By Richard Landes

“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 their troops 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 at a major international institution put it bluntly when asked whether she'd encountered this pattern:

“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.