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Tomorrow’s Mug Shots

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Trump “Rally” in Grand Rapids, MI

As we head toward the culmination of another anxious election season, I suddenly had an inkling of what could happen. Donald Trump has always relied on rallies where he speaks with a bigly group of mostly young supporters with posters and MAGA hats at his back.

These rallies vaguely resemble the rallies that Trump’s hero, Adolph Hitler, staged in the 1930s. Of course, they couldn’t hold a candle to the giant 1935 rally in Nuremberg which was filmed by Leni Riefenstahl and released under the title Triumph of the Will. Now that was a real rally, with over 700,000 supporters in attendance.

Hitler Rally in Nuremberg 1935

The thought came to me that the whole Trump moment in American history will end badly. The electorate is largely made up of two groups:

  • People who hate Trump with a passion
  • People who idolize Trump with a passion (but who will come to hate him when they wake up and find out they have been used)

What I think will happen at some future date is that those faces at MAGA rallies will become a mark of shame, and that people will scan photographs of the rallies with magnifying glasses to find neighbors they could blame for their predicament, which will probably get worse over time. (Even if it doesn’t, the voters will think that.)

I look at cars that bear political bumper stickers and think, “What happens if they park their car in a neighborhood which is strongly ‘anti-’ their candidate?” That’s one of the reasons my car is devoid of bumper stickers and decals.

The blame game will only get worse.

Nattering Nabobs of Negativism

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It Seems That Most Politics Is Driven by Hate

It Seems That Most Politics Is Driven by Hate

The phrase is from the late Vice President Spiro T. Agnew, referring to the news media. I think, however, in today’s poisonous climate, it refers to most populist politics. According to an article in the current edition of The New Scientist entitled “We Are What We Vote,” we find the following paragraph:

Research in the past few years using information on brain structure and function from MRI scans, psychological responses, eye-trackers and behavioural genetics, shows that individual political orientations are deeply connected to biological forces that are usually beyond personal control…. Despite initial incredulity—people like to believe political opinions are rational responses to salient events—the evidence that political preferences are linked to systems that often involve subconscious is growing. An admittedly simplistic but useful summary of this research is that human emotions are grounded in biology, and politics is grounded in emotions.

If you are left-leaning, a look at Raw Story or Salon.Com will send your blood boiling based on what such fear totems as Ted Cruz, Sarah Palin, and Rush Limbaugh are saying. If, on the other hand, your news source of preference is The Drudge Report or RedState.Com, you will find articles bemoaning attacks on liberty, gun ownership, and fundamentalist religion. The intention is generally to make you feel outrage and hatred.

For each article by a reasonable commentator, there are typically half a dozen or more pieces excoriating “the enemy.” If it is hard to get away from knee-jerk reactions, it is partly because, amid all the clickbaiting, there are all too many examples in the mainstream media.

There is even an entire news network dedicated to fear and outrage. Do I have to name it, or can you guess?