History professor Heather Cox Richardson on Bannon's stategy, "Shock Event"

[TexasProgresive]

Historian Heather Cox Richardson on Trump’s Muslim Ban: “It’s a Shock Event”

What Bannon is doing, most dramatically with last night’s ban on immigration from seven predominantly Muslim countries– is creating what is known as a “shock event.” Such an event is unexpected and confusing and throws a society into chaos. People scramble to react to the event, usually along some fault line that those responsible for the event can widen by claiming that they alone know how to restore order. When opponents speak out, the authors of the shock event call them enemies. As society reels and tempers run high, those responsible for the shock event perform a sleight of hand to achieve their real goal, a goal they know to be hugely unpopular, but from which everyone has been distracted as they fight over the initial event. There is no longer concerted opposition to the real goal; opposition divides along the partisan lines established by the shock event.

Last night’s Executive Order has all the hallmarks of a shock event. It was not reviewed by any governmental agencies or lawyers before it was released, and counterterrorism experts insist they did not ask for it. People charged with enforcing it got no instructions about how to do so. Courts immediately have declared parts of it unconstitutional, but border police in some airports are refusing to stop enforcing it.

Predictably, chaos has followed and tempers are hot.

read more:
https://thewayofimprovement.com/2017/01/29/historian-heather-cox-richardson-on-trumps-muslim-ban-its-a-shock-event/

[procon]

1. That's a scary thought. nt

[2naSalit]

2. That's what

it looks like from way over here.