Use Psychology, Not Rationality, to Reach Trump's Followers

"Rationality will not save us" is #2 in Secretary of State Robert McNamara's ten lessons from the Vietnam War, as presented in the movie, "Fog of War."  

https://nothingbuttherain.com/2013/08/12/lesson-2-rationality-will-not-save-us/

Although I think some of his ten lessons need modification, I also think that we live in a time of Wonderland-ish psychological warfare (or neurochemical warfare, as I have called it) and that McNamara's lessons apply today, at least as useful springboards of reflection.  In specific, these rules can help us approach Trump's fanatic followers, with a goal of healing the divide in this country--or at least help us stay sane and empower ourselves.

I say "psychological warfare" because Trump is using psychology to divide the country and harness his base into an army of cultish followers, willing to suffer greatly for him; and he has even urged them toward violence with tweets like, "LIBERATE MICHIGAN."  This kind of exhortation, much more than a dog whistle, is becoming more frequent and vehement in his 'take up arms' rhetoric.

I say "Wonderland-ish" because even Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law, realizes the craziness.  He used a paraphrase of the Cheshire Cat to describe Trump, "If you don't know where you're going, any path will get you there."

Craziness creates chaos, and chaos can work well as a means to usurp (or create) a throne.  Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine and Disaster Capitalism are relevant here, underscoring that we are less rational and less resistant to fear-mongers when panicked.

If rationality will not save us, then I suggest--as I have before, many times--that we chose another strategy, one that seems obvious.  First, admit that humans are psychological, not rational.  Second, use related techniques to listen, validate, and deal with conflict.

Reason is useful, yes, but only secondarily, when couched in our true way of apprehending and perceiving at the world, a psychological one.

Part of this solution, actually, relates to McNamara's Lesson One:  "Empathize with your enemy."    Lesson Three is great, too, as it focuses on enlightened humility:  "There's something beyond one's self."

In many ways, we continue to pretend that humans are primarily rational.  We cherish the chestnut of the noble, wise voter.   However, every major marketing company in the world knows we are subconsciously motivated.  So does Trump.

If you think you are immune to this, well, maybe you are.  How should I know.  But statistical demographics back up the general trend.  Looking at the big picture, via statistics, large segments of society are subliminally vulnerable.

Again, this doesn't mean that rationality is irrelevant or unimportant, only that we are not designed to accept naked logic without considerable resistance, even if it is solid science.  Part of this is all the pain we carry inside, and how it can be surprisingly activated by any change in our way-of-being or worldview.

We also tend to much more easily accept what we want to hear.  What brings us pleasure.  What backs up our current belief system.  Moreover, we are happy to bend or distort arguments so they fit our preconceptions.  In psychology, this is called confirmation bias.

To respond to Trump's psychological warfare, try psychological techniques.  I offer a number of them here:

http://owlwholaughs.blogspot.com/2017/01/some-observations-on-rising-tyranny.html

To emphasize the very important point--that rationality cannot save us--I supply the following quote, taken from another of my blog entries:

The death-swell of 20th century fascism, its dethroning of empires in an orgy of all-out slaughter, including the fire-bombing runs and the apocalyptic use of fission; how it bred the horrors of the genocidal concentration camps; has not stopped the grim specter from rising again.   

As psychological, evolutionary creatures, we tend to focus on what's around us right now--not long-term or global effects, beyond our immediate perceptual purview.  

http://owlwholaughs.blogspot.com/2019/01/the-ultimate-test.html

Fly Well In the Dark,

Owl

  

Paul Matzko Fails to be Vigilant, Calls Trumpism a "Version of Conservatism."

 I'm too busy for this, but an op-ed today by Paul Matzko is a perfect example of what I'm taking about in my recent blog post, "Stop Calling Republicans Conservatives:  It's totally false PR." (Sept 24, 2020)

The title of Matzko's article is "Talk Radio is Turning Millions of Americans into Conservatives": 

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/09/opinion/talk-radio-conservatives-trumpism.html

In response to this title, No, it is not.  It is turning them into authoritarians.  Authoritarians are very different from conservatives.  By conflating the two, Matzko prettifies the danger we face.  He gives Republicans, both leaders and masses, the staid camouflage of an august intellectual movement that goes back hundreds of years.  

Trump wants to be a dictator.  His followers, authoritarians, want a dictator.  The writing is on the wall.  There is nothing conservative going on here.  This is straight-up anti-liberty, anti-tradition, anti-cautious headlong tyranny.  See my blog post, referenced above, for a point-by-point discussion:

http://owlwholaughs.blogspot.com/2020/09/stop-calling-republicans-conservative.html

Stop painting lipstick on a pig.  Tell it like it is.  The USA is in peril of losing its republic, and having it replaced by a totalitarian-praising narcissist.  

Please, Matzko, and all you other big-audience pundits, Stop pretending this is another chapter in the liberal vs. conservative dialectic.  Stop sugar-coating.

Digging his misconceptualization deeper--and perhaps, at least at some level of mind, realizing that what he is doing is shameful--Matzko tries to defend his shifty labeling:

The conservatism of talk radio only partly overlaps with institutional conservatism, that of right-wing Washington think tanks, magazines and the Republican Party itself. By the early 2000s, it had embraced a version of conservatism that is less focused on free markets and small government and more focused on ethnonationalism and populism. It is, in short, the core of Trumpism — now and in the future, with or without a President Trump.  

No, sir.  Trumpism is in no way conservative.  None.  Not partially.  Not even a fig leaf.   It is a personality cult that wallows in conspiracy theories.    

Mr. Matzko, Trump got on Fox News yesterday and called for Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton and President Obama to be arrested for treason.  Is this a "version of conservatism" to you?    

STOP helping Republicans, including those in Congress, hide what they are doing.  No GOP member of Congress stands up to him.  They are bobble heads.  De facto collaborators.  Or willing collaborators.

See Anne Applebaum's great article for an incredible analysis:

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/07/trumps-collaborators/612250/

They have acted like quislings and unless they condemn Trump, they are quislings.  

As we all should know, the following is just one example of so many:

I have an Article 2 where I have the right to do whatever I want as president. (Trump, July 23, 2019)

==========

Poem: The Real

 The Real

it hurt it hurt it hurt

the lack of heaven

in the violation of the sky.

 

it hurt hurt hurt

 

the blurbs and fairytales

which politicians peddled

lapped up by legions  

of unthinking thought.

 

the lies 

never even entered the outer 

perimeter of the real,

or bore witness to the poverty

in the pits between the skyscrapers. 

 

if there was a real god,

one who wasn't an ideological leash,

she was chastised, marginalized,

 

consigned to the crippled and naive,

tolerated yet flimsy,

saddled with the subversive task

of debunking a eucharist

of White Wonder Bread.

 

the politicians,

they had precise knives for tongues,

and cut diamonds of hate 

from the religious fat.

 

they slashed to slay

the quests of ethics,

spilling out blood

to swill the scarlet wine of rage.

 

below the pulpit on the golden hill,

the coinage and oink-honks

of the valley responded,

ravenous and intoxicated.

though unmentioned, 

violence was the essence.

to cleanse the land of the wicked.

to expropriate and exterminate.

to go to war.

 

 

-----------------------------------------------

 

10/15/24

Kenny Cole, in his Parabellum project for UMMA (see blog post), used several of my poems, two of which have never before been published. One of those poems is above. The theme is in the spirit of Cole's anti-war, anti-conformity message, heartily expressed through provocative art.

To see all the poems in Parabellum, go here:

http://kennycole.com/p-/the-poetry-of-parabellum

Fly Well In the Dark,

 

Owl

 

 

 

 

 

Poem: Skeleton Contemplation

 

Skeleton Contemplation

 

vultures peck

shreds from the flesh torn by 

sharp yanks of wolves, my veins

as barbed as roses squashed as a roadkill snake

and the prune-smooth vultures

stab to tug off strips so glossy slovenly oozy 

stab stab stab through a mania of flies  

until my skull gawks gummy with blood,

plum-sized sockets fleshless and tasked 

to toil at a skeletal abacus in unwalled night's tomb.

==========

1/7/25 eds .. (very hard poem to work)

10/16/24 eds

“Contemplating One’s Own Skeleton”

 

The essential elements of this mystical vision

are the being divested of flesh and the

numbering and naming of the bones.

                                                            Mircea Eliade

                                                            Shamanism

Stop Calling Republicans Conservative. It's Totally False PR

 

The news media continue to refer to Republicans under Trump as "conservative."  This is not only wrong, it is Orwellian.  It is like saying love is hate, peace is war, freedom is slavery.  

Every time some commentator uses "conservative" this way, it grants a false label of normalcy to a reckless, fanatic movement opposed to just about everything that conservatism stands for. 

All quotes below, unless otherwise attributed, are from The Conservative Mind by Russel Kirk [1].

First of all, the GOP under Trump is a swamp of fawning toadies.  To epitomize this point, the RNC did not have a platform this year at its convention.  Instead, it spent a week worshipping their king-with-fake-gold-hair.  The programmatic propaganda was worthy of North Korea.

A preface of everything I say below is that Trump is a narcissistic cult leader.  However, leaving this aside, the case rests squarely and decisively on its logical points. 

Now, consider four pillars of conservatism:  (1) freedom of the individual; (2) the importance of custom, convention and prescription; (3) the importance of prudence when effecting large scale social change; (4) belief in a natural law, accessible through religion and which "rules society as well as conscience." (p.8)

These are absolutely fundamental. Without them, you cannot be a conservative.  End of story.

Let's check Trump and his fellow quislings along these scales...

 

(1) Freedom

American conservatives want to minimize government to maximize individual liberty [2].

However, Matthew C. MacWilliams makes a strong case that Trump's followers are authoritarian: 

Roughly 40 percent of Americans tend to favor authority, obedience and uniformity over freedom, independence and diversity. [3]

In the current social climate, further exacerbated by the demagog-in-chief, this means about 40% of Americans are ready to accept him as a dictator, as long as he advances their prejudiced nostalgia (White, patriarchal, heteronormative ...)

So much for freedom.  Moving on... 

 

(2) The importance of custom, convention and prescription

For conservatives, "Custom, convention and old prescription [a body of established law] are checks upon both man's anarchic impulse and upon the innovator's lust for power." (p.9)

Trump is shredding the USA's democratic traditions and trouncing our Constitution.  He says Article II gives him the power to do whatever he wants.  He violates the Emoluments Clause with wanton impunity.  Etc.

So much for custom.  Off to the next stop on our philosophical journey ...

 

(3) The importance of prudence or caution

Conservatives believe that "hasty innovation may be a devouring conflagration."  Kirk furthermore writes that, "a statesman's chief virtue, according to Plato and Burke, is prudence." (p.9)

However, Trump is transforming our country, and the world, at a fulgurant pace. In little over three years, he has crippled our international alliances, pulled out of key Treaties, imposed a chaotic cascade of tariffs, disparaged and contradicted our Constitution, and much more.  Norms and traditions are being murdered by the dozens, maybe even hundreds.

All of this has created strife and upheaval, magnified by his incompetence at dealing with the pandemic, racial tensions, global warming, immigration, trade, etc.

Furthermore, one of his central strategies is to stoke hate and division.  So much for social change through careful deliberation.  His modus operandi is violence.

If prudence is a chief virtue, then recklessness, its diametric counterpart, is a chief anti-virtue and Trump's calling card.   

Indeed, Trump shows "Contempt for tradition," which is one of the qualities that conservatives assign to their enemies, the "radicals." (p.10)

 

(4) The importance of both religion (natural law) and conscience

Kirk writes that, for conservatives, "Political problems, at bottom, are religious and moral problems." (p.8) 

However, Trump's behavior is neither religious nor moral.  He lies openly and continuously.  He exudes greed, selfishness and braggadocio.  He shows no loyalty and yet demands loyalty.  He arrogates to himself all authority, and does so in querulous, petty, cruel, vindictive ways.  He praises his own incompetence, calls it "perfect" even though, concerning the pandemic, it has resulted in the unnecessary death of over a hundred thousand citizens.

He claims constantly to admire dictators.  Their raw military and police strength--the strength to seize and control the government by force.  He shows no concern for human rights.

 There is no evidence of him following a moral or religious code of any kind.

As a side note, The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump argues strongly that Trump is a "malignant narcissist," a combination of narcissist and sociopath, who does not possess a conscience.

His own niece has written a book saying that he is the most dangerous man in the world (Too Much and Never Enough)

Conclusion

It is absolutely obvious that Trump is not a conservative.  The large majority of Republican leaders are his bootlickers and apparatchiks, with no platform of their own, except Trump--and so they are not conservatives either.

Not only is it a misnomer to refer to Republicans as conservatives, it is illogical.  The flat out opposite of the truth.  At present, no Republican should be accorded the title of conservative unless they specifically and vehemently denounce our wannabe dictator.

If the media continues to use "conservative" as a label for Trump and his toadies, it cloaks them in a pretty lie and gives them a big PR boost. 

After all, if Trump is surrounded by "conservatives," then he must be prudent, moral, freedom-loving, and respectful of tradition.  Right?  How else would he earn their adulation?

No. Please stop.  Trump is an authoritarian.  His followers are authoritarian.  Refer to them as such. 

And make clear to viewers and readers what "authoritarian" means.  An authoritarian is someone who tends to "favor authority, obedience and uniformity over freedom, independence and diversity."

DO.  NOT.  CALL.  REPUBLICANS.  CONSERVATIVE.

 ===

Footnotes

[1] Kirk uses the sexist term "man" to refer to humanity.  Rather than correct all quotes, I do so here. 

[2] https://www.heritage.org/conservatism/commentary/what-conservatism

[3] https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/09/23/trump-america-authoritarianism-420681

===

The Deep State, Actually, is Racism

 

Anyone schooled in the basics of psychology can see that Donald Trump projects all the time.   Witch hunts, hoaxes, liars, frauds, traitors.  He gushes such terms like a hemorrhage, accusing others, when in fact simple logic shows that they all apply to him.  Projection, a subconscious sleight, is a time-honored method to avoid facing the truth, to remain a coward (another Trump term) and keep your head in the sand.

 

Through the invertible prism of projection, Trump's self-condemnation is easy to see.  Weakness, loser, fake.  Not only does he spew these terms, he does it with whiny incessancy.  His subconscious needs to spin on overdrive to protect whatever part of his mind is conscious from the larger picture of his moral ugliness and failure.

 

Typing "Trump projection psychology" in a search engine, I found decent articles.  An Atlantic piece by Peter Beinart goes into the strategic application of projection and why it might be accepted by Trump's base (because they do it too). 

 

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/07/the-success-of-smoke-and-mirrors/533706/

 

Beinart includes a telltale quote, worth mentioning, lest we forget the quisling-status of the current Republican Senate:

 

During the primaries, [Senator] Ted Cruz actually tried to diagnose this Trump habit [of projection]. “This man is a pathological liar,” Cruz insisted. “He lies practically every word that comes out of his mouth.” And in “a pattern that I think is straight out of a psychology textbook, his response is to accuse everybody else of lying.”

 

What I want to suggest here is that Trump's rhetorical talk of a "deep state" is actually a reference to his own secrets and strategy.  Specifically, in the context of his use of projection, "deep state" reveals his own (barely) concealed racism and how it works, via deceitful cues, to incite and solidify his base.

 

The real cabal concerns Trump and his ardent followers, those who by extension join in his big lie.  They all claim not to be racist, and yet their actions (wink, wink) militate toward racist ends.  They all claim to be advancing equality, when their actions in fact promote White nationalism.

 

To get away with being so obvious and yet impervious--this alone shows that racism has a huge amount of clandestine social backing.  In addition to being so insidious, it is also ubiquitous.  And of course, it wields tremendous local, national and global clout.

 

Summing all this up, racism, as a guardian and purveyor of apartheid culture, is a shadowy influencer, and those who weaponize it can fluidly deny what they are doing, suffer no consequences, and succeed politically. 

 

This is exactly what Trump has done.  He has invoked and wielded the massive, monstrous force of racism, while saying there is nothing there.  Racism is the real deep state threatening our country.

 

There's a change in a person when they adopt the unsaid rituals of Trump-worship.  It's somewhat like joining an illuminati.  Things are done in code.  Much is deep in the brain, distant from the clear facts of conscience.  The way things are phrased, and perhaps felt, allows plausible deniability (a term that originated with the CIA).  And yet there's a major shift, a baptism, in the arcane and the cryptic. 

 

The obvious example is the Q-anon cult.  But it's not just them.  Others change too, when they fall into Trump worship.  The Ted Cruz quote above shows the Senator before his conversion.  Contrast that with the current Ted Cruz, a Trumpian lickspittle.  The change is as stark as the Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

 

When you hear Trump talk, try flipping the projection.  Then you can work back from the lies to hear the truth, which goes something like this:  "I am a deceitful, racist coward.  A needy loser.  I am fearful.  I feel I am the worst.  I need constant praise to hide from what I am.  I am so weak."

 

======

The Terrible, Atrocious, Unforgivable Normalization in George Lakoff's Moral Politics

 

George Lakoff is one of the great contemporary thinkers and has commensurately influenced my own worldview.  However, in his classic Moral Politics: What conservatives know that liberals don't, he offers one of the starkest examples of trivializing wrong action that I have ever seen.  In so doing, he normalizes atrocious rightwing behavior, making it look acceptable, merely a counterpoint to a liberal platform.

 

Normalization--the concealment of evil by cloaking it in the ordinary and acceptable--has been widespread for a long time in US politics.  Donald Trump's party, for example, is still often presented in the media as a legitimate option to Democratic values.  The prevalence and effectiveness of this insidious technique makes it all the more important to call it out.

 

Lakoff's view in the book, perhaps stunning to some, especially in current times, is that rightwing and leftwing politics are, ultimately, moral agendas.  More than anything else, morality is fueling what both sides believe. 

 

This becomes jarringly disharmonious when, for instance, Lakoff argues that conservatives are willing to support a totalitarian dictatorship, if it doesn't challenge the central premise of their way of conceptualizing the world:

 

For Reagan ... Soviet totalitarianism was evil, but the U.S. had supported capitalist totalitarian dictatorships willingly ... The main evil of communism, for Reagan, as for most conservatives, was that it stifled free enterprise.  (p.195)

 

Actually, "had supported" is inaccurate.  During Reagan's presidency, the US continued to support multiple dictatorships in Central America, not to mention the vicious civil war in Nicaragua, where the US-backed side destroyed communities, schools and hospitals as part of a terror-rampage strategy.

 

Leaving this aside, let Lakoff's statement sink in.  The so-called conservative "morality" embraces the support of totalitarian dictatorships in service of free enterprise.

 

Embraces.  Totalitarian.  Dictatorships.

 

Is such a mindset really worthy of the label "moral agenda," as Lakoff proposes?   Make no mistake, totalitarianism here means death squads, torture, kidnapping and general terrorizing of the population.  Think Darth Vader.

 

Lakoff, then, is in the awkward--and despicable--position of blessing evil actions, premeditated actions, perpetrated against entire countries, as components of a moral agenda.

 

This twisted bit of theorizing, moral = evil, is awful in itself.  It offers a reductio ad absurdum of Lakoff's whole book. 

 

Making it worse, though, he goes on and disguises what he has done--he normalizes it--by giving the conservative "moral" view equal status alongside the liberal human-rights view. 

 

Please indulge a slight digression.  Noam Chomsky has gained much intellectual traction by pointing out hypocrisies of this kind.  Hypocrisies that infest US institutions, including academia.  Hypocrisies that sweep US-supported torture and terror under the rug.

 

In the end, Lakoff's thesis can only be salvaged by retreating a step.  He could argue that what the rightwing is doing isn't moral--but--they think it is moral.  And so, he could conclude, given this tweak, that morality is at the heart of conservative politics in some significant way.

 

However, there's a real problem with this correction.  To think that what you're doing is moral is not to actually make it moral.  I'm sure Hitler thought that what he was doing was moral.  Does that make Hitler's actions right?  Should the Final Solution be offered up as just one hors d'oeuvre on a silver plate of legitimate perspectives?

 

Again, we're stuck in that ridiculous spot where, in Lakoff's view, so-called moral politics can epitomize evil.  Satan, construed as a paragon of immorality, could be moral on this view, as long as Satan asserts that what he, Lord of Evil, is doing is right.

 

Maybe Lakoff is okay with that.   Maybe "moral" for him is just intention, not deed.  But that just plays into my point--that evil has been normalized.  In a Lakoffian wonderland, the cruellest crimes of leaders become hidden in fancy semantics and tricky comparisons, tied with a pretty, lying bow of righteousness and good.

As far as I can tell, this is Lakoff's lowest moment in all of his writing.  As a cognitive psychologist, he seems to bring some sort of science-ish relativism into his discussion of politics.  Okay, if you're a relativist, fine.  But don't assume relativism is the only possible way to go .  There is, after all, this thing called the Declaration of Independence.  There is a great deal of sound philosophical support for universal human rights.  

So please, don't surreptitiously impose your relativism on those of us who think totalitarian dungeons should not be framed as an option on a menu of moral choices. 

 

=====

 

Trump's "Law & Order" is the Enemy of Truth, Morality and Justice

Subconsciously, we human beings, as creatures of cognitive psychology, often associate the concept of law with the concept of ethics.  However, as someone who has taught ethics courses at three state universities, let me share one of the basic points of Ethics 101, namely, that law and ethics are very different entities.

Laws are not necessarily, or even likely to be, ethical.  Conversely, ethical ways of behaving can be outright illegal. 

When "law" backs the ascent of a fascist like Donald Trump, when "order" means thuggish, racist, and even murderous police enforcement, then law & order become the opposite of morality, justice and their deep association with the founding ethical principles of this country. 

These principles include "self-evident" truths.  They include equality, equal justice under law, the right to freedom of speech and freedom of assembly.

Again, law and order are not automatically good.  Look at North Korea.  Look at China.  Plenty of law & order.  And yet also evil.  Atrocity.  Brutality.  Mind-control.  Surveillance.  Oppression of all basic freedoms.    

Democrats would be wise to counter Trump's framing with a simple, clear point:  "law & order," as used in his rants, is the opposite of Truth, Morality and Justice.  In association with the latter, our Founders insisted on a Bill of Rights and a Declaration of Independence. 

Trump's "I am the LAW & ORDER President" is a dictator's proclamation.  He perverts law and order, makes it dirty, as he does with so much else.

 Jacob Blake's sister speaks out, Trevor Noah Commentary

===

Yes, Trump is Plausibly a Fascist, John McNeill is Wrong.

 

An article by John McNeill was recently featured in the Washington Post titled, "How Fascist Is Donald Trump?  There's actually a formula for that." 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/10/21/how-fascist-is-donald-trump-theres-actually-a-formula-for-that/

Although this article is two years old, it still earned a front-page position on the website.  McNeill includes the brief assertion that, yes, Donald Trump is a major threat to our democracy; and yet his overall message is that Trump is not a fascist.  

This conclusion is based on "the 11 attributes of fascism," all of which can be numerically quantified by assigning a certain number of points called "Benitos."  After doing the calculations, McNeill states:

"Add all this up, and you get 26 out of a possible 44 Benitos. In the fascist derby, Trump is a loser."

I have three general comments on this article. 

First, it relies heavily on late-stage Hitler and Mussolini to provide its paragon of fascism.  For instance, one attribute is "Fetishization of Youth."  Trump is given zero Benitos on this scale, reducing his level of fascism.

What?  Why is this attribute important?  And why is it as relevant as "Leader Cult," another one of the attributes? (on which Trump gets four Benitos).

This kind of problem troubles the whole list of attributes.  Why are they so essential?  Why do they have equal weight?  Furthermore, how are you measuring them?  Not only the choice of attributes but the quantification scheme is highly problematic.

Compare McNeill's trait-based definition of fascism to Madeline Albright's key insight, in her recent book, that fascism is not a governmental system but a means to gain and maintain power. 

Aha!  Far better, at least as a starting place.  It takes context into account.  Trump is a fascist by this standard when you add his racism, sexism, white nationalism, xenophobia, golden-age nostalgia, and so on.  

Second comment.  The author's tone is bizarrely playful.  The "fascist derby."  "Benitos."  C'mon, really?  We're talking about evil, and threats to world stability, not Netflix movie ratings.

This bizarre playful tone, along with the conclusion that Trump isn't even close to a real fascist, creates an underlying theme that is still trotted out way too much by the media--foolishly, I would add: 'Trump isn't all that bad so stop worrying about it so much.'

Third comment.  This relates to Albright's insight that fascism is a means to gain and maintain power.  Maybe there's another important question we should be asking:  Would Trump do the things that Mussolini and Hitler have done, if the current power structure allowed it? 

Based on his professional diagnosis as a malignant narcissist, a person who has no conscience at all, and who possesses an all-consuming urge to be worshipped,  and who is inherently sadistic, there is certainly a case to be made that the answer to the above question is yes.  White nationalist Trump would indeed violently impose whiteness as a pure, superior race--if he could get away with it.

Didn't he just recently--Lafayette Square--try to send 10,000 troops into the streets?  Wasn't he stopped only by Defense Secretary Esper and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Milley?   

In any case, we should be distinguishing between early stage and late stage takeovers (scary, yes I know.  I live in sorrow--but there's still hope from this next election).  

Also, we should be looking at the psychology of Trump, not ignoring it.  Psychology is far too often ignored as a science, often due to each academic discipline setting up its own little intellectual fiefdom.

In conclusion, McNeill's article is highly flawed, inappropriately playful, and in effect dangerous, because it tends to make readers think, "Oh, it's not so bad."  When in fact, it truly is that bad--and more.  The entire geopolitical balance is at stake.

====

A Briefer Future Format

I'm going to try and bring back this blog in a shorter format, something more conducive to my new situation.  It has been a difficult stretch for me, as for many of us.

On April 2, I started to show symptoms of COVID-19.  I proceeded through the stages:  weakness, fever, then later lung and some kidney issues.  It never became very serious, but it lasted a while.  I took myself out of quarantine on May 13.  In the rural area where I live, there was no testing at the time, and I relied on CDC web pages for general guidance. 

Around the same time, as with many of us, I was hit with new financial and professional challenges.  (I work as an adjunct professor, never more than a contract worker for the state university system, which gives me no benefits and a poverty-level income).  While before I could save a hundred dollars a month, if I lived like a stoic, I now struggle not to sink too fast into the red.

Then on June 3, I went to bed wondering if I would wake up in a dictatorship, due to Donald Trump's wish to send ten thousand troops to Lafayette Square to break up a peaceful rally of citizens exercising their rights to freedom of speech and freedom of assembly.  Fortunately, two individuals stopped that from happening (according to WaPo):  the Secretary of Defense, Mark Esper, and the Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mark Milley.  On that night, these two men saved the Constitution as a viable document.

We here in the USA continue to live in a vortex of pandemic, economic crisis, social protests, and Trump's continuous and major threat to our democratic system.  The period from now until 2021 may be the last time in my life that I live beyond the grip of an authoritarian regime.  Conversely, if Trump is thrown out of office, it may signal a reformation, a bright epoch for equality, rights, decency, and democracy.  The USA is the wealthiest country and has the strongest military.  It isn't far-fetched to argue that as the US tilts, so tilts the globe.  The fate of humanity-- --autocracy or democracy--hangs in the balance during these precarious, tumultuous months. 

To be clear, autocracy as present in the USA includes:  White nationalism, fascism, racism, sexism, islamophobia, homophobia, xenophobia, kleptocracy, plutocracy, and the monarchic worship of hate-mongering demagogue who, by clinical standards, is both a narcissist and a sociopath.

Indeed, part of what has crippled me mentally is the fact that so many people could bow down to such a repulsive figure, when by resisting him they could live such better lives and more noble lives, and also found a quality future for their children.  For instance, we could have good government healthcare--but instead, more than half of our White population fixates on imaginary problems related to supposed dangers posed by immigrants and Black people.

Democracy, in contrast to Trumpian autocracy, is indeed, as Joe Biden, the Democratic candidate for President, put it, on the side of Light.  For instance, Biden's Vice-Presidential pick is a Black woman (who also has Indian heritage).  Yes, this alone is a magnificent thing, all by itself.  If that comes as a surprise, you aren't engaging the full virulence of racism and sexism in this country.  

Aside from all that, Kamala Harris, the VP candidate, is inspiringly and outstandingly competent.

Although for years I've been warning about the rise of fascism, this blog being one of my standard soapboxes, I find it very different to face what's going on directly, rather than just writing about it with foresight.  Intellectually,  sure, I saw this coming.  Psychologically, I can't come to grips with how quickly the Republican leadership sold out our values, whether in abject cowardice, or simply lust for their rung in the hierarchy.  Either is awful.  Either is despicable, dreadful, pitiable and infinitely sad.

As for me, my writing time is more precious than ever.  Most of what time I have, I put into my novel.  I'll be finishing the current draft soon, the fourth draft, and then I'll read it through out loud, one last time.  I work on it every day, even during the teaching semesters, except when a migraine headache looms.  I have to stop then.  The migraines are absolutely debilitating.  I'm talking paralytic pain.  No light, sound, or movement allowed.

I do think it will be a great novel.  It deserves to reach the world and to change it.  Desert, of course, doesn't translate into success.  I did write it to be stimulating and engaging and I'll market it aggressively.  In any case, it is something I've always wanted to do--the extreme exercise of my mental potential for the greatest challenge I could possibly face.  The content has been as soul-draining as validating.   It has plundered my passionate, social, and spiritual riches.  There is a higher statement buried in the dual plot.  This statement is sotto voce and it is not pure or innocent.  It gets heavily challenged, diluted, and suffers within the drama, love, war, beauty, monstrosity and apocalypse.

As I see it, my purpose is to finish this novel, whatever the financial or other expense.  It's not merely selfish.  I am no better than anyone else, but no worse either.  And to the extent that we can throw ourselves into the ordeals of prophets, channeling something greater than our carnal needs--aspects of art, good, and collective conscious--I consider myself a prophet. 

I am also, still, a poet, writer, thinker and ethicist.  My head is full of thoughts.  They bustle through, quite impatient.  My hope for this blog, at this juncture, is merely to share some of those thoughts in a brief format.  Maybe they will be useful to someone 'out there'.   Even if not, at least I'll relieve some of the pressure on my bulging, scattered, inefficient brain (A brain I love by the way, though I'm no Albert Einstein or Mary Shelley).

Owl

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