1. One reason Trump may not be punished for his actual record is because the incompetence and mendaciousness became normalized. If every day is a bad day, the people get used to it ,and over time nothing in particular may stand out as exceptionally awful. The poor end of the Mueller investigation and impeachment failure reinforce such indifference.
2. By the time the pandemic hit, most people did not expect competence and effective leadership. We were not disappointed and this enabled Trump to escape much accountability. Again, if every day seems bad and threatening, one can adjust to it and not consider any particular part of it exceptional. In this respect, for millions who were not directly harmed, the pandemic year might seem only worse not different and Trump gets off the hook. Such feelings are objectively untrue and unhelpful but they are a way to cope with a bad situation and one does not necessarily adopt a different attitude later. It also serves to make the preceding three years seem not so bad.
3. Trump's major failure--the inability to repeal Obamacare--may be saving him now. How many people remember all the votes in the House to repeal it? Or the smugness at the White House lawn celebration when the House finally succeeded? Had it been repealed before the pandemic hit, it might have been a different story,. It certainly would be a campaign issue today. All the Republicans who supported repeal would likely now be on their heels trying to defend themselves and Trump much like the Dobbs decision has boxed them in. Here too, "failure" to get what he wanted would probably be serving Trump well.
I always say that the measure of any professional is how they handle a crisis. People don’t get the big jobs or big bucks to handle things that are going well. They earn their pay when a disaster hits. Take airline pilots: They handle routine flights day in and day out, but they train extensively for all kinds of mishaps and problems and when one strikes they are ready. Pilots don’t run around trying to claim credit for good results when the skies are smooth. They don’t expect it, nor should we give it to them.
Biden and Trump are both old, it’s true. But Biden has spent his entire career building know-how and experience to guide the country when things are OR are not going smoothly. He knows how to make change and drive results, even if things take longer than we’d like in the public sector. Trump on the other hand has honed a talent for taking credit when anything goes well and making excuses and blaming others in moments of crisis.
America has a choice on who they want to pilot the country. I’m riding with Biden.
tRump disbanded the pandemic-preparedness response office less than two years before the pandemic hit. Coincidence? Probably. But the implications that he knew it was coming would feed beautifully into the conspiracy theorists addled minds. Low-rent? Hitting below the belt? Yep, absolutely, and why not? That's the kind of story that a news outlet, one that even these craven cowards should snap up.
We definitely need to hit hard on the short little stupid sound bites that people can grab, recall and regurgitate quickly and easily. How about tRump's response to the Camp Fire? Rake the forest, remember? Nuke a hurricane, throw paper towels, call wounded and disabled soldiers lovers and suckers (they've been harping on that a bit)... gods, there are THOUSANDS! There must be a few for EVERY STATE. Hit the stupid points and hit them HARD. This is opposition research, but they need to go low and ugly, now.
Republikkkans will lie, cheat, steal and assassinate (character at least), so as much as I dislike it, most people don't follow politics enough to get the finer points of tfg's idiocy. Make it simple, short and the dumber the better. Weakening him will work, he's diminishing before our eyes!
I think there's an erroneous premise in this essay, and in the comments it generated. And it's this: If Democrats had been offering a "good story" over the past couple of years, voters would be better informed and more approving of Biden at this point. But that's not true. Most people aren't interested in politics. They care very much about the price of eggs and gas, but an intelligently crafted story doesn't penetrate. Not yet, anyway. Democrats are locked and loaded for September, October and November. That's when more people finally tune into politics. And that's when they'll hear a very good story from Democrats.
Better story telling, yes. But Democrats' near-fatal disease is language. By using words like existential, they communicate that they are only speaking to elites and don't care about the average Joe. This is fixable, but only if they even become aware that they are doing it!
Not quite as damning with swing voters as Romney's words in 2012 because DJT shut his mouth before continuing the insults and shaved off 7% from his dismissal. And because the way DJT/Orange Man played into the steady pre-demonization of government workers, Union workers, and of course welfare recipients, digging in on the last.
Nevertheless, The Donald was doing an open eff u to what he thinks is 40%, He's found his deplorables, and he's saying eff u to welfare recipients - hey wait, does he mean disability recipients? And to Civil servants and public employees. And to the most normal and relatable of creatures, people in Union jobs. Share with those you know.
I caught an article where Chuck Todd basically confessed the suckitude of his trade. He might not have seen it that way, but reading his text, he in effect publicly abdicated from responsibility to inform the public of realities as a journalist and said, "Joe, it's on you to do it, make people hear, and make us cover it."
I was moved enough by this admission to comment on another substack, your Politix pal, Matt Yglesias, but also to e-mail Eric Alterman and Brian Stelter, who have long warned about mainstream media bullshitsu. I didn't try to write to Chuck directly. That guy always looks tired as fuck.
Hi Mr. Alterman,
Been reading your stuff since "What Liberal Media?" and seen your various C-Span appearances over the last two decades and read plenty of your critiques of mainstream journalistic malpractice.
Chuck Todd basically confesses how the mainstream media let the information environment get manipulated by right-wing partisan media here, Chuck Todd: Congress is passing the FUBAR test with flying colors ,
Chuck Todd: Congress is passing the FUBAR test with flying colors
Analysis: Two competing forces are pushing the political system from the usual messy to something even more dysf...
sounding kind of like how you've sounded for years. But the lateness of the admission, and the pretty transparent tone of abdication of any responsibility for the news organization he is a part of to cover things better kind of made my blood boil.
The TLDR of his argument is that the right-wing noise machine has manipulated Republican lawmakers, constituents, broader public opinion and the mainstream media on the border issue, won a compromise on Republican terms, then rejected the compromise, but might still benefit from the border discourse by controlling its terms.
He admits and describes the distortions introduced by the right-wing noise machine but does not accept any responsibility for himself or his news organization to counteract or cut through the nonsense for the benefit of the public and puts all the responsibility for rebuttal on the Biden White House.
He's basically saying, "we're covering and stenographing the discourse on the border badly and in a distorted way, and in a bad light for the Administration." And then, basically promises that his news organization will keep doing it that way until the Administration itself makes enough rebuttal noise, argumentation and manipulation to make them cover it differently.
That's what inspired the little rant comment I made below on Matt Yglesias' substack comment section about the article. I make the points I made above, then pivoted to how the Administration does need to engage media and make noise but should do it on its own terms without shame, given current incentive structures. Please pardon any sloppiness in language, or excessive passion, from my writing in haste:
We need to change the subject on campus, and everywhere from Israel-Palestine, not engage deeper in it, get "good trouble" about other things, women's rights, freedoms, health:
Background: We haven’t yet seen the kind of coordinated, deliberately staged acts of civil disobedience that can sometimes transform politics, on the abortion issue. But this topic is well suited to this kind of aggressive strategy. People hate the rules Republicans are making Republicans themselves are embarrassed to talk about enforcing them, and the biggest substantive risk to abortion rights isn’t that people don’t agree with the cause, it’s that many people may just not be thinking about it enough. Anything that forces more attention to the issue and prevents it from fading from view is constructive, and dramatic events that make real-word news are much more impactful than paid television ads. The fact is, we *are* seeing deliberately staged acts of civil disobedience to try to transform politics on the Israel-Palestine issue, that will not succeed in doing so, in the intended manner at least (ie, it would help elect Trump who would just tell Netanyahu to do what he wants in the region, and tell the religious wrong to do what it wants in America). And Republican politicians and the Republican message machine sense the opportunity in playing it up in fissuring the Democratic coalition so much they play up coverage, and, like Mike Johnson at Columbia, bodily throw themselves into the controversy. And non-conservative media can’t strategically control its substantive fascination with the issue. Democrats or anyone interested in the prospering of center-left politics desperately need to change the subject, and abortion rights would fit the bill perfectly to be the new story to change it to.
Question: What types of acts of civil disobedience have “the groups” and citizens that care about reproductive freedom, women’s rights and health been forgetting to do in the half dozen or so prosecutorial or regulatory nightmare stories going on at any given time downstream of Dobbs that make Republicans at state, federal, local, judicial or activist levels look terrible, keep the story alive in national media, and "unignorable"? What events and stories could Chuck Schumer, Hakeem Jeffries, and other politicians and candidates throw their whole bodies into, to reinforce and direct news media eyeballs, whether inclined or not, onto Republican responsibility for the anti-abortion and anti-woman prosecutions and decisions?
Trump is a snake oil salesman. He will say whatever it takes to make a sale, whether it’s one of his sleazy products or himself.
The real story is his failed business ventures. His real estate wealth is inherited. Name one venture he started which has succeeded. Name one that was not a con.
The story that must be told is of his numerous failures especially that he has never won the popular vote.
Keep pointing out that he’s a loser and his focus will be on himself, which is all that matters to him,
Dems are ashamed of the extremely generous, redistributive, collectivist welfare policies passed during COVID. So yeah, they aren’t going to tell stories they themselves are ashamed of.
Good Morning Brian: Your article this morning is full of facts from Pelosi and others, however the point is that we need to convince Trumpers via storytelling to switch their allegiance. You may be correct, for a small batch who vote Republican no matter what. However, those individuals across our country who are avid Trump devotees are (1) under or uneducated, (2) have been brainwashed, and (3) have closed minds.
Time magazine (May 15, 2014) published an article that says "Red States fall 1.5 percentage points below the national average for high school completion rate and 3.3 percentage points below the national average for college degree attainment. In addition, Texas - one of the largest states in our country - shows 19.2% of the population without a high school diploma." A lack of education equates to inadequate deductive reasoning, poverty, and an individual who may not be able to make the connection between the "story" and reality.
Coercive mind manipulation has been used by Trump from day one. Wikipedia defines brainwashing as "telling lies repetitively until it is perceived as the truth." CNN recently reported that over 50% of the Republicans still believe the "big lie" that Trump lost the 2020 election because our election process is crooked. The truth is, Biden received seven million more votes. If the "lie" contains hatred - which is used daily by Trump - it releases a chemical in the brain to enact violence and is what we saw on January 6th. Once a person is brainwashed or hypnotized, there is little to no independent thought.
Hitler converted an entire peaceful nation into mass murderers by using mass mind manipulation. Jim Jones, a cult leader, amassed a group of about 900 followers. He then told them all to drink KoolAid laced with poison. They all perished. Brainwashing began about 100 years ago and has been used worldwide in autocratic countries. Lo and behold it is now found and used in the United States by Donald Trump.
I was at a book signing event at a Barnes and Noble in Tucson, AZ. A middle-age woman came up to me and said "I believe Putin is a smart and great leader." I was in shock and could not respond. These were the same words used by Trump to describe Putin the prior week after Russia invaded Ukraine. This is brainwashing; it is widespread across our country; and these brains will not switch parties because the Dems have improved storytelling.
Vladimir Putin spent his spy years working in East Germany. While there he acquired the same mass manipulation tools used by Hitler. He brought this information back to Russia, became the second Russian President, and caught Trump in a typical KGB process of entrapment.
Trump began going to Russia in 1987. I was already there and not only watched the sequence of his compromise, but was also invited many times to "work for Russia." First, every hotel room assigned to a foreigner has cameras and listening devices in the ceiling and walls. Second, the KGB/FSB entices Americans through flattery, money, and women - Trump was an easy stooge. Even his sons have bragged about the $100M given to the Trump Organization from Russian banks - which are all managed and controlled by the Russian Secret Service. (www.businessinsider.com)
To put the pieces of the puzzle together, brainwashing and manipulation tools went from Germany, to Russia, to Trump/United States. Putin told the entire world in a book published in Russia in 1997 (The Foundations of Geopolitics) that among his intentions and desired result of his presidency will be the internal destruction of the United States. He will accomplish this by putting a man under his control as the U.S. President, i.e. Trump - the same operational model used in the USSR.
Americans are not just naive about Putin and Russia, but have proved to be a good quarry for Putin's plan. The influence of Putin's strategies have quietly attempted to reshape the trajectory of American politics and American lives - and if Trump wins in 2024, you will see a large-scale celebration in Russia. If Trump does not win, you will see mass destruction and violence in the United States. Either way - Putin wins.
Sometimes I feel the election is between Bill Nye and John Wayne Gacy.
1. One reason Trump may not be punished for his actual record is because the incompetence and mendaciousness became normalized. If every day is a bad day, the people get used to it ,and over time nothing in particular may stand out as exceptionally awful. The poor end of the Mueller investigation and impeachment failure reinforce such indifference.
2. By the time the pandemic hit, most people did not expect competence and effective leadership. We were not disappointed and this enabled Trump to escape much accountability. Again, if every day seems bad and threatening, one can adjust to it and not consider any particular part of it exceptional. In this respect, for millions who were not directly harmed, the pandemic year might seem only worse not different and Trump gets off the hook. Such feelings are objectively untrue and unhelpful but they are a way to cope with a bad situation and one does not necessarily adopt a different attitude later. It also serves to make the preceding three years seem not so bad.
3. Trump's major failure--the inability to repeal Obamacare--may be saving him now. How many people remember all the votes in the House to repeal it? Or the smugness at the White House lawn celebration when the House finally succeeded? Had it been repealed before the pandemic hit, it might have been a different story,. It certainly would be a campaign issue today. All the Republicans who supported repeal would likely now be on their heels trying to defend themselves and Trump much like the Dobbs decision has boxed them in. Here too, "failure" to get what he wanted would probably be serving Trump well.
I always say that the measure of any professional is how they handle a crisis. People don’t get the big jobs or big bucks to handle things that are going well. They earn their pay when a disaster hits. Take airline pilots: They handle routine flights day in and day out, but they train extensively for all kinds of mishaps and problems and when one strikes they are ready. Pilots don’t run around trying to claim credit for good results when the skies are smooth. They don’t expect it, nor should we give it to them.
Biden and Trump are both old, it’s true. But Biden has spent his entire career building know-how and experience to guide the country when things are OR are not going smoothly. He knows how to make change and drive results, even if things take longer than we’d like in the public sector. Trump on the other hand has honed a talent for taking credit when anything goes well and making excuses and blaming others in moments of crisis.
America has a choice on who they want to pilot the country. I’m riding with Biden.
There was a commercial a while back with the tagline "Image Is Everything' and that is so true especially now.
tRump disbanded the pandemic-preparedness response office less than two years before the pandemic hit. Coincidence? Probably. But the implications that he knew it was coming would feed beautifully into the conspiracy theorists addled minds. Low-rent? Hitting below the belt? Yep, absolutely, and why not? That's the kind of story that a news outlet, one that even these craven cowards should snap up.
We definitely need to hit hard on the short little stupid sound bites that people can grab, recall and regurgitate quickly and easily. How about tRump's response to the Camp Fire? Rake the forest, remember? Nuke a hurricane, throw paper towels, call wounded and disabled soldiers lovers and suckers (they've been harping on that a bit)... gods, there are THOUSANDS! There must be a few for EVERY STATE. Hit the stupid points and hit them HARD. This is opposition research, but they need to go low and ugly, now.
Republikkkans will lie, cheat, steal and assassinate (character at least), so as much as I dislike it, most people don't follow politics enough to get the finer points of tfg's idiocy. Make it simple, short and the dumber the better. Weakening him will work, he's diminishing before our eyes!
I think there's an erroneous premise in this essay, and in the comments it generated. And it's this: If Democrats had been offering a "good story" over the past couple of years, voters would be better informed and more approving of Biden at this point. But that's not true. Most people aren't interested in politics. They care very much about the price of eggs and gas, but an intelligently crafted story doesn't penetrate. Not yet, anyway. Democrats are locked and loaded for September, October and November. That's when more people finally tune into politics. And that's when they'll hear a very good story from Democrats.
Chait's point:
“The inflation run-up of 2021–22 tanked his approval ratings"
is also omitting that most of the approval rating decline started with the withdrawal from Afghanistan.
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/biden-approval-rating/
That's when it crossed from positive to negative.
Better story telling, yes. But Democrats' near-fatal disease is language. By using words like existential, they communicate that they are only speaking to elites and don't care about the average Joe. This is fixable, but only if they even become aware that they are doing it!
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/donald-trump-echoes-mitt-romney-s-comment-about-people-automatically-voting-democrat/ar-BB1lRODl?ocid=entnewsntp&pc=U531&cvid=883dc1bcd8334313c51173a51e7cebef&ei=39
Amplify.
Not quite as damning with swing voters as Romney's words in 2012 because DJT shut his mouth before continuing the insults and shaved off 7% from his dismissal. And because the way DJT/Orange Man played into the steady pre-demonization of government workers, Union workers, and of course welfare recipients, digging in on the last.
Nevertheless, The Donald was doing an open eff u to what he thinks is 40%, He's found his deplorables, and he's saying eff u to welfare recipients - hey wait, does he mean disability recipients? And to Civil servants and public employees. And to the most normal and relatable of creatures, people in Union jobs. Share with those you know.
Brian,
I caught an article where Chuck Todd basically confessed the suckitude of his trade. He might not have seen it that way, but reading his text, he in effect publicly abdicated from responsibility to inform the public of realities as a journalist and said, "Joe, it's on you to do it, make people hear, and make us cover it."
I was moved enough by this admission to comment on another substack, your Politix pal, Matt Yglesias, but also to e-mail Eric Alterman and Brian Stelter, who have long warned about mainstream media bullshitsu. I didn't try to write to Chuck directly. That guy always looks tired as fuck.
Hi Mr. Alterman,
Been reading your stuff since "What Liberal Media?" and seen your various C-Span appearances over the last two decades and read plenty of your critiques of mainstream journalistic malpractice.
Chuck Todd basically confesses how the mainstream media let the information environment get manipulated by right-wing partisan media here, Chuck Todd: Congress is passing the FUBAR test with flying colors ,
Chuck Todd: Congress is passing the FUBAR test with flying colors
Analysis: Two competing forces are pushing the political system from the usual messy to something even more dysf...
sounding kind of like how you've sounded for years. But the lateness of the admission, and the pretty transparent tone of abdication of any responsibility for the news organization he is a part of to cover things better kind of made my blood boil.
The TLDR of his argument is that the right-wing noise machine has manipulated Republican lawmakers, constituents, broader public opinion and the mainstream media on the border issue, won a compromise on Republican terms, then rejected the compromise, but might still benefit from the border discourse by controlling its terms.
He admits and describes the distortions introduced by the right-wing noise machine but does not accept any responsibility for himself or his news organization to counteract or cut through the nonsense for the benefit of the public and puts all the responsibility for rebuttal on the Biden White House.
He's basically saying, "we're covering and stenographing the discourse on the border badly and in a distorted way, and in a bad light for the Administration." And then, basically promises that his news organization will keep doing it that way until the Administration itself makes enough rebuttal noise, argumentation and manipulation to make them cover it differently.
That's what inspired the little rant comment I made below on Matt Yglesias' substack comment section about the article. I make the points I made above, then pivoted to how the Administration does need to engage media and make noise but should do it on its own terms without shame, given current incentive structures. Please pardon any sloppiness in language, or excessive passion, from my writing in haste:
msn.com/en-us/news/politics/chuck-todd-...
See latest from horse-race color commentator Chuck Todd.
My observation on the whole first half of his article:
Well, well, well, friggin' Einstein finally gets it!
If he'd been so insightful and such an expert, he would have figured this out
decades ago. And he would have been Brian Stelter'ing and Eric
Alterman'ing all over his national media platforms. Thanks for nothing Chuck.
Oh, and now that you've figured it out, maybe intellectual integrity should
compel you to keep on offering these Stelter-ish and Altermanian takes on
your TV appearances going forward?
.....On the second half, he punts on over to absolve the media of its failure to
illuminate and clarify as it stenographs out the loudest of he said and she
said, and just gives Biden a hard time for not speaking up. "Hey, we're just
stenographers over here" he is announcing, clear as day.
At the same time, he has a point, and is signaling MSM isn't changing its
standards of political reporting any time soon, so in that vacuum, Biden,
Harris, and others in the campaign *have* to take heed of Todd's
recommendations in the second half of the article. Non-communication from
the White House *is* a problem. But embarrassing unscripted moments
*are* a risk.
I have a suggestion to square this circle: A self-serving, tailored, active,
offensive but protective media strategy of prepared, calculated, and curated
persistent public communications and events, mostly pre-recorded, and
occasionally live. The important thing is to stick with it and test for
resonance of themes only, without being deterred by inevitable criticism for
being too scripted, curated, or non-spontaneous.
Feed the media beast with material it is easy to talk about, including
speeches and fireside chats, even if people will whine they are boring, as long
as you include quotable lines. When Diamond Joe is well rested and
prepared, get him in front of the camera for recorded or live meetings with
voters, but get the White House POV out there daily, from POTUS, or
surrogates. Do not feel obligated to make much of it "live" or unstaged or
high-risk, but continue to generate content on issues shown to matter. When
people whine about things not being free-form enough, divert the question,
and keep making your points, otherwise, 'eff em - Republicans know how to
do that once they sniff out whether they are under questioning from a a
fundamentally hostile or unhelpful questioner versus a softball neutral or a
softball friendly. Maximize the set-ups with softball friendlies. The other side
has a whole network of those. POTUS could find a few capable willing
people to participate.
With an irresponsible media, and a national media audience incompetent at
consuming/interpreting media, the Administration owes them all no
spontaneity, debates, gaffe-fodder, or concessions or confessions of error
on an openness problem.
All best,
Rob H.
We need to change the subject on campus, and everywhere from Israel-Palestine, not engage deeper in it, get "good trouble" about other things, women's rights, freedoms, health:
Background: We haven’t yet seen the kind of coordinated, deliberately staged acts of civil disobedience that can sometimes transform politics, on the abortion issue. But this topic is well suited to this kind of aggressive strategy. People hate the rules Republicans are making Republicans themselves are embarrassed to talk about enforcing them, and the biggest substantive risk to abortion rights isn’t that people don’t agree with the cause, it’s that many people may just not be thinking about it enough. Anything that forces more attention to the issue and prevents it from fading from view is constructive, and dramatic events that make real-word news are much more impactful than paid television ads. The fact is, we *are* seeing deliberately staged acts of civil disobedience to try to transform politics on the Israel-Palestine issue, that will not succeed in doing so, in the intended manner at least (ie, it would help elect Trump who would just tell Netanyahu to do what he wants in the region, and tell the religious wrong to do what it wants in America). And Republican politicians and the Republican message machine sense the opportunity in playing it up in fissuring the Democratic coalition so much they play up coverage, and, like Mike Johnson at Columbia, bodily throw themselves into the controversy. And non-conservative media can’t strategically control its substantive fascination with the issue. Democrats or anyone interested in the prospering of center-left politics desperately need to change the subject, and abortion rights would fit the bill perfectly to be the new story to change it to.
Question: What types of acts of civil disobedience have “the groups” and citizens that care about reproductive freedom, women’s rights and health been forgetting to do in the half dozen or so prosecutorial or regulatory nightmare stories going on at any given time downstream of Dobbs that make Republicans at state, federal, local, judicial or activist levels look terrible, keep the story alive in national media, and "unignorable"? What events and stories could Chuck Schumer, Hakeem Jeffries, and other politicians and candidates throw their whole bodies into, to reinforce and direct news media eyeballs, whether inclined or not, onto Republican responsibility for the anti-abortion and anti-woman prosecutions and decisions?
Trump is a snake oil salesman. He will say whatever it takes to make a sale, whether it’s one of his sleazy products or himself.
The real story is his failed business ventures. His real estate wealth is inherited. Name one venture he started which has succeeded. Name one that was not a con.
The story that must be told is of his numerous failures especially that he has never won the popular vote.
Keep pointing out that he’s a loser and his focus will be on himself, which is all that matters to him,
Trump is a an
Dems are ashamed of the extremely generous, redistributive, collectivist welfare policies passed during COVID. So yeah, they aren’t going to tell stories they themselves are ashamed of.
This is absolutely spot on. People remember stories.
Good Morning Brian: Your article this morning is full of facts from Pelosi and others, however the point is that we need to convince Trumpers via storytelling to switch their allegiance. You may be correct, for a small batch who vote Republican no matter what. However, those individuals across our country who are avid Trump devotees are (1) under or uneducated, (2) have been brainwashed, and (3) have closed minds.
Time magazine (May 15, 2014) published an article that says "Red States fall 1.5 percentage points below the national average for high school completion rate and 3.3 percentage points below the national average for college degree attainment. In addition, Texas - one of the largest states in our country - shows 19.2% of the population without a high school diploma." A lack of education equates to inadequate deductive reasoning, poverty, and an individual who may not be able to make the connection between the "story" and reality.
Coercive mind manipulation has been used by Trump from day one. Wikipedia defines brainwashing as "telling lies repetitively until it is perceived as the truth." CNN recently reported that over 50% of the Republicans still believe the "big lie" that Trump lost the 2020 election because our election process is crooked. The truth is, Biden received seven million more votes. If the "lie" contains hatred - which is used daily by Trump - it releases a chemical in the brain to enact violence and is what we saw on January 6th. Once a person is brainwashed or hypnotized, there is little to no independent thought.
Hitler converted an entire peaceful nation into mass murderers by using mass mind manipulation. Jim Jones, a cult leader, amassed a group of about 900 followers. He then told them all to drink KoolAid laced with poison. They all perished. Brainwashing began about 100 years ago and has been used worldwide in autocratic countries. Lo and behold it is now found and used in the United States by Donald Trump.
I was at a book signing event at a Barnes and Noble in Tucson, AZ. A middle-age woman came up to me and said "I believe Putin is a smart and great leader." I was in shock and could not respond. These were the same words used by Trump to describe Putin the prior week after Russia invaded Ukraine. This is brainwashing; it is widespread across our country; and these brains will not switch parties because the Dems have improved storytelling.
Vladimir Putin spent his spy years working in East Germany. While there he acquired the same mass manipulation tools used by Hitler. He brought this information back to Russia, became the second Russian President, and caught Trump in a typical KGB process of entrapment.
Trump began going to Russia in 1987. I was already there and not only watched the sequence of his compromise, but was also invited many times to "work for Russia." First, every hotel room assigned to a foreigner has cameras and listening devices in the ceiling and walls. Second, the KGB/FSB entices Americans through flattery, money, and women - Trump was an easy stooge. Even his sons have bragged about the $100M given to the Trump Organization from Russian banks - which are all managed and controlled by the Russian Secret Service. (www.businessinsider.com)
To put the pieces of the puzzle together, brainwashing and manipulation tools went from Germany, to Russia, to Trump/United States. Putin told the entire world in a book published in Russia in 1997 (The Foundations of Geopolitics) that among his intentions and desired result of his presidency will be the internal destruction of the United States. He will accomplish this by putting a man under his control as the U.S. President, i.e. Trump - the same operational model used in the USSR.
Americans are not just naive about Putin and Russia, but have proved to be a good quarry for Putin's plan. The influence of Putin's strategies have quietly attempted to reshape the trajectory of American politics and American lives - and if Trump wins in 2024, you will see a large-scale celebration in Russia. If Trump does not win, you will see mass destruction and violence in the United States. Either way - Putin wins.
Elizabeth
www.democrazy2020.org