Can You Do The Two-Step?

By Edwin L. Young, PhD

There is something called the step theory of thought processes. The significance of the ‘stepper’ theory is that when you see a person whom you think might be a three or even two stepper on TV, you should stop and first think how what they are saying today may be a covert way to set the stage for a possible significant future related event or ploy. Second, stop and think how what is happening now may have been previously set-up to have, specifically, the kind of staging effect it is now having on the political scene. In other words, the media public is being ‘led on’.

As an example of step-wise strategies, a legislator commits a misdemeanor that is disgraceful, such as soliciting for sex in a men’s bathroom, but it is not justification for expulsion. He stages a media conference to admit that he has brought a dark cloud over his state (notice he does not say a dark cloud over him), denies he is gay (does not mention the possibility of bisexuality), and says he intends to resign. Later, he announces that he is reconsidering resigning.

The laws governing expulsion from the senate state that a senator must be guilty of a specific type of felony, one that involves misfeasance, treason, or other acts equally threatening to the nation. He knows this. He knows conservatives in his party must renounce ‘the act’ but maintain reservations with respect to grounds for expulsion. They further state they must do more research into the situation, especially with respect to the stipulation that its relevance with reference to the statues of the legislature must be examined. The senator and his colleagues have first satisfied the requirement that they sympathize with the outrage of constituents, but also included the subdued, somewhat obfuscated, statement that the issue requires further deliberation.

The senator and his colleagues have made step-one and they are now setup for setting the stage for step-two. Step two will come in with the senator’s colleagues humbly admitting that, ‘actually’, there are no legal grounds for expulsion and given the fact of his humiliating, though subtly equivocating, public admission, perhaps he has suffered enough. Furthermore, they will support the contention that he, otherwise, has been a hard working, productive, and honorable senator. Now the stage is set for step three, which is publicly to announce that they remit their call for his resignation and admit that while his sexual conduct is unbefitting a senator, it has no relevance for the performance of his duties and maintaining his senatorial seat.

Now one could reason that these senators, having fought countless political battles over issues of similar gravity though not of similar type, that they would not be masters at the art of three-step thought processes. In fact, they are highly prepared to be masters of three-step thinking.

Finally, consider how these stagings of two-step or three-step maneuvers may have de facto effects in the political world. A master of two-step and three-step thinking can easily play a gullible, one-step thinking, public along on any subject, even with respect to policies that are totally opposite to their best interests and even opposite to their deeply held values. A master of three-step thinking could even convince a public to sacrifice their sons and daughters to a hyped-up, glorified, bogus war. This same pattern of strategies also may work just as well with respect to other prominent media coverage(s) in other arenas such as the worlds of entertainment, the stock market, and the like.

Carl Rove, I suspect is a master three-stepper and his opponents never know when they have been had.

I suspect that no more than a few journalists, newscasters, commentators, and pundits are capable of being more than one-steppers. Consequently, they communicate as though the comments of those about whom they are reporting, or whom they are interviewing or have interviewed, can be taken at face value. They do not speculate about step-wise thinking. If they did, they would probably be ridiculed as proponents of the existence of conspiracy theories in politics. If, privately, they do endorse the conspiracy theory of politics, they must not display this reasoning to the public. They would probably be fired if they seemed to be encouraging ‘conspiracy theory thinking’ in their audiences. That kind of conspiracy journalism is reserved for the treatment of topics like UFOs that have no political consequences.

High-level criminals are typically three-steppers as illustrated in the "Thomas Crown Affair" and "Oceans Eleven, Twelve, and Thirteen". Good three-step thinking is extraordinarily difficult to master and is probably extraordinarily rare.

Educating the public about step-wise thinking may be possible. Presentations of steps and how these ‘steppers’ can throw you a curve and startle you with surprising twists and turns in the directions of events that have you convinced one way only to swiftly have you convinced about the opposite, as in clever detective stories, could be safe and helpful to the public. Nevertheless, being led by the media to discount step-wise thinking and conspiracy theories, as we now are, is like tilling the public as if they were soil being prepared to receive seeds for their own exploitation and self-destruction. The public is left vulnerable for unscrupulous politicos like Carl Rove.

Pass it on as you see fit, please,

Ed