A truly prescient demonstrator at a London anti-Trump rally in 2017. Photo by Alisdare Hickson, Openverse
A truly prescient demonstrator at a London anti-Trump rally in 2017. Photo by Alisdare Hickson, Openverse
People who are angry, afraid and hateful make bad decisions including selecting the kinds of choices that are contrary to their own best interests.
It is pretty obvious that Trump is a proverbial one-trick pony when it comes to political rhetoric and speech. Everything he says and does is about blame, retribution, denigration, abuse, name-calling that would make a schoolyard bully envious and other low—and getting lower—tactics.
The contrast between his speech and that of his mini-me, Vance, versus words and attitude of the Harris/Walz campaign is so dramatic that it almost takes on an air of unreality. But, who are Trump and Vance really talking to?
The answer is surprisingly straight forward. They have totally tailored their appeal to people who are scared, angry and hateful. Of course this sort of thing also appeals to media outlets who consider hate speech as “controversial” and thus newsworthy.
But why angry, fearful and hateful people? This is best answered with a question: “Have you ever seen people that are afraid or angry or hating everyone around them making good and logical choices?” And as the Bard said, “Ay, there’s the rub.”
If one looks at Trump and Vance and their actual campaign positions—when they actually state one—the ideas are loony, utterly hateful, unconstitutional or just plane stupid. It does not take a monumental intelligence to see how bad and destructive their ideas are.
But get a crowd riled up with hatred and ridicule and you can get them to agree with you, especially if you made them afraid of something first.
We can begin to see an operating pattern here. Trump and Vance spew some crazy lie generally hoping to make people scared of something, for example, “They’re eating the dogs…” “We’re being invaded by illegals…” “Our cities are all under attack or control Venezuelan gangs…” It really doesn’t matter which.
These fear and hate buttons are followed up with blaming Harris and Walz, Biden, Obama, anyone who isn’t Trump and Vance—you know, all those liberal “communists.”
To people who are already way down in the fear-anger-hate band of existence this resonates with them because it has an emotional content which gets the to react. And now we arrive at the key word, react.
What Trump, Vance and the host of far-right Republicans and wannabe fascist billionaires—go ahead and insert the name Musk here if you so desire—really want is reaction. The last thing they want is the opposite: sober and non-reactive analysis.
People who are above fear, anger and hate are far more analytical in their approach to digesting information and life itself. They make better decisions. They make better choices, not only for themselves but the others around them. Analytical people look and listen to Trump and Vance and think about what they’ve just seen or heard and then think, “Not on my watch.”
It comes down to this. People who are angry, afraid and hateful make bad decisions including selecting the kinds of choices that are contrary to their best interests.
Riling up the white supremacist factions to show up in towns like Springfield, Ohio has a purpose too. A small town with a productive and vibrant immigrant community is a perfect target for these low-lifes for two reasons. First, it is not too geographically large allowing them make at least some visual impact and noise—and get some media attention. And two, they can create through that media megaphone the impression that they can create this kind of havoc everywhere. And this is a falsehood.
A key hallmark of puny-minded fascists is trying to make themselves seem more numerous than they actually are. News reports of white supremacist gangs and the Klan showing up in Springfield, Ohio omit the fact that their numbers were quite small. They operated from the shadows in some cases phoning in bomb threats and distributing leaflets.These are their standard intimidation ploys.
Meanwhile, the Republican governor of Ohio did the right thing and called in state troopers to protect the community from the external threat generated solely by Vance and Trump.
Good Decisions and Bad Decisions
How do you gauge which is which? Hopefully this essay helps answer that question. Let’s look at it another way.
Say you’re at a Trump rally. There’s a small crowd of angry people cheering at lines of complaint, blame, danger and gloom, with the candidate or his mini-me making up new and even more horrendous scenarios that are designed to make you cringe.
Or, you’re in a stadium filled with 10s of thousands cheering someone who smiles, has solutions and is looking at the future and not stuck in the past. Someone who actually furnishes data and comparatives for you to think with rather than react to.
Which of these scenes do you think will generate better decisions?
Encourage your friends to actually listen to the candidates. And more importantly pay attention to how they feel emotionally when doing so. Do they feel fearful? Or are they happier, calmer? This is an important, even critical measure.
Perhaps one of the most important actions we can all take in the run-up to the most important election in our history is just ignore media reports which parrot the rhetoric of hate, dear and division. Actually, this works well any time, election or not. Think of how much better our decisions would be.
Marty Kassowitz is co-founder of Factkeepers. As founder of Interest Factory and View360, he brings more than 30 years experience in effective online communications, social media management, and platform development to the site. He is a writer, designer, editor and long time observer of the ill-logic demonstrated by too many members of the species known as Mankind. After a long history of somewhat private commentary on a subject he totally hates: politics, Marty was encouraged to build this site and put up his own analyses as well as curate relevant content from other sources.
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