I don't know where the brakes are on your rants here. Crazy as anyone you attack.
Hope you enjoy my own Monday morning rant...
For 4 years Trump used rhetoric, and spoke with an attitude, that would nurture and grow the emotion of anger in his followers. There were incidents, hate crimes, loners and mail bombs, Proud Boys.
But January 6th brought the point home: This is what we mean when we say words matter.
This is what you can bring forth from people. This is what words can unleash. This is what demagogues are good at. This is why such people should never attain high power. They do not bring out the best in people. They appeal to our baser instincts, our darker angels.
On January 6, 2021, we saw what Big Lies and hateful rhetoric creates. It was shocking to witness, but not only was it not surprising, it could be anticipated as a real possibility when you use words to hateful effect, and craft Big Lies, to be intoned incessantly.
With anger and grievance at their core. For all 4 years.
And then, in the moment, direct them to a crowd looking for a fight, use them to followers themselves consumed by the anger and grievance Trump helped incubate and call forth.
This is not a president. This is a cult of personality. This is a field day for social scientists forever.
History shows us when you elect leaders who appeal to people’s baser instincts, bad things happen. Ugly things happen. In a manner inherently damaging to the society in question.
It takes a breeding ground to spit out a demagogue like Trump, but don’t get me going on what all this says about Americans. Suffice to say, we need to talk. And deprogram.
But only truth can really be offered effectively to cult members. And that will be a long time coming, unless Trump helps by exposing his own Big Lie. They’re entitled to nutty beliefs, but fighting in support of a Big Lie, in this case “massive election fraud”, and “stop the steal”, will not reverse the election, and will be crushed. If need be. And it may need be. Sorry state of affairs.
