"Watching the Trump phenomena is almost surreal. We are watching the rise of a populist fascist movement. Something that the classical liberal traditions of the United States has been able to keep at bay for all of these years. The failure of government, the political correctness of the regressive left, the republican party encouraging jingoists, protectionists and nativists, the idiocracy culture are to blame for the rise of Trump. With the current failure of statism, many people have been mesmerized by Trump. They see Trump as being the only one with the will powerful enough to challenge the establishment. They see him as someone who is speaking to them. We must keep in mind that Mao Zedong, Joseph Stalin, Adolph Hitler, and many other dictators were anti-establishment.
Trump is a master of persuasion, effective language and evolutionary psychology. He has studied Machiavelli, Dale Carnegie, Napoleon Hill, hypnotism and as we can see a number of dictators. He is Machiavellian demagogue capable of deflecting every attack, turning negatives into positives. He is a master of ad hominem, loaded question, straw man and slippery slope attacks. His vagueness of speech allows people to fill in the holes with their own beliefs. He makes statements about everything to create broadened appeal and free himself from being attacked for not having said something. He even sometimes says things that I can agree with.
Trump preys on the fantasies and fears of the people. He is intentionally trolling America, appealing to people on an emotional level, rather than using reason. What we are witnessing is the abandonment of reason. What we see isn’t discourse on policy, but character assassination attempts without any real substance of where people stand on the issues. He outrages many more people than the number of people that find him appealing. Either way he wins, because he draws attention away from where he stands on the current issue and provides himself with more free press.
The Trump we see in the debates isn't the "Real Trump," it is a persona; much like any TV personality. He would run the presidency much more like a TV show than a government. Trump lacks any real political ideology, he has flipped on every issue, sometimes within the same statement. He is not concerned with liberty, the constitution or the traditions of this country. His only concern is power which comes from public approval ratings. What I find most terrifying is I don‘t think there is anything he wouldn’t do as long as it increases his popularity. I think when he gets in he will team up with Russia to go after ISIS, so we can have a victory and start feeling good again. I think he will go after the media and his political enemies to consolidate power. I think in the instance of a terrorists attack we can kiss our civil liberties goodbye.
Much seems similar to Hitler's rise to power. He is using immigrants as a scapegoat, convincing everyone that America is losing at everything and making false promises to restore our country's diminished role in the world. He taps into an existing pool of disgruntled people, but not only reconfirms their beliefs, but exaggerates them to a much larger extent. Tears people down further, so his promises to restore the nation are that much more powerful.
Trump is manipulating America and the only way to defeat him, is to spread the word and to call him out when he is in the act. To continue down this road is to abandon reason and follow the road to serfdom."
- Jeff Hurley
