The Trump Cult Is One Without A Leader. Trump is Only Its Willing Figurehead

The Trump phenomenon will be studied for decades. How could someone come out of nowhere, destroy a powerful field of veterans in politics, take the party's nomination with ease, then go down to lose in one of the biggest election landslides (my current forecast says 18% loss in November, that is based on the situation August 1, before the latest week of more Trumpian madness). But yes, WHY is Trump behaving this way. What is going on. Why is he so bizarre and why are his supporters like they are, etc. Its baffling. So I have a fresh theory. Trump is in front of a cult which he did not create, and he does not lead: he is only their figurehead.

THIS IS NO REAGAN

Most charismatic leaders will have a mission, a view, a message. Think of Bernie Sanders this cycle or of Barack Obama in 2008 or of John McCain the original Truth Express of year 2000 or of Ronald Reagan back in 1980 or of Bill Clinton in 1992. A leader who comes in with a vision, who builds his supporter base. The followers BUY INTO the leader's vision. They come to listen to him (or her) and buy into the story, the vision, the ideas, the plans, the campaign. This is not Donald Trump. Trump parachuted into an existing mob, a cult without a leader. Trump didn't know the cult or what it wanted, but Trump knew a few suitable lines to get their attention - and then Trump, very astute in reading audiences - adjusted HIS message to tune into that cult. This is why on almost every single position Trump has, he has flipped on that position. He was pro choice and is pro life. He was for the Iraq invasion and claims to have been against it. He was for the Libya intervention and now is against it. He was for taxes for the rich, now gives tax breaks to the rich. He was for reasonable gun controls now he is against those. He is like this on almost everything. The only one area where Trump has been consistent in his life is his inherent racism, which he got from his scumbag slumlord dad, Fred Trump, another racist and supporter of the KKK.

So what about this mob? This is a cult created by Fox News and the right wing media. The best test of is someone a Trump supporter is simply this: do you believe Obama was born in Kenya. Most who say yes are Trump supporters. The rest of the nation knows the truth and is not supporting Trump. It is literally the single strongest unifying factor among all Trump supporters and essentially nobody who believes Obama was born in Kenya, supports Hillary Clinton or the others. And obviously the Obama-born-in-Kenya 'birtherism' is a cult conspiracy theory peddled by Fox and the right-wing media, and its most famous proponent is of course Trump, but he didn't invent the idea. He just bought into it (stole it) like anything he does. He's too lazy to come up with anything original.

The majority of Trump's supporters but not all, of course, but the majority - believe a clear lie. They are brainwashed to believe Obama was not born in the USA. That therefore he is illegitimate as the President, that Obama is a usurper and fraud, that Obama is a fraudulent pretend-President. They also believe Obama is a Muslim and therefore at least sympathetic to the evil ISIS that lurks in every village and town, who will behead the Americans and for whom waterboarding is not good enough. This is a brainwashed delusional mis-informed cult. Not ill-informed (not knowing) but mis-informed (deliberately taught to believe a lie). They have also been innoculated against the truth to distrust anyone with college degrees especially anyone in colleges and universities; and to mistrust the 'main stream media' to which ironically, recently many of this cult have added Fox itself haha.

So just to be clear, its propaganda masters are people like Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity, Glen Beck, Laura Ingraham and Bill O'Reilly and right wing online media like Drudge and Breitbart. This gang has built and nurtured the conspiracy nutters and partly just out of hatred of Obama but also with various other right wing talking points, created a large block of brainwashed cultists, who were without a leader. All of these journalists are sensible enough to know Obama was born in the USA and is a Christian, they just didn't want to support that view, because it was good for ratings and bad for Obama, politically, to continue the nonsense. And then all the other nasty conspiracy stuff just flowed well from that. So there is a war on Christmas (a long-standing silly Fox idea) and there is the fear the Gubermt will come and take away your guns, and Obamacare has death panels, and Obama will send the army to invade Texas, and on and on and on. Then really dangerous right-wing nutters like the Bundy family get a favorable voice on Fox and its nutty friends. There was a cult being built and fed lies and they were supported in one sector of the media - and very relevantly - the mainstream media told the truth - which meant to these cultists, the mainstream media are liars. The cult was becoming ever more pure. Brainwashed.

But they had no political leader. Nobody was that crazy to embrace this nutty wing of the edge of Republican voters. We had 17 candidates running this time last year on the Republican party. And none of the 16 before Trump were willing to go there, to claim Obama is a Kenyan that Muslims are the enemy and as a religious group should be banned. Or in close harmony (with Trump's racist heritage) that Mexicans are the enemy and should be expelled and are inherently evil, rapists and murderers. Trump came in on a 'hate the Mexicans' racist position and shocked the world - but he did not build a following around his anti-Mexico view. It was the cult of hating foreigners and non-white non-Christians, the cult built by Fox and its friends, who discovered Trump. Hey, finally someone who 'tells it like it is'. The earliest Trump supporters were true Nazis and White Supremacists and KKK members who felt ignored by both major parties but wanted someone to speak to them. The last Republican to run on a platform that spoke to them was Pat Buchanan. And now they found Trump. And Trump discovered rapid rise in polling among Republican primary voters - because these were truly a silent majority - no recent Republicans had dared to court the racist voters. And that started Trump on his rise.

MAKING IT UP, AS HE GOES ALONG

But Trump didn't join the race in June of 2015 to become President in 2016. He did it for the publicity intending to drop out by December as one of his early supporters has told us who ran an early Trump SuperPAC. Something changed in that dynamic during the Autumn. It was that cult, who found Trump. The various Fox viewers and Rush listeners and Breitbart readers who suddenly found their guy. So they came to the rallies. The rallies grew huge. And Trump didn't know what to say. He had no position, he had barely a team. He has no political views on anything. He had never built a platform. He was woefully ignorant of the very simplest Republican rhetoric and even basic talking points from abortion to the nuclear weapons. But Trump is good at listening. He would hear things his audience would yell at him. And Trump would pick up themes and ideas and then of course, he got much more from his other obsession: Twitter.

On Twitter we have seen what kind of Tweets Trump retweets. He follows the racist white supremacist blogs (because he is a racist, duh). So part of his evolving talking points were the racist white supremacists conspiracy theories; and then part are echoing what his cult was teaching him about what THEY believe. The more Trump repeated those themes, the bigger the audience responses. And again, Trump didn't know where to go with this, because he is a moral vacuum himself. He is politically an empty sheet. On any new issue he fudges around, exploring what might be a good answer. He doesn't know. And then he hears what his people love, and suddenly Trump insists this position is his, and that somehow he supposedly has held that view always.

So one, we know Trump has no personally held view other than a hatred of brown people. And we know Fox created a big delusional cult which was in need of a leader. And in came moral vacuum Trump who tossed out some of his hateful remarks, the cult found Trump, and then said, tell us more, dear leader. Its like the Monty Python movie Life of Brian, where Brian (born on the same day as Jesus Christ but in a manger next door) is suddenly forced to pretend to be The Messiah, and he makes it up, as he goes along. This is EXACTLY how Trump has been. He doesn't know what his cultists want. He throws out various thoughts as samples, and the ones that stick, those become Trump's 'strongly-held views' which he has ALWAYS held. Because his cultists refuse to face facts, Trump can claim anything he wants and his cultists will believe him.

This is an incredibly volatile and dangerous situation.

Trump has no idea himself how to do this, where to go with it, and what his view is or should be. He takes whatever works mostly from his right-wing white supremacists and conspiracy-theory Twitter sources; and the things his mob yells at him in the rallies. Then occasionally, when the GOP is really 'cross' with Trump, he takes a token pair of ideas from the GOP which he then promptly forgets. But Trump has no COMPASS or idea or purpose. He just wants the audience to love him. Which brings us to the dangerous Trumpian cocktail.

GROWTH THROUGH SUBTRACTION

Trump is a narcissist and he has become addicted to the audience adulation. Any sensible politician knows that to win an election (at least in a 2-party system) you have to win 'by addition'. So you get win your party's nomination. That is not all in your party, only the majority. Because of the other party, that means you only something like one quarter or one third of the total voter base of the nation. Now you need to UNIFY your party. That means, you 'abandon' your base, you reach out to the others of your OWN party. To unify the party. This is a major reason for the Convenion. Get the party unified. That is winning by addition. And note, its NORMAL that some of your most hard-core supporters will feel slighted, when you reach out to 'the enemy' within your own party, but that is what I mean by abandoning. You take some of the positions you political rivals in your OWN party had, to try to reach out and get their support. And some of your strongest supporters will feel unhappy about that. but its party of winning by ADDITION.

Now you get to nearly half of the electorate. Your party fully supports you. The other party will not vote for you. So now you have to AGAIN build by ADDITION, you 'abandon' your party and you pursue the middle ground, the Independent voters and the undecided voters. You PIVOT to less extreme and more moderate positions that appeal to moderate voters who are not members of your party but who are not decided to vote for the other party. This is again building by ADDITION. Its not rocket science. This is how every candidate has won in almost every election year. 

Trump hasn't done ANY of that. Trump is trying to win by SUBTRACTION. He started by winning his nomination but he never won the votes of more than 42% of Republican voters by the time Ted Cruz and John Kasich ended their runs. Trump did get many in the party to join him, but instead of using the Convention and the 3 months up to now, to unify the party, Trump divided the party and fought with his REPUBLICAN rivals, like Susana Martinez, Ted Cruz, John Kasich, Paul Ryan, Kelly Ayotte, Mitt Romney, the Bush family and John McCain. This does not add to his support. It feed his BASE and it divides and expells REPUBLICANS. Today 20% of Republican voters not only don't vote for Trump, they want Trump to QUIT THE RACE. This is how bad its become.

Then the general election. After the Convention, you PIVOT and try to appeal to undecided and Independent voters in the middle. What has Trump done, he has thrown more and more of his angry right wing racist bigoted vile commentary at his base supporters, which makes them excited and agitated, but it repels moderate and Independent voters. So this is the Khan family controversy for example. Its demanding that his political rival be locked up (or assassinated). This is the stuff that his Nazi KKK core supporters will love but NO sensible candidate would EVER suggest if they want to win moderate voters in the middle, who are not Republicans but MIGHT vote for one. They need to be wooed with sensible, moderate, considerate, upbeat, positive and mild views. Not angry horrible divisive and dangerous rhetoric. Like lets abandon NATO or Russia should be allowed to keep Crimea that Putin annexed, etc. This is again the strategy of SUBTRACTION. Trump is ACTIVELY repelling voters. His performance past two weeks has seen his support fall by 15 points. Its a world-record collapse of support after a Convention. 

If you examine Trump with 'sensible' rational logical view, the only possibilities are that he wants to torpedo his own campaign and end it. That this is deliberate sabotage of his own chances; or else, he is not running a campaign. This is some other typical Trumpian scam like Trump University was not a university, it was a financial scam. Maybe Trump is just stockpiling cash from this victims and will suddenly quit the race and when everybody looks at his books, there is a mysterious disappearance and the money sits in the Cayman Islands in a Trump family account. Thats possible.

HE IS ADDICTED

But if we ignore the rational sensible view, and approach this from ADDICTION. An addict cannot behave rationally, as anyone who has loved someone who smokes or is a drug addict or alcohol addict knows. Reason and logic will not do. They are addicted. The addiction is a disease and they cannot help it. They will get their fix, no matter how stupid that behavior might be to anyone not addicted. Trump is clearly addicted to his mob's adulation. He needs it, he craves it. Trump is lost whenever he speaks to an audience that is not cheering loudly (remember the debates, or just look at how his few Teleprompter speeches went, not counting the Convention speech). Trump is desperately trying to get an audience cheer out of every line he throws. He is addicted.

And from the addiction, we know, Trump will not stay on message, he will not adopt sensible positions. He will always 'fall' to the addiction and resort to feeding red meat to his mob. And that is a dangerous path, because they need stronger dosages too. They need ever redder meat. So earlier they demanded Trump to lock her up. Now he suggested assassination. This is a slippery slope. Trump is not in control because there never was a Trumpian vision to a political future. Trump is still learning what his cult wants, and Trump adjusts to feed it.

If you scan a still-frame of a random audience shot of Trump's rally. Not the people behind him. Those are positioned. I mean the audience at large. Freeze-frame them and count. Out of 20 people 1 is a minority. So its 95% white. And male/female balance? Its 80% men. Trump's rallies are 95% white and 80% men. He's leading a rally of White Supremacist men. But the freaky scary part is, Trump seems to honestly believe, that his rallies reflect America, and that what his rallies want, is what America wants. Trump seems genuinely perplexed, that his polling in many states is down, while his rallies in those same states are euphoric. What happens in reality, is an interesting pattern - the more that state learns about Trump, the more they hate him. When Trump camped in California for three weeks, his polling in California went worse. Now when he was in Pennsylvania for nearly a week, his polling there went far worse. The more people see and hear of Trump, the more they hate what they see. But his RALLIES are rowdy and enthusiastic. They are a cult meeting.

Think of Trump like a political version of a televangelist. The charlatan 'religious' leaders who have their own TV shows who promise the world will end tomorrow, and you will burn in hell, unless you send in $19.99 right now. Call this number, operators are standing by, we accept all credit cards. Trump is in some ways acting like televangelists. But in a bizarre twist, Trump is like a professional, competent Televangelist who is suddenly brought in to lead a religion he knows nothing about. Imagine a Christian preacher suddenly asked to lead a Buddhist prayer session. You don't know ANY of the basics of the religion even. But you accidentially say a few of their core messages and they fall in love with you - hey, this guy gets it. He 'tells it like it is' while the Televangelist is truly clueless and knows nothing of this religion. That is Trump and his cult. They love him imagining Trump is their Messiah, and Trump loves the adoration but doesn't know the words, so he fumbles along and repeats those parts that get the big applause.

And think of Trump's church as one of those horrible cults like the Moonies of Reverend Moon or the Jonestown cult and its mass suicide. These are brainwashed cultists and they would really follow Trump to anything - if you remember in March, for two days, Trump was asking his rally audiences to pledge to Trump PERSONALLY, like Hitler's loyalty pledges. And again, I do not suggest Trump is Hitler but I remind readers, Trump's favorite book he used to keep by his bedside, is the translated speeches of Hitler. So how much is Trump just an admirer of Hitler's words and a white racists himself and might he be a close Nazi by his philosophy, you make that call. But his followers are not rational. They are a brainwashed cult. And differing from other cults, Trump doesn't lead this cult. He is their figurehead who has to contantly ask the guys marching right behind him (what do I say next, what should I do next). He is a mirror of what they want. He si the embodiment of the vile alternate reality invented by Fox and its right wing friends.

NOVEMBER 9 IS JUDGEMENT DAY

How does this play out? Some who were drawn into Trump's cult along the way, will be shocked by something he says, enough to get their 'rude awakening' and be repelled and then quite strongly and rapidly evolve to be totally against everything Trump stands for (he is the most deceitful politician ever to get this far in politics in the USA, which makes it ironic that his supporters still think 'Trump tells it like it is'.). Some others will have an intervention by usually close family members, ie kids and wife of a deluded father/husband etc. That is a TINY fraction of the Trump cult. Most will believe Trump over anything said by anyone and will not abandon their Messiah and will show up to vote for him on November 8. 

Their numbers are not enough (luckily) and Trump will face an epic catastrophic loss of at least 18% and Hillary will be the first woman President. But November 9 will be a horrible day for these Trumpists. Because Trump will have cost the Republicans not only the White House but also the Senate, the House and the Supreme Court. The floor will collapse from conservatives and Republicans. There will be very fierce and wide recriminations and guilt will be assigned. The Republican party will want to blame someone, and they will not accept blame on themselves. The right wing media will want to assign blame and they will not accept it on themselves. They both will conclude that Trump ran a suicidally stupid campaign - the total full fault is with Trump. He will be vilified like nobody has in modern times.

This means that Trump will not be invited to talk shows to defend himself. He will be subject to massive national and international ridicule. He will have no live audiences ever again to scream his name and cheer his vitriol. He will lose his Secret Service detail to give him a big entourage to make him seem important, with the bullet-proof limousines etc. And his campaign will have no more rallies and nothing to do. November 9 will be the roughest 'cold turkey' cure for an addict imaginable. Trump should be on suicide watch from that day, he will be in a very bad place. And none of those who supported him up to November 8, will be there for Trump on November 9. Everybody will gang up against him to blame it all on Trump.

For his cult, it will be rough. Some will never let go. Some - like we see with Sarah Palin's ever shrinking nutter base - will stay true to Trump forever. You can't cure them all. But most will get the message. It will come hard. They will feel incredibly betrayed. They will be bitter. And very many of them will get turned off from politics for a long while. And I would guess - I am not a psychologist or sociologist - that most who will return to politics or voting, will become INCREDIBLY skeptical of the right wing, its media, the Republican party, the conservatives; and totally allergic to ANY lies or ANY distortions of pure facts. They will become obsessive about total facts and truths.

Note that a significant part of the Republican party's voter base of 2016 will be in this state of rude awakening - and many will never again vote for another Republican. Trump will be poisoning much of the future of the party with his run now.

The one silver lining? The gambit of trying to win by being the racists, that will be totally debunked this cycle and we should not see another politician try this for many decades to come.

If you want to read my latest monthly (Aug 1) Election Scorecard with all the ratings & numbers & my updated Forecast it is here.

Comments

[grouch]

Don't forget Julian Assange. During the Democratic Convention, he told democracynow.org that he had more documents to be released, and he hates both the DNC and RNC, but especially Hillary Clinton.

What Julian Assange’s War on Hillary Clinton Says About WikiLeaks

https://theintercept.com/2016/08/06/accusing-wikileaks-bias-beside-point/

[paul]

Really good explanation about how Trump's brain works. I still think that Trump is ADDICTED to two things equally, which are (1) mob's adulation, and (2) money. Both of them feed to his huge ego. Here in this post the addiction of Trump for mob's adulation part is over emphasized compared to his addiction to making money. I think that in case of Trump both of these are roughly half and half. Trump is addicted to mob's adulation but he wants its also to make a profit out of it (or at least to have it for free). It is exactly like in case of televangelist, who is doing it for money and his ego. So Trump is actually a "teleTrumpist".

[Tomi T Ahonen]

Hi grouch & paul

grouch - thanks yeah. Wikileaks clearly is playing favorites but its a grudge Assange has had with Hillary for a longer while.

paul - LOL love that TeleTrumpist. Yes. Very apt term. And agree, he also has that weird desire to be a 'wise guy' and to also be a 'player' on the international stage (hence any lunatic abroad who says they like Trump gets his instant full love back from Assad to Putin to Kim Jong Un)

Obviously this study into Trump and 'his cult' which he took over without building it (what else is new) and which he is now ruthlessly exploiting, is a work in progress (the study of haha) and this is a small contribution to that, but yeah, its starting to make more sense. If we examine Trump's past 14 months, and consider it as an attempt by Trump to win over those who came into his rallies, rather than to lead them - THEN his behavior makes far more sense. Also he really gets that 'deer lost in the headlights' look in his eyes whenever he is asked anything he should know. He hasn't yet heard what his mob wishes, so he does't know what to say. I think he has a record of flipping to 3 contradictory positions in one interview of less than an hour, and 2 more in two days for 5 different positions until he found the one that he is 'supposed' to have haha..

Tomi Ahonen :-)

[grouch]

Tomi:

If you haven't yet seen the Democracy Now show for 2016-08-10, check it out. It reinforces a lot of your conclusions about the Donald and may give you even more insight to his character. It's scary (maybe even macabre) and hilarious.
(Video and transcript are at the link).

"The Making of Donald Trump": David Cay Johnston on Trump's Ties to the Mob & Drug Traffickers
http://www.democracynow.org/2016/8/10/donald_doesnt_know_anything_author_david

[A sample, regarding Donald cutting off health care from his grandnephew]

"And that’s an essential element to understanding Donald Trump. You don’t exist, Amy, I don’t exist, as a person. That’s why he talks about women the way he does, in these degrading terms. Donald doesn’t see other people as people. He sees them as things to be used. And put the life of a child in jeopardy for more money? Donald thinks nothing is wrong with that. That’s—of course you would do that, if you’re Donald. If you wouldn’t do it, what’s wrong with you? That would be Donald’s attitude."

[grouch]

More hypocrisy...

Disgraced ex-congressman sits behind Trump at rally
http://www.cnn.com/2016/08/10/politics/donald-trump-mark-foley-campaign-rally/index.html

"Donald Trump on Wednesday again slammed Hillary Clinton and her campaign for allowing the father of Orlando shooter Omar Mateen to sit in the stands behind her at a recent rally.
But sitting behind Trump was ex-congressman Mark Foley, who resigned in disgrace in 2006 after sending sexually explicit messages to underage teenage boys."

[Winter]

Tomi
"The best test of is someone a Trump supporter is simply this: do you believe Obama was born in Kenya."

This is just part of the Nativist ideology (white supremacists). A "black" president cannot be a "true" American. In the end, it does not really matter that he was born in Hawaii, he is black and therefore an African. You cannot convince them Obama was born in the USA, because all blacks are "aliens".

When you look at Trump's followers, you see the birth of Apartheid in South Africa reenacted:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnegie_Commission_of_Investigation_on_the_Poor_White_Question_in_South_Africa

Apartheid was the response of poor white "laborers" to competition from non-whites in the labor market. And Apartheid is what they call for at Trump's rallies.

[Winter]

Tomi
"The right wing media will want to assign blame and they will not accept it on themselves. They both will conclude that Trump ran a suicidally stupid campaign - the total full fault is with Trump. He will be vilified like nobody has in modern times."

You are not thinking like a Tea-party member. Obviously, it has all been Hillaries fault. The Clintons have conspired to let Trump win the nomination. This could all have been prevented if a True Conservative™/American™ had been contesting.

It clearly was Hillary's devious scheming that destroyed their party. Just like she started the Obama birther movement (they really claim that).

[Winter]

Trump's other polling headache
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/08/trumps-other-polling-headache-226888

Trhmp does not get the lkkely voters bump.

[Winter]

And this how these cults work.

Why facts don't matter to Trump's supporters
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/why-facts-dont-matter-to-trumps-supporters/2016/08/04/924ece4a-5a78-11e6-831d-0324760ca856_story.html

[Winter]

No comment:

Donald Trump: I meant that Obama founded ISIS, literally
http://www.cnn.com/2016/08/11/politics/donald-trump-hugh-hewitt-obama-founder-isis/

[deadonthefloor]

Since the DNC had their elbow on the scales from the start of the primaries, to anoint their chosen one, they've lost the respect of many progressives.

I think 18% is a little high. I think more like 2-3% while legitimizing the Libertarian or Green party is a more likely scenario.

Either way, living in Canada, I've switched my support to Vermin Supreme!

[Tomi T Ahonen]

Hi everybody

BTW I had another epiphany. Trump's personal communication style is an amalgamation of two fictional characters, both from Trump's early rise to fame, the 1980s, and intense parodies, funny only because they were so incredibly unbelievable. If you watched the comedy show Saturday Night Live those years, you'll remember these two iconic characters.

When Trump speaks ie 'active' commmunication, not answering, but speaking, he is doing his version of Tommy Flanagan, the SNL Pathological Liar played by Jon Lovitz. Here is a taster:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=C9Uv-EK9jCE

And then when Trump is asked questions, he abandons the Tommy Flanagan character; he turns instead into Nathan Thurm, the sleaziest attorney on SNL, played by Martin Short. Here is a taster:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=2&v=FOLBQxk72NY

Haha, combine those two FICTIONAL characters, from TV of course - and now you see where Trump discovered his unique style of speaking. And then while we are at it. What about Paul Manafort. He has to be the good old Baghdad Bob ie Comical Ali, the Propaganda Minister for Saddam Hussein's Iraq, who was cheerfully promising that Iraq will win the mother of all battles while American tanks literally rolled in the background of his TV interviews. Paul has gotten a facelift so he can't smile anymore haha, so he's not as cheerful as Comical Ali.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfAeMtcURg0

So yeah, only someone who fashions his own speaking style based on Tommy Flanagan and Nathan Thurm, would love his Campaign boss to be another pathological liar, Comical Ali ie Baghdad Bob

Tomi Ahonen :-)

[cornelius]

@deadonthefloor As a fellow Canadian citizen and proud subject of Her Majesty the Queen, I am just curious: who is Vermin Supreme? Stephen Harper? He seems to be a very nice guy when compared to Trump.

[cornelius]

Hi Tomi
The first link is not available in the US. This is the message from YouTube:
The uploader has not made this video available in your country.

Perhaps you meant this?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkYNBwCEeH4

I think Trump is trying to act and speak like the cartoon character in this video (skip to 5:30): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96Ivji-ph4A

[cornelius]

Sorry, this is even better (skip to 2:30):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ze4DQAzlzRA

[Wayne Borean]

LOL. Another Canadian citizen, and someone who is damned glad not to be a citizen of the People's Republic of Amerikastan.

I'm of the opinion that this election will be a blow out of historic proportions. The limiting factor will be Trump's 'locked in' percentage of the electorate.

Take for example the White Supremacist part of the vote. While in theory Trump should have this part of the electorate locked in because no one else has addressed it, in fact it is less than solid because the various parts of the Supremacist grouping have other interests, like Israel. Trump may drive certain segments of the Supremacist vote away, and certain segments of other groups.

As a result it is impossible to state what Trump's base is. It is unlikely that Trump himself knows what his base is.

While at on time I assumed that Trump had to have done certain basic planning, I am now coming around to the opinion that he did NO PLANNING. This sounds incredibly stupid and unlikely, but it does match the situation as we see it.

[Halibut_ter]

Herr Drumpf ALWAYS in a carnivorous fact free environment. Facts r only useful if it works his hurt narrative.
Trumps hurt locker is in his head.
The applause is his heroin
Adulation is what got hitler, mussolini,stalin, mao hooked onto the crowd.
Ego/pride is the devils favorite pleasure........

[Millard Filmore]

Breaking News! The polls are skewed! But one place has done the work to put that right.

"That site is Longroom.com, and — according to their unskewing of the polls — Donald Trump is actually WINNING by 0.6 percent!"

http://wonkette.com/605341/aw-cute-trumpkins-have-their-own-site-now-that-says-trump-is-winning-in-the-polls

"all the polls are “skewed” to make it look like he is not winning, in order to discourage his voters, and to also make it look less suspicious when they rig the election to make Clinton win even though Trump will actually get 100% of all the votes."

[cornelius]

@Wayne

I still think the white supremacists are going to vote in great numbers for Her Drumpf. The reason is that Trump's support of Israel is mostly low key and hatred of blacks and Latinos and Muslims and immigrants in general is a much more important issue to them today than the Jewish issue.

Regarding Trump's campaign being all over the place and lacking any kind of plan, this is due to Trump's extremely lazy nature. I think Trump is the laziest presidential candidate ever. I've mentioned Trump's extreme laziness before but in a different context. Tomi says that Trump is a fast learner. In a way yes, it's true but on a very superficial level. There is a dichotomy between analysis and synthesis. Analysis is specializing on a narrow slice and going deep within that slice. Analysis is learning a subject in a profound manner. On the other hand synthesis is learning of a lot of subjects but neither of them profoundly. Synthesis is like an overview of a vast array of subjects and it is superficial. And I think Trump is a synthesis guy. He can talk about a lot of stuff, but if you go in detail, you lost him. He is a fast learner but on a very superficial level.
I am sorry if my explanation is not very scientific and the technical terms may have been misused, I used to be a professor of psychology many years ago in Romania, but I switched to software development when I moved to Canada, so my stuff is quite rusty and English being only my second language didn't help either.

[Winter]

@cornelius
"And I think Trump is a synthesis guy. He can talk about a lot of stuff, but if you go in detail, you lost him. He is a fast learner but on a very superficial level."

Trump is a chameleon. He can absorb his environment to be able to dominate the stage. This is a feat you also hear performed by psychopaths. That is what makes them "charming". They know what to say to be liked. But below the surface, there is nothing like understanding or feeling, it is just words that have an effect.

http://psychopathsandlove.com/charm-and-the-psychopath/