Conservatives Have Groomed the Perfect Suckers for Trump’s Epic Scam

[babylonsister]

https://newrepublic.com/article/134667/conservatives-groomed-perfect-suckers-trumps-epic-scam

Conservatives Have Groomed the Perfect Suckers for Trump’s Epic Scam
Win or lose, he'll get what he wants out of this campaign.
By Jeet Heer
June 28, 2016

snip//

Republican strategist and Never Trump stalwart Rick Wilson hit upon the perfect coinage when he described Trump as running a “scampaign.” It’s not that Trump doesn’t want to be president. It’s that the real objective, win or lose, is relaunching his lucrative brand. In recent years, Trump was getting diminishing returns with his main reality-show career, with The Apprentice facing dwindling ratings despite Trump’s false claim that it was the number-one show on TV. So his move to politics was a way of revitalizing his celebrity and opening up a new revenue stream. And now with talk about creating Trump TV, which he plans to launch in the wake of the election (whatever the result) to monetize the ratings that are currently being enjoyed by CNN and FOX, Trump looks to have a financially rewarding future even after his likely defeat. The move toward Trump TV will be especially helpful since his other traditional brand—as a hawker of high-end goods—has been tarnished by his political escapades. In effect, Trump’s campaign amounts to a very public re-branding maneuver.

snip//

In a sense, conservative voters have been groomed for Trump since the 1960s. As the historian Rick Perlstein wrote in The Baffler and The Nation in 2012, the American conservative movement has become more and more amenable to get-rich-quick schemes, snake-oil salesmen, and confidence men. Direct-mail barons like Richard Viguerie began raking in the dough in the 1960s by stirring up ideological hysteria and convincing an audience of senior citizens that only their small-dollar donation could fend off union bosses, abortionists, and gays. Of course, most of the money ended up with the fundraisers.

snip//

Conservative ideology, as Perlstein persuasively argues, is particularly vulnerable to grifters because of its faith in the goodness of business and its concomitant hostility toward regulation—which makes it easy for true believers to buy into the notion that some modern Edison has a miraculous new invention that the Washington elite is conniving to suppress. In Perlstein’s words, “The strategic alliance of snake-oil vendors and conservative true believers points up evidence of another successful long march, of tactics designed to corral fleeceable multitudes all in one place—and the formation of a cast of mind that makes it hard for either them or us to discern where the ideological con ended and the money con began.”

There’s another factor at work here: The anti-intellectualism that has been a mainstay of the conservative movement for decades also makes its members easy marks. After all, if you are taught to believe that the reining scientific consensuses on evolution and climate change are lies, then you will lack the elementary logical skills that will set your alarm bells ringing when you hear a flim-flam artist like Trump. The Republican “war on science” is also a war on the intellectual habits needed to detect lies.


snip//

The affinity of conservatives for hucksterism not only explains Trump’s rise—but also why the Never Trump movement has never gained enough traction to stop him. By the time Trump launched his campaign, the conservative movement had already destroyed the intellectual immune system that is necessary to resist grifters. A telling example can be found in the famous “Never Trump” issue of National Review from February. Amid all the editorials and articles warning of the dangers of Trump was a full-page ad for something called “The Patriot Power Generator 1500.” The ad begins: FORMER CIA OFFICIAL WARNS; “ISIS TERRORISTS WANT TO CRIPPLE AMERICA’S ELECTRIC GRID!” Further down is a series of alarming sub-headlines designed to sell the generator: “IT May Have Already Begun,” “You Know We’re Targeted,” “Weather Is the Other Enemy.”

Here is the paradox of Never Trump in a nutshell: Could the people who have been conditioned to think they need to buy the Patriot Power Generator in order to fight off an ISIS attack on America’s power grid really be expected to see through Donald Trump? Conservative publications like National Review have spent a generation cultivating an audience of gulls. Now they’re shocked that a far more talented hustler has stolen them away.

[TwilightZone]

1. "scampaign"

That is perfect.

[ToxMarz]

14. Elizabeth Warren needs to add that to her vocabulary

[PatSeg]

15. Yes and

"intellectual immune system that is necessary to resist grifters". I am going to use that one!

[niyad]

2. very much to the point.

[PJMcK]

3. Here's why the Republican base votes against its own interests

The anti-intellectualism that has been a mainstay of the conservative movement for decades also makes its members easy marks. After all, if you are taught to believe that the reining scientific consensuses on evolution and climate change are lies, then you will lack the elementary logical skills that will set your alarm bells ringing when you hear a flim-flam artist like Trump. The Republican “war on science” is also a war on the intellectual habits needed to detect lies.

Their inability to think critically makes them easily manipulated. It's sad to think how many of our fellow citizens have stunted their own growth.

[gordianot]

10. There is another name for that "positive projection".

When a politician parrots or in rare occasions believes your values it results in self validation. Works for all belief systems, tell them what they want to hear do what you want.

[cbdo2007]

4. Does anyone know what would be the final date for Trump to drop out....

and not appear on the ballot??

I realize most people here think it isn't likely, and no need to have that discussion (again), just curious if there is a set date, like September 1 where they start printing ballots or something?

[Wednesdays]

17. I don't know

Could it vary by state?

[lastone]

5. Great read - thanks for posting it!

I've got a couple of friends from way back that I've been saying most of this to for years, they are so gullible its stunning - I'm currently clobbering them with this article and its so fun!

[FSogol]

6. Awesome article, thanks for posting. K&R n/t

[malaise]

7. MUST READ

Rec

[BlancheSplanchnik]

8. DAMN, that was a good read!!!!

Phew!!! I need a cigarette after that!

[babylonsister]

9. ...

[BlancheSplanchnik]

18. ....

[meow2u3]

11. Talk about putting the "con" in conservative nt

[trotsky]

12. A good read, but this:

"which makes it easy for true believers to buy into the notion that some modern Edison has a miraculous new invention that the Washington elite is conniving to suppress."

...is hardly unique to conservatives. There are far too many anti-science liberals who fall into that trap as well.

[AwakeAtLast]

13. Couldn't happen to nicer people

Sorry, but I am out of fucks to give to anyone following racist, sexist, hateful people!

[Stinky The Clown]

16. That is really pretty frightening.

Yes, they're rubes. But they've been "bred" to be the critical mass to get money and power into the hands of nefarious people.

Wow.

[Martin Eden]

19. "a war on the intellectual habits needed to detect lies"

Trump is a pathological liar and his voters lack the skills to realize it.

[Hekate]

20. KnR for this, Babs

[LiberalLovinLug]

21. Dilbert artist Scott Adams predicted a Trump landslide

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/comic-riffs/wp/2016/03/21/donald-trump-will-win-in-a-landslide-the-mind-behind-dilbert-explains-why/

Adams, in other words, believes that Trump himself has turned the campaign game around. On the stump, the real-estate mogul is not running on the knowledge of his numbers or the dissection of the data. He is running on our emotions, Adams says, and sly appeals to our own human irrationality. Since last August, in fact, when many were calling Trump’s entry a clown candidacy, the “Dilbert” cartoonist was already declaring The Donald a master in the powers of persuasion who would undoubtedly rise in the polls. And last week, Adams began blogging about how Trump can rhetorically dismantle Clinton’s candidacy next.

Adams, mind you, is not endorsing Trump or supporting his politics. (“I don’t think my political views align with anybody,” he tells The Post’s Comic Riffs, “not even another human being.”) And he is not saying that Trump would be the best president. What the Bay Area-based cartoonist recognizes, he says, is the careful art behind Trump’s rhetorical techniques. And The Donald, he says, is playing his competitors like a fiddle — before beating them like a drum.

Most simply put: Adams believes Trump will win because he’s “a master persuader.”

The Manhattan mogul is so deft at the powers of persuasion, Adams believes, that the candidate could have run as a Democrat and, by picking different hot-button issues, still won this presidency. In other words: Trump is such a master linguistic strategist that he could have turned the political chessboard around and still embarrassed the field.

....................

I really think this is possible as well. The polls today mean nothing. People think Hillary will say anything to win, but he takes that to a whole other level. I heard yesterday that he has just said he is against NAFTA and the TPP. (Even though he may be in fact for it for his businesses.) He knows there are a lot of independent Bernie supporters that want to hear that. He can turn around and then say Mexicans are rapists to appeal to another subset of voters. People want to hear their beliefs, whether valid or not, backed up by leaders. Because people are inherently irrational. It matters less if they hear a candidate say something they disagree with as long as they also say something they do agree with. That the latter cancels out the former.

Trump may be the biggest asshole on the planet, but he's also a master snake oil salesman. I agree with this OP in that he ran primarily to rebrand himself for his business success. I don't think even he thought he could win at the start, but now that it is in sight, he's going to see how far he can get. And I'm sure the thought of being the most powerful person in the world sounds 'tremendous' to him.