Why Donald Trump Won
You’ve heard me speak before of the con job that is politics. We politicos prey on your weaknesses and, as sharp as any street magic hustler, we show you what you expect to see, tell you what you want to hear, and separate you from your money, from your vote, and from the inherent power you have in a democracy.
A consistent version of the politi-con has been the ANGRY VOTER. The Angry Voter is the Hulked out version of David Banner, Real American. They’ve been around forever, but they got rebranded and packaged as Nixon’s Silent Majority, Real Americans who did real American things, unlike not real Americans who protest and/or want free stuff and/or come from someplace else and/or aren’t white and/or don’t know their place. They’ve always been angry, but at least back then they were mercifully Silent.
So, here we are today: Voter ANGRY! Voter SMASH!
Voter HATE puny insiders and elites.
The essence of a great con is that the mark will TELL you what he wants to hear. All you have to do is wave your arm and tell people they are not alone in their anger, that their anger is justified, sanctified, and shared by you, their Great White Hope.
That anger, while real, is actually unjustified and misdirected. But the con man will not tell you that. He will tell you that the world works EXACTLY the way you think the world works. “Yes, we CAN build a wall.”
Over and over we’ve talked about how the Republicans are ignoring reality to feed into and enforce that anger. The authoritarian mindset that waters the base of GOP politics like a malignant underground spring dictates that words like “disgusting,” topics like bathrooms, and images like two men kissing elicit visceral reactions of revulsion.
The authoritarian looks for a daddy figure to simplify life, remove uncertainty, and de-stress human-to-human contact, so that nothing can impede their cocooned serenity. In spiritual matters, God and the preacher fulfill that daddy role. In law enforcement, it’s the sheriff. At home, it’s actually daddy. And in politics, it’s a combination of all of the above, because in the authoritarian, all that stuff is hard-wired together, you can’t separate the two because the pluralism that informs our political discourse is actually the source of their anxiety. Right wingers frack into those short-circuited brains, pump in a toxic cocktail of BS and righteousness, and pump out energy, while methane exits through the mouth.
Enter Donald Trump, descending his golden escalator. Unlike every other politician who had to work within the system, and whose con was in support of political goals within a broader –albeit fungible – ideology, Trump’s WHOLE LIFE is about the con. He HAS no ideology, beyond whatever makes the con work.
“He says what I’m thinking,” how many times have we heard that? Of COURSE he does. He says whatever he thinks you’re thinking, whether or not it dovetails with what the guy 5 minutes ago was thinking or what he may have said 10 years ago on the topic. Or with what he said 5 minutes ago. He contradicts himself in his own speeches, he flips and flops left and right.
We saw some of this with Romney because he was also very much a situational flip flopper, but when you come right down to it, anyone reading this column could probably sit down and come up with a fairly consistent description of what Rmormoney really thinks. “Rmormoney” pretty much sums it up.
Not so with sui generis Trump, whose very existence in the national consciousness has been built on a set of cons. I think there is one thought in his head, crowding out all the others: “I Am AWESOME!” That’s his whole philosophy. Everything else is patter for the benefit of the mark. Holding reasonable, coherent, cohesive positions is a lot of work, and takes up a lot of brain. There’s no room inside Trump for that, or self doubt. That is by design, because really, a smidgeon of true self-reflection would be fatal to this narcissist.
So Donald Trump won the Republican nomination because, in a Party whose whole existence depends on the Angry Voter con, a professional finally showed them how it’s really run.
Good one, Primo – you nailed it. And I agree with your assessment of the messaging:
” “He says what I’m thinking,” how many times have we heard that? Of COURSE he does. He says whatever he thinks you’re thinking, whether or not it dovetails with what the guy 5 minutes ago was thinking or what he may have said 10 years ago on the topic. ”
Your piece was an interesting crossover after reading Jamie Bouiles article over at Slate on the Angry Working Class Voter syndrome, and the racial landscape thereof – if you didn’t see, I think you’ll appreciate it.
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2016/05/what_pundits_keep_getting_wrong_about_donald_trump_and_the_working_class.html
1This is the very thing that scares me about Trump and about the current election cycle.
We Americans like to think we’re savvy shoppers, when in fact we’re collectively gullible and ripe for any skilled huckster. “No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public,” sniffed Mencken, and he had a valid point.
2NOT Jamie Bouiles, but rather Jamelle Bouie
3*blush*
So many voters are suckers for believing what a candidate says about himself no matter what his history is or whether what he says actually makes sense. A braggart con man like Trump knows who the suckers are and how to reel them in. America’s 2-century-old experiment with government dependent on an informed electorate is becoming a massive failure.
4Informed electorate is the key there, T.G.
5The only thing that scares me about tRump is his jello-to-wall ability to never actually say anything while sounding like he’s said it all. Hillary had better practice how to take that apart at the debate level, because it is nothing any experienced politician has had to deal with, until now.
6What will the snacilbupeR do between now and July? Donnie Drumpf has laid the entire Con game wide open. Lyin’ Ryan is having more fits of the vapors than Lyndsey Graham and Scarlett O’Hara combined. Meanwhile, ironically in ever so many ways, Gov Cartman aka the Outlaw Jersey Whale has offered to be the bridge between Drumpf and Ryan.
Reince Priebus soaking his Cheerios in Bailey’s? By July he’ll be accompanying his breakfast with tequila and an OJ back.
StringOnAStick, Sec/Sen Clinton would be well advised to totally ignore Donnie Drumpf. If she feels the need to address him, she should allow Triumph the Insult Comic Dog to be her surrogate. If they debate, she should take Triumph to the podium with her and unleash him every time Donnie quacks like a flag-waving duck.
https://s.yimg.com/fz/api/res/1.2/qaXvK4Z7RLr9P7.mEyJqtg–/YXBwaWQ9c3JjaGRkO2g9NTA0O3E9OTU7dz02NDg-/http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/exile/triumph2.jpg
7Andrew Sullivan, in an article in New York Magazine, entitled, “America has never Been So Ripe for Tyranny”, makes the case that democracies end when they are too democratic.
8That is when deference to any authority would wither and populism would emerge in all its glory, supporting a leader who was anti-leadership, like Drumpf. The “low-information” voter is anti establishment beyond reason and of course the ConMan plays that card over and over.
Watch how the Bully is pushing the RKlan into submission. One by one they are falling in line, in the name of unifying the party, but they are actually allowing Trump to call the shots.
This is how a tyrant gains absolute power. If he succeeds in getting elected president, he will take over the senate and house and of course, the SCOTUS. Sound familiar?
The Democrats have to stop his ascendancy or America and maybe the world is lost
You have created, masterfully, the scenario and script outline for the scariest movie ever in history. To bad it’s almost plausible
9The GOP has been teaching its base for decades that they should hate, fear and distrust the government. Thus Trump.
10And the Rthugs, dedicated as they are to a delusional yesterday of glory and power, are now left to do the post-mortem by themselves on their own selves. Damn! What a final curtain!
11Eric Hoffer in his book the True Believer described the “new poor” the malcontents who support mass movements. The new poor recall the good old days, real or imagined, and blame others for their plight. A significant number of Trump supporters are new poor, who have watched their earnings stagnate, and hear Trump tell them he will “make America great again.” They understand that he is telling them things are not their fault, but are the fault of others, Chinese, Mexican’s Muslims, etc. These are folks that Nixon and Reagan brought into the Republican party. They now dominate Republican primaries. If Bush, Rubio, Graham, Walker, etc, all of the “moderate” Republicans had joined together a year ago, agreeing to support the strongest candidate among them, they still would not have overcome Trumps’s message to the true believers.
12maggie, maggie, maggie “What a final curtain!” You are such an optimist. Wasn’t there already a post-mortem, the one from which Reince Priebus reached out ….
13Uncle Dave, all those True Believers who want to be magically transported back to the “good old days” do not realize that if such a thing happened, they would be very, very young, possibly even infants and dressed accordingly, complete with all the discomfort those rags initially laid upon them when they were itching all the time and wishing for the magic of the itch-less future! No matter how good they will ever have it, they will never be satisfied and still insist they are not responsible for their own discomfort. Comfort, yes, Discomfort, no. Thats always and ever someone elses fault.
14Of course I’m an optimist, PKM! I did some theatre arts in undergrad and discovered that a genuine professional stage has more than one curtain and they are used only one at a time if ever at all! There is more theatrics to come, especially in Cleveland. I’m stocking up on a truckload of popcorn.
15So, my friends…
Get every last thinking voter to the polls come national voting day.
Unlike the Trumpers, you can use the truth. Tell them: If you vote against Trump, *and* down ticket, there is a chance to save our democracy.
Remind them of weapons of mass destruction and wars paying for themselves (using oil money), and the other lies that Republicans have used in the past. Too bad you can’t remind them of the promises kept by Obama, because they have all been drowned in Faux News…
16“Trump’s WHOLE LIFE is about the con. He HAS no ideology, beyond whatever makes the con work.”
Yes, and he’s been pretty open about that. But still — they eat it up. Great post Primo.
17It is a battle, Brothers and Sisters. And it is an important battle.
18Thanks for another informative post!
Trump nailed all that’s wrong with Conservatives. First is FEAR. Fear of the brown, black, non christian person, etc. fear of the ‘THEM’.
To Conservatives, ‘make America great again actually means
means, ‘make America White again’.
And then there’s the Conservative moral system which you nailed…
Much info at link below, Trump is the Decider.
“What Conservatives Really Want”
19George Lakoff
“The way to understand the conservative moral system is to consider a strict father family. The father is The Decider, the ultimate moral authority in the family. His authority must not be challenged. ”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/george-lakoff/what-conservatives-really_b_825504.html
“That anger, while real, is actually unjustified and misdirected. But the con man will not tell you that.”
Well, the scam has worked well for Newt Gingrich, Tom DeLay, Rick Perry and Greg Abbott – why not Donald Trump?
20Nor do people like to admit they’ve been conned. “Just dumb people get fooled, and I’m not dumb.” Or else it’s someone else’s fault – watch for it, yes, it’s all Obama’s fault!!
21“Drumpf’s WHOLE LIFE is about the con. He HAS no ideology, beyond whatever makes the con work.”
Most succinct description of Hair Drumpf I’ve seen yet. Art of the Deal my a$$. That “book” should have been called the Art of the Con.
22I am with everyone on this–this sums up the current state of affairs for sure. I like to call this perfect con as the Bait and Switch tactic of professional salespeople–rope them in with an enticing ad for one item and when they come, sell them something else thus creating the illusion of “making America great again”–it takes them a long time (if ever, with some) to figure out they have been duped–(Remember the con of Newt the Boot Gingrich–the Contract for America (I always called it the Contract Against America). HIs name seems to have emerged lately–The Trump must have had his advisors read The True Believer in secret to find out how it is done–Strange, I was unable to obtain a copy of the True Believer in my public library–they had to canvas other libraries to find me one to read–I wonder why– Anyway, we must all be vigilant, and very afraid!!!
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