Letter to Editor 9/10
Letter to The Editor:
Unable to run on his record and in the face of the horrific condition of this country right now with multiple crises facing us, including the out-of-control Coronavirus, mounting deaths (now over 180,000), over 25 million out of work, 1,000,000 new unemployment applications just last week, racial strife around the country, food lines for miles….Donald Trump and his campaign are left with focusing his entire Convention message on attacking Joe Biden for the “riots” and “lawlessness” they claim are plaguing only “Democratic” cities.
Excuse me, but how are these events Joe Biden’s fault when he has been out of the picture for the past three-and-a-half years? Is Joe Biden the president and head of this government? This is all happening under Donald Trump’s America. This is DonaldTrump’s government.
Trump is trying to get people to buy the story that Joe Biden has caused all of these crises we face; that they are all his fault and these problems will get worse under a Biden presidency. Who with eyes and ears will believe this upside-down picture of reality? Oh yeah, I forgot. His base believes everything that comes out of his mouth whether it matches reality or not. Luckily the OTHER 65% of us haven’t surrendered our own, individual rational faculties to a cult leader.
In his epic story, “1984”, George Orwell, aware of the dangerous power of cults and mobs, accurately predicted this phenomenon when he wrote: “The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.” This was a propaganda tactic used most effectively by the Nazis in Germany during the 1930’s and ’40’s to take over that country and lead its citizens to their final destruction. Trump is known to have kept a copy of Hitler’s book, “Mein Kamft” on his bedside table and has clearly learned and used many Fascist principles in his takeover of the American government over the past few years.
Trump is also following the Fascist playbook which depends on identifying an “enemy” who is responsible for all the problems of the common citizens. With Hitler it was the Jews. With Trump it is any ethnicity other than Caucasian, most notably “Mexicans, Muslims, Blacks, etc., any immigrant who is described as “coming here to take your jobs, money, guns, neighborhoods, law and order”, etc. He has also recruited evangelicals into his cult by suddenly, after a life of no church membership or attendance, wrapping himself in the robe of “Christianity” and claiming that “they will destroy your way of life.”
So, this candidate and his campaign are using the same old playbook from 2016; “They are coming for you and your stuff.” It’s a campaign and message of anger, complaints, grievances, threats, and fear because, for the first time in Republican history, there is not platform listing the Party’s philosophy and policy goals; Only a statement of loyalty to Donald Trump. It’s no longer a viable political party because it has become nothing more than a cult of personality.
Trump’s “Law and Order” talking point is ridiculous and in the face of all the laws and ethical norms he has broken and blown through in the past three + years. Only the third president in our 250-year history to be Impeached along with more members of his administration either indicted, convicted, or imprisoned than any in history, his even speaking the words, “Law and Order” is laughable. Due to his constant racist and violence-inciting rhetoric, Trump is actually responsible for much of the increase in the number of white supremacist mass shootings in the past three years and the rise of more White Supremacist groups all around the country.
Just this week, a young, radicalized 17-year-old “Militia” member drove across state lines with his assault-style rifle to Kenosha Wisconsin to “take care” of the demonstrators there. Too young to legally have that weapon, he shot three people and killed two of them. He isn’t the first killer to have answered Trump’s call to vigilante action which is a major cause of the increased arising of these armed “militias.” The shooter who killed 20 people in El Paso last year even admitted that he was responding to Trump’s words and went there to “kill Mexicans.”
The famous Swiss Psychiatrist, C.G. Jung observed that Mob Psychology is the lowest form of human consciousness. Once individuals surrender their own rational faculties of discernment (thinking for themselves) to the energy and impulses of a group movement and allow themselves to be carried along on that forward rush, virtually Anything is possible and history has shown that to be a very dangerous situation.
William E. Conti, PhD
Honolulu, HI
