“When weak I demand my freedom from you according to your principles; when I am strong I will take your freedom from you because that is according to my principles.” That line — by science-fiction author Frank Herbert — captures an old and effective strategy: when you can't win by force, you win by convincing your opponent not to use their strength against you.

This isn't a new trick. It goes back at least to the story of the Trojan Horse — Greek forces couldn't take Troy by direct assault, so they convinced the Trojans to bring the danger inside the walls themselves. The modern version works the same way: instead of open conflict, extremist movements appeal to the West's own values — free speech, religious tolerance, anti-discrimination — to get democratic societies to lower their guard.

The word for someone who does this is a demopath: someone who uses the language of democratic rights and freedoms to advance an agenda that, if it succeeded, would take those same rights away from everyone else. One person who spent years working inside a major international institution put it bluntly when asked whether she'd encountered this pattern there: 'everyone here is a demopath.'

The tell isn't what someone says while they're weak. It's what they do once they're strong. That gap — between the rights someone demands for themselves and the rights they're willing to grant to others once they hold power — is the single clearest signal to watch for. And when those pretend democrats show their true colors - as on October 7 and 8, 2023 - then those who believed their deceptive words need to own up to their mistake, rather than double down.