In Missouri, a state Senator who’s running for governor fired up a flamethrower and lit a bunch of boxes on fire.

But let me change the subject.

I had a bully in middle school. Maybe you can relate.

https://armoxon.substack.com/p/youve-persuaded-us-already

My bully was a kid my age who ran with a tougher group of guys in my neighborhood, and by “tougher” I mean they smoked and cussed and wore jean jackets, and moreover they stood in a gap in the chain link fence, a shortcut that shaved a half mile or more off my walk.

Let’s change names to protect the innocent and call my bully Jake, even though it was Jeremy. My take on it these days is that Jake wanted to impress the older guys by being a tough guy himself and I looked like an easy mark, which I sure was.

Jake met me at the gap and followed me home, and asked me mean vaguely threatening questions. I had been taught in no uncertain terms that it was very important to never retaliate, so I retaliated mostly by mumbling answers and hoping he would leave me alone, which he did not.

Next day he was waiting at the gap and he used my responses the previous day to ask even meaner and more targeted personalized questions like how long I had been a slur redacted, and how much did I like being a fucking slur redacted.

Jake made pointed threats about what he thought should happen to me for being a slur redacted, and he also pretended he was going to hit me and shove me, laughing when I flinched. I responded by walking as quickly as I could, so it would end more quickly, which I suppose it did.

Jake spent next day on more of the same; also by trying to trip me by kicking my feet into one another. And I responded with more of the same nothing, and by raging in impotent fury at home, which my parents noticed, which led to them calling Jake’s parents.

Jake’s parents were of the opinion that boys would be boys, which led my parents to believe that Jake’s parents were assholes, but clearly it wasn’t certain what else could be done in that direction, and I added sleeping badly to my response.

Next day Jake added *actually* shoving me into his repertoire. There was a stone retaining wall in one spot, and he really biffed me into that. My parents called the school, and the school wondered if this was happening on school property, and it wasn’t.

And again this was back in 1986, which is a time I have noticed bullies today consider to be a wonderful permissive time when everyone was much more relaxed about jokes, so I could tell that my parents were both deeply concerned and uncertain what to do about this.

The next day Jake told me that on Monday after school he’d be waiting and he was going to beat the shit out me.

And I told my dad this, and my dad sort of looked at me and asked me,

well, do you think you could take him?

This confused me, because again, I had been taught pretty clearly that one should never retaliate.

But I said, yeah, I think so, and I did think so, too, I really did, because I was bigger than him.

And my dad said

well maybe you ought to clean his clock one good time, then

I could tell he wasn’t kidding.

And I slept pretty well that weekend.

Monday at school I saw Jake, and maybe I smiled at him in class or maybe I didn’t. I don’t remember. 1986 was a while ago. I do remember feeling a sense of anticipation different from the growing dread I’d experienced the week before.

It’s possible that there was something in my face that Jake didn’t like, something that said "if you want to do this, you’re going to have to fight."

What I know for sure is that Jake wasn’t at the gap in the fence that day, or any other day.

So what happened?

Did he get bored? Had he been bluffing? I’ll never know. Bullies don’t tend to tell you what their motivations are, and they tend to lie about their intentions even to themselves.

This is a thing I have noticed about bullies. Maybe if you’ve had a bully you’ve noticed this too.

I’ve noticed some other things about bullies. For example, bullies tend to operate on a sliding scale of permission. They start by pretending to do a thing to see how pretending goes for them before actually doing it.

If they catch any heat, they were just joking.

If they don’t get opposed for issuing threats, then they understand that to be permission, and then they progress to actually doing it, and if that works out for them, then they progress to doing more.

And sometimes much more.

Has any bully ever gone too far and realized it too late, after lasting damage has been done to their victim? Certainly so. Are you sorry for the bully in this scenario? Maybe.

Are you *exclusively* sorry for the bully? Many are. Another thing I’ve learned from observing bullies.

Another thing that occurs to me is that since bullies operate on a sliding scale of permission, they have a pretty finely attuned radar for what is permissible, and how to skirt the margins of permissibility, and when those margins have changed.

Another thing I’ve noticed is, though some bullies are willing to fight, and all bullies like whatever one-sided violence is permissible, bullies don’t actually like fights.

Fights, it seems, or even the promise of threats, are the opposite of permission.

You know what?

I might have *grinned* at Jake that Monday morning in class.

I really might have.

Hey, let’s go back to Missouri, the land of congressmen wielding flamethrowers.

I’m told it’s very important to note that the flamethrower-wielders were not burning books—again, burning books is something they are talking about doing. They were merely burning cardboard boxes, as a way of indicating other things.

Read all about it. https://apnews.com/article/flamethrower-missouri-governor-candidate-violent-6055f2c73bc10c8c58fae1d161c9c91e

I found this passage instructive.

"… his flamethrower stunt was meant to show what he would do to the 'swamp' in the state capital of Jefferson City, but 'let’s be clear, you bring those woke pornographic books to Missouri schools to try to brainwash our kids, and I’ll burn those too -- on the front lawn of the governor’s mansion.'”

This is nothing new these days, really. Republican office-holders and aspiring office-holders have been burning and shooting all sorts of effigies for years now, indicating the types of things and people they would like to see eliminated in one way or another.

A lot of people are alarmed by this, because they understand that burning and shooting things meant to signify certain people is always the precursor to burning and shooting the signified people.

However, I’m told the difference between burning books meant to signify certain types of people and burning cardboard meant to signify books meant to signify people is a very important distinction.

I agree, actually.

It tells us where the permission levels are right now for our national gang of genocidal bullies, by which I mean the Republican Party.

When I say things like this, I’m often admonished for being divisive or polarized.

By framing our current situation as a fight against fascism and supremacy, I'm told I’m passing up a real opportunity to persuade those who are engaged in these things—and persuasion is what’s necessary to drive real change.

So I've been thinking a lot about persuasion.

I've been thinkin about how persuasion works, what it is, what it isn't, how it can be effectively.

Particularly, since our problem is a gang of bullies, I've been thinking about what persuades bullies.

For those who think that the most important thing in the world is persuasion, I have good news: persuasion has been happening all along.

I didn't think used to think that Republicans were fascist. Now I do.

I was persuaded.

Who persuaded me? You'll never guess.