CommentsTRUMP WATCH-It’s common knowledge that if you are forced to listed to Trump’s rhetoric, he will always tell you what he is guilty of because he makes accusations of others of what he himself has done. This was apparent early on during the campaign as he accused Hillary Clinton of being involved in so many weird situations that we assumed he was simply nuts.
Instead, as everything has played out, we have found that he was involved with the Russians in a web of deceit and treason and he and his campaign have pulled some of the dirtiest tricks that have ever been witnessed in the political realm. When he is pushed up against a wall and has nothing, he then turns around and blames everyone else. It takes just a simple “tweet” on his part and before you know it, his supporters are parroting the same absolute crap in an almost robotic, braindead manner.
Trump is obsessed with both Hillary Clinton and President Obama. The former because he is a sexist and cannot handle the fact that he lost the popular vote to a woman, the latter because he is jealous of the intellect and success of a President that is well-loved, achieved so much and is a black man. The election is over and yet his continual attacks on both Clinton and Obama, in attempts to blame them for his very apparent lack of abilities is just part of his dialogue. However, it follows through on his well-known and really quite evil history of being hateful and vindictive to anyone that he didn’t like.
With the help of Fox, which cannot be equated to “news” as it is of the same type of government approved information channel that appeared in Germany under Hitler’s regime, he spreads misinformation on a grand scale to those that are too weak minded to realize that they are being played.
Politifact rated Fox on the bottom of the scale for information of all reporting realms with only an average of 18% truth, and yet the conservatives remain glued to their screens. Why? Because it appeals to their personal belief systems and they lack critical thinking. When you present these types of facts to them, they yell “liberal news” for all other reporting, even though the stats show otherwise.
The blame game is what Trump has always done. He has never been accountable for any of his mistakes or bad decisions. It is always someone else’s fault and since this ploy was so successful in his badly formed business life, he continues this emotional condition in his daily meltdowns. Anyone who has been a parent or teacher can recognize this spoiled child behavior and lack of accountability.
Trump knows that if he continues to throw out bad information, that his supporters will blindly follow and Fox will twist it to avoid reporting any truth and spin it for the extreme right-wing agenda. There is a common sense aspect to understanding this rather sick and twisted attitude that I cover in my article: “Yes, Republicans ARE Exhibiting Cult Behavior”:
A Forbes opinion article covers this topic on the Republicans:
“Countries experience moments like this from time to time. We are long overdue for such a crisis, as our last major partisan breakdown occurred in the 1850’s. Faced with tumultuous cultural, technological and economic upheaval, political systems may find themselves bottlenecked, unable to keep pace with evolutionary demands. Parties and ideologies are contorted into strange shapes under the pressure of rapid transformation. Communism, for example, began as a ruthlessly empirical, atheistic approach to politics and economics. Influenced by the turmoil of the 20th century and the urgency of revolutionary demands, it quickly took on the trappings of a fanatical religion.
By the time the Khmer Rouge unleashed their wave of slaughter on Cambodia, Communism had devolved into little more than ideological window dressing for a tribal death cult. Ideology does not constrain fanatics.
How did the Republican Party become a dangerous cult? Desperate to halt a terrifying tide of social transformation, the political heirs of Jim Crow flooded into the weak and nearly empty infrastructure of the Southern GOP. Men like Alabama’s Roy Moore and Texas’ Rick Perry were the last generation of white Southern men to begin their careers as Democrats. The flight of millions of Dixiecrats into the GOP shifted the balance of power inside the party nationwide. Their fear-soaked, delusional fervor converted that institution from a conventional political party into a white nationalist cult. The Party of Lincoln now exists to help Neo-Confederates win the Civil War politically, long after losing it on the battlefield.”
The Psychology of Blaming Others
Trump seems to understand the psychology of those who choose to see the extreme conservative side. He knows that the more chaos and misinformation he throws out, the less they will pay attention to what is really going on. With the help of Fox, they create non-stories, expand on conspiracy theories that have been debunked and stir the pot so that both mainstream media and his cult followers will follow the idiocies and ignore what is going on in reality.
Tapping into the rather bizarre habit of conservatives for “hyper-nationalism,” Trump equates so-called patriotism with focusing on white Americans and placing everyone of color or other religions as the enemy. I cover this topic in my article: “Trump Supporters: Hyper-Nationalism, When Trump Doesn’t Care About the Country.”
“In the Post article they refer to this as ‘hyper-nationalism’ and while it isn’t one that is only seen in fascist regimes, it is the core belief that is conveyed in fascism. When Trump took on the slogan ‘Make America Great Again,’ he tapped into the typical emotional side of those in the country that were living in fear. This slogan was used by Adolf Hitler as part of his post-WWI attempt to rejuvenate German self-esteem in his ‘Make Germany Great Again’.”
I also include: “The Washington Post article states: ‘Italian and German fascism shared a strong commitment to the notion of national rebirth. Mussolini and Hitler encouraged their supporters to believe in lost (or stolen) greatness, in a glorious past.’”
[Lawrence] Britt’s description includes: ‘Fascist regimes tend to make constant use of patriotic mottos, slogans, symbols, songs, and other paraphernalia. Flags are seen everywhere, as are flag symbols on clothing and in public displays.’”
This is not to say that anyone that has a strong belief in support of their country is part of this group, but instead to clarify that the Trump supporters are cult extremists, using the country as their platform to excuse all of the hate, bigotry, racism, and sexism that they spew.”
Using this as a baseline, Trump can create any story that he wants as long as it places liberals and Democrats as the evil doers because they aren’t patriotic Americans. He can craft as many conspiracy theories, without any facts, and spin them to show that liberals are supporting illegal immigrants that are doing everything from voting to leeching off of the system for public benefits. All of this is not only blatantly false but is part of his platform to keep his base in the one state that he knows is successful: angry.
His consistent blaming of others has expanded to the point where no one is safe from his vindictive behavior. Just as any of the dictator wannabes, anyone that opposes him, including those of the Republican Party, receive a verbal (or tweeted) lashing. When he and Fox dredge up topics such as the so-called involvement of Hillary Clinton in the Russian Uranium situation, the fact checkers come forward to prove him wrong, but Fox keeps their small-minded base riled up on the false narratives. He tosses as much out there to redirect, knowing that some of it will “stick” with both Fox and his cult followers.
He Has Based His Life on Lies
In times gone by, it was quite common for traveling salesmen to come into towns selling their wares and making false promises. These were called “snake oil salesmen” and there were always people that wanted to believe and therefore sunk their hard-earned money down to buy items that were based on lies. Trump is the modern-day version of this and he has based his entire life on lying, knowing that people will want to believe.
I cover this rather odd aspect of human behavior in my article: “Supporting Trump: The Psychology of the Lie,” where I include:
“To find out why so many lies have become not only acceptable but completely believable by the Trump supporters, you have to delve into how our brains process lies. This is explained in a NYMag.com article:
‘Upon first hearing a lie, your brain must accept it as truth. Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert has theorized that to do the work of separating truth and lies, our brains first must accept the false statement as if it were true; otherwise, it’s impossible to engage with it. “For instance, if someone were to tell us — hypothetically, of course — that there had been serious voter fraud in Virginia during the presidential election, we must for a fraction of a second accept that fraud did, in fact, take place,” [psychologist, Maria] Konnikova explains. “Only then do we take the second step, either completing the mental certification process (yes, fraud!) or rejecting it (what? no way).
‘If you hear a lie often enough, it starts to sound true. According to what’s called the “illusory truth effect,” the more you hear a false statement, the truer it starts to sound. This is even true when you should know better. In a fascinating, if disheartening, 2015 study, researchers showed that if people repeated the phrase “The Atlantic Ocean is the largest ocean on Earth” enough times, the Atlantic Ocean did indeed begin to seem like the largest ocean on Earth.
‘A constant stream of lies becomes so mentally taxing that your brain gives up. “It’s called cognitive load,” Konnikova writes, meaning that “our limited cognitive resources are overburdened.” Lie detection is difficult work, and your brain can only handle so much.’
“In other words, we have to try to process and digest the lies. This is especially difficult if they appease the inner agenda that is personally felt, as it isn’t distinguished as lies. The secondary action that happens is ‘lying overload.’ When we are inundated with so many lies, the brain stops trying to process them and gives up. The assumption at that point is that everything is ‘truth.’
“This makes the entire scenario for blaming others for everything that he has done wrong perfectly acceptable for his followers. It is especially effective because the accusations are reinforced by Fox and the conservatives simply don’t bother to fact check. They base their entire belief systems on extreme right-wing information and therefore never hear anything that is outside of those realms.”
He’s Run Out of People and…People to Blame
Every day there is another of Trump’s staff that is either resigning or being fired, and as each one leaves he slings blame onto them for one situation or another. He, like so many other narcissist sociopaths, bases his support upon their undying loyalty to him. But this kind of loyalty doesn’t exist. There are few that are willing to go to prison for a man that throws everyone under the bus to save himself.
Those cult followers that continue to think that RussiaGate is a concocted situation have little or no understanding of how the legal system works. Arrests and indictments only occur when there is valid evidence. They also don’t have a clue as to how evidence and information is released in high security conditions, as well as the fact that we are involved in a democratic crisis and as Robert Mueller and his team proceed, they are keeping this data close to their chest.
The Trump blame game is now appearing as the pathetic and childish behavior that it has always been. He has run out of staff to blame and those that have already jumped ship are cutting deals with Mueller to save themselves. Trump’s lifelong commitment to lies, deceit and evil is coming to an end. Even members of the Republican Party recognize that his position as the “useful idiot” is over and are walking away from this volatile man.
For those of us that have maintained critical thinking, we have spent a lot of time apologizing to the world. How did we get to this place in our country where a man and a party that supports racism, bigotry, sexism and hate have control of making our laws?
The good news is, a majority of the people of the country are done with this. It is shown in the massive protests as well as in Nov. 2017 in the start of the Blue Wave that is coming. It will take decades to fix what Trump and the GOP have damaged, and we hope that in generations to come they will learn from this horror.
(S. Novi is a journalist who worked in the media when it DID have integrity. A liberal and one that is suspicious of cults and empty promises. This piece was originally posted on Medium.com.) Prepped for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.
