malchior wrote: ↑Fri Nov 30, 2018 10:02 am
If I thought Trump wasn't a fucking moron or had any sense of humor that didn't involve denigrating minorities and women I'd think he was trolling us with a 'light treason' reference. Instead this is probably going to be remembered as his, "I'm not a crook!" tweet.
Unrelated. I hate giving credit to Trump for anything, but I really think he’s the greatest con man in US history unless we are the stupidest American public in US history for falling for a horrid con.
You left out another option. Which is a mix of the 2nd and an increasingly broken political system that has delivered two awful Presidents "this century".
I'll throw in some more factors.
Drumpf has been branding himself for decades. Branding works, and even I will admit that he's pretty good at it. No politician can compete with him on branding.
Second, the timing was right for an outsider. Who should it be? Branding.
Third, some Americans aren't conned, they like that he's a monster. How many? No idea. Some. And they are deplorable.
Fourth, some Americans are conditioned by their party to be easily conned. Drumpf is not a conservative and does not support conservative values. Doesn't matter, he's GOP, therefore he's my man. Related to this is that they are being conned by someone they trust (GOP in this case). With a trust relationship already in place, a con is much easier to pull off.
Fifth, some Americans are low information voters. Imagine if you only caught the evening news on Fox every few weeks. Of freakin' course you'd think everything is awesome.
Sixth, some Americans have such a warped world view that they see the world exactly as Drumpf says it is. That's separate from being deplorable or conned. World view varies. Some people view things through different lenses than others. Their reality isn't that they hate immigrants or brown people, their reality is that immigrant caravans will rape their children. That's fucked up, but it's not specifically deplorable in this context.
Seventh, some people are easily conned.
He's actually a terrible con man. "Give me your money because locusts are coming to eat you" is not a brilliant con just because people give him their money. A con isn't brilliant because it works. Duping (some) people is easy. Just ask P.T. Barnum (and yes I know he didn't actually say it, but he probably thought it).
One of the horrifying aspects of the reality of Drumpf is just how poorly he is able to con, how transparent his cons are yet how easily his con worked. It's scary how easy it was to dupe a significant portion of the American populace. But see the factors listed above as some explanation for it.
I've spent a lot of (disorganized) thought on this, because I am appalled that the WH hasn't been burned down in protest yet. I need to understand how things work and drumpf has seriously derailed my equilibrium by making the world work in such a way that I thought was not just unlikely, but impossible. In order to function, I need to understand how drumpf happened, and why he continues to happen. I'm only having middling success.