the America is for Americans and Americans only narrative
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“His primary rules were: never allow the public to cool off; never admit a fault or wrong; never concede that there may be some good in your enemy; never leave room for alternatives; never accept blame; concentrate on one enemy at a time and blame him for everything that goes wrong; people will believe a big lie sooner than a little one; and if you repeat it frequently enough people will sooner or later believe it.”
on Hitler’s philosophy
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“the rules were that you guys weren’t going to fact-check.”
JD Vance
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“What you’re seeing and what you’re reading is not what’s happening.”
Donald Trump
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I was tempted to call this “the comeback of the deplorables” or even “insisting on the right to lie”, but then there was truly a gathering of deplorable speakers at Madison Square Garden for Trump’s closing election argument. They insulted Latinos, Black Americans, Palestinians and Jews. Trump advisor Stephen Miller’s claim that “America is for Americans and Americans only” directly echoed the statement of Adolf Hitler that “Germany is for Germans and Germans only.” While it is all truly deplorable, it also employs some psychological voodoo. When coupled with “the enemy within” it permits Latinos, black Americans, Palestinians, Jews and even some white people to proudly stand behind MAGA with “not me, them.” In other words, they aren’t talking about me it’s the enemy. The voodoo gets wrapped up n a shitload of lies (which I will get to) but what they all seem to forget is you, the citizen, don’t get to choose whether you are the enemy. MAGA hierarchy chooses. They choose by your words, behavior, attitude, and most importantly, servitude to Trump. Yeah. The big lie they are selling is America is for Trump and Trump only. That is fact. And, weirdly, its about the only fact/truth MAGA world seems to embrace. But this lie is SO big, SO audacious, that disaffected groups actually begin believing Trump offers salvation (or at least a better path). I mean, c’mon, how can any Muslim/Arab American believe Trump – the author of the Muslim travel ban, unrepentant Netanyahu “do-whatever-you-want” advocate – will actually have Palestinian Arab interests in mind going forward. Seriously? I have written before about how Trumpism is based on some alternative reality thinking, but underpinning it all is the MAGA movement is based on the freedom to lie. The MAGAverse is shameless with regard to lying. Their lies are broad sweeping audacious narratives of an America that doesn’t exist. The federal response to hurricanes, eating dogs and cats, even the truth about some ‘open border’ all border on insane audacious lies about reality. And non-Americans (the real enemy, not some nebulous ‘enemy within’) take note and step in and amplify. Is it election interference? Sure. But while Russia, Iran, and China generate about 20% to 30% of the political content and comments on social media, they also amplify the crazy domestic created disinformation. Yeah. The largest purveyors of disinformation are homegrown (could these actually be ‘the enemy within’?). All of this creates a firehose of information until people become overwhelmed by the task of trying to figure out what is real and simply tune out. Facts help define reality and are pretty stubborn against those who deny, and defy, reality. While this may seem unnecessary to state, but facts provide affirmation for what we see with our own eyes. What I mean by that is the alternative reality folk relentlessly state, not just suggest, that reality is something different than what reality is. They bludgeon us with an alternative reality to ultimately get us to either (a) question what we see as reality or (b) just give up and believe the alternative reality is reality. The lies become reality. Yeah. While “misinformation” is simply false information, which we all spread innocently and correct with accurate information, “disinformation” is a deliberate lie to convince people of things that are not true. MAGA insists on the right to lie and consider any fact-checking “censorship.”
“The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”
George Orwell, 1984
A unified, well-functioning, democratic society depends on shared understanding of factual reality, but men who embrace fascist techniques (which is really only tactical fascism) seek to consolidate power and serve authoritarian interests.
Thanks to MAGA’s false claims of, well, almost everything, and their denigration of political, scientific, judicial and media institutions shatters trust and America is being dividing into a false us and them. Inevitably that shattered trust in government, and divided citizenry, will make it harder for America to solve its problems because solutions, and ideas, are not easily transferable amongst peoples (and that is how ideas spread). Yeah. The real impact happens when effective ideas spread.
That said. Trump avoids any real give and take with regard to his alternative universe so his false world can’t be challenged by reality. He obviously wants to make sure people (voters) cannot base their decisions about the country’s future on facts. His insistence on the right to lie, cloaked in a rotten subversion of freedom of speech, is a continued refusal to deal with reality. He, and MAGA elite, foster a dissatisfaction that stems from a perception that societal changes, cultural shifts, economic issues, or demographic change, have eroded what once made their country “great.” A misguided nostalgia becomes a lens through which present grievances are projected onto an idealized past, whether or not it has any fucking bearing on reality itself.
This whole MAGA thing is fucked up. Dangerously so. It’s a deplorable narrative. America DOES belong to Americans. Americans who are not enemies, but rather neighbors. Americans who know their neighbors may believe different things, pray differently and do different things, but we still look out for each other and go to all our kid’s activities and say “good morning” when you see them in the morning. I just don’t see the same America Trump does. And I am banking on the fact most people do not come November 5th.
rl7skg