that is there's a great irony in all of

this, because as we comply and conform due to that fear, we may think we're getting relief from isolation, but the net result is that we isolate ourselves even further as we develop this spiral of silence, and all of society ends up falling in the grip of this weaponization of loneliness. Now, do you say that we actually become more lonely when we just sort of join the mob because essentially it's sort of like your self-abandoning, maybe your personal principles or the truce that you've been raised to believe or that you, you know, deep down hold dear? Well, I think that, you know, there's a lot of factors that go into people being attracted to mobs or cults or gangs, you know, you see the same dynamics at work. And, you know, and

And yes, I mean, people tend to be atomized already or alienated and maybe come from a sense of brokenness, broken family, broken community, broken sense of faith. And so the mob or the mass state in many cases takes on this sort of pseudo intimacy that attracts people. And, you know, we've seen this in dangerous cults, like I've brought up the, the example of Jim's Jones in Jonestown in 1978, the horrific mass suicide that he commanded, these thousand, basically a thousand people that he had isolated in the jungle of Guyana, you know, to commit this so-called revolutionary suicide.

It's, you know, that's an extreme case, but it also shows you where this trajectory leads if you don't do something about it. Well, you know, when you give these examples throughout history, it's easy to kind of look back and point at, okay, these are the individuals who are instigating. But in an American culture today with things like, you know, cancel culture and politically correct culture,

who are the key players? Who are the drivers really behind this ideology that is ultimately weaponizing loneliness? Well, I think we would all point to kind of a host of characters today. You know, in the past, you might have been able to point to just one dictator or one, you know, one person who had kind of, you called all the shots and say, you know, a geographic reason like, you know, Mao and China or Hitler in Germany or, you know, so on. And then they had their little core of propagandists. But today, with canceled culture and the political correctness, we really see a host of players. I call it like a hydra-headed beast that includes especially big tech, big media that just keep saying the same thing over and over, you know, keep pushing the same propagandistic narrative. You see it in the corporate world that goes along with it, that pushes it.

And you see it in, you know, all the institutions that have become corrupted by all of these other forces, you know, especially education, where, you know, it's lost its mission that, especially higher education, the mission to explore and, you know, explore where the truth is and wherever the evidence leads, you're not allowed to do that anymore in big academia. You have to just follow the one narrative. And so who are the players? Everybody who's kind of, in a sense, it's kind of like a mob itself because they all seem to be, they have maybe their own ambitions, each of these characters, you know, whether they're from big tech or, you know,

big media or the corporate world that's all gone woke. they all seem to have this sense of, you know, power mongering. And it's almost like pathological or psychopathological, you know. But who are they? I mean, I think, you know, anyone who doesn't allow you, who will cut you off and not allow you to say what you believe, not allow an actual conversation or discussion about anything that might go against the established narrative. And the narrative seems to be, as we saw in the World Economic Forum, neatly put together to allow this core, this oligarchy, this little core of power elites, this billionaire class or whatever we would call them, to just kind of call the shots for all of society globally. And this is very dangerous. We have to resist that, push up against it. Because self-censorship is really what got us to where we are today. If you think about it, you know, you give oxygen to all of these crazy agendas if nobody's speaking out against them. Or if only, you know, those who do speak out don't have anybody backing them up, you know, that they end up being identified.

as crazies or conspiracy theorists or so on and so forth, just for asking really good questions, just wanting to investigate what's going on. So we have to put a stop to that, which means that we have to become a whole lot more aware of how these dynamics operate on us and within us, how this weaponization of loneliness causes us to shut up or lie about what we believe, because that creates a trajectory that, you know, ends up, you know, with a loss of freedom. The title of the book is The Weaponization of Loneliness, How Tyrants Stoke Our Fear of Isolation to Silence, Divide, and Conquer. And the cover of the book interested me. Dr. Anthony Fauci is on the cover. Why?

Oh, yes. Well, I believe that he symbolizes for our era the web, weaponization of loneliness. When you think about what all these COVID mandates did to our society, the lockdowns, the devastation in human relationships, the way that it created hostilities, even among family members, you know, you can't come to the Thanksgiving table unless you, you know, had your, you know, fourth booster or whatever, all of these mandates, all of these, you know, demands on everybody in society, you know, stay six feet apart, cover your face, which of course is very dehumanizing, you know, that everybody has to cover their face, and, you know, especially for children, they are so vulnerable to the weaponization of loneliness. And so Fauci, I believe,

you know, 2020, I think a lot of people would agree, was kind of a turning point in our society when, you know, we had already had all kinds of headlines about a loneliness epidemic before COVID. And then when COVID hit, our loneliness, our isolation, especially for people lived alone, being put under house arrest for literally, you know, for at least months, you know, and some people afraid to come out. I mean, this was the enforcement of our isolation, literal, blatant enforcement. meant. And I think Fauci kind of, I mean, he symbolizes all of that, more than symbolizes it. I mean, he directed so much of it. And how intentional do you think it is? I mean, are individuals, whether it's Dr. Anthony Fauci or, you know, other forces, other leaders, are they waking up in the morning and

thinking, how can I weaponize this tool, loneliness, to control people? I mean, to say that sounds almost conspiratorial. So, I mean, is it that blatant, though? Now, Virginia, you're raising a really interesting question. And at the end of my book, I said, you know, we have to, you know, to understand the intentions of these totalitarians would take another book. I mean, you know, to kind of explore and try to understand. I do have a chapter in there about the totalitarian impulse.

And no, I don't think it's. totally conscious. I think there probably are some folks out there who have actually studied these dynamics, for example, Cass Sunstein, and Richard Thaler wrote that book called Nudge, you know, trying to and end these, what they call behavioral incentive, I forgot what's called, these groups that started in London to, you know, encourage certain kinds of behavior and discourage other kinds of behavior, really through the example of having other people kind of lead the way.

I mean, if you look at the book Nudge, you can see how these scholars or scientific behavioral economist actually looked at these dynamics and in a cynical sense really seemed to understand them. But I think most of these folks, Fauci or, you know, even Klaus Schwab or, you know, all these George Soros, I don't know the extent to which they would intentionally, you know, quote, weaponized loneliness. I think much of it is instinctive, not conscious.

And, you know, their intentions could be, you know, they really do believe their do gooders like Zuckerberg, you know. I think a lot of these folks really do think that they know best, and the rest of us, schlubs, you know, don't really understand how the world, quote, should work. That's why I have that whole section of the book about utopian revolutions and where they lead. You know, they're trying to build some kind of utopia, which is a very old story throughout history, and it always ends up in a bad place. But, you know, the totalitarian impulse can come from a lot of different places. But I don't think it's always, no, I don't think it's always conscious.

I think it's primarily instinctive. And I think that they develop a sort of, you know, a sort of sense that they do know best. And thoughts of Havel, the dissident in the Czechoslovakia who wrote that amazing, say the power of the powerless that came out in 1978, actually states in there that the totalitarian himself is really caught in the web of his own lies. And maybe perhaps is the loneliest among us. You know, who knows? But it's a very interesting topic that would be, you know, a good subject for another book

to explore all of these, you know, dynamics. that you mentioned. Absolutely. Well, are there certain signs that we should be looking for in our own lives and our personal lives, are there questions that we should be asking ourselves to determine, am I one of those people that's actually fallen into a trap of being controlled by this fear of loneliness? Well, it's a very natural instinct. It's a very natural impulse to avoid ostracism.

I mean, you know, especially for children. And that's why they're so impressionable and why parents are very concerned about all of these destructive curricula in the government schools. But what can we do? I think, first of all, and the reason I wrote the book

was to try to help people understand how these dynamics work, how they've always worked, especially throughout modern history, the science of these, the conformity and politics. There have been some amazing experiments conducted in the 1950s by Solomon Ash that showed that even for something non-controversial, like the length of a line, people will deny the evidence of their own eyes if everybody else around them is doing that. So we need to, I think if we become a whole lot more aware of how these dynamics operate on us and within us, we can be.

build a sort of, we can build a culture, especially if we spread that knowledge, of checking ourselves and also, you know, checking ourselves against self-censorship. And as I've said many times that, you know, much of our power comes from within just the daily life, just from one-on-one conversations. It comes from, you know, when you hear someone that you implicitly trust, but you don't know where they're coming from. And they say something that you agree with, but it's politically incorrect. The relief that you might feel can be intense. We're like, well, I'm not all alone. I'm not crazy. Yeah. I, you know, I feel the same way too. And this is very, very powerful. The more people, just even in your private one-on-one conversations

are, you know, if you can put your toe in the water and say, well, you know, you know, I'm not on that side of the fence, you know, I'm not so sure about these vaccines, or whatever it is. You know, I think that J.K. Rowling has a right to, you know, say what she believed. You know, the more people do that, the more you develop that ripple effect that Havel talked about that can turn things around. And so just the voice of one person can make a huge difference. And if you don't believe that, just think about what all of these people pushing censorship are doing. They don't even want one person going against the narrative. So that should tell you everything you need to know.

All totalitarian systems are like that. They will shut down or cancel even one person who says something that goes against a narrative. Of course, especially if they're a well-known person. But in your daily life, there's a lot you can do to help turn this around. your personal life. And do you think that we're seeing enough of that? Do you think we're seeing enough people stand up and push back and ask intelligent questions that you can say with confidence, yeah, America's going to be okay.

We're not going to fall to a place where we're too far gone really in being controlled by powerful individuals who are weaponizing their power? Well, I see some very hopeful signs, especially when it comes to confronting the school boards that are pushing these destructive agendas and destructive curricula. I see parents who have decided that, you know what, calling me a domestic terrorist, that's not going to work. I'm concerned about my child. So I see hopeful signs. On the other hand, I don't think that we can say, oh, everything's going to be all right and let's just, you know, relax totally. because that old adage is very true that the price of freedom, the price of liberty is eternal vigilance.

Our founding fathers knew that. That's why we have the First Amendment. That's why we have the Constitution and the checks and balances on power because you need eternal vigilance to preserve your freedom. And part of the reason, as I said at the beginning, that we got to this place is because we let our guard down. is because we just kind of always assume that free speech would always be there for us, even if we didn't use it. But of course, free speech is you use it or lose it proposition. And we just need to become more aware of that.

Yeah, we can relax to a certain extent, but I think everything will be okay if we, you know, follow the lead of people who are speaking truth and allow that and listen and develop what they're called in Havel's essay, parallel policies, parallel institutions that can take the place of these corrupted institutions. And all of these things work together to rebuild civil society. The book is The Weaponization of Loneliness, How Tyrants Stoke Our Fear of Isolation to Silence, Divide, and Conquer. Make sure to get your copy. Stella, thank you so much for your time today. We really, really appreciate you joining us.

Well, thank you, Virginia. I really appreciate your time with me. Thanks so much for listening to my conversation with Stella Morbito. Again, if you're interested in getting her book, you can find it on Amazon and Barnes & Noble wherever books are sold. But thanks for joining the Daily Signal podcast. And if you haven't had the chance already to listen to our evening top news edition show, that comes out every day right around. around 5 p.m. with the top news of the day. Also, please take just a few minutes to leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, wherever you like to listen. It's so helpful for us to hear your feedback. But hope that you all have a wonderful rest of your day, and we'll see you right back here at 5 p.m. for our top news edition. The Daily Signal podcast is brought to you by more than half a million members of the Heritage Foundation. Executive producers are Rob Luey and Kate Trinko.

Producers are Virginia Allen and Samantha Asheras. Sound designed by Lauren Evans, Mark Geiney, and John Pop. To learn more, please visit DailySignal.com.