Election Season

Dearest Bilchly,

I cannot fathom how you are struggling in this environment. It’s election season, Our Father be praised. If you can’t work your subject into a near-constant state of sin during an election, you’re as useless as the human politicians.

The key is to replace people with politics. Convince him that his vote on social security and abortion matters more than what he’s actually doing to care for widows and orphans. (I once got a subject so busy tweeting about welfare policy that he stopped serving at the local food kitchen. Exquisite.)

Destroying human connection is the first step in sowing political division. Why do you think we’ve worked so hard to make bowling leagues and rotary clubs a thing of the past? Do you think front porches disappeared by accident? Remember: isolate, isolate, isolate. You want your voice to be the only one whispering in your patient’s ear.

I’m disheartened (though not surprised) that you asked me which party you should push him towards. I couldn’t care less. I’ve damned everyone from royalists to anarchists. The important thing is to inculcate self-righteous tribalism. Encourage your subject to believe that the other group is evil, foolish, benighted, and (when times are particularly good) subhuman.

The best work you can do with politics is in the family. We’ve been so successful at sorting friendships by income and subculture that almost no patient has any friends who seriously disagree with them about politics anymore. That means that dinner parties among friends are quite useless for our purposes. Family dinners, however, are another matter entirely.

Plan ahead with the tempters of your subject’s family. Unbearably opinionated text messages in the family group text are an excellent appetizer. Then, when they gather, induce a bit of indigestion and a rude regurgitation of a talking point from cable news and you’ll be well on your way to destroying a family.

Yours Infernally,

Mulcifer