The I's Had It

ANALYSIS: The second presidential victory of Donald J. Trump was a triumph of the Id. The only way this democracy survives going forward is with truthful information. So, what next?

“I ALONE CAN FIX IT!”

(President-elect Donald J. Trump on election night, 2024. Photo: AP/Alex Brandon)

The Oxford Dictionary defines the Id as “the part of the mind in which innate instinctive impulses and primary processes are manifest.”

Is there a more defining character trait for now President-elect Donald John Trump than that he is ruled by “innate instinctive impulses?”

That’s a lot of I’s. And I’m going to pick up that theme to describe some of the Influences that helped the former president become the next president. Let’s start with a quote from the man himself - “I alone can fix it.”

One of the hallmarks of a charismatic leader is that they don’t articulate solutions to their followers, but instead offer themselves as the solution. As in, “I alone can fix it.”

So, what did Trump offer to fix that no one else was capable or willing to fix?

Before the election I asked which two policy concerns would prevail - saving Rights and Freedoms or taming Immigration & Inflation? Clearly, Trump’s I & I trumped Harris’ R & F.

First and foremost, Trump exploited fear of the ‘other’ by painting Immigration as a criminal Invasion. That’s a powerful message that resonated, regardless of its truth.

Then he blamed Inflation on the Dems, the socialists, the communists, the globalists, the interventionists, the elite, the academics, the dishonest press, Obama, Biden & Harris.

Never mind that Obama gave Trump a good economy to start with and that Biden saved the economy that Trump subsequently ruined. So, Trump has yet another good Democratic economy to smartly build upon this time or another good one to ruin again.

In his campaign, Trump painted all the economic ‘experts’ as corrupt opponents of the working people. And because prices are still high, working people believed it was all the fault of Obama, Biden & Harris and those demeaned ‘experts.’

Again, never mind that wages were on the rise and that inflation was in decline. Working people were feeling the pinch of Inflation, and that painful pinch could be exaggerated, exacerbated and exploited.

Trump further exploited his Intentionally thinly-veiled racism about migrants, legal or otherwise, as an attack on the very Incomes of hard-working ‘real’ Americans. He told MAGA, especially Black and Hispanic men, “they” are coming for your jobs. (Not to mention your cats, dogs & geese.)

Again, it made no difference if his false claims were false. They were meant to be false. And they were meant to be believed and repeated. And they were.

Which brings us to Information. And that would be false Information. Trump’s number one weapon was Intentional dis-Information and the belief that it would be Integral to his campaign. It was. The lies were told loudly, often and widely. And they were believed aggressively, consistently and enduringly by the unIformed, the misInformed and the disInformed.

Another characteristic that is often the mark of a charismatic leader is being a Strongman. Trump’s MAGA followers didn’t recoil from Trump’s obvious admiration of dictators and his tendencies toward autocratic Ideations. They embraced them.

The Trump admirers liked his Intimidations. They liked the thought that he Intimidated our enemies, showing strength and resolve over weakness and accommodation.

And MAGA had no problem when Trump Intimidated (and Insulted) his political opponents (corrupt).

Or when he Intimidated investigators, prosecutors, judges & juries (rabid).

Or when he Intimidated military generals (stupid) and attorneys-general (scum).

Or when he Intimidated the press (enemies of the people).

Not even when he Intimidated our allies (deadbeats).

As far as strengthening our International alliances, Trump instead threatened our allies with abandonment if they didn’t pay his mafioso protection money. He made them bow and cow as he cozied up to the world’s dictators.

The more Trump Intimidated anyone and everyone he considered his lessers, the more his cult loved him. He was standing up for them. His fights were their fights. He was a ‘strong man.’ He would Make America Great Again. He would make his put-upon, media-victimized, demographically-declining, oft-censored, power-losing followers great again.

(As a side note: I am still terrified that America’s embrace of democratic Secular Internationalism will become a fall into fascistic Christian Nationalism. Maybe even more so than before the election.)

Now, of course, any other presidential candidate who was also a convicted felon would never have achieved electoral victory. So, Trump’s four criminal Indictments simply didn’t matter to his followers. They might not have liked them, but they certainly didn’t Influence them to turn from him.

Instead, they chalked them up as persecutions, not prosecutions. They believed the lies - that the Biden administration was committing so-called ‘law-fare’ against their cult leader.

Speaking of Influence, Trump was smart to take the advice of his young son, Baron, and apparently others, to go on the podcasts of young social media Influencers. They spoke to the barely Informed, the low-propensity voters, the young so-called Bro’s. Those who could be easily Influenced by Trump’s bold bravado and bluster. As Joe Rogan goes, so go millions of under-educated and under-Informed young men.

I’m not even gonna get into Trump’s two Impeachments, one of them over his Incitement to Insurrection. I mean, those have been mostly dismissed and forgotten. Not by those still worried about Trump becoming a dictator. But, by the majority of voters who found them to be ‘non-determinative.’ They either don’t believe the truth or don’t care to believe it.

So, Trump convinced his cult that he committed no crimes and no wrongdoings. Nothing to merit any Impeachments. Certainly nothing to Incite an Insurrection. And nothing to warrant four Indictments. It was all fake news. Incredible.

MAGA could see absolutely nothing that might lead to the overturning of the Constitution or the establishment of American fascism. Instead, Trump got them to believe that Democrats were anti-American, fascist, corrupt, criminal, socialistic, power-mad, Trump-hating communists. That was a pretty neat Inversion of reality.

Now, let’s get to Image. The Image painted by the Left and much of the Democratic establishment, going all the way back to Hillary Clinton, was that Trump supporters were ‘less than.’ I admit to spreading this Image, in part, myself. They were racist, sexist, aggressive, violent, stupid, hateful, fearful, bigoted, misogynistic, xenophobic, gullible, treasonous. They were conned. They were marks. They were cultists.

I can see how being viewed that way would make me feel. It might certainly pull me even more deeply into the embrace of the one person who says He knows how “I” feel. And, of course, that’s largely what happened.

When Trump’s supporters were told that they were being conned, they didn’t widen their sources of factual Information. They dismissed them. They chose to believe what they were being told by their chosen leader and an Intentionally dishonest right-wing press. They chose Willful Ignorance.

I am not going to throw those terms around so loosely any more. Respect and kindness should always be Insistent.

But, I am also not going to stop pointing out uniformed Indoctrination. I am not going to stop pointing out when I see that racism and sexism and all the other bigoted prejudices are clearly or innately at work. I will try my best to call out the witting behavior and not the unwitting. And I will never stop calling out the Intentional Lies.

And finally, I come to one of the reasons, certainly not the only reason, for the massive Blue loss in the 2024 election. And that is Identity. More specifically Identity Politics.

It is beyond clear to me that two forces butted up against each other in the country. There was widespread concern across all constituencies about their Individual Economic Lives. And there were concerns across concentrated constituencies about their Individual Identities & Lifestyles.

As stated earlier, the two main concerns of Trump voters turned out to be Inflation and Immigration. Those two issues cut across wide swaths of the electorate, including voter groups traditionally thought to be in the Democratic ranks - union members, young black men, Hispanics, soccer moms, etc.

But those weren’t the only Issues driving voter turnout.

In contrast, Democrats had many voters concerned greatly about more parochial Issues - even as it can be argued that they are really universal issues. Issues closer to their homes and hearts - like reproductive rights, transgender rights, universal health care, income inequality, personal freedoms, wars and the existential fear of losing democracy.

But, those were not the winning Issues. It was the Issues imbued with DisInformation that won, stoked by fear and bigotry and a cynical grab for power. Because, while the rhetoric about these major issues might have been crude and false, the actual pain voters were feeling from them was real. And that pain was recognized, understood, stoked and exploited.

So, the fundamental lesson that I take away from this 2024 election is that lies work. Disinformation works. When an electorate is fed a steady, consistent, aggressive, willful, Intentional diet of falsehood for political power and personal gain, the easily-manipulated & uneducated can, and will, believe these falsehoods to be true. That is what happened.

America is now in it’s first post-truth era.

Our best weapon to regain & renew & reform honesty, decency, prosperity, acceptance, tolerance, freedom, security & justice in the United States of America is truthful INFORMATION.

Truth. Seek it. Believe it. Speak it. Defend it. Share it. Live it.