Trump’s Sharpie was back. This time he used it to cross out “corona” and replace it with “Chinese” to describe the virus.
That should finally persuade everyone that Trump is doing it on purpose: He is trying to keep people outraged.
Consider what he accomplishes. Each time he does something outrageous, he:
- keeps his base excited.
- enrages his critics.
- batters democratic institutions, and
- fulfills his campaign promise, which was to “protect” his followers from their “enemies.” (defined as anyone who opposes Trump.)
Notice it creates a loop: The more outraged his critics become, the more excited his base.
He also engages in what Prof. Timothy Snyder calls governing by crisis and spectacle. (Yes, it’s a deliberate tactic.)
In an ordinary democracy, a normal leader like Obama tries to make life better for the citizens. A would-be oligarch can’t do that. He’s too busy enriching himself and his pals to create an oligarchy. So what does a would-be oligarch do instead of trying to improve life for the citizens? He creates crisis and spectacle.
He does outrageous things to keep everyone spinning with outrage. He lurches from one drama to another. He controls the narrative.
A propaganda technique called “noise” is very effective. The propagandist crowd the truth with so much noise that nobody can focus.
The facts don’t sink in because nobody has time to focus before their attention is grabbed by the next outrage. The opposite of noise would be consistent hammering, like with “her emails.” If you hammer a lie, and then crowd the waves with spectacle, you can erase truth.
The more outraged his critics feel, the more they wear out and lose confidence in democracy. Another win for Trump. Another use of outrage.
This brings us to the Outrage Dilemma: How do we respond?
Outrage is appropriate. Not showing outrage implies complicity. But constant outrage is also destructive. It feeds the monster. While we’re spinning with outrage, we can’t plan and move forward.
If Trump can keep all of his critics spinning with outrage, he wins.
And yes, he’s doing it on purpose. Proof is in the fact that he crossed out “corona” and wrote “Chinese.”
Trump wants to create crises and spectacle, and keep you in an endless spin of outrage.
Please, take care of yourselves. Save your energy. If it’s too much, get away from the screen. We have the election of our lives ahead of us, and it will fall in a global pandemic.
The best thing you can do is turn your outrage to constructive action. Here’s my list.
The question is about Sen. Burr warning investors about the virus and unloading a bunch of stock while Trump was telling people it was a hoax. Other Republican Senators, including Georgia Senator Loeffler evidently did the same.
I don’t think Sen. Burr was trying to outrage us because probably didn’t think he’d get caught.
Burr (and Loeffer) were doing the would-be oligarch thing: Enriching himself and his buddies while Trump distracted everyone in the center ring.
Trump distracts us while his friends rob us blind.
And that, my dearies, is the Trump presidency in a nutshell.
