Donald Trump is not an idiot, he’s not campaigning in as improvised a way as it may seem, he has a very focused strategy but its very nature is already undermining itself.
What may be misleading many to think he is just winging it and succeeding despite that is that he is winging it when it comes to expressing any views on issues. There’s a reason he’s content to say off the cuff and outrageous things, completely contradict himself from moment to moment or day to day and flat out lie about issues.
He doesn’t care about them, issues are ancillary to becoming and “ruling” as President. So he has no concerns about declaring women should be punished for having abortions or that all Muslims should be banned from entering the country, nothing he says about issues matter if he can simply distract Americans the next moment with an obnoxious pronouncement or insult.
Again, for all those Trump supporters who will never allow reality to penetrate their worship of their stubby-fingered hate vessel, he doesn’t care about any of the issues you think he does.
This week, he’s already tried to have it both ways by not recanting his bigotry against Muslims but saying a religious test to prevent all Muslims from entering the U.S. was just “a suggestion”. So Trump fans, your god just sold you out on your desperate embrace of islamophobia and though your synapses no longer fire on anything related to your blind goosestepping behind Trump, those of us who live in reality see what saps you’re being played for and how Trump’s feet of clay are beginning to crumble.
Trump has a simple and admittedly elegant strategy for seizing the Presidency, it involves a degree of what his career has been built on, being a deceitful snake oil salesman, but is powered by what he learned from the world of reality television.
Distraction.
Reality television is actually just the opposite, it accomplishes one main and rarely discussed function, it distracts many Americans from what really matters in their lives by luring them into caring about which singer gets the winning vote, which survivor gets voted off a pretend island, which regular person can cook the best meal…and often, which person can be the most humiliated.
Reality tv distracts Americans from their true realities. Many who have voted for The Voice or American Idol haven’t voted in a Presidential election. They become vested in the manufactured and manipulated dramas of “real” people while the actual “real” people whose decisions affect their lives, their income and their futures are often ignored.
Donald Trump is the personification of the relationship between Americans, the realities of their lives and the distraction of entertainment that keeps them from focusing on making their lives better.
Bread and Circuses have been around for millennia, the concept of distracting the masses from the truly destructive onslaught against their well being by a powerful minority using fascinating and coarse spectacles has been proven to work extraordinarily well over the years.
Donald Trump understands this and has been leveraging this consistently. He knows that as long as he can create a new distraction each day, whether he says something repugnant, purile, bigoted, etc., the offense itself is irrelevant but the distraction from things that really matter is invaluable and advantageous.
What some see as almost daily “gaffes’ are far from accidental. His campaign requires a near-daily comment that distracts the public. He’s fine if everyone in the media is debating what he’s proclaimed that day for its horribleness because it elevates his dominance and presence in the race over anyone else and it sidetracks criticisms of the outrage he spouted the day before or how wrong or hypocritical he’s been on an issue.
It is a very cynical game among typically cynical games when it comes to electoral politics. Donald Trump believes that as long as he can keep howling outrageous things multiple times a week, there can and will be no discussion on issues, the only discussion will be about him and the latest ugliness he’s spewed.
Since he knows that his support is based solely on people’s anger, frustration and prejudices, he has no need to address issues and in fact seems to see them as counterproductive to is campaign. So he needs to blot them out and try to run out the clock on the General Election, hoping his campaign of distraction can keep voters overwhelmed from thinking about the issues and what a President of his character would mean to the future of the country.
And thanks to a greedy corporate media, which has essentially been making billions of dollars of in kind contributions by giving so much free media to this cash cow for them, Trump has been having a powerful assist in his fraud of a campaign. The CEO of CBS, Les Moonves, came straight out and said, “Trump may not be good for the country but he’s good for CBS.”
These are the powerful elite that Trump wants Americans distracted from viewing clearly, the corporate worshipers of greed who are happy to participate in the destruction of this country and hundreds of millions of Americans as long as it’s provided them with big profits. Whether we look at the oil corporations, the banking corporations, the media corporations, this is the overarching reality we truly live under. The powerful and wealthy controlling so much of what happens in this country and how the public is manipulated away from doing anything about it, while they steal away more of the majority’s income and futures with no hint of conscience.
This is distraction on an even bigger scale than Trump is employing but he is a perfect example of the system that has grown so oppressive in America…and have led so many desperate and foolish victims of this corrupt system into believing that the bottle of poison they’re being handed as a “cure” by the very people how have already poisoned their lives and futures, will now make their lives all better and “Make America Great Again”.
Yes, it seems so obvious, one of the billionaire elites who have spent their lives buying politicians and legislation to benefit themselves at the expense of the majority, is not the guy who wants to change the system that has worked so well for him and brought him to the point of power and wealth that he could grab the nomination for President from one of the country’s two major parties.
Does Trump really oppose the corrupt system that has brought him to where he is? Does he want that taken away from him?
There is a light at the end of the Trump tunnel though and it’s starting to get brighter. A good way to explain it is…pizza.
With some admitted exceptions, who doesn’t love pizza? Think of your favorite pizza place or the best slice you’ve ever had. Imagine if you could have a piece today and that you were lucky enough to have a piece left over tomorrow. Now imagine that magical pizza box keeps producing another piece of pizza the next day and the day after that, on and on, day after day, week after week.
Would you start losing your appetite for your favorite pizza and perhaps start dreaming of eating a salad?
As “delicious” as Trump’s distractions have been to the media and the public over the GOP primary, they are already starting to undo the public’s appetite for distraction (apologies to Guns N’ Roses). Trump force feeds the public his hateful name calling and bigotry and has successfully gotten many to keep swallowing it but there are signs that they’re beginning to get tired of that repetitious diet.
This is the only tactic Trump has, he can’t debate issues, he is sadly uninformed on most basic issues in peoples’ lives and the scheming aspect of his character doesn’t allow for him to appear genuine or empathetic to the non-haters out there.
So Trump, with the help of the greed-gorged media, will continue to force distraction into the minds of Americans and hope he can keep people turning against each other and debating ridiculous garbage that could never come to pass in this country anyway…as long as it keeps a majority from looking at him and our corrupt systems and seeing them for what they really are. Then he and they could succeed in once again manipulating the public into voting against their own interests and willingly giving them what they want at the price of future suffering for the majority.
Trump’s Pizza Party of Distraction has been running for months now and many have been chowing down on all they can eat but you can begin to hear a rumbling in the bellies of those who are losing their appetite for more of the same and realizing that maybe they’ve had all they can swallow.
Adlib
Another great post. I think you nailed it but I still have fears on the Dem side. I think we have a group that are so stuck on perfect idealism that they are going to sacrifice the vote to Trump. It may not happen and it may happen, I guess we take our lumps if people really do decide to pull a Ralph Nader.
I hate to think of what the next four to eight years will look like. I don’t worry so much for myself, we are doing really well but those truly on the bottom and the middle to bottom there will surely feel the hurt. I wonder if people really take all of that in to consideration?
Anyway, thanks for the uplifting article, it gives me hope.
Thanks Sue!
I think the only way it could become a “Nader Election” is if Hillary, DWS and the Dem Party didn’t reach out to and share the platform and campaign with Bernie and the Progressive wing.
With the decision on sharing the members on the DNC platform committee with Bernie, I do think that when the primary is over, Dems will come together.
Many will still not like Hillary but here too, as we get closer to November, I think the prospect of Trump winning the WH will push them to vote Dem.
Yes, Adlib, that is a good sign.
Having faith in the intelligence of the typical American voter is becoming harder and harder to sustain. Never in my 50 years of voting and watching politics could I have ever believed people would accept the vile and hateful speech as some do with this guy. Even Huey Long was not as much of a sociopath as Trump. Imagining a President Trump in the White House, spouting trash at leaders of the other countries, name calling and gutter sniping seems to unreal to contemplate. Even worse though all those who blindly follow and support his school yard antics.
gyp46, I am hopeful that as the GE gets into full swing, the reality of what a nutjob Trump is and how insane it would be to have him as Commander in Chief will really and finally sink in on those toying with the idea of supporting him.
This is a pattern that is often noted in presidential elections, in the Fall, many voters finally turn to imagining the candidates as President. If that happens as it seems to have happened in the past, I think we’ll see Trump’s numbers take an increasing dive.
Right now, for the angry but not insane voters, flirting with supporting Trump makes them feel like they’re expressing their resentment to society.
But when they have to start seriously imagining what this horrible, juvenile, erratic asshole would do to the country and the world if he really became President, I think many will vote for who they see as the lesser of two evils, Hillary.
I shudder to think of my country in hands of this fool. Funny thing about Hillary though, seems many, even the liberal thinkers have fallen into the pattern of negativity about her, when the reality is just the opposite. Is she perfect, no, is anyone, another no. Yet if you take away the years of propaganda by the haters of the Clintons what is left? No charges, no convictions, no real basis in fact of these so called devastating lies about her. Where did innocent before being proven guilty go?? Liberals and progressives and yes even those republicans who still think, all must band together to keep a certifiable lunatic out of Washington.
One of the best articles on this subject that I have seen, my friend.
James, excuse the late reply but thank you so much!
Great article, AdLib. I think we saw through Trump from the very beginning. A carnival barker if there ever was one. His reaction to concerned British politicians, especially Sadiq Khan, the new Mayor of London, and both Muslim and non-Muslim alike, explains perfectly why this imbecile should never set foot in your WH again, even as a @guest@ heaven forbid. He speaks like an 8 year old who didn’t get the birthday present he wanted so he starts wreaking his room.
As you say, there has never been an ignoramus like trump running for the office of the President of the United States.
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Donald Trump’s frosty relationship with Britain
https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/politics/donald-trumps-frosty-relationship-with-england/2016/05/16/19f1abe4-1b7f-11e6-82c2-a7dcb313287d_video.html
Kalima, I think most Americans, and for that matter, most of the world, see Trump for the con man he is but I think a segment of Americans haven’t been sure what to think (or as we call the more clueless in our country, “independent voters”).
But I think more and more of them are seeing the light. I mean, when the leaders of you closest allies nations are already “enemies” of a Presidential candidate, aren’t things clear? Who but the xenophobic Trump drones would want a man as President who is already reviled by most of our allies?
And you’ve put your finger on what will really tank Trump. His fragile ego, his compulsion to go mental whenever he is personally attacked will make him look like a lunatic day after day. And we know that the personal attacks will be launched at him daily by the Dems because they know it will lead to his self-destruction.
It will be a very ugly campaign this Summer but the ugliness will consume Trump and lead to his trouncing. And the GOP’s which after their folding and getting behind Trump, will be their just desserts.
Exactly, AdLib, a knownothing presumed nominee who has made enemies all over the world already, will not be taken seriously by anyone with an ounce of common sense about what it actually takes to be a leader unless they live in a dictatorship where votes don’t count.
This whole msm trump hype reminds me of the fuss and time wasting they did in 2010 about the so-called tea party movement. In the end it was a loud, basically uninformed group of nutjobs. I sense the same with the trump cult as they see how he flip flops on issues they deem as important to them. He is not their saviour, he’s a lying, conceited conman who will drop them as soon as he loses interest.
Don’t have the link handy, but some anonymous source said that his beef with Japan goes back to the 90’s when he lost a bid on property in NY to a Japanese bidder. That’s all I need to know about his “revenge” foreign policy.
Trump wins, the party loses. Trump loses, the party is finished.
Goodbye gop, and don’t let the door hit your sore arse on the way out.
ICYMI, here’s a gift to America from 2 Lithuanian artists:
[img]http://planetpov.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/image.png[/img]
Perfect!
AD, do not doubt your post one bit, just hope enough voters understand his tactics. Hate and division can not be allowed to take control of America.
gyp46, I do think it is becoming clearer to those who haven’t really recognized Trump for who he is and as time goes by, it will become clearer and clearer.
Trump will become synonymous with “liar”, “fraud” and “nasty”. He will become the most despised candidate ever to run for the Presidency from a major party and all the Repub pols falling in line to get behind him will look back to recognize they’ve helped to destroy their own party for years to come.