|
Most Americans don't like strongmen, but they like strength. Trump's brash self-assurance and boorish wit always telegraphed that he's not afraid to tell it like it is. Long ignored or dismissed by the political class, the Forgotten Man projects his feelings back onto the speaker: He speaks for me. Such has long been the poor man's way of reacting to technocratic newspeak and bicoastal moralisms.
Some call it demagoguery, but there’s more to it.
Trump was already the symbol upon whom Forgotten Men and Women could project their displeasure with the political class. They sense elections are spectacles and frauds, whether this one or that was “stolen.” They realize their betters have never thought of them, their views, or their votes as being part of “our democracy” at all. They know the powerful see them as timid herds on a tax and debt farm.
One day, three iconic images flooded our collective consciousness: one of a focused former president with a bullet whizzing by his head; another of the man on the ground shielded, bleeding, and backlit; and a third, a picture of defiance—his fist aloft.
He speaks for me, thought the Forgotten Man again. But this time, others joined in.
Even those who have prayed for Trump’s demise daily since wearing a pussy hat to protest his 2017 inauguration cannot deny that Trump has now become a symbol capable of vaporizing a thousand political shibboleths or neutering fifty former intelligence officials shouting, “Russia!”
We had already witnessed Trump overcome numerous obstacles, including made-up scandals and stories, two dubious impeachments, and a barrage of fabricated legal charges that have made the word lawfare part of the common lexicon. After a hail of gunfire and a single bullet through the ear, Trump's courage permanently imprinted him as indefatigable, resilient, and quick on his feet—everything his opponent is not.
Incoherence Theory
People, by nature, tend to operate within a coherence framework. Once an obscure theory of knowledge, coherentism posits that a belief is justified if it coheres with other beliefs holistically within one's cognitive repertoire. Rather than relying solely on correspondence to external facts—which can be hard to come by in the Internet Age—this theory emphasizes internal consistency and mutual support among beliefs, which form a coherent network (or don’t).
The media's relentless agitprop and information warfare, coupled with recitations from the DNC's talking-points hymnal, has eroded trust in institutions. COVID was a "pandemic of the unvaccinated" and idiots are taking "horse dewormer" when they should be taking “safe and effective” mRNA vaccines. Trump said racist white nationalists were “very fine people,” and that if he lost in 2024 there would be “a bloodbath” both of which prove he’s a white supremicist and orchestrator of coups. January 6th was not a Whitmer-style entrapment plot on steroids, or even a protest that spiraled out of control, but was an unarmed “insurrection" by “domestic terrorists.” President Biden's long-apparent cognitive decline was dismissed as a series of "cheap fakes" less than two weeks before Biden declared, “We beat Medicare.” And, of course, ad nauseam, Trump is all manner of Hitlerian and an “existential threat” to democracy, despite four years without major armed conflicts, invasions, or rigging any elections.
These are the foremost experts on misinformation and disinformation.
Americans are no longer willing to accept narratives that fail to cohere with their web of beliefs. They’re becoming more discerning and better at filtering for cognitive incoherence. Charlatans like Rick Wilson and Joe Scarborough are being exposed, even as the most formerly ardent Never Trumpers are laying down their swords. Many who once leaned left are weary of being lied to over and over, then asked to parrot those lies, or to carry water for a cadre of censors, spindoctors, and disinformation experts. The result? The disillusioned will stay home or offer a protest vote rather than have to take a shame shower on Election Day.
Stochastic Terrorism
Ordinary people are catching on to the tactic of accusing their opponents of the very crimes they commit to sow confusion and vilify their adversaries. Alinsky's playbook has been used effectively to gain and maintain power. But such tactics are unsustainable.
|
