I wonder if weird corporate humiliation rituals have evolved partially to take advantage of human capacity to develop coping mechanisms. If I make you sing the walm@rt song in front of your peers every day before your shift, you are left with a conundrum...

Either fully recognize that you are making a fool out of yourself for your employer every morning, or spin a little fabrication up: “Its just what you do for your job, its not a big deal, everyone else does it too.”

Gradually little humiliating experiences stack up, your excuses become more convincing to you, and before long maybe its YOU that's leading the song. Once you hit that level, its too painful to consider that all those years of singing an embarrassing song were a waste of time.

Instead you begin to BELIEVE in the song, its the only option that saves you from the pain of facing this reality: you wasted years of your life voluntarily humiliating yourself.

But here's the twist, I worry that this isn't just a corporate tool, but that politicians create “believers” in this manner as well.

If you sang “High Hopes” for Pete Buttigieg a few times its hard to sober up and face what an ass you made of yourself. And don't worry, your humiliation is immortal, we're all filming you, this footage will look great for the campaign. https://twitter.com/MatthewBevan/status/1195975381762789376?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1195975381762789376%7Ctwgr%5E&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fus-news%2F2019%2Fnov%2F18%2Fmayor-pete-high-hopes-dance-us-election

Perhaps a political movement has found enabling its adherents to microdose humiliation profitable. What if providing opportunity for followers to engage in more and more embarrassing acts ensures that eventually there's no room for later questioning of your actions.

Maybe one day you find yourself dancing the Walm@rt dance, and the choice you face is this: recognize that you spent years accumulating a mountain of humiliating experiences, or just close your eyes and keep on dancing....