[Zagadka]

Kinda a long article, but I think it outlines Trump's strategy pretty well, especially compared to "normal" politics - his weaknesses and strengths, and how he maintains his legion. It is basically a show.

For each scene of his presidency, Trump casts a villain (or two, or three …)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics ... story.html

Hillary Clinton is not running for president again in 2020 — she has said so, her aides know it, and there is no political rationale that would argue otherwise. But for President Trump, facts like those simply miss the point.

“I was recently asked if Crooked Hillary Clinton is going to run in 2020?” Trump declared in a tweet Monday morning. “My answer was, ‘I hope so!’ ”

Just like that, Trump had accomplished his morning task, conjuring and then belittling a political villain with little more than taps on a phone. Using a bit of deadpan humor and his unconventional grammar, Trump’s tweet formed the next turn in his us-against-them story line, which employs an endlessly evolving band of enemies to anchor his presidency.

By the afternoon, his tweet had become a topic in an impromptu Rose Garden news conference, where he was able to repeat the performance in person. “Hillary, please run again,” he called out in a mocking tone.

Most days bring another round, often at dawn, like plot points in a 24-7 miniseries. In just the past few weeks, Trump has started, without any clear provocation, fights with football players who kneel during the national anthem, departments stores that declare “happy holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas,” and late-night television hosts for their “unfunny and repetitive material.”

Then there are the individual targets: Clinton, of course, but also “Liddle” Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker, North Korea’s “Little Rocket Man” Kim Jong Un, ESPN anchor Jemele Hill, Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), and a shifting array of reporters, newspapers and networks he labels as the “fake news.”

Although the targets often appear tangential, if not contradictory, to his governing priorities, both the president and his senior aides see them as central to his political strategy. In each instance, the combat allows Trump to underline for his core supporters the populist promise of his election: to challenge the power of political elites and those who have unfairly benefited from their “politically correct” vision.

[Inside the ‘adult day-care center’: How aides try to control and coerce Trump]

It’s a tactic he has employed for years — defining himself against a negative space, as a tough truth teller who opposes others. In 1990, he condemned his New York real estate rival, Leona Helmsley, as a “truly evil human being,” and decades later he spent years nursing a viciously personal feud with Rosie O’Donnell, a daytime television host, largely through social media. His rise to politics was built upon sometimes shocking denunciations and insults.

Without a fresh foe to rail against in real time, his political aides have observed, Trump can struggle, uncertain of his next move and unable to frame the political debate.

“The low points, if there are any, are often when his opponent is not clearly defined,” said one senior White House official, who insisted on anonymity to speak freely about the president. The official described the days after the first failure to repeal the Affordable Care Act in March and the weeks near the general election in 2016 as particularly trying times, since Trump was unable for days to clearly define his enemy.

But when the president is on track — he calls Twitter “my voice”-- he can script his presidency like a professional wrestling match, where the heel, or bad guy, is the one who makes the face, or good guy, shine in the ring. This is, as it happened, exactly how he scripted his one appearance in the professional wrestling ring, at the 2007 WrestleMania.

In what was billed as the “battle of the billionaires,” his foe was Vince McMahon, the owner of WWE, who long ago mastered the art of playing the clown who inspired hatred. With McMahon winning the animosity of the crowd, Trump’s participation was limited to a few straight lines and stoic looks. The sputtering fury of the loser McMahon — whose wife Linda now leads Trump’s Small Business Administration — told the story for him.

[‘He threw a fit’: Trump’s anger over Iran deal forced aides to scramble]

Similarly, the outrage of liberals and Trump skeptics, including many in the media, at Trump’s denunciations often helps the president with his base voters and serves to spread the Trump message further.

Former House speaker Newt Gingrich, a supporter of the president, says he has come to see the value of Trump’s strategy, which can frame public debates to his advantage. “In the spring, I quit worrying about his tweets — and I think some of the stuff he does is outrageous — but he has a larger vision of creativity,” Gingrich said. “He intuits how he can polarize.”

Trump’s approach to finding and elevating enemies is more personal and more specific than past presidents. His predecessor, Barack Obama, defined and elevated political enemies. But he followed in the tradition of Theodore Roosevelt, speaking of abstract wealthy and selfish economic interests that had conspired with Republicans against the middle class.

Like the other Democratic populists of the 20th century, including Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Harry Truman, Obama rarely named specific people, and largely refrained from launching personal attacks on the character of his opponents.

[Trump has picked fights over the flag before. But this time was different.]

If anything, Trump is harking back to an earlier tradition, including the populist movement of the late 19th century. “A villain was needed, marked with the unmistakable stigmata of the villains of melodrama,” the historian Richard Hofstadter wrote in his 1955 book “The Age of Reform.” “It was not enough to say that a conspiracy of the money power against the common people was going on.”

The early populist villains were the rich, including the Rothschild banking family and the nation’s newspapers, which were portrayed as puppets for the powerful. Trump has embraced some but not all of those approaches, says Michael Kazin, a political scientist at Georgetown University who has written several histories of populism.

“It’s a populism that looks at the political elite and the media elite as opposed to the economic elite,” Kazin said of Trump. “Obviously, more than any president I can remember, he thrives on conflict.”

Several of Trump’s closest advisers have taken to echoing their boss’s tactics. Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., has also made a hobby of firing off social media provocations. In just the past week, he has attempted to quarrel with late-night host Jimmy Kimmel (over his response to Hollywood sexual harassment), the Boy Scouts (for accepting girls as members) and British lawmakers (for their response to acid attacks), among others.

[Fact-checking President Trump’s speech on the Iran deal]

Similarly, Trump senior adviser Kellyanne Conway began attacking Clinton last week after news broke alleging years of harassment and sexual abuse by Harvey Weinstein, the Hollywood producer. Conway focused on how the time it took Clinton to release a statement on Weinstein, a critique that neatly fit the news about a Hollywood predator into a conservative political story line.

When Fox News invited Conway on to talk more about Clinton’s alleged culpability, the Trump adviser left little doubt about her underlying motivations.

“I tweet very sparingly yet strategically,” she said with a smile. “I’m always amazed how easily baited some people are.”

[Beren]

Trump always takes it personal simply because that's how he is, and that's also what resonates with his base. Although it's definitely intentional, I'm not sure if it's a well-thought-out strategy. He and his fans could never conceptualise and stand up against an abstract enemy, their enemies have to be real well-defined groups or individuals.

[jimjam]

Mr. Trump has continued to find new targets for insulting. His pace of finding new people, places and things to insult has not changed since he became president. Our count stands now at 350, with more than 50 of them coming since his election. If he keeps to his current rate, he will have insulted more than 650 people, places and things by the end of his first term, and would reach more than a thousand by the end of a second presidential term.

This strategy is clearly geared toward his "base" who are easily entertained by simple minded nonsense. That seems to be 30%to 35%. Now add to this a large group of folks who will vote Republican no matter what and he has an election winning strategy. I actually give him a lot of credit for an astute understanding of human nature and using it to his advantage. As a con artist he puts Phineas Taylor Barnum to shame. Trump is one of the best con artists ever. Unfortunately, for America and the world, this does not bode well for wise leadership.

[Tainari88]

I really don't know how long such a con man can run the USA without some fallout that might come back and bite him in the ass Jimjam. What is your theory?

[Politiks]

Trump always takes it personal simply because that's how he is, and that's also what resonates with his base. Although it's definitely intentional, I'm not sure if it's a well-thought-out strategy. He and his fans could never conceptualise and stand up against an abstract enemy, their enemies have to be real well-defined groups or individuals.

Interesting points. Is there any abstract enemy though? I think the enemies are many, some obvious and others hide in the shadow but don't all of them have the same final interest even if the way they operate, their tactics is different?

For example, isn't pretending Islam is something abstract a stupidity certificate? For 2 terms Obama managed to fake pretend Islamic attacks were just some sort of abstract terrorism, completely disconnected to Islam. Are Trump followers stupid or are Democrats the ones who lack brain cells?

Than we have the banks. Obama's Administration payed them off, after they installed the worst crisis in recent history. Are Trumpts the dumb ones or the ones who still think Obama was anything else than horrible the dumb ones?

The situation is complicated when the debt is 1 trillion, you destroyed the only Secular country, besides Israel, in the Middle East with wars that shouldn't be happening or be interfered by US.

[jimjam]

I really don't know how long such a con man can run the USA without some fallout that might come back and bite him in the ass Jimjam. What is your theory?

It is near impossible to predict the future and more so with Donald whose M.O. incorporates the sowing of chaos and unpredictably to throw his opponents off balance thereby giving him an opening to benefit for himself. Most of our leaders are gutless wonders who know that Donald is a fruit cake who is dangerous to America and the world but ............ what do gutless wonders do? Nothing. So, don't expect much from them. And if he pulls off his robbery of the treasury (tax "reform" ), the ruling plutocrats, for whom he works, will be happy with him. So, this leaves a Vietnam style grass roots movement to reveal that the Emperor is, indeed, not wearing any clothes. Half the population are either his infamous "base" or Republican lemmings. This leaves the other half to get pissed off enough to actually do something.

Then, there is the economy. His incompetence and greed could very well bring on economic hard times. Very hard times. In that event he will join Herbert Hoover (the inventor of "trickle down economics" ) on the ash heap of history and give rise to an FDR type of leader and the pendulum will reverse course. This is actually somewhat likely due to the extreme greed or his handlers in the plutocracy and their inability to grasp the concept that moderation will work a helluva lot more effectively than extremism. The goose that is laying America's golden egg will be on life support.

[Tainari88]

Jimjam, I know you are on your long road trip so I will endeavor to be brief. The reality is very much like Ted Cruz is dealing with it within the Republican party. I mean think about it? Trump insulted him personally, called his wife Heidi ugly, him a liar, and his father a conspirator to kill JFK. He questioned Cruz' ability to qualify for the presidency because he might be 'foreign' as in his being born in Canada, etc. It got very personalistic. If he had a shred of dignity? He would never back Trump at all. Ever again. And would actively seek to get his downfall. But? Texas is pro Trump and Cruz is a big politician in Texas. Senator. Holding on to his position and his electorate in Texas is worth sacrificing his personal dignity for. It is worth accepting a man insulting his deceased Pastor father from Cuba and his wife being called an ugly hag, etc. What kind of asshole man does that? Someone insults my family and my kids or my deceased parent with smearing ugly lies of the worst kind? No amount of mundane power is going to outweigh that ever. But for these freaks? Venden hasta sus propias madres si el precio es atractivo. Translation: "They will sell their own mothers if the price is attractive."It is disgusting. But it reveals the character of who is backing Trump. Trump is a great litmus test of morality and principles in the Republican party of the present. Bannon and Trump are shining a light on the value system of most of these establishment politicians.

Trump doesn't debate Bernie. It is obvious he won't. Because the reality is he can't buy him off with corporate money or with getting his seat taken from him. The Vermont voters already seen his value system for a long time. And he is not afraid of losing if he must. It is very funny. By not being overly attached to power and to money--you wind up being more of a challenge to defeat. Interesting.

[jimjam]

"They will sell their own mothers if the price is attractive."It is disgusting. But it reveals the character of who is backing Trump. Trump is a great litmus test of morality and principles in the Republican party of the present.

I am taking a break from my 2 week road trip and staying with an old friend overlooking beautiful Cayuga lake. America is at a historic cross road NOW. It was founded upon what is arguably the best and richest piece of real estate in the world. This is the good news and the bad news. Good news because, if governed with truth and fairness, there is enough wealth to provide for all of her citizens a good life materially as well as providing an example of truth and fairness to the world. The bad news is brought about by ..... human nature. Human nature is prone to addictive behavior which is manifested by greed.I have always contended that money and its sister, power are the ultimate addictive drug. Predictably the great wealth of America will tempt those who are consumed by greed to persue ever greater amounts of money and power just as the heroin addict chases after an unending physical pleasure. Those consumed by their addiction to money and power will, inevitably, set their sights on the vast material wealth of America and attempt to devise methods of controlling it by hook or by crook. Methods, primarily lies spread by propaganda, of corrupting the system of governing that was set in place by the wisdom of the founding fathers centuries ago will be devised. This is what is happening now and has pushed America to the critical point where she presently finds herself ..... compelled to choose between, essentially, good and evil. A historic battle is unfolding before our eyes. A battle that could very well determine the fate of the human race. Will we live on this amazing planet in a spirit of truth and fairness or will we kill the goose that is laying the golden egg with a spirit of lies and greed. I am not optimistic.

[Tainari88]

I am taking a break from my 2 week road trip and staying with an old friend overlooking beautiful Cayuga lake. America is at a historic cross road NOW. It was founded upon what is arguably the best and richest piece of real estate in the world. This is the good news and the bad news. Good news because, if governed with truth and fairness, there is enough wealth to provide for all of her citizens a good life materially as well as providing an example of truth and fairness to the world. The bad news is brought about by ..... human nature. Human nature is prone to addictive behavior which is manifested by greed.I have always contended that money and its sister, power are the ultimate addictive drug. Predictably the great wealth of America will tempt those who are consumed by greed to persue ever greater amounts of money and power just as the heroin addict chases after an unending physical pleasure. Those consumed by their addiction to money and power will, inevitably, set their sights on the vast material wealth of America and attempt to devise methods of controlling it by hook or by crook. Methods, primarily lies spread by propaganda, of corrupting the system of governing that was set in place by the wisdom of the founding fathers centuries ago will be devised. This is what is happening now and has pushed America to the critical point where she presently finds herself ..... compelled to choose between, essentially, good and evil. A historic battle is unfolding before our eyes. A battle that could very well determine the fate of the human race. Will we live on this amazing planet in a spirit of truth and fairness or will we kill the goose that is laying the golden egg with a spirit of lies and greed. I am not optimistic.

Jimjam, I am an anthropologist. I studied journalism for a long time and only had about two classes left to get a major in it. I left it because I realized in the USA the media is controlled by pro capitalistic enterprises and that the people controlling the messages were all people who would never really question the core of the system. You just had to follow some of the truth but not the whole truth. So, I switched majors and did a major in anthropology. I dug away at old civilizations and studied human behavior, human civizilations and human economic, religious and social systems for years. I loved it. It taught me that there is no exceptionalism to human nature. The USA is composed of people from all over the world who have roots from all the continents in this world. The first European settlers in the New World were Spanish, not English. The founding fathers were products of European systems who they knew well and they wanted a different blue print for the colonies. But they were not better than any other human species. Jefferson had slaves and so did many others. Many of the European founders really believed African descent people and Native Americans were no human beings but property or animals to be bartered. Women were not humans capable of having political opinions or independent thoughts. That was the historical period.

Old human civilizations that will outlast the USA's by many hundreds of years all fell because of something that is innately human. They kept exploiting their available resources to the point of exhaustion. Have you read a book by Yuval Harari entitled, "Homo Sapiens"? He discusses in the book how there were wooly mammoths that populated continents in peace for a very long time...until human beings showed up and hunted them ruthlessly into extinction. They did not know how to be measured or to be logical. If you wanted more mammoth meat you had to allow them to exist and co-exist. They could not stop themselves.

They had to keep going on the greed path til there were none left. Why do we do this? Because human beings are powerful because we create myths, stories and ideas and create ever cleverer tools and innovations to facilitate our goals. We seek to know beyond what we can handle. That is part of our essential nature. Why we have had advances in medicine, law, technology, social and economic systems. But it is also why we have obliterated societies. We are a species that doesn't know how to be balanced. How to be measured. How to be logical only. We believe our own lies. Even in the face of evidence and truth. Harari lays it out in his book very very well. The USA never impressed me with its own myths. They lied about almost everything they held as sacred. Freedom and justice and allowing less powerful nations to be themselves without undue influence? That is not true. Once a society betrays its founding principles all of them rot from within. Rome did so. So did ancient Sumeria, and ancient Egypt, and many other civilizations. Including the Aztec and many others. Human history is littered with the defeated remains of great human civilizations. What leads to their downfall? Hubris. Arrogance. Racism, Class consciousness, Incessant wars. Wasting of precious resources. Oppressing others mercilessly in order to get more profit, land or power. All of them. And it is never the little humble folk who do these things. It is always the elite and the powerful with swollen heads and egos who throw the civilization into its death throes. They do so because they are blind and greed filled people without ethics, principles or forethought and little respect for logic or wisdom. Without exception all of them are like that.

I don't think the USA is the exception to the rule. They are horrible just like the rest. And the sooner the Americans stop lying to themselves about how 'special' they are---and seek to be humble,kind, and good and be willing to admit mistakes and right the wrongs they have committed? They will get an answer to save themselves and save the planet. But if they continue with the hubris and the arrogance and the failure to realize that they are as human as every other country on earth with the same human failings? They will be in the dustbin of history. That is guaranteed. Nature is without favorites in history. She only cleans up the trash Jimjam. She doesn't make it.

[jimjam]

Yuval Harari entitled, "Homo Sapiens"?

I have written this down and will get it. Thank you. I respect your point of view because you are very bright and not afraid to speak your mind. Also a thing we have in common is a fascination with history. One can, with a high degree of accuracy, predict the future from a study of history because ........ it repeats itself.

I am fairly convinced that America is following the path of ancient Rome. The similarities are remarkable. Rome extended it's ambitions beyond her capability, was spread thin and attacked by the hoards. This was facilitated by rot from within overseen by clown like leaders (sic Trump).

Now, unfortunately, the world population has grown to 7,600,000,000 and our technology has developed to a point where we can, with great efficiency, eat planet earth alive.

[Tainari88]

Jimjam, nature is our supervisor, our boss and our superior. We depend on her. She doesn't depend on us. The sooner we understand that is the way of the world, the better off we will be. Our task is to stop being illogical and out of control with greed and lack of thorough thinking about the consequences of our actions. We got to be a lot more deliberate for good and not bad.

If we don't? Nature will balance it for us. She will warm the Earth to the point of killing off all the port cities and coastal places and will make life very hard for a vast majority. She will reduce the world population and we will scramble for survival and have to really adapt to a different world and to hell with ambitions of grandeur. Only the most intelligent planners and cooperative systems will survive all that will come if it is too far gone. That is our future. Earth is middle aged. Not young and not old. In the middle. She doesn't have to sustain human beings. She doesn't. She can go nova without any human beings in her sphere, and she can count us as another series of species that failed to adapt to her ways in time. Natural history is filled with extinct species that failed to deal with change well. We are not very special if we fail to realize who is the most powerful of all forces. We need water that is clean, earth that is fertile, air that is pure to breathe and food that is nourishing to survive. We can't do it without nature. Not possible. But we act like we don't know that. That is the problem.

Trump doesn't care. He is an ignorant in the worst way. But that is who people in the USA chose. The system they follow of not dealing with popular votes. They chose all that shit. They are going to have to pay the price of stupid choices. That is the way of the world as well. You pay for what you choose.

[jimjam]

We can't do it without nature. Not possible. But we act like we don't know that. That is the problem.

I am short for time so I will add just: Only a Damphool and/or an idiot will prioritize kneeling football players as being of more importance than issues that are critical to the survival of the human race itself.

[Tainari88]

Jimjam, this is happening because the American political system has become dysfunctional due to being corrupted by Citizens United. It is legal to buy off politicians and for the self absorbed element have been taken over through all the greed and campaign spending, the whole system and the entire process of political rule in the USA is utterly corrupted and compromised. I happen to think those are the natural consequences of having capitalism as the economic system. You can't have a political system that is supposed to be about one man and one woman and one vote, and an economic system where profit is the law and an elite is the group that benefits. It is a direct contradiction to a democracy. You either democratize the work place and workers and you deal with the issue of who has power in a democracy or you just accept that there will never be equality of power between the very wealthy and the working class. You can't think that one system will fit within democracy. It doesn't.

Too many people believing a lot of lies about how the wealthy get there by themselves and there are people who are smarter or more deserving of tons of money or property while others barely survive the month. It is ridiculous crap. Humanity varies and everyone has differences, but to believe massive wealth inequality exists because it is a 'natural' thing is for damn fools Jimjam. All of society has to evolve with time. Hopefully for something better than what came before. Before our present times we had a slave society. We have now wage labor. We used to have a tax system where anyone making over a certain amount was taxed heavily to reinvest in infrastructure, education, and health. Many people forgot that their used to be a system of health care in the USA that was a lot more fair than the present one.

People in the USA are living with some really concerning things. Trump was chosen for many reasons by many. But I have to be honest. He is just a product of what lurks in the brains and collective memory of many American voters. Ignorance, fear, racism, class consciousness, lies, falsehoods, resentments, beliefs in casino capitalism, greed, stupidity, sexism, hatred for change from the supposed 'fake' Americans whom the many don't want to accept. The dark side of the USA is very very dark. Ugly. Deeply ignorant and incredibly narrow in thought. They believe some really terrible things. And Trump is the product of that shit they have in there. It is going to have to be confronted like some kind of vampire that gets hit with sunlight and has to suffer to get out of the death mentality. That is the reality of it.

All that slave history. All that genocide. All that gun mentality, violence and stealing land by force and denying a lot of people rights to secure a tiny group their privileges. That all needs to be faced.

Trump is all the worst of American movies. Lol. American Psycho. American Gordon Geckko from Wall Street. Fake Christianity and False Prophets, groping pussies of women and misogyny. Neo Nazi tendencies. Love of superior Genes and the Master Race from the Old Third Reich, lack of respect for science. Lack of respect for truth. Hatred of criticism. Lack of intellectual depth. Every damn problem with the American underbelly of dark defects is about Trump and his rule.

It is time for the crossroads of the American Empire. Either repent their dark choices or break away and be responsible and accountable for all that dark past and try to make a new path and a new future. Again, Jimjam, time is ticking on the response window. After that? Too little and too late. It will go down in the pantheon of another failed civilization that made the wrong choice.