We may be seeing the rise of the most dangerous man in American History. More so than George Wallace or Joseph McCarthy. Of course that would be that flycatcher Trump.
His comments that there is no drought in California is almost surreal. He says the water is in short supply because it is going into the Pacific Ocean to save fish. And this man is hoping to lead this country.
If you have HBO you should watch last nights Bill Maher show. His guest was Scott Adams of Dilbert fame. Adams is a self described expert in persuasion techniques and said that Trump is one of the best users of persuasion that he has ever seen. I think he has it pegged. And it makes Trump seem even more dangerous.
The people who support Trump truly are intellectual Zombies. They follow each other looking for brains, but they won't find them in the Trump phenomenon.
His comments that there is no drought in California is almost surreal. He says the water is in short supply because it is going into the Pacific Ocean to save fish. And this man is hoping to lead this country.
If you have HBO you should watch last nights Bill Maher show. His guest was Scott Adams of Dilbert fame. Adams is a self described expert in persuasion techniques and said that Trump is one of the best users of persuasion that he has ever seen. I think he has it pegged. And it makes Trump seem even more dangerous.
The people who support Trump truly are intellectual Zombies. They follow each other looking for brains, but they won't find them in the Trump phenomenon.
5 comments:
It seems to me that Donald Trump in his current role as Republican presidential candidate, dangerous or otherwise, is a product of: 1) The ridiculous role television plays in the American home, 2) The role of the extreme right wing of the Republican party with all of its obstructionist and anti Obama ideas of the last 7 plus years, 3) the extreme left wing of the Democratic party with its far left ideas that scare the hell of the ignorant Republicans and 4) The ultra conservative religious right led by the likes of the Grahams and "Focus on the Family" types.
These forces together are feeding the "Donald Trump" movement. They are scared, really scared.Republicans and to some Degree some Democrats and Independents are afraid of their own shadow. Years and years of being scared by 24/7/365 right wing radio and the religious right pulpits.
Throw in television and the right wing media and a personality like Donald Trump emerged. Republicans are scared, really scared.
Advertisers and politician have always used persuasive techniques, but when a Populist uses them it's suddenly of the devil.
Populism, whether it's from the Left or the Right, always frightens political and media elites and everyone else who thinks "experts" should be in charge of running the country. The founding fathers, who just like today's elites were also suspicious of democracy, tried to guard against populism, i.e. democracy, with the un-elected senate and the electoral college, by making ownership of property a requirement for voting and by keeping "flighty" women from voting or being in charge of anything, but the people weren't satisfied and kept demanding more democracy.
This year we have two populist candidates who weren't vetted by the elites and who the elites can't control and so the elites are naturally indignant and confounded. Thus we get comedians who host talk shows asking cartoonist/amateur hypnotists for their analysis and to explain pray tell how this can be happening to members in good standing of the elite such as ourselves.
Everyone needs to relax and enjoy this rare moment of the people asserting their right to do what they want by voting for who they want to. Neither Trump nor Sanders would have or will be able to accomplish much considering all the checks and balances in place both formal and informal. Formally there's the two houses and the courts. Informally there's the huge and vast government bureaucracy, the media, and last but not least public opinion which although subject to the things NM mentions isn't calling for or expecting any humongous change except that the elite stop selling them down the river, which they have been for quite awhile now since more or less the Reagan/Clinton Era. The people just want it to stop. They want a voice. They want someone like a Trump or a Sanders to go up there to Washington and be their voice and say 'Just stop it.' Enough. Stop effing up our damn futures and our kids' futures. Stop robbing us blind.
Bubba, lumping together Sanders and Trump is invalid. Yes, they represent frustration but Trump is truly dangerous. Mostly everything else you say is correct, but hopefully you have watched the Adams interview to see he is right. It is surprising you dis him and Maher, because they are both very intelligent people.
Thanks to his much ballyhooed visit to ABQ, we were given the chance to see Trump in person.
I went in convinced that I was going to see a blowhard showman, there to celebrate his ego by being cheered, and there to show off his macho, bully nature.
I left convinced he is dangerous for the country. I left convinced he knows exactly what he is doing, and what he is doing is fanning the fires of the worst kind of support. I left convinced the comparisons to early stage Fascist regimes is completely valid. The militaristic, foreboding, Wagnerian music. The egging on of people attacking the protestors. The flat-out, undeniable lies. The attacking of his own party (the place went silent when he attacked the sitting GOP Governor's Association President). The wooing of Bernie Bros. And the factless boasting, boasting, boasting by someone found to be very charismatic by a big underbelly of society.
Dangerous.
I'll add here that I was heartened by the fact there was zero ground game...When I saw candidate Obama in August 08, I was bombarded with volunteer and fundraising handouts. Hell, Obama from the stage asked us all to take our phones and call one friend and tell them to vote for him, while he stood by and watched. It was brilliant.
The only Trump-related ancillary were people selling Hitlery For Prison 2016 T-shirts. Maybe, just maybe, the lack of ground troops will doom him.
But I fear the corporate media will continue to promote him, in order to increase their bottom lines.
Somewhere along the line, his fascist ways must be fully exposed. Or we are in big trouble.
I lump Sanders and Trump together because of their Populism, their appeal to the "common man," or "little guy," and the fact that they've been successful by doing it.
With the use of that term, Populism, I'm trying to reframe the issue, as they say, get people to look at it differently for a minute, because doing so brings out aspects of it that aren't being acknowledged and which I think are more important than the fear Trump is causing. He could cause some harm, but not on the scale of a candidate who wants to ramp up US imperialism, which he wants to ramp down. The question is, harm to whom? That question isn't being asked because of how Trump is being talked about, because of how we talk about a lot of things. We can't see the forest for the trees.
It's the same with Sanders. They talk about different things but are getting their message out because they use Populist appeals. They are forcing us to take notice of the concerns of the little guy, to try to get inside his head, see things from her point of view, as opposed to seeing the world through the voices coming out of the mouths of some talking heads sitting around a table on a TV set. We're coming to see the world as a spit screen with an attractive anchor on one side and some white guy in a suit on the other half, both of whom are way out of touch with the common man or the two million common people who are dead now in the Middle East.
I saw a 4.5 minute clip of the Maher show with Scott Wilson. I wasn't sure if it was all of it but it seemed to encompass what you were talking about. I thought I'd got the gist of it.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2016/05/28/dilbert_creator_scott_adams_to_bill_maher_donald_trump_will_win_election_in_a_landslide.html
I did dis them. Maher is smart, I know that, but he's also spewed a lot of Islamaphobibia. He flat out says things like Islam is a violent religion. It's been a recurring theme of his. In other words, his intelligence is misdirected at times, and is misdirected in how he thinks about Trump, I think. Scott Wilson is intelligent, too, and seems to read a lot, but not enough. Some of what he was saying is what I'd call pop psychology. The term "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing" applies. We can't all devote our lives to studying psychology and sociology, but we can weigh the impressions we get from reading what we do read against what other experts in the field say about the same thing. I didn't hear that in him. I heard the "I read a book about it and..." level of analysis. He's not the most fluent verbal communicator, through, so maybe some of it was lost on me. I don't know his cartoon column, either. Maybe that would help. I don't read Doonesberry but I know that everything Gary Trudeau says has a certain meaning because of Doonsberry.
Post a Comment