In this post I suggested the GOP rank and file are being trained to be victims. I’m not the only one, as James Hoggan notes in NewScientist (16 July 2016):
One would hope that evidence and reasoned debate would rule. But reality doesn’t matter to the likes of Trump, who sees himself as more powerful than mere facts. Yale philosopher Jason Stanley says such figures ruthlessly prey on public fears to reconstruct reality to pander to them.
Many people feel beleaguered, notes psychologist Bryant Welch. Trying to keep pace with change places ever greater demands on the brain, and this combines with worries about immigration policy, the economy, unemployment, terrorism, climate change and security. Anxiety makes the crowd turn to a powerful commander.
The danger is that the more this happens, the weaker and less capable people become. Welch compares it to a heroin addict craving larger and larger doses to get the same high. People are mainlining the Trump drug, a cocktail of absolute certainty, strong opinion and talk of control.
And then it becomes a self-perpetuating vortex as those who have assented to the all powerful leader continue to become more and more dependent. It’s essential that Trump not only lose, but lose big-time – and I fear that the blunder of Debbie Wasserman Schultz may make this impossible. We may be in for a long period of embittered people who – if we’re lucky – saw their leader lose an election; excuse me, no doubt the verb will be stolen. After all, combining this with the religious certainty of the fundamentalist and they will be certain they’ve been wronged.
