…like a hate–machine!

Trump wants to be the voice
of the many “who are angry and not going to take it anymore”.
Fasten your seat belts and get ready for a bumpy ride!

Trump has evolved into what some expected, a populist demagogue pandering to the voices and fears of his bases. He has embraced their violence and defended it as necessary because the protesters are “disgusting”. He has told crowds endlessly that he’ll pay for their legal costs if they punch out these “ugly protesters” and “professional agitators”. We’ve posted videos showing him endlessly exhorting his followers to “get rid of them” and directed his security force (and Secret Service) to throw them out of the meeting because “they offend us all”.

Some claim that he’s a dumb, ignorant bastard and doesn’t care. His base doesn’t care either. He’s against “political correctness” because his base hates it but he doesn’t offer acceptable substitutes for caring about our fellow citizens or the needs of the world. He is an isolationist at a time when that will harm the US. He claims to want to increase the military budget and equipment so we can use them to fight everyone who stands in our way. His stand against trade treaties coincides with what we have long called for but he does it with the relish of his base’s hatred for outsiders and “others”. You can just feel him getting ready to drop his self-created “bombs” on Hillary and Bill (they’re the same to him), the hedge funders, companies that park their profits outside the US to avoid taxes, all “others”, anyone who opposes him. He’s increasingly swinging to isolationist thinking because he senses that is what his base is wanting.

The level of outright bullying in his comments has reached a zenith lately – all who oppose him are damned in disgusting ways and he laughs at us all. Instead of his base getting disgusted, they howl and hoot their approval – they think they have finally found a candidate to speak their views. He has embraced misogyny/hatred for seniors/hatred for everyone who gets anything from the federal government/hatred for college students and tuition loans/hatred for all foreigners/hatred for all Hispanics/hatred for all Muslims/hatred for NATO/hatred for those poor who refuse to work/hatred for all those who refuse his leadership role and the list of those hated goes on and on.

The US group has been driven to these levels of fear for several decades now and they see themselves as economically disadvantaged, as living in a group where Whites are becoming the minority, as being disadvantaged by having their jobs stolen from them, as having to deal with a Black President (this really annoys these followers), as distrust of government grows enormously among most Americans. His followers are often faith-based and this adds the dimension of efforts to impose their faith on all others. Few seem to care that the US was founded by many who escaped their sense of being hated in their home nations and coming here to build “a new Zion in the wilderness”. Few seem to even know their American history and have a Hodge-podge of ideas to the contrary – often dismissing truth for opinion.

These are dangerous times for the US group and Obama’s policy choices haven’t helped gain voter confidence either. There are so many things that will surprise and shock us all in the months ahead – fasten your seat belts and get ready for a bumpy ride.

(Jerrold Atlas, Psychohistorian, Vermont, USA)