3.0 Resistance

You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time. —Abraham Lincoln

Lest you think this will be little more than some touchy feely, All you need is Love kind of blog, let me take a moment to clarify its purpose. Yes, I believe Love is essential to healing the gashes between us, the gashes expertly exploited by those who prefer power to people, to distract from their misdeeds by turning us into bickering factions. However, while Love is needed, it won't be enough.

We also need to resist. We must fight back. We need to show that bloated baboon of a buffoon that we will not sit back quietly while he dismantles civil rights, dismantles our economy, dismantles our democracy.

This blog is my form of resistance. I want it to serve as a place to rally, to separate the wheat of essential information from the chaff of all the propaganda we're constantly being fed. I also want it to serve as a platform to honor others willing to rise up, willing to speak truth to power.

In that spirit, I want to point your attention to Danielle Muscato. Danielle called Don Presidente out after another of his sad tweets complaining about Alec Baldwin's portrayal of him on Saturday Night Live. 

Not only does she take him down on his thin-skinned pettiness, she goes on to break down the argument against having such a contemptible human being represent Us.

Thank you, Danielle, for saying what so many of us have been thinking. Thank you for your courage and your inspiration. I stand with you.

2.0 Let It Be

I have to try real hard not to hate Don Presidente voters. They've likely just condemned this country to years of regressive policies. We will likely lose a lot of the ground we've made on Climate Change. We will likely see new Supreme Court Justices eager to reverse or curtail reproductive and equal rights. We may very well see families split up for the sake of reducing the number of undocumented residents. Worst of all, perhaps, is that we are likely to witness a freeze in the move to reverse the trend of mass incarceration that has been plaguing black communities for decades—a return to the new Jim Crow that includes a continuation of voter suppression under the guise of voter fraud prevention.

However, they can only be blamed so much. As I've mentioned before, his voters simply gave in to manipulations that started long ago. The rise of right wing media and the demonization of mainstream media helped prime the target audience. The constant drumbeat that failed policies, like Supply Side (Trickle Down) Economics can work. The misdirection of being continually told that the nation's problems were the fault of, well, pick a group: Democrats, liberals, socialists, elitists, immigrants, minorities, feminists...

The list of the demonized is a long one.

Those of us that claim progressive values didn't help. We demonized them right back. We called them stupid, gullible, hateful fearmongers. We shoved our agendas down their throats, and expected them to swallow it without complaint. Between the actions of the manipulators and those of us who only wanted to push the nation forward, at all costs, those poor marks were no longer able to tell what was good or bad, anymore.

I didn't help that we had international trade deals created by elites, for elites. Sure, for many, trade deals are great! A lot of people made tons more money, primarily corporate interests. But not enough care was given to the industries and workers who were affected negatively. Even programs created to offset the bad side effects of these trade deals, like Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA), have only invested a fraction of the profits American companies make off them. For every dollar they got, those losing factories and jobs got pennies, and the newer jobs paid less.

It was only natural that the white, working class populations of red states, already primed to distrust the rest of us, would only grow to resent the rest of the country. It was only natural that they would counter progressive messages of unity, love and equal rights for all, and instead, would be drawn to messages of intolerance and division. 

All it took was a Master Manipulator to drop into the arena, like a nuclear bomb. All it took was one man that could help focus all the misinformation, all the outright lies posing as facts, all the mistrust, all the intolerance and hate. All it took was a true cipher, a blank slate upon which they could project their despair and aspirations. The rest is history, assuming there will be such a thing as history left.

So, while I want to hate them, I can't. Better yet, I won't. What's the point? My hate doesn't affect them. It only affects how I feel about them. If it does have any effect, it's only to further alienate them, further drive them away.

And now the hatred is spreading. I'm not talking about the rise of the alt-right, as white supremacists prefer to be called, now. I'm talking about the hatred I alluded to in the inaugural post for this blog, the finger pointing and shaming going on within generally progressive camps. Many of us are mad at Jill Stein voters. Many of us are mad at the people who voted for Gary Johnson. Many of us are mad at those who opted to stay home and give us the lowest turnout in twenty years.

But they were also victims. The far left was just as susceptible to the fake news and conspiracy theories. Many more pragmatic Republicans that couldn't pull the lever for the Worst Case Scenario opted for Johnson. Many tentative voters didn't know what to believe, or were absolutely disgusted by the campaigns. They saw no reason to go to the polls. They didn't see the danger. Like me, they believed the polls. They didn't have to vote to prevent an electoral tragedy.

Like Brexit, there was plenty of remorse in the days following the election. The difference, however, is that we're not just going to be pulled back from the global market. With a majority in both houses of Congress and a conservative Supreme Court, he's essentially been handed a blank check, despite the fact that most Americans didn't vote for him. 

Yet, those who defiantly voted for a third party candidate remain defiant. They stand by their choice, by their insistence that their consciences would not allow them to vote for such a "vile" woman. It makes hating them, too, very easy.

Don't! We can't afford to. We can't afford to hate anyone, even the Hate Pumpkin, himself. We should hate acts, deeds, not the people committing them, anyway.

We can't afford it because when the honeymoon is finally over, when the rest of us finally see the reality of this country's choice, only by uniting will we be able to head off any impending disaster, or at least soften the blow.

I'm not claiming to know how bad things will get. Despite the title of this blog, I don't have any crystal ball to tell me this presidency, unchecked, will lead to the end our grand experiment in democracy. Maybe we'll get lucky. Maybe he will end up just being a footnote in American history: mostly harmless. Maybe not, though.

And if not, it's going to take the kind of unity never seen in this nation to put an end to it. We're going to need everyone we can get to rise against even the slightest threat of tyranny, the smallest attack on our freedoms, especially speech. They may be able to shut a some of us up, but they can't shut us all up.

None of this is possible in the state that we're in now. We'll just be a bunch of fools shouting at each other, floundering while the world burns.

Stop unfriending people you don't agree with. Stop calling the friends you've kept names. Understand that they are also hurting. Understand that they also want to see a brighter future for their children. Understand that we've all been conned, to one degree or another. For some, it will take longer for them to see that. Some may never see it.

The best advice I can give you, right now, is to take whatever grudge you're harboring, whatever ill will, give it one last glance, know you never want to be there again, then let it be.

1.0: Come Together

So, here we are. Hopefully, you’ve been paying attention and realize how we got here. Now the questions needs to be: What exactly do we have? How do we survive it? And what can be done about it?

To understand what we have, you first need to understand who’s in control. The answer’s obvious, but I don’t just mean the man who will soon be our president. I mean the man that he is, the man he’s been. What I and others have noticed is that the man fits a specific archetype that’s troubling, even dangerous if combined with potentially darker personality traits. 

Whether he is mostly harmless, a sociopath, a psychopath is still in question. What’s not in question is that he is a Narcissistic Master Manipulator. 

His favorite technique seems to be Pacing & Leading. The manipulator "paces" the public by mimicking his target’s emotional state. He then pushes those emotions by making statements that may be even more extreme than they ever would make. That's what really draws them in. 

"The economy/politicians/media/etc. are even worse than we thought! He gets it. He has my vote!"

Once he's manipulated his target audience into believing he is the biggest badass on a given topic, he can then "lead." Since no one understands said topic(s) as well as he has made them believe he does, he is then free to "lead" them to whatever position he really wants to promote, because his target has already been manipulated to trust him, implicitly.

So, what’s his endgame? What does a Narcissistic Master Manipulator really want? He's likely to "lead" everything to the center in order to widen his trust with the public. That will set him up for an "O, he wasn't that bad" re-election campaign. It's the Narcissist aspect we can't ignore, though. That means whatever he's out for, it needs to benefit him, most. That it actually benefits anyone else is just gravy. Gravy is always a part of any good con.

So, what’s the con?

My guess is that, at best, he just wants to enhance his brand. What better way to expand the brand than to attain the highest office in the land, if not the world. If that's the case, watch for him to be more mascot than president, traveling & making appearances that make America, & by default himself, look Great. Actual governing will be left up to others.

At worse, he wants use the office to benefit his businesses. For signs of that, look for him to do nothing about the conflicts of interest created by his office & his family's business. If he liquidates, we'll know he's thinking of Americans first. If he justs hands it all off to his kids, you can be pretty sure there will be deals being cut that will directly benefit The Organization, both domestically & abroad. If he holds to his proposed economic policy, the nation will suffer.

At worst, he wants power for power’s sake. People like that don’t like to give it up. If that’s the case, look for increased domestic surveillance, suppression of the media & free speech, likely through litigation. The slightest excuse might lead to a state of emergency, extending & possibly prolonging his power. 

We've all been manipulated, to one degree or another, for a long time. None of us are any less guilty than the other. It opened the door for a Master Manipulator to step in & turn it all to his advantage. Everybody already sort of hated the other. All that needed to be done was to stoke the right fires in the right places at the right times, & viola...

In a sense, what's happening now is part of a continuing manipulation. Not only are the divisions of one side against "the other" laid bare & hurting, now there's infighting, groups usually seeking common goals blaming & shaming each other. We've been royally Trumped!

Now we need to heal. We need to come together. ALL of us. If we continue to distract ourselves with the petty squabbles, no one will be watching while he takes it all down, or all for himself. It’s not a question of whether or not we can survive this. We can. We will. Society moves on despite oligarchs & tyrants. The real question is can we come out of this intact? The answer depends on whether we can get past the blaming, the guilt, the fear, and the hate. If we can turn our attention to what really matters, I like our prospects. I hope this blog can play a role in that healing, however small.


Until next time, here's a little mood music: