A Note to Readers
This article examines mechanisms, not people. It documents patterns, not assigns blame. The research on child sexual abuse grooming provides a framework for understanding systematic manipulation in any context. What follows is an analysis of how these established psychological techniques have been deployed across the American political landscape over the past decade—affecting all of us, regardless of party affiliation.
This is not about Republicans versus Democrats. This is about recognizing when entire populations are being manipulated using methods we already understand from other contexts. The goal is not condemnation but awareness. We cannot address what we cannot name.
What Grooming Is
In 2021, researchers Georgia Winters, Leah Kaylor, and Elizabeth Jeglic proposed a universal definition of child sexual grooming: “the deceptive process used by sexual abusers to facilitate sexual contact with a minor while simultaneously avoiding detection.”
The research is clear. Grooming is not a single event but a systematic progression through five validated stages: victim selection, gaining access and isolation, trust development, desensitization to increasingly inappropriate content and contact, and post-abuse maintenance to ensure continued compliance and secrecy.
Kenneth Lanning, former FBI behavioral analyst who studied child molesters for over three decades, identified the core challenge: these offenders use nonviolent techniques that appear similar to normal relationship-building. They seem to love children. Children seem to love them back. The abuse emerges from what looks like trust and affection.
Natalie Bennett and William O’Donohue, in their 2014 analysis, emphasized the critical difficulty: “Many behaviors used by perpetrators appear quite similar to behaviors seen in normal adult-child relationships.” The grooming is covert. It seems innocent. Detection before abuse occurs is extraordinarily difficult because each step, taken alone, appears benign.
The victim’s compliance does not indicate consent. Lanning stressed this point repeatedly: we must view cooperation as “an understandable human characteristic” with no moral significance. Grooming works precisely because it exploits normal human responses to trust, authority, attention, and belonging.
This is what grooming does. Now look at what happened to us.
Stage One: Victim Selection
The Research
Child molesters select vulnerable targets. They look for children who are insecure, isolated, lacking strong support systems, troubled, or hungry for attention. They identify needs they can fill.
The Application
By 2016, significant portions of the American population exhibited the classic vulnerability markers. Economic anxiety pervaded working-class communities. Institutional trust had eroded across decades. People felt unheard by traditional power structures. Both political parties contained populations ripe for manipulation—different vulnerabilities, but vulnerabilities nonetheless.
Trump selected his victims with precision. He identified economically anxious voters who felt abandoned by globalization, dismissed by coastal elites, and ignored by establishment Republicans. He spoke directly to their grievances. “I alone can fix it.” He positioned himself as their champion against a system that had failed them.
But Democrats were also selecting victims—though the language of resistance and protection masked the mechanism. Voters terrified of Trump’s norm-breaking were primed to accept increasingly extreme characterizations. Anyone concerned about democratic backsliding became vulnerable to messaging that justified their fear and demanded escalating response.
The Republican establishment faced its own vulnerability. Party officials who had built careers on conservative principles watched their base respond to someone who violated every norm they claimed to value. They needed to choose: hold the line and lose power, or accommodate and maintain relevance.
Each group had different insecurities. Each group got targeted based on what would work on them specifically.
Stage Two: Gaining Access and Isolation
The Research
Grooming requires separating victims from other relationships and information sources. The abuser becomes the trusted figure while systematically delegitimizing anyone who might intervene. Parents are portrayed as unreasonable. Friends are framed as jealous. Anyone who might disrupt the abuse must be discredited.
The goal is total information isolation. The victim must trust only the groomer.
The Application: Trump’s Isolation of Republican Voters
February 2017: Trump tweets that The New York Times, NBC News, ABC, CBS, and CNN are “fake news” and “the enemy of the American People.”
This was boundary testing. Would it hold?
It held.
By 2018, a Quinnipiac poll showed 51% of Republicans believed the news media was “the enemy of the people.” By 2019, a Cato Institute survey found 63% of Republicans believed journalists were “an enemy of the American people.”
The media became unsafe. But Trump went further. The FBI was “rotted at its core” with “systemic culture of unaccountability.” The Department of Justice was “weaponized” against conservatives. Career civil servants were the “deep state”—unelected conspirators undermining the people’s choice. Courts couldn’t be trusted, even when Trump-appointed judges ruled against him. Election officials couldn’t be trusted, even when they were Republicans.
Steve Bannon, speaking at rallies in 2017, promoted the conspiracy that bureaucrats were secretly running government. Breitbart News amplified the narrative. Fox News told Republican viewers the mainstream media lied to them. A Senate Homeland Security report claimed Trump faced “seven times more leaks” than previous administrations—proof of sabotage.
By 2020, the isolation was complete. Every institution that might contradict Trump had been delegitimized. The only trustworthy sources: Trump himself, MAGA media, and each other.
Republican voters who maintained relationships with mainstream news sources, career government officials, or even dissenting Republican voices found themselves increasingly cut off from their own communities. Family members who questioned Trump were liberals in disguise. Neighbors who cited fact-checks were deep state dupes. The isolation wasn’t just informational—it was social and familial.
The Application: Democratic Leaders’ Isolation of Democratic Voters
But Democrats were also isolating their base, though the mechanism differed.
From 2017 forward, Trump was increasingly characterized not as a political opponent but as an existential threat to democracy itself. “Semi-fascism.” “MAGA extremism.” Nazi comparisons. “If he wins, democracy ends.”
This rhetoric didn’t come from nowhere. Trump’s actions justified serious concern. But the escalating language created its own isolation effect. Anyone who suggested measured response or attempted to understand Trump voters became suspect. Nuance became collaboration. Attempts to depolarize became naive.
Some Democrats described Trump supporters as irredeemable. “Basket of deplorables.” The framing suggested that half the country wasn’t misguided or manipulated but fundamentally dangerous. This isolated Democratic voters from their Republican neighbors, family members, colleagues. If your uncle is a fascist, you don’t listen to him anymore.
MSNBC and progressive media outlets created information bubbles as effective as Fox News, just from the opposite direction. Each side had its own facts, its own trusted sources, its own reality.
Democratic voters who tried to maintain relationships across political lines, who suggested Trump voters had legitimate grievances, or who questioned whether every Trump action truly represented the end of democracy found themselves accused of privilege, complicity, or not taking the threat seriously enough. The isolation pressure came from their own communities.
The isolation wasn’t identical, but it was mutual.
The Application: Republican Officials’ Institutional Isolation
Meanwhile, Republican officials who resisted Trump faced systematic isolation from their own party.
When Liz Cheney voted to impeach Trump and served on the January 6 Committee, she was expelled from House leadership and censured by the Republican National Committee. Adam Kinzinger was primaried out. Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger certified accurate election results and was censured by the Georgia Republican Party. Nevada Secretary of State Barbara Cegavske, a Republican, investigated fraud claims thoroughly, found none, and was censured by the Nevada Republican Party.
The message was clear: tell the truth and lose everything.
“RINO”—Republican In Name Only—became the designation for anyone who broke from MAGA orthodoxy. The term wasn’t new, but its deployment intensified. It meant: you’re not one of us anymore. You’re with the enemy.
By 2022, election denial had become a litmus test for Republican viability. Candidates who accepted the 2020 results struggled in primaries. Those who promoted fraud claims—despite 60+ failed lawsuits and no credible evidence—advanced.
The party isolated itself from its own members who maintained connection to shared reality.
Stage Three: Trust Development
The Research
Once isolated, the victim must bond with the abuser. The groomer learns the victim’s interests, provides attention and gifts, shares secrets, creates a sense of special connection. “I understand you like no one else does.” “We have something others can’t see.” The relationship feels chosen, mutual, meaningful.
The Application: Trump and Republican Voters
Trump spoke directly to Republican voters who felt invisible. He attended their rallies, held their attention for hours, told them they were right to feel angry. He wasn’t a polished politician reading focus-grouped talking points. He was authentically them—brash, crude, willing to fight, unashamed. He ate McDonald’s. He spoke in simple sentences. He didn’t apologize for offending elites.
“I’m not doing this for me,” he said repeatedly. “I’m doing this for you.” When he was investigated, he framed it: “They’re not after me. They’re after you. I’m just in the way.”
This created deep personal investment. An attack on Trump became an attack on them. Defending Trump became defending themselves. When he was impeached, they felt impeached. When he was investigated, they felt investigated. When he was indicted, they felt indicted.
The bond intensified through shared persecution narrative. “Witch hunt.” “Deep state conspiracy.” “They want to destroy us because we threaten their power.” Every investigation, every criticism, every consequence strengthened the connection. Trump wasn’t being held accountable; he was being martyred. And his voters were martyrs too.
The rallies became communion. Thousands of people gathering to hear Trump speak for two hours, saying the same things they’d heard before, didn’t go for new information. They went for the feeling of belonging, for proof they weren’t alone, for validation that their anger was justified. Trump told them: you’re not forgotten anymore. You’re not the silent majority—you’re my base, and together we’ll take the country back.
QAnon supercharged this dynamic. “Q” dropped cryptic clues that followers—”bakers”—decoded together. “Do your own research.” You weren’t a passive consumer of mainstream media lies; you were an investigator uncovering hidden truth. “Where we go one, we go all.” The slogan meant: we’re in this together. We’re special. We know what the “sheeple” don’t. We see the pattern.
Republican voters who embraced Q weren’t stupid. They were responding to a sophisticated manipulation that gave them community, purpose, and the intoxicating feeling of possessing secret knowledge. They were trusted with saving children from elite pedophiles. They were the army of digital soldiers. They mattered.
Trust doesn’t require truth. It requires feeling seen.
The Application: Democratic Leaders and Democratic Voters
Democratic leaders and progressive media developed their own trust-building narratives, centered on protecting democracy and vulnerable populations from Trump’s threat.
The framing was: we are the resistance. We are the ones who still believe in truth, justice, institutions, decency. We are the defense against fascism. We stand with immigrants, with Black Lives Matter, with LGBTQ+ communities, with everyone Trump threatens. This created meaning, purpose, identity. Being anti-Trump became who you were, not just a political position.
Progressive media outlets and Democratic leaders reinforced this constantly. MSNBC hosts spoke directly to viewers’ fears and validated them. Every Trump action was apocalyptic. Every norm broken was the end of democracy. The stakes couldn’t be higher. Only we understand how bad this is. Only we are willing to sound the alarm while others normalize the unacceptable.
“I see you,” the messaging said. “I know you’re terrified. Your fear is rational. Your anger is justified. We’re the only ones taking this seriously enough.”
This built trust through shared urgency and moral clarity. If you recognized the threat, you were part of the informed minority working to save the country. You were on the right side of history. You were awake while others slept. Anyone who downplayed the danger didn’t get it, wasn’t paying attention, or wasn’t truly committed to protecting vulnerable people.
Donations poured into Democratic campaigns and progressive organizations with language about “this is our last chance” and “the future hangs in the balance.” The emotional investment was enormous. Democratic voters weren’t just supporting candidates—they were funding the resistance. They were part of something bigger than themselves. They mattered.
Rachel Maddow’s opening monologues connected dots. Pod Save America hosts spoke like friends explaining the stakes. AOC’s Instagram lives made viewers feel included in the work. The trust was built through accessibility, consistency, and validation of fear.
The trust was real. The belonging was real. The purpose was real.
The Application: Republican Officials’ Trust in Party Structure
For Republican officials, trust development manifested differently—as deepening dependence on the party apparatus that Trump had taken over.
Those who accommodated Trump maintained committee positions, campaign funding, RNC endorsements, Fox News appearances, and political viability. Those who opposed him lost everything. The incentive structure was clear and consistent.
By 2020, Republican officials publicly defending Trump had watched what happened to dissenters. Jeff Flake retired. Bob Corker retired. Justin Amash left the party. Mark Sanford lost his primary. Joe Walsh lost his primary. The pattern was undeniable.
The party became the trusted structure. As long as you stayed within it, you were protected. Fox News would give you friendly interviews. The RNC would fund your race. Trump might even endorse you. Conservative donors would contribute. You’d be invited to the right events, included in the right meetings, supported by the right infrastructure.
Step outside and you became invisible. Or worse—targeted.
The trust wasn’t in Trump personally. It was in the system that rewarded compliance and punished defection. Republican officials learned to trust that the rules were clear: stay in line, maintain power; break ranks, lose everything.
When 147 Republicans voted to overturn election results on January 6, 2021—after a violent attack on the Capitol—they were demonstrating trust in the system Trump had built. They trusted that their voters would reward this loyalty. They trusted that the party would protect them. They trusted that Fox News would frame their actions favorably. They trusted that the consequences of defection would be worse than the consequences of complicity.
That trust was well-founded. Most faced no negative consequences. Many were celebrated.
Stage Four: Desensitization
The Research
The groomer gradually introduces increasingly inappropriate content and contact. Touch starts innocently—a hand on the shoulder, a hug—and becomes progressively sexual. The boundary shifts are small enough that each step seems like a natural continuation of what came before. Victims often can’t identify when “normal” became abuse because the transition was so gradual.
Winters and Jeglic (2017) found that this stage is particularly difficult to detect because offenders deliberately make the progression appear seamless. By the time overtly sexual contact occurs, the victim has been conditioned to accept it.
The Application: Republican Voters’ Normalization of Democratic Destruction
Republican voters experienced desensitization as a gradual acceptance of increasingly authoritarian positions that would have horrified them a decade earlier.
2016: Trump suggests “maybe Second Amendment people” could do something about Hillary Clinton. This is shocking but dismissed as a joke or loose talk.
2017: Trump calls the press “the enemy of the American people.” Some Republican voters are uncomfortable but accept the explanation that he’s just fighting back against media bias.
2018: Trump praises Congressman Greg Gianforte for physically assaulting a reporter. Republican voters who were raised to respect the press and oppose political violence find themselves defending this because the reporter was “rude” and “deserved it.” The boundary shifted.
2019: Trump describes immigrants as “invading” the country. Language that would have been condemned as xenophobic in 2015 becomes normal campaign rhetoric. Republican voters repeat it.
2020: Trump suggests delaying the election. Republican voters who have spent their entire lives believing in the sanctity of American democracy on schedule find themselves considering whether this might be reasonable given COVID concerns. They’re not fascists. They’re just adapting to extraordinary circumstances. The boundary shifted again.
November 2020: Trump claims the election was stolen despite no evidence. Republican voters who believe in rule of law and respect for courts watch 60+ lawsuits fail and… start doubting the courts. Not because they’ve abandoned their principles but because Trump has spent four years preparing them to distrust every institution that might contradict him. They’re not rejecting democracy. They’re “defending election integrity.” The reframing makes the boundary shift acceptable.
January 6, 2021: Republican voters watch insurrectionists attack the Capitol and must decide whether this is unacceptable political violence or “legitimate political discourse.” Many—not all, but distressingly many—choose the latter. Because by this point, they’ve accepted so many previous boundary violations that one more doesn’t register as qualitatively different. It’s just the next step in fighting the deep state. Patriots defending democracy. The boundary is gone.
2022-2024: Republican voters support candidates who refuse to commit to accepting election results. Positions that would have disqualified anyone in 2016 are now litmus tests for loyalty. Not because Republican voters became anti-democratic, but because each small step made the next one seem reasonable.
Republican voters who in 2015 would have been horrified by political violence, contempt for constitutional processes, and rejection of election results find themselves in 2024 defending or dismissing all three. They didn’t jump there. They were walked there, one small boundary shift at a time.
Each step was justified by the previous one. Each escalation was framed as necessary response to increasing threat. Each violation was reinterpreted as patriotic defense rather than democratic destruction.
This is desensitization. And Republican voters are not stupid for experiencing it. They are human. This is how grooming works.
The Application: Democratic Voters’ Normalization of Permanent Crisis
Democratic voters experienced desensitization in the opposite direction: escalating threat perception until they were conditioned to accept constant emergency as normal political reality.
2016-2017: Trump is “dangerous” and “unprecedented.” This seems proportional. Democratic voters are alarmed but not yet in crisis mode. They organize. They resist. They believe institutions will hold.
2018: The alarm intensifies. Children separated at the border. “This is not normal.” Democratic voters who previously thought Trump was just an incompetent narcissist begin accepting that he might be something darker. “Authoritarian tendencies” becomes common language. The boundary of acceptable fear shifts upward.
2019: Impeachment. Democratic voters follow the hearings believing this is the moment Trump faces consequences. When Senate Republicans acquit him, the boundary shifts again. The system won’t save us. We have to save the system. Fear becomes duty.
2020: “If he wins reelection, democracy ends.” This framing would have seemed hysterical in 2016. By 2020, Democratic voters accept it as sober analysis. The boundary shifted.
January 6, 2021: The attack on the Capitol confirms every fear. Democratic voters watch and think: we were right. It’s as bad as we said. This validates the escalation. The boundary doesn’t shift—it’s obliterated. The crisis is real. Now everything is justified to prevent it from happening again.
2021-2024: Trump is compared to Hitler regularly. MAGA is called fascist constantly. Democratic voters who would have been uncomfortable with such extreme language in 2016 now use it casually. Not because they’re hysterical, but because four years of escalating threat rhetoric normalized this framing. By 2024, calling Trump a fascist isn’t inflammatory—it’s just description. The boundary disappeared.
Democratic voters who hear “democracy will end if Trump wins” over and over in fundraising emails, MSNBC segments, and campaign speeches either become desensitized to the crisis language (making it lose effectiveness) or remain in permanent activated threat state with nowhere left to escalate.
Some Democratic voters find themselves in 2024 accepting surveillance state expansion, defending FBI investigations of political opponents, supporting corporate censorship of “misinformation,” and justifying norm-breaking to stop Trump—positions that would have troubled them in 2016. Each step was justified by the increasing threat. Each boundary shift seemed necessary to prevent catastrophe.
The progression was gradual. Each escalation seemed warranted by Trump’s actions. But by 2024, Democratic voters had been conditioned to accept permanent crisis and justify emergency measures as the new normal.
This is also desensitization. And Democratic voters are not hysterical for experiencing it. They are human. This is how grooming works.
The Application: Republican Officials’ Normalization of Complicity
For Republican officials, desensitization manifested as progressive acceptance of actions they would have condemned in any other context.
First they accepted Trump’s crude language and personal attacks as “telling it like it is” rather than presidential misconduct.
Then they accepted documented lies as “political rhetoric” rather than disqualifying dishonesty.
Then they accepted racist dog whistles as “politically incorrect honesty” rather than bigotry.
Then they accepted attacks on the press as “fighting fake news” rather than authoritarian contempt for free speech.
Then they accepted alliances with white nationalists as “big tent politics” rather than moral compromise.
Then they accepted undermining intelligence agencies as “accountability” rather than destabilizing national security.
Then they accepted pressure on election officials as “fighting for election integrity” rather than election interference.
Then they accepted violent threats against election workers as “unfortunate but understandable anger” rather than domestic terrorism.
Then they accepted an attempted insurrection as “legitimate political discourse” rather than sedition.
Each accommodation made the next easier. By 2022, the Arizona Republican Party formally censured officials who followed the law. The Nevada Republican Party censured their Secretary of State for thoroughly investigating fraud claims and finding none. State legislatures passed voting restrictions based on fraud that courts repeatedly found no evidence of.
Republican officials who in 2015 had built careers on constitutional conservatism, law and order, and institutional respect found themselves in 2024 defending or enabling the opposite. They didn’t jump there. They were walked there through progressive compromise, each step framed as necessary for political survival.
The progression was steady. What started as uncomfortable accommodation became party orthodoxy. And at each stage, the previous boundary violation made the next one seem less extreme by comparison.
Stage Five: Post-Abuse Maintenance
The Research
After abuse begins, groomers must maintain control and ensure secrecy. This involves creating shame and complicity in the victim, threatening consequences if they disclose, and continuing to manipulate their understanding of what happened. Victims often protect their abusers because admitting the abuse means admitting they were complicit, that they didn’t see it, that they participated.
The groomer reminds them: you wanted this too. You participated willingly. If you tell, everyone will know what you did. You’ll be blamed.
Victims frequently can’t disclose because doing so requires confronting their own role in the process. Lanning emphasized that compliance must be understood as a natural human response to grooming, not moral failure. But victims don’t know this. They feel responsible.
The Application: Republican Voters’ Investment in the Narrative
By 2025, Republican voters who embraced the fraud narrative, attended rallies, donated to “Stop the Steal” campaigns, shared QAnon content, or defended January 6 are locked into maintaining the story because abandoning it means confronting their own complicity.
Admitting the 2020 election wasn’t stolen means admitting they supported efforts to overturn a legitimate election—that they were manipulated into advocating for democratic destruction. That they called relatives who accepted the results “sheep.” That they cut off friendships over loyalty to a lie. That they donated money to grifters. That they believed conspiracy theories a child could debunk.
The psychological cost is crushing. It’s easier to maintain the fiction.
When presented with evidence—the 60+ failed lawsuits, the Republican election officials who certified results, the Republican judges who found no fraud, the Republican governors who confirmed accuracy—Republican voters face a choice: accept they were deceived, or reject the evidence as part of the conspiracy. Many choose the latter because the former requires admitting they were victims of manipulation. They weren’t patriots defending democracy. They were marks in a con.
This is why fact-checking doesn’t work. Providing evidence doesn’t change minds. The investment isn’t in the accuracy of the fraud claims. The investment is in not being someone who fell for fraud claims.
Republican voters who defended Trump through every scandal, excused every norm violation, and accepted every escalation cannot easily admit it was all manipulation without feeling profound shame. Every defense they offered—”he’s fighting for us,” “the media lies,” “the deep state is real”—becomes evidence of their own gullibility if they admit Trump was a con.
The sunk cost is enormous. Years of activism, relationships destroyed, families divided, money donated, time invested in decoding Q drops or attending rallies. Walking away means all of that was wasted. Staying means it still means something.
This is maintenance. The grooming is complete when victims defend their abuser because admitting abuse means admitting they participated in their own exploitation.
The Application: Democratic Voters’ Investment in Permanent Threat
Democratic voters face their own post-abuse maintenance dynamic, though the mechanism differs.
After years of being told Trump represents an existential threat to democracy, that MAGA Republicans are fascists, that this is the most important election of our lifetime (every cycle), scaling back requires admitting possible overreaction—and confronting the exploitation of that fear.
Democratic voters donated billions based on “democracy will end if we don’t stop him” messaging. They organized their lives around resistance. They made anti-Trump identity central to who they are. They cut off relationships with Trump-supporting family members. They joined Facebook groups and Discord servers devoted to tracking every Trump crime. They maintained crisis-level anxiety for eight years.
Admitting that some of this fear was deliberately amplified for political and financial gain—that Democratic leaders used their legitimate concerns to extract money, activism, and votes while sometimes overstating the threat—requires confronting that they were manipulated too.
Some Democratic voters in 2024 found themselves defending positions that would have troubled them in 2016: supporting corporate censorship of political content, cheering FBI investigations of political opponents, advocating for prosecution of speech, defending surveillance expansion, justifying norm-breaking as necessary to prevent Trump’s norm-breaking. Each position was adopted through gradual escalation justified by increasing threat.
Stepping back and admitting “maybe we overreacted” or “perhaps some of our rhetoric contributed to polarization” or “possibly we should have tried to understand Trump voters instead of condemning them” means confronting that the fear was real but also exploited. That the threat was serious but also leveraged for political gain.
The disclosure cost is high. Admitting nuance feels like betraying the cause, abandoning vulnerable populations, or giving ammunition to the other side. It means acknowledging that MSNBC and progressive organizations used the same fear-based manipulation techniques they condemned Republicans for using.
Additionally, Democratic voters who accepted the most extreme Trump/fascism framing must confront that if Trump truly represented Hitler-level threat, then all the resistance ultimately failed. He won again. Democracy didn’t end (yet). Either the threat was overstated or resistance was ineffective. Neither conclusion is comfortable.
The maintenance continues because the psychological cost of disclosure—feeling foolish, manipulated, exploited—is higher than the cost of maintaining the narrative. The investment is too deep.
The Application: Republican Officials’ Locked-In Complicity
By 2025, Republican officials who participated in the escalating authoritarian turn are completely locked in.
The 147 who voted to overturn election results on January 6, 2021, cannot now condemn the insurrection without condemning themselves. They are on record supporting the overturning of a legitimate election after violent attack on the Capitol. Walking that back means admitting they aided an attempted coup.
The state legislators who passed voter restriction laws based on fraud they knew didn’t occur cannot admit the premise was false without acknowledging they disenfranchised voters deliberately based on lies they either believed or cynically exploited.
The party officials who censured Brad Raffensperger, Barbara Cegavske, Liz Cheney, and Adam Kinzinger cannot reverse course without admitting they punished people for telling the truth and following the law.
The candidates who campaigned on election fraud, the officials who signed letters alleging irregularities, the governors who called for investigations they knew were baseless, the attorneys general who filed lawsuits they knew would fail—every public statement in support of the fraud narrative creates sunk cost that makes reversal psychologically impossible.
J.D. Vance told the Youngstown Vindicator in 2021, “There were certainly people voting illegally on a large-scale basis.” As Vice President in 2025, he cannot admit this was false without destroying his credibility. The maintenance is necessary for survival.
Republican officials who privately acknowledge the 2020 election was legitimate continue publicly maintaining the fiction because the cost of disclosure—losing their base, facing primary challenges, being labeled RINO traitor—exceeds the cost of continuation.
The complicity is complete. They are trapped by their own participation. This is how maintenance works.
The Mechanism Is the Message
Every element of sexual abuse grooming maps to political grooming not because the outcomes are equivalent—they are not—but because the techniques work on human psychology regardless of context.
Identify vulnerable populations. Isolate them from alternative information sources. Build trust through attention and shared identity. Gradually normalize previously unacceptable behaviors. Create complicity so victims can’t disclose without implicating themselves.
The research tells us this process works because it exploits normal human responses. The need for belonging. The desire to trust authority figures. The tendency to rationalize small boundary violations. The difficulty of admitting we were deceived.
Lanning spent decades documenting how “nice guy” offenders who genuinely seem to love children can systematically abuse them through nonviolent manipulation. The children often love their abusers back. They comply. They defend them. They can’t identify when appropriate relationship became exploitation because the transition was imperceptible.
Bennett and O’Donohue emphasized that grooming behaviors mirror normal relationship-building so closely that detection before abuse occurs is extraordinarily difficult.
This is what happened to American political culture. Behaviors that mirror normal politics—championing the forgotten, resisting threats, maintaining party unity—were deployed systematically to manipulate entire populations into accepting democracy destruction as legitimate political activity.
Trump groomed Republican voters to accept authoritarianism by framing it as populism and patriotism.
Democratic leaders groomed Democratic voters to accept permanent crisis and escalating fear by framing it as necessary alarm and moral duty.
Republican officials groomed themselves into complicity by framing it as political survival.
Each group was vulnerable in different ways. Each group was targeted with customized manipulation. Each group now maintains the fiction because disclosure costs too much.
Where We Are
As of February 2026, the FBI’s headquarters is being converted into “a museum of the deep state.” NPR and PBS have been defunded. Republican candidates routinely refuse to commit to accepting election results. Violent rhetoric from elected officials is standard. Democratic voters remain in crisis mode after years of existential threat messaging. Republican voters remain convinced the 2020 election was stolen despite exhaustive evidence to the contrary. Institutional trust continues collapsing. Families are divided. Communities are fractured. Shared reality is gone.
This is where grooming leads when deployed at population scale. Not to single victims but to collective manipulation. Not to individual abuse but to democratic breakdown.
The academic research on grooming offers a framework for understanding how we got here. The pattern is clear. The stages are documented. The techniques are validated.
We were all groomed. Different methods, different vulnerabilities, different timelines. But groomed nonetheless.
The Existential Crisis We Need
The natural response to this analysis is defensive. “I wasn’t groomed. I saw through it. The other side was manipulated, not me.”
This response is expected. It’s part of the maintenance stage. Admitting vulnerability to systematic manipulation feels unbearable.
But the research is explicit: grooming works on normal people through normal psychological mechanisms. Victims are not weak or stupid. They are human. Compliance is an understandable response to systematic manipulation, not moral failure.
If we accept this framework, we must confront several uncomfortable truths:
Republican voters who believe the 2020 election was stolen are not idiots. They are victims of a sustained grooming campaign that exploited their legitimate grievances and systematically isolated them from accurate information.
Democratic voters who accepted permanent crisis framing and view all Trump supporters as fascists are not hysterical. They responded to real threats that were amplified through messaging designed to maintain crisis-level engagement and extract donations.
Republican officials who enabled authoritarianism are not purely craven. Many were caught in a system where telling the truth meant losing everything they’d built.
Democratic officials who escalated threat rhetoric are not purely cynical. The threat was real; the amplification served both accurate warning and political advantage.
All of us participated. All of us accommodated boundary violations we should have rejected. All of us normalized what should have remained shocking.
The existential crisis is not “which party groomed whom.” The existential crisis is that grooming techniques proven effective on individual victims work equally well on political populations when deployed systematically over time.
We should be terrified. Not of each other. Of our collective vulnerability to manipulation.
What the Research Tells Us About Recovery
The literature on grooming is primarily focused on prevention and detection, not recovery. But certain principles emerge:
Disclosure is essential. Victims must be able to acknowledge what happened without shame.
Reframing is necessary. Understanding compliance as natural response to manipulation rather than moral failure allows victims to process the experience accurately.
Accountability must focus on the groomer, not the victim.
Recovery requires rebuilding trust in relationships that were systematically undermined.
If we apply this to political grooming:
Americans across the political spectrum must be able to acknowledge we were manipulated without being condemned for it.
We must understand our participation as predictable human response to systematic techniques, not evidence of stupidity or evil.
Accountability must focus on those who deployed these techniques deliberately, not on populations who responded to them naturally.
We must rebuild institutional trust, shared information environments, and cross-partisan relationships that were systematically destroyed.
None of this is easy. Most of it requires admitting things we desperately want to deny.
But the alternative is remaining in the maintenance stage indefinitely. Protecting our investment. Defending our complicity. Watching democracy dissolve while insisting we saw it coming or that the real threat is the other side.
A Final Note
This analysis does not claim all political persuasion is grooming. It does not suggest normal political disagreement is abusive. It does not equate political manipulation with child sexual abuse in severity or harm.
It documents that techniques proven to manipulate individuals are being used to manipulate populations. It shows that these techniques work through exploiting normal human psychology. It demonstrates that we are all vulnerable.
The goal is not to assign blame but to recognize patterns. Not to condemn people but to understand mechanisms. Not to continue fighting but to acknowledge we’re all in the same trap.
We were groomed. All of us. In different ways, toward different ends, using different vulnerabilities. But groomed.
The question is whether we can admit it.
Because until we do, the maintenance stage continues. And democracy dies while we protect our investment in the narratives that are killing it.
