more than a decade ago:

“In the twenty-first century the techniques of the political technologists have become centralized and systematized, coordinated out of the office of the presidential administration, where Surkov would sit behind a desk on which were phones bearing the names of all the “independent” party leaders, calling and directing them at any moment, day or night. The brilliance of this new type of authoritarianism is that instead of simply oppressing opposition, as had been the case with twentieth-century strains, it climbs inside all ideologies and movements, exploiting and rendering them absurd. One moment Surkov would fund civic forums and human rights NGOs, the next he would quietly support nationalist movements that accuse the NGOs of being tools of the West. With a flourish he sponsored lavish arts festivals for the most provocative modern artists in Moscow, then supported Orthodox fundamentalists, dressed all in black and carrying crosses, who in turn attacked the modern art exhibitions. The Kremlin’s idea is to own all forms of political discourse, to not let any independent movements develop outside of its walls. Its Moscow can feel like an oligarchy in the morning and a democracy in the afternoon, a monarchy for dinner and a totalitarian state by bedtime.” ― Peter Pomerantsev, Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible: The Surreal Heart of the New Russia, year 2014

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They seem to “know” the direction they need to go in to improve the situation, but they are incapable of making a decision that results in a better outcome.

In mental disorders, that is called "Executive Function" - which I suffer from greatly when fighting the Kremlin information warfare. The irony is not lost on me that the psychology industry calls it "Executive Function" and that's the executives in the White House they are manipulating.

Peer pressure, advertising, marketing, propaganda, union busting - all tend to converge on using techniques to manipulate this area of the mind and overwhelm it or cause disorder of some kind.

Look at the techniques from year 2014 onward that Russia used to manipulate mental function of people regarding pandemic / vaccination / defense against diseases: Many posted both pro- and anti-vaccination messages to create "false equivalency", the study found. It examined thousands of tweets sent between 2014 and 2017. Vaccination was being used by trolls and sophisticated bots as a "wedge issue", said Mark Dredze from Johns Hopkins University. "By playing both sides, they erode public trust in vaccination, exposing us all to the risk of infectious diseases," he said. ... "A significant portion of the online discourse about vaccines may be generated by malicious actors with a range of hidden agendas," said David Broniatowski from George Washington University. The researchers reviewed more than 250 tweets about vaccination from accounts linked to the St Petersburg-based Internet Research Agency (IRA). In February the agency was named in a US indictment over alleged election meddling. The IRA tweets used polarising language and linked vaccination to controversial statements about race, class and government legitimacy, the researchers said.

They’re culturally committed to a path of failure.

When conformity enforcers overwhelm diversity generators, all of us are in trouble. Spartans--fundamentalists, militia groups, fascists, and ultra-nationalists--can freeze the machinery of collective mind. A shutdown of urban diversity devastates that exercise of collective acumen we call an economy. Christian Fundamentalism has been shown by the research of sociologists Alfred Darnell and Darren E. Sherkat to retard the learning of children raised within its grasp. Darnell and Sherkat sum up a common Fundamentalist attitude in the following words: "No schooling is better than secular schooling." Then there's the paralysis of thought which outright battle brings. When World War I erupted, Sigmund Freud was horrified by the sudden "narrow-mindedness shown by [even] the best intellects, their obduracy, their inaccessibility to the most forcible arguments." Such closings of the mind may explain why authoritarians are prone to ignore it when their approaches flop. They often goose-step from one year to another rigidly glued to backfiring ways.

Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind from the Big Bang to the 21st Century
Chapter: The Kidnap of Mass Mind
Page: 203-204
Howard Bloom
Published: August 14, 2000