Trump's Remodeling of the Interpretative Process: Testing the Limits of What Society Can Handle

Trump and the aptly named Trump-regime, in my mind, has committed one of the greatest PSY-OPs, in American history. Before you immediately turn away and say: I was following you, but that statement is a step too far: I suggest you continue reading and approach this problem with more curiosity.

We all understand that we arguably live (or had lived - at one point) in a free and democratic society. Meaning - it was open-field, and America provided everyone one of its citizens the opportunity to pursue their ideas, dreams, and success. While, undoubtingly there are varying hurdles and not everyone begins their life with the same advantages - free market, equal rights, and equal opportunity provide a path. Similarly, a laissez-faire capitalism has brought about arguably an era of prosperity - never before possible. Likewise, businesses and ownership and stake-holding investments made those dreams possible.

That said, this "golden era" of 1950s-1990s America, everyone looks back on so nostalgically was only brought about, due to two primary drivers. First, we won a world war, as such, to the victor come the spoils. We seized German assets, gold, fringe R&D technologies, and demonstrated our power in the world stage to such a degree - that both our language and monetary system became the international standard. Second, given the US had just endured through the great depression and a second world-war: recognized that everyday Americans were suffering. That's why he signed into law many "socialist" bills and upwards of 95% on taxation to the ultra-wealthy (mind you, the same ultra-wealthy elites that helped to fund the second world war. This is what permitted one working adult, per household - to afford the associated living costs of supporting their partner, children, a house, a vehicle, food, and more. While there may have not been much money left over, at least it was doable and mortgages were readily available and reasonably affordable.

In parallel to this, America was and still is an innovation power house. Likely not cited, or misunderstood is that our diversity and individualistic identities and freedoms were the factors responsible for America's success.

The US ended the gold standard for domestic use in 1933 and in 1971 rendered the USD a fiat currency. If the money was not backed by gold, what rendered its value? The answer is USD became both the petrol dollar and a symbol backed by the trust, integrity and influence of the United States government. After we moved to a fiat currency, we experienced the Cantillon Effect - whereby, the wealth disparity began to emerge. Subsequent to this, the money that's printed is not freely distributed to the public, but instead funnels out through various bank and government institutions. This is an underlying detail the public seems to not understand, nor deeply appreciate. Given this is how money is literally made: it should then be no surprise, why when individuals become deeply wealthy and insatiable for more - that they enter into government via the political arena. Political policy shapes social policy and similarly shapes monetary policy.

One other factor worth mentioning was the "Red Scare". Having just endured through a bloody, brutal and technological second world war - we had successfully snuffed out the nazi regime. That said, nazi sympathizers exiled themselves to South Africa and South America. Growing in the states: any ideas, behavior, or ideology associated with Nazism, was strictly and expressly forbidden. For example Nazi symbols drawn on the playground could get you into serious trouble. And in the 1990s, the "Skinhead" movement through hate crimes and extremist actions - were likewise made an example of and punished with severity.

We would revisit all of these nightmares, when Trump would enter political office, for the first time in 2016. While Trump denies and denounces of neither reading (or keeping near his night stand): Mein Kampf, or New World Order - his behavior tells a completely different story and parallel the dehumanizing rhetoric of Adolf Hitler:

- "The immigrants are poisoning the blood of this country" and referring to them as "animals" - categorizing immigrants as a contagion of sorts, to this country... when our country was founded my immigrants. Stripping a group of their identity, provides exactly the kind of path of least resistance, psychologically, to subjugate his enemies to severe state actions and torture.
- Dehumanization: "Root out the communists, Marxists, fascists and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country" - symbolism of labeling his opposition like the vermin/pests.
- Removing the Guard-Rails to Free Democratic Process: "the press is the enemy of the people", and "the enemy within" - removes watchdogs and eliminates the opposition
- Winning at all costs, denying the truth: "we won the 2020 election" - is remarkably similar to Hitler's denial of the Germans losing in World War I.
- Extremist Views and Isolationism: as a whole, Trump has been pursuing an isolationist America, with strong borders, for years. Leading with fear, divisiveness, and encouraging culture wars - all serve as distractions: to upend democracy, solidify reliance (in a failing job economy, especially), and make American citizens dependent upon a "strong man" to solve our problems. In turn, this provides Trump the exact kind of unilateral executive power, he wishes to establish.

Per Maslow's hierarchy of needs, individuals that don't have their base needs met, are less likely to pursue their dreams, vision and thrive. Similarly, by creating the "fake news media", get Americans to trivialize the truth and distrust reality, and through repetition and gaslighting hammer in his ideologies. For those that were barely surviving back in 2016 and the people that may have joined his MAGA movement since, their fractured psyches needed to latch onto something to explain why their lives were so difficult, why as a nation Americans were moving away from Christianity, and to scapegoat and define someone to blame. The most sadistic part of this, however is - in reality - that he's their actual enemy. He knows nothing about growing up impoverished, grocery shopping and prices, or living that sort of life.

This was never about left vs. right; it was always about top vs. bottom. You see, the powers that be - slowly, but gradually, clawed back the taxation laws, and now we have an America with a ballooning national deficit that currently sits around $40B. In the 1980s starting with Reaganism - they built a brain parasite into our culture. When the wage and productivity gap widely diverged - due to technological advancement and pushing employees to work harder, we were promised "trickle down economics" (Trump: "it's beautiful! Perhaps more beautiful than the word love!"; I am partly joking, that's was his quote about tariffs and surely he's enriching himself in that arena - but I digress). At face value, the principle seemed reasonable that business owners could enrich themselves per their efforts and provide their employees a living-wage. However, overtime, between this principle of printing more money ultimately ending up in their pockets of the ultra-wealthy (consolidation of monopolies), combined with technological advancements such as AI that eliminated jobs - it started to appear more and more like "siphon up" economics.

Moreover, technology has been a catalyst in both our social lives, as well as the political process. In this "Trumpism", "post-truth", "post-COVID", and "post-AI" world and uncurated internet-age, we found ourselves all silently sliding into the doom-scrolling, and more intense pressure at work - including layoffs. Additionally, the price of living skyrocketed, as did rent and home prices, into the post-COVID19 period. As humans, and per the human-condition, we're inherently pain-adverse and subjugated to increasing levels of demand and stress. Again, psychologically, some people will break from these stressors and have. In the meantime, we're told that everything's great, that "America is winning" - while we're funding an illegal war, a racketeering wing in the White House, and a captured SCOTUS/super-majority in congress/and a weaponized and compromised DOJ - that is not operating, independently. As kids, growing up in the US, a substantial amount of investment was placed in teaching children about our country's history, founding, and core principles. One such principle was that of "separation of powers": executive, judical, and legislative. We also recited the constitution and all swore an oath to it. And yet, America is not awake (hence the anti-"woke" movement is about as nonsensical as the attacks on anti-fa, which literally means anti-fascist. The cherry on top of the cake, of this level of dangerous idiocracy, is that this Trump-regime, routinely and frequently, engages in fascist behavior. However, when called out on it, they immediately either project, or attack the accuser as "extremist leftist scum!"

This, of course, coming from the same man that believes that "asylum seekers" are immigrants from "insane asylums". As such, we get stories about Trump's main main, Hannibal Lecter; with Arnold Palmer and his "endowments" - coming in a close second. Yet, again, I digress.

The point is, the Trump-regime's psychological attacks, abuse, and emotional terrorism (and domestic terrorism - through extremism and the right) - happens all the time. I don't know why as humans we get caught up on the technicalities, or semantics - on whether or not Trump's attempts to usurp the vote, by blocking the certification, was "official" or "not official". to me, it seems pretty clear cut and dry, that it was "not official", given: (1) he sought kompromat on Hunter Biden from Ukraine; (2) he called up Georgia Secretary of State, Raffensperger and asked for him to find the number of votes he needed plus one; (3) he helped to incite an insurrection at the capitol (serious enough offense that at least, back then, even corporations were censoring him on their platforms - given his actions were entirely anti-American); (4) his allies false slate of electors scheme; (5) Trump demanded and was afforded two separate recounts that did not change the outcome; (6) the Trump campaign filed 60+ separate lawsuits in individual states, mandating judges to afford them recounts; (7) Trump to this day still claims he won in the 2020 election; (8) Trump's appointed Post Master General - Louis DeJoy's dismantling of brand-new, state of the art, mail sorting equipment and subsequent slow down to mail and Trump simultaneously stating vote-by-mail was ripe with fraud; (9) possibly more.

The point is, this Trump-regime assails on voting rights, claims our elections sytems are rigged, and he's attempting to convince Americans in his delusional, anti-reality, where he "wins" every election, or once he is president - that we must cancel future elections, or declare a national emergency before this upcoming election.

The question remains, how did this happen? The answer is: inferred/deferred consent. As Americans, while I recognize the political space has been an absolute shit-show since Trump entered the political arena in 2015: our denialism, and bystandar effect approach of expecting someone to fix America, or this process for us - given how grim and dark it has become - it tantamount to nihilism. We have nearly every arm of our government captured, we know what happened last time we lost, and yet the media - literally no one - is laying this out. Moreover, this happened due to the unrelenting, inundating, and uncurated 24/7 news cycle and social media that has both made us numb to "this new normal" (and feeling a bit helpless), and psychologically abused the psyche of Americans (especially after our culture was just recently hit with COVID-19 pandemic). I get it, Americans are overwhelmed and as part of the human-condition, it's somewhat normal to check out and say "hey, this is a bit too much", or act willfully ignorant to what's going on. However, in the meantime, they are rigging this upcoming mid-terms, through any and all mean necessary - no option is off the table. As MAGA Mike "The Grindr" Johnson put it "If we lose in the mid-terms, Democrats are going to investigate Trump, his family, and half the people in this room ... I run a protection program." Additionally, Republicans were the ones to break with political norms, by engaging in an egregious political over-reach of mid-decade censusing, and redistricting efforts through gerrymandering. This is just to name a few. The recognize they've abused the system, their policies are not sitting well with Americans, and they are afraid of losing. Yet, literally - right now - so many Americans are ignorant to the fact they are doing everything they can to influence, subvert, and suppress the will of the people.

So help me God, I pray a day comes - in the not so distant future, that the cracks that formed in the MAGA cult and Trump-regime, come crashing down. And when they do, that we don't remain mum about it, but recognize that if we want to maintain our democracy, it's not a right, it's a privilege. And with it, we must set an example of any and all enablers and sycophants, for deriding the United States, our reputation, and its people - through the mud - for the sheer thrill of their insatiable appetite for money, and their fetish for sadist acts, and psychological abuse, towards their fellow man. If an example's not set, then it just sends a message to the next person in line - to push harder. And if it wasn't Trump, likely they would have gotten away with everything, at the cost to our democratic freedoms and democracy.