Delphi: Caught Off Guard

I ran across a truly talented Delphi technician the other day. You would never have expected it; I know I didn’t. He was member of a bulletin board for house churches.
So great was his mastery it took me a while to catch onto it. When he turned that garbage on me, I didn’t realize what was up. I was surprised to find I was irritated by some things he had posted. At first I thought he was missing what I said, but when I offered to correct his misapprehension, it simply continued. Oh, so subtly, he stuck the barbs into my soul, until I realized I was angry, and only half understood why.
I did catch him on what he was doing, but didn’t see the larger pattern. I had to think about it awhile. After reviewing the exchange again, I was able to pick out the pattern.
You’ll recall I listed the steps, but didn’t spend much time detailing how they worked. Step 2 is isolating and marginalizing strong opponents. One of the best tricks is to subtly anger someone, leaving yourself room for plausible denial when called on it. In several debate threads, he managed to claim he wasn’t clear, or the other person didn’t understand. Someone else observed he took a lot of heat from others over the years, and now I understand why: He provokes them intentionally.
This guy is a natural; I’m willing to bet it’s half instinct. That’s because I can’t really see any apparent purpose behind it, other than to never lose an argument. Otherwise, the only reason he could have is to keep the thing so stirred up no one will stick around. I do note a lot of names which simply stopped posting after a discussion with him. He’s not even a moderator, yet manages to run the whole thing. The only folks he hasn’t driven off are, shall we say, too far off in left or right field? I mean loopy compared to me. Nobody will take them seriously in the first place.
I’ve said it before: Secular politics can’t hold a candle to the nastiness I’ve seen in religious politics.