In the link below there is a photograph of Trump followers at a rally in Newtown PA, Newtown is an affluent white suburb of Philly. We have been there often. But seeing those faces should make a person wonder, if not shudder. Well dressed women crying over a man who is an empty shell outside of his bombast. You see the same bizarre teenage like adulation at a Trump rally in which he says nothing substantive and much of it is self congratulatory. Why do people associate with such talk? Do they really see in this man salvation of some sort, a return to a glorious past, a past that any freshman student of our history knows never existed. One needs to ask the basic question when did Americans become so weak, so prone to follow, or is this just who they are, who they have become.
"Today, these dynamics converge in the figure of Donald Trump and his acolytes. Like Freud’s exemplary leader, Trump invites identification. In the eyes of his supporters, he’s both an idealised hero capable of extraordinary feats (‘Make America Great Again!’), but also an ordinary guy just like one of them. His gilded lifestyle is aspirational but his tastes are accessible (a ‘beer taste on a Champagne budget’, as one commentator put it in The Guardian). Trump’s roiling resentments, fears and disgusts are openly on display, inviting and authorising imitation. And he is a master of playing to the crowd’s desire for transcendence, deploying his own grandiosity to make them feel part of something bigger than themselves. First, he points to the crowd’s humiliation: ‘We’re tired of being the patsy for, like, everybody. Tea party people… You have not been treated fairly. You talk about marginalising.’ Then he declares himself their tribune: ‘At least I have a microphone where I can fight back. You people don’t!’ Finally, he shares his power with them, telling the crowd: ‘You don’t know how big you are. You don’t know the power that you have.’ Trump and the crowd are one; the identification is complete."
Love and identification lie behind the dark urges of the mob | Aeon Classics
"On August 19, 1934, 95% of the Germans who were registered to vote went to the polls and 90% (38 million) of adult German citizens voted to give Adolf Hitler complete and total authority to rule Germany as he saw fit. Only 4.25 million Germans voted against this transfer of power to a totalitarian regime." William Shirer 'The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich'
My earlier post on Trump's followers.
CDZ - The Emasculated American
"The main hypothesis concerning group-think is this: the more amiability and espirt de corps among the members of an in-group of policymakers the greater the danger that independent critical thinking will be replaced by groupthink, which is likely to result in irrational and the dehumanizing actions directed at out-groups." Irving L. Janis in 'Sanctions for Evil'
"Today, these dynamics converge in the figure of Donald Trump and his acolytes. Like Freud’s exemplary leader, Trump invites identification. In the eyes of his supporters, he’s both an idealised hero capable of extraordinary feats (‘Make America Great Again!’), but also an ordinary guy just like one of them. His gilded lifestyle is aspirational but his tastes are accessible (a ‘beer taste on a Champagne budget’, as one commentator put it in The Guardian). Trump’s roiling resentments, fears and disgusts are openly on display, inviting and authorising imitation. And he is a master of playing to the crowd’s desire for transcendence, deploying his own grandiosity to make them feel part of something bigger than themselves. First, he points to the crowd’s humiliation: ‘We’re tired of being the patsy for, like, everybody. Tea party people… You have not been treated fairly. You talk about marginalising.’ Then he declares himself their tribune: ‘At least I have a microphone where I can fight back. You people don’t!’ Finally, he shares his power with them, telling the crowd: ‘You don’t know how big you are. You don’t know the power that you have.’ Trump and the crowd are one; the identification is complete."
Love and identification lie behind the dark urges of the mob | Aeon Classics
"On August 19, 1934, 95% of the Germans who were registered to vote went to the polls and 90% (38 million) of adult German citizens voted to give Adolf Hitler complete and total authority to rule Germany as he saw fit. Only 4.25 million Germans voted against this transfer of power to a totalitarian regime." William Shirer 'The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich'
My earlier post on Trump's followers.
CDZ - The Emasculated American
"The main hypothesis concerning group-think is this: the more amiability and espirt de corps among the members of an in-group of policymakers the greater the danger that independent critical thinking will be replaced by groupthink, which is likely to result in irrational and the dehumanizing actions directed at out-groups." Irving L. Janis in 'Sanctions for Evil'
