#RNCinCLE: America's Red Hour
It is rumored that tonight, Republican nominee for President Donald J. Trump is going to pull out all the stops to remind those in the audience of how terrible they have it and why voting for him is the only answer.
I've had a hard time understanding the Trump phenomenon all along. I'm reasonably savvy about both history and sociology, and I do grasp the basic strategy that got the Republican Party to this point. If you mong enough fear to release the Inner Terrified Predator of your desired electorate, focus them on appropriate scapegoat(s), then promise to hand the scapegoats to them all hogtied and ready for a bloody kicking by those Inner Terrified Predators, you build a hella momentum.
But... Trump?
The solons of the GOP knew the weakness as well as the strength of that strategy. It's how they got so good at the Dog Whistle. There's not enough of any one type of voter for this strategy to work without obfuscating it behind the nudge-nudge, wink-wink that will allow several different segments of the electorate to feel the fear of the Awful Other, all at the same time. You have to keep what would otherwise be natural opponents of one another all riding in the same cart.
Your out-of-work middle-aged blue-collar stiffs, your misogynistic alt-right manboys, your retirees piously wistful for the never-was Mayberry of their fading memories, your wannabe Galt misfits, and so many more. They really don't have that much in common with one another. How do you unify them? Attract enough more to credibly steal an election?
The last thirty years have demonstrated exactly how. You mong the fear with subtle skill, allowing out only flashes, with plausible deniability, for each segment, wooing them into a warm sploogefest of 'we all understand what's REALLY being promised but we're not gonna talk about it here.' And as the fear and the hate build up, you front puppets outside your organization, via hate radio and other tools, to provide confirmation and the occasional catharsis, while you maintain your own appearance of respectability.
And the sense of fear builds. It gets channeled productively (for the GOP) into scapegoat-hatred, and you cleverly gerrymander and game the system to maximize the effects. You throw just enough biscuits to each pack to keep them in your vicinity, while reminding them of the 'unreasonable' oppression and control being exercised over their "freedom" by the Vile Scapegoats (be they Democratic office holders, Social Justice Warriors obsessed with politically correct speech, minorities grabbing free stuff, immigrants taking jobs, whatever...)
You tell them they're oppressed, over and over. You tell them that the seething fear inside them that you've been ginning up isn't fear at all, but justified hatred of the oppressors curtailing their freedom.
But you always have to do it in dog whistles, by proxies, by second- and third-hand means, because there must be a core of control, the planners, the exploiters, the true beneficiaries, to direct things.
Then comes the Red Hour.
No one is in control anymore. No one is in charge.
I wanted to understand this phenomenon, especially after reading this Huffpo post about why women support the man who's loudly and proudly exhibited his contempt for them, calling us "dogs," "slobs," "fat pigs," "disgusting animals" and more.
Here's a couple of quotes:
“I’ve said things like that about guys ― ‘Oh, he’s short, or look at his little feet.’ But [Trump is] just on the surface about it, and that’s the refreshing part for me, is that he can speak his mind, because we’ve been so inhibited,”
“I’m a woman with a loose mouth so I get myself in trouble,”
And of course, we're all familiar with the oft-highlighted "I like Trump because he's upfront and tells it like it is" cognitive dissonance.
Essentially, Trump is the promise of enshrining the right to be an asshole in public, into the Constitution.
Mind you, all too many of the GOP's perfervid shock troops think it's already there, a nebulous conglomeration of the First and Second Amendments that guarantees them not only the right to be assholes, shoot anyone who disagrees with them, and be granted unrestricted tolerance and public forums for the display of their assholery. But those Vile Oppressors enforcing politically correct speech, denying them their rights to roll coal on the roads, brandish military-grade ordinance at Wal-Mart, and force baby-factories back into the kitchen where they belong need a real ass-whoopin', and Trump is just loud enough, obnoxious enough, and uninhibited enough to deliver it, with their help.
And so, the clock is striking six in Cleveland, and the Festival begins.
ominously,
Bright
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