Two days ago, I wrote a diary about the near-unanimous reaction by certain right-wing outlets to defend Donald Trump. The speed where these pundits decided to defend at all costs concerned me, because it seemed to be indicative.
The Twitter account for the House Judiciary Committee’s Republican members (led by Jim Jordan) said, “If they can do it to a former President, imagine what they can do to you.”
This is the same irrational and tortured logic that Tucker Carlson offered last year with his “Patriot Purge,” which equated the actions taken against January 6 insurrectionists as what would be done to everyday Trump backers. In that case, the argument was more along the lines of “these people support Trump to the utmost, and so do you, the viewer, so anything that happens to them could be seen as happening to you.” Now, the knee-jerk reaction among many in the right-wing news and blogosphere has the underlying message of “an attack on Trump is a direct attack on you.” It collapses the argument and makes a 1:1 equation of Trump and any one of his followers.
That’s the backbone of a cult.
We’ve been saying this for some time, that MAGA has elements of a cult. This has not been hyperbole; much of what goes on in that political movement can be seen through that lens. And what these outlets are doing, with their unifed, extreme response to the execution of a search warrant, is to build up Trump’s cult of personality.
Once believers begin to feel that what happens to their guru is reciprocated upon them on a 1:1 basis, that’s a metaphysical, mystical area of linkage. They feel at one with their charismatic leader and so any attack on him becomes a personal attack, not only on the group level of MAGA but also on the individual level, each to the man, the woman, and the child.
Now we have: Be afraid. Take this as a signal event.
This is the blatant messaging the GOP and its surrogates are submitting to their base. It’s not even using propaganda—that is, a hidden appeal meant to communicate some underlying message or subtext. No, the exhortation to fear is explicit.
Take, for instance, Alina Habba, a former attorney of Trump, who appeared on Jesse Watters’ show on Fox. She stated this:
(cued to 6:28)
Quite honestly, I’m concerned that they may have planted something. You know, at this point, who knows? I don’t trust the government, and that’s a very frightening thing as an American.
Also, Frank Vyan Walton (“Fox News, Newsmax and the GOP are now Terrorist Organizations”) highlighted a clip of Elise Stefanik on Fox and Friends, where she deflected away from Trump’s culpability in the search as she focused on possible implications of and by the FBI.
Stefanik (at 2:30): If you can do this to a former president of the United States, every American is fearful.
She just comes out and says it: Every American watching me should be full of fear right now.
First, the audience member is told to identify with Trump’s plight: “If this could happen to a former President, imagine what the government could do to you!”
Then, the audience member is directed to experience fear, and it so happens that this fear coincides with the actual fear that is probably at this very moment flowing through Trump’s veins. It matters a great deal that this fear imprinting is happening specifically around this tale of the FBI, so that the audience member links that experiential state of fear with the concept of law enforcement. Trump and associates want to make the choice clear for their adherents, with their bifurcated view of the world. If it’s a choice between Trump and the FBI—if one of these is crooked—well, of course the True Believer will make the decision to put the FBI in the crooked camp.
It’s conditioning.
It’s stress, it’s redirected identity, it’s explicit fear training.
And it’s concerted! The effort by the GOP and its surrogates stretches far and wide, with a broad assortment of right-wing media defending Trump in the wake of the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago, a blind defense that has been as full-throated as it has been collective. The chorus of defense was nearly uniform from certain parts of the RW media silo, and its ferocity surprised me, even at this state.
After the January 6 committee hearings, Trump should have been radioactive. But he is not radioactive, as this media reaction shows.
What Trump’s masterstroke has been here is the playing of the GOP. He was the one who broke the news in the media about the FBI search. Clearly he meant to frame this in maximum victimhood, not only for any possible grift but also to garner all of the lost (and then some) adolation and commitment from the J6 fallout. During the summer, Trump’s surrogates have had to stand on the sidelines, not really able to muster a defense of him and seeing things revealed that encouraged placing distance between themselves and Trump. For Trump to play this victim card is pretty cunning, as it provides not only political cover but psychological relief to those who have been itching to offer a defense of Trump all of this time. Finally they have an outlet.
And now, with the escalation in the meantime, we now have a situation where a certain segment of the RW mediaverse has declared itself pro-Trump in being explicitly against the FBI (and by extension all law enforcement), even in the face of the search warrant being executed on suspicion that Trump harbored nuclear documents. There’s no margin left for these extreme pundits. They’re in for a penny, in for a pound.
