The Great Enemy Of Democracy, Part 2

Donald Trump is not a competitor. To be a competitor one accepts the rules of the contest, competes fairly, and is prepared to accept defeat. Trump does none of these. The greatest insult he can hurl at someone is "loser." 

In the Trumpverse there are only winners and losers, and he is the champion winner. Winning must be accomplished at any cost. Fairness isn't in Trump's lexicon. It's a word that losers use. True winners fight, cheat, gouge, and bite. Winning is all that matters. For a natural-born winner losing is impossible.

Consider a few statements from his CPAC appearance:*

"No president has ever lost an election after carrying Florida, Ohio, and Iowa. And I won them all. . . . I won 94% of the primary vote, no incumbent president who received more than 75% of the primary vote has ever lost an election.

"So how the hell is it possible that we lost? It’s not possible. I got more votes. I got more, which is me, when I say I, I’m talking about we. We, we got more votes than . . . any incumbent president in the history of our country."

Setting aside the question of veracity, Trump here turns to meaningless historical coincidence to explain away his loss, because in his mind losing is simply impossible. He can't accept that more people voted for someone else than for him.

He attacks the electoral process itself and lays into the Supreme Court; he even blames COVID-19: 

"They [Democrats] used COVID as a way of cheating. That’s what happened, and everybody knows it. Hundreds of thousands and millions of ballots, . . .

"I mean, it’s being studied, and the level of dishonesty is not to be believed. We have a very sick and corrupt electoral process that must be fixed immediately. This election was rigged, and the Supreme Court and other courts didn’t want to do anything about it.

"They didn’t have the courage, the Supreme Court. They didn’t have the courage to act, but instead, used process and lack of standing. I was told the President of the United States has no standing. It’s my election. It’s your election. We have no standing. . . . They didn’t have the guts or the courage to make the right decision."

Trump's inventiveness in slinging blame is astounding. Who else would blame a virus? But he must cast blame, because he can never lose.

He goes on to set out what must be done to ensure a "fair" election, i.e. one in which people who oppose him would face barriers to voting:

"We must have voter ID, voter ID. . . . We need universal signature matching. . . . There should be a 100% requirement to verify the citizenship of every person who votes, and there must be a chain of custody protections for every ballot, every ballot. 

"We need one election day, not 45, 30, one day like it’s been. . . . One day, one day, and the only people that should be allowed to vote by mail are people that can be proven to be either very sick, or out of the country, or military where they can’t do it. One day.

Trump's lack of understanding of the Constitution shows in these statements. Determinations on the method of voting are are the purview of the states.

Trump's ultimate goal is the remolding of the United States of America into his ideal state, which I've been calling Trumptopia. He sees himself as a potentate ruling over a state devoid of minorities, and closed to immigration:

"It’s insane within his first few hours Biden eliminated our national security travel bans on nations plagued by terrorism. His first priority was to open our borders to un-vetted travelers from Libya, Yemen, Syria, Somalia, and many other countries where strict vetting cannot occur.

"Biden’s radical immigration policies aren’t just illegal. They’re immoral. They’re heartless. And they are a betrayal of our nation’s core values. It’s a terrible thing that’s happening. 

"The Biden policy of releasing criminals into the US interior is making America into a sanctuary nation where criminals, illegal immigrants, including gang members and sex offenders are set free into American communities.

"The Biden people are pushing a bill that would grant mass amnesty for millions of illegal aliens while massively expanding chain migration."

Trump's rabid xenophobia paints all foreigners as criminals bent on raping, looting, and destroying America. They seem to be waiting by the millions just on the other side of international borders or in the arrival lounges of airports from where they will pounce on us.

Let's parse just one of the above paragraphs:
"Biden’s radical {?} immigration policies aren’t just illegal. They’re immoral. {How are the policies radical, illegal and immoral? What laws do they violate? What moral code do they insult?} They’re heartless. {Is he now expressing sympathy for the migrants?} And they are a betrayal of our nation’s core values. {Which values? America has always been a refuge for anyone seeking a better life--e.g. Trump's draft-dodging grandfather Friedrich, who immigrated in 1885}. It’s a terrible thing that’s happening." {Note the negative reinforcing language and innuendo.}

Watch and listen. It's painful, but all Americans should be listening to Trump's pronouncements, noting his lies and calling him out. He's no longer news, so the major networks won't be covering him so much. But his cult army is still out there and we need to pay attention to what they're hearing.

To be continued.

--- Diogenes, 3/6/2010

*These quotes are taken directly from the published transcript. I have edited them for length and cleaned up a few typos.

 

The Great Enemy Of Democracy, Part 1

I have a friend who wears a pin with the Union Jack design and the caption "Make America Great Britain Again." Donald Trump would be OK with that if he could emulate King John, who is universally considered the worst English king ever.

Of course it's not the United States of America he wants to reign over. It's his branded autocratic state, Trumptopia, a cloud cuckoo land where being great again means being white and dumb. 

In his appearance at CPAC February 28 Trump rehashed his Big Lie with embellishments, and lashed out fiercely against the Biden administration. In full tyrant mode he predictably blamed the Democrats for all the misdeeds he perpetrated while in office and took credit for their achievements. 

The whining was whinier, the self aggrandizement bigger, the boasts more boastful, the threats against democracy more vile--a clear sign of his desperate need for attention. Only Fox News televised the event, unfiltered and with no fact checking.

Brainwashing is Trump's primary weapon. He wields it like a sledgehammer, but he understands the basic theory, which is really pretty simple.

First you identify the core subjects. Not hard. Trump aimed directly at lower-class, lower-income white Americans who are inherently bigoted through generations of racism. He played on their fear of losing jobs to foreigners, on their anger at the rise of minorities, and on their perception that everybody is against them. And he commiserated with their indignation at having to accept a Black president.

He rolled out the most absurd conspiracy theories, but because it was he, an important white man in the news and on social media, they listened and believed. They were hooked.

Reeling them in: 

You start with the Big Lie, bringing it out early and repeating it as often as possible. Tell your followers the same thing continually and with conviction, and they will come to believe it and repeat it. 

You tell it even when it makes no sense to tell it. Why talk about mail-in voting months before the election? To get it into your subjects' heads. You say forcefully that the upcoming election will be corrupt. How do you know this? Are you a prophet? Doesn't matter. Get it into their heads. You start talking about how there's rampant corruption in the electoral process, especially in areas with high Latino and Black populations. Get it into their heads.

You use negatively reinforcing language: The corruption is terrible, the situation is disgusting, the voting fraud is massive, the opposition's policies are crazy, insane, and the media and anyone else who disagrees is fake--always, always fake.

You plant seeds of insecurity: "Everybody knows this, everybody agrees I'm right." If they don't know what the subject is, they'll scramble to learn. You ask open-ended and leading questions: "What's that all about?" Having opened the door, you tell them what it's all about. Finally you throw a crumb to their knowledge: "You know what went on there, don't you?" Well, yes, they do know, because they've been told by the Leader.

That takes care of the plebes. But you also have to have support from higher-ups, so you go to work on Republican politicians.

Trump is a master at exploiting weaknesses and vulnerabilities. He went straight to every politician's greatest fear: losing elections. With lost elections come reductions in power, visibility, access, influence, respect, and self confidence. 

Trump promised Republican politicians freedom from those fears if only they would fall into line behind him. And he was careful to point out how many conservative Americans he could control. 

He played the upper crust just as he had the commoners, but additionally, by lesson and by example, taught them Doublethink: the ability to hold two conflicting ideas in one's mind simultaneously.¹ Thus they could echo the Leader's practice of saying one thing while meaning the direct opposite--and over time they would come to believe what he and they said.

Having constructed his cult, Donald Trump, the Great Pretender and Liar-in-Chief, launched his campaign to become an autocrat.

To be continued.

 

--- Diogenes, 3/4/2021

 

¹ See my January 13, 2021, post: "2020(21) = 1984"

A Time For Silence

The most obnoxious conservative demagogues, including cult master Trump himself, have spent the weekend at CPAC sniping at and denigrating the president, his administration, and anyone else who doesn't agree with them, reading from the same tired old script and spinning the same old lies. 

I've never known a group of people with less imagination and invention. They can't even make up new untruths.

When he was President Obama's point guard, then-Vice President Biden sparred and traded political jabs with true heavyweights around the world. The small voices at CPAC are like so many gnats.

President Biden should do what he does best: stay cool, focus on genuinely serious matters, and remain calm. He absolutely should not engage that batch of fools.

Trump and his ilk live for attention. Like teenage girls, the worst thing they can suffer is indifference and inattention. Mr. Biden and his staff should provide lots and lots of silence.

--- Diogenes, 2/28/21