I can't stand activist investors like Bill Ackman who shorts a company like Herbalife and spends the next five years trying to destroy the company. I don't care if those guys are ruined.

But the "Russell 2000" weighted funds and ETFs are in a lot of pension funds and 401Ks. Those passive investors, who are mostly ordinary people, mostly retirees, woke up two days ago owning a shitload of unstable GameStop stock...

What if the Reddit crowd figures out how to ruin regular long investors?

to spread pro-Yanukovych, anti-Tymoshenko Russian disinformation earlier last decade. Ben Shapiro, then at Breitbart, was one of a number of easily-manipulated tools.

Former Trump aide approved 'black ops' to help Ukraine president

Exclusive: Paul Manafort authorised secret media operation that sought to discredit key opponent of then Ukrainian president

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/apr/05/ex-trump-aide-paul-manafort-approved-black-ops-to-help-ukraine-president

This system serves them well enough; they reuse it to our detriment.

as is Christopher Browning.

IMHO, Hindenburg was was more indecisive and susceptible to influence than McConnell. He was prodded into taking these measures mostly by General Kurt von Schleicher and former Chancellor Franz von Papen, who also made the mistake of thinking Hitler could be pushed around. Again, they wanted his base, mostly the SA, but they were afraid disillusioned Nazis would defect to the Communist party, because a large segment of them were nihilistic anarchists at heart. The Russian Revolution and conspiracy theories spawned by Germany's defeat in WWI created a "terror" of a far left revolution in Germany.

I would only suggest one go back a bit further to at least the conclusion of WWI, the Treaty of Versailles, the dangerous conspiracy theories Germany's loss spawned, the phobia triggered in Germany by the Russian Revolution, and also include the later impact of the Great Depression on the German economy. There were also a ridiculous number of political parties in Germany, making it nearly impossible to form a dominant coalition party in the Reichstag.

I agree there is a lot to unpack, and only studying WWII is not sufficient to understand the Third Reich.

Associated Press via Press Herald
BY DAVID KLEPPER ASSOCIATED PRESS
Posted 3:41 PM Updated at 3:41 PM

Some followers of the QAnon conspiracy theory are now turning to online support groups and even therapy to help them move on.



Read more at link: https://www.pressherald.com/2021/01/28/checked-by-reality-some-qanon-supporters-seek-a-way-out/

The Cult of Trump that one of the only hopes is to gradually get a member of a cult to have an epiphany that they have been lied to and that they have come to believe things that are not true. If they realize this themselves, it has much more power than someone else telling them. And he writes that it can take a very long time. I remember, after reading that book I basically gave up hope about the practicality of deprogramming all these people. It also requires incredible, almost unlimited patience on the part of the cult members' loved ones, because they bear the brunt of this process. It's a one-on-one process, sort of like going through psychotherapy.

The most important element is that at the conclusion of this process, the individual believes he or she has come to these new realizations on their own, rather than that they were pressured into abandoning their beliefs.

But I'm not at all against what you are proposing. It can't hurt, and it might knock a few of the "loosely affiliated" or new recruits to their senses.

"If you aren't making news, you aren't governing."

But that actually makes no sense whatsoever.

One possible translation is: "If Trump and his base don't see me on TV defending their emperor God, I may lose my grasp on power."

It's like saying, Fascism was never about Mussolini, or Nazism was never about Hitler, or Stalinism was never about Stalin. Yes and no. But the "no" is very important.

But yes, the seeds of Trumpism existed before Trump. If we exclude Trump, though, we stop looking for the next Trump--and looking for the next Trump is important.

Eventually, we will have another Trump (or Trump a second time). The next Trump won't be so careless and inept.

The next Trump may attempt to do what Viktor Orban has done in Hungary (or Bolsonaro in Brazil, or Modi in India, or Duterte in the Philippines, or Berlusconi did in Italy, or the Vox Party in Spain, or Duda in Poland is trying to do--or name your favorite democracy under siege, they are a dime a dozen.). In other words, exactly what you are saying, especially your first two points.

I already see things in my post I wish I had qualified. For example, an argument can be made that Nurse Ratched isn't really the antagonist in "Cuckoo's Nest"; that it's actually McMurphy, and that Chief Bromden is the protagonist. I've usually leaned towards the view that McMurphy is a protagonist who "refuses to change" and dies at the end. Some teachers will tell you that "death is not a change" (a blunt way of warning screenwriters not to kill their protagonists) but I don't know if that rule applies in the case of a movie about a protagonist who "refuses to change". (i.e. "Mishima" ends with a suicide--but I digress.)

It's a lot of fun to think about these things.

But I always hesitate to make concrete assertions about such matters!

Good luck with your writing. Writing for stage must be fascinating. I'm guessing you can really focus on casting a spell over the audience because you can spend more time in one place, and are not constantly interrupted by scene changes. Just watching characters interact over a longer period of time can be so interesting.

(It's a movie, but I'm thinking of how thrilling something like "My Dinner with Andre" was in spite of it just being two people talking for more than ninety minutes. I also recall being riveted by the film of the play "Carnage", and I like Mamet's early plays.)

Would love to know more about stage writing.