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I would suggest that trump's cult building con job can be mostly distilled to two words: grievance channeling.
It's the same con job that authoritarians have used for centuries and perhaps thousands of years. It's obvious it's the con job Hitler used, taking advantage of the grievance of the suffering in Germany from the Great Depression and harsh terms of the Versailles treaty.
The process is infantilizing, 'strong man' tells the people he's their champion and list the enemies they have he'll fight. It inherently builds trust, since he's pandering to them and is 'on their side'.
He's not saying 'ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country',, he's just riding and whipping their grievances. Fox News does something similar to addict viewers.
trump understands that this grievance channeling gets him enormous loyalty to the point of a cult - which seemed to impress even him when he told them to their face he could shoot a man and they'd be loyal. As I've pointed out, a similar con was displayed in the fictional portrayal of a Will Rogers-like character, "A Face in the Crowd".
trump just happens to be good at that one thing. Cruz, DeSantis, and others try, but trump has done it well and shamelessly enough to create a national tidal wave. What else does he have than those two words? 'Respectable' politicians don't do it so much, because they recognize that a frenzied mob as a base for power isn't so good for the country. Even they can use it some, though. But there's a big difference.
FDR appealed to grievance against 'economic royals'. JFK appealed to grievance against communist tyranny. Bernie Sanders appeals to grievance against corrupt wealth. But these were relatively rational arguments that stirred emotions, not the 'crazy' unhinged grievance manipulation of a trump.
While most trump supporters are presumably not as far as "Q" supporters, the very fact that a "Q" cult could even exist shows what a short step it is from his unhinged appeal to grievances to 'crazy' theories about 'deep state' and pedophiles running the Democratic Party and Pizzagate. What's more telling is the lack of condemnation of the Q cult from the rest of the party. Big tent.
And we see the lack of 'guard rails' on creating a monster of a mob when we see the entire Republican Party, short a handful of dissenters, cater to the monster of the mob created. trump is the natural progression of the increase of this technique through Taft, Goldwater, Reagan, Gingrich, with a nod to the pre-trump, Palin.
A natural question would be, so why, if it's that easy to turn much of the American people into a crazed mob for power, why hasn't it been done more?
I suspect it's a combination of things, including that most politicians recognize how harmful and dangerous it is to 'go crazy' with the practice, as well as not quite having some things trump did, with the 'Apprentice' image, coming at the right time when that mob was ready to support 'radical change' from Obama, and part of it is trump being especially good at that particular thing.
It's the same con job that authoritarians have used for centuries and perhaps thousands of years. It's obvious it's the con job Hitler used, taking advantage of the grievance of the suffering in Germany from the Great Depression and harsh terms of the Versailles treaty.
The process is infantilizing, 'strong man' tells the people he's their champion and list the enemies they have he'll fight. It inherently builds trust, since he's pandering to them and is 'on their side'.
He's not saying 'ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country',, he's just riding and whipping their grievances. Fox News does something similar to addict viewers.
trump understands that this grievance channeling gets him enormous loyalty to the point of a cult - which seemed to impress even him when he told them to their face he could shoot a man and they'd be loyal. As I've pointed out, a similar con was displayed in the fictional portrayal of a Will Rogers-like character, "A Face in the Crowd".
trump just happens to be good at that one thing. Cruz, DeSantis, and others try, but trump has done it well and shamelessly enough to create a national tidal wave. What else does he have than those two words? 'Respectable' politicians don't do it so much, because they recognize that a frenzied mob as a base for power isn't so good for the country. Even they can use it some, though. But there's a big difference.
FDR appealed to grievance against 'economic royals'. JFK appealed to grievance against communist tyranny. Bernie Sanders appeals to grievance against corrupt wealth. But these were relatively rational arguments that stirred emotions, not the 'crazy' unhinged grievance manipulation of a trump.
While most trump supporters are presumably not as far as "Q" supporters, the very fact that a "Q" cult could even exist shows what a short step it is from his unhinged appeal to grievances to 'crazy' theories about 'deep state' and pedophiles running the Democratic Party and Pizzagate. What's more telling is the lack of condemnation of the Q cult from the rest of the party. Big tent.
And we see the lack of 'guard rails' on creating a monster of a mob when we see the entire Republican Party, short a handful of dissenters, cater to the monster of the mob created. trump is the natural progression of the increase of this technique through Taft, Goldwater, Reagan, Gingrich, with a nod to the pre-trump, Palin.
A natural question would be, so why, if it's that easy to turn much of the American people into a crazed mob for power, why hasn't it been done more?
I suspect it's a combination of things, including that most politicians recognize how harmful and dangerous it is to 'go crazy' with the practice, as well as not quite having some things trump did, with the 'Apprentice' image, coming at the right time when that mob was ready to support 'radical change' from Obama, and part of it is trump being especially good at that particular thing.