Kos: "And we did what we needed to do." AYFKM?????

That is absolutely absurd to say that, more absurd than the irrational exuberance seen in your election projections.

I joined here in 2004 after Bush won. The main community focus was how to win.

I will sum it up in just two words: “Lies won.”

On Tuesday we watched history repeat: 1930s Germany stoked by hatred, fear, grievances, lies and scams turned to view Adolf Hitler as their messiah and savior. Now America has turned to fascism and an American Hitler in Donald Trump as their messiah and savior.

It was NOT by accident or chance. It was purposeful. It was psychological warfare — manipulation of opinion to achieve power and control the voters.

Democrats DID NOT engage in counter psyops. They seem to think this is high school debate club where intellectuals have mutual respect and exchange facts to let intellectuals choose the winner based on logic.

And that is how lies won.

I have written many times about this here, and usually told that I was all doom and gloom. So now that all of us have experienced this assault on democracy, I will revisit in hopes that the CORRECT LESSONS LEARNED are addressed.

2022: GOP Psychological Warfare - What does it look like?

Fascism is based in psychological warfare. The Republicans sell lies to manipulate public opinion, and have since Reagan’s trickle-down and tax cuts pay for themselves. That was based on psychological manipulation used in tobacco ads — “More doctors smoke Camels than any other brand”.

Hitler and Goebbels convinced Germans that they should kill their fellow Germans who were handicapped. Not just to be ok with it, but to want it.

Democrats don’t have a messaging apparatus that even comes close to what Republicans have. Democratic messaging is fractured and ineffective.

Democrats think this is high school debate club, where facts matter and the goal is to appear smarter than the other side, mostly with over-intellectualized drivel.

Republicans are street thugs cranking up hate and fear machines. They want to keep people in the lower two levels in Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. There individual critical thinking can be suppressed and guttural tribalism can take root and flourish. They want the public to distrust government and Democrats.

Republicans manufacture grievances, then sell themselves as the super heroes who will rescue them from evil, like the fraud Mysterio on Spiderman Far From Home, who used drones to manufacture creatures that were just optical illusions:

Reagan was the first Republican fake superhero, and they worshiped him — until Trump came along.

[Tangent: Trump did not create the Republican cult. It was created by billionaires going back to Reagan, and has been building ever since. That was the beginning of the end of the Republican Party as we knew it. But Reagan was the dead figurehead of the cult worshipers. Trump simply was more of a con man and was willing to lie more than any other Republican candidate in 2016. He stole the role of cult leader from them. But as he did not create the cult as Hitler and Jim Jones did, and he is not really the one pulling the strings (billionaire masters are) Trump can be easily replaced with a new figurehead. They can use the same psyops to turn the cult on Trump, cast him as a fraud who does not truly believe in what the cult does.]

Republicans don’t want to win a debate. They want power, and they are willing to lie, cheat, and steal to get that power. They don’t want to win a debate with logic and facts to persuade people to agree with them. They want to manipulate belief systems to achieve their victory.

And they pay no price for their lies. Most of the media, out of a misplaced sense of fairness, treats Republican lies as one side of a factual argument.

This psychological war is funded by sleazy GOP billionaires who want power — and profit. Democracy is an obstacle to their power, an obstacle that must be removed. Power over taxes, regulations, and the ability to direct federal spending into their pockets. If they have to sell lies, hate and fear to do that, no problem. That’s how they got rich anyway. AND they pay no price for that. In fact, they get richer.

Democrats can beat fascism ONLY IF we recognize that we are in a psychological war and are committed to a clear, consistent and coherent messaging that connects with people where they are, directly and effectively counters the psyop lies, hate and fear BS from Republicans, and are willing to engage in psychological warfare to WIN.

Expose their frauds and illusions. Create doubt. We are not trying to convert cult members. We need to prevent more from drinking the snake oil, and rescue those at the fringe who were leaning in to hear more.

Sadly, Democrats seem to prefer altruistic endeavors, focusing on right versus wrong, while the foundation of democracy crumbles beneath them, and allowing the Republican psyops to spread.

Additional Readings:

George Lakoff — Trump has turned words into weapons. blogs.berkeley.edu/...

Steven Hassan — The Cult of Trump (2019). www.amazon.com/…

Also Combatting Cult Mind Control. www.amazon.com/…

Christopher Kingler — Psychological Warfare: 5 Books in 1: Manipulation Techniques Honed Over the Centuries by Politicians, Strategists, Speakers, Performers and Sellers Around the World. www.amazon.com/…

So what could we have messaged differently??

Well for starters, call it what it is: fascism.

August 2023: Robert Reich says what we all should be saying: It's Fascism

No additional words needed. Just watch. And then spread it far and wide.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9XTJNy_OrjE

His summary:

What makes a fascist?

-Rejecting democracy for a strongman

-Stoking rage against cultural elites

-Nationalism based on “superior” race

-Glorifying strength and warriors

-Disdain of women and LGBTQ+ people

These five elements find exact expression in Donald Trump.

But there were no Democratic adds. Trump had adds calling us socialists, communists….

January 2024: Trump and Republican Psychological Warfare - You can't fight it if you don't understand it.

The Guardian:

People at the extrinsic end of the spectrum are more attracted to prestige, status, image, fame, power and wealth. They are strongly motivated by the prospect of individual reward and praise. They are more likely to objectify and exploit other people, to behave rudely and aggressively and to dismiss social and environmental impacts. They have little interest in cooperation or community. People with a strong set of extrinsic values are more likely to suffer from frustration, dissatisfaction, stress, anxiety, anger and compulsive behaviour.

Trump exemplifies extrinsic values. From the tower bearing his name in gold letters to his gross overstatements of his wealth; from his endless ranting about “winners” and “losers” to his reported habit of cheating at golf; from his extreme objectification of women, including his own daughter, to his obsession with the size of his hands; from his rejection of public service, human rights and environmental protection to his extreme dissatisfaction and fury, undiminished even when he was president of the United States, Trump, perhaps more than any other public figure in recent history, is a walking, talking monument to extrinsic values.

When a society valorises status, money, power and dominance, it is bound to generate frustration. It is mathematically impossible for everyone to be number one. The more the economic elites grab, the more everyone else must lose. Someone must be blamed for the ensuing disappointment. In a culture that worships winners, it can’t be them. It must be those evil people pursuing a kinder world, in which wealth is distributed, no one is forgotten and communities and the living planet are protected. Those who have developed a strong set of extrinsic values will vote for the person who represents them, the person who has what they want. Trump. And where the US goes, the rest of us follow.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/jan/29/donald-trump-americans-us-culture-republican

Study out of UC-Davis:

Methods

Nationwide survey conducted May 13-June 2, 2022 of adult members of the Ipsos KnowledgePanel. MAGA Republicans are defined as Republicans who voted for Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election and deny the results of that election. Principal outcomes are weighted proportions of respondents who endorse political violence, are willing to engage in it, and consider it likely to occur.

Findings

The analytic sample (n = 7,255) included 1,128 (15.0%) MAGA Republicans, 640 (8.3%) strong Republicans, 1,571 (21.3%) other Republicans, and 3,916 (55.3%) non-Republicans. MAGA Republicans were substantially more likely than others to agree strongly/very strongly that “in the next few years, there will be civil war in the United States” (MAGA Republicans, 30.3%, 95% CI 27.2%, 33.4%; strong Republicans, 7.5%, 95% CI 5.1%, 9.9%; other Republicans, 10.8%, 95% CI 9.0%, 12.6%; non-Republicans, 11.2%, 95% CI 10.0%, 12.3%; p < 0.001) and to consider violence usually/always justified to advance at least 1 of 17 specific political objectives (MAGA Republicans, 58.2%, 95% CI 55.0%, 61.4%; strong Republicans, 38.3%, 95% CI 34.2%, 42.4%; other Republicans, 31.5%, 95% CI 28.9%, 34.0%; non-Republicans, 25.1%, 95% CI 23.6%, 26.7%; p < 0.001). They were not more willing to engage personally in political violence.

Interpretation

MAGA Republicans, as defined, are more likely than others to endorse political violence. They are not more willing to engage in such violence themselves; their endorsement may increase the risk that it will occur.

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0295747

Vanderbuilt:

By the time President Trump left office, he had made an estimated 30,573 false claims, according to the Washington Post Fact Checker, which informed this study. Some of these claims were repeated dozens and hundreds of times in various news and social media outlets. To understand whether and to what extent the repetition of Trump’s falsehoods affected public misperceptions, researchers at Vanderbilt Peabody College of education and human development surveyed 754 U.S. participants on 150 of Trump’s claims; 301 participants were registered Republicans and 453 were Democrats or not affiliated with either party. The survey did not reveal that the claims were made by Trump or how many claims were true or false. After completing truth ratings on all claims, participants completed optional questions about their demographic backgrounds as well as news and social media consumption.

The researchers found that repetition of Trump’s false claims correlated with belief in the claims among Republicans but not Democrats; in fact, increased repetition of the claims correlated with a decrease in Democrats’ misperceptions. These findings build on prior research on the “illusory truth effect,” which contends that repetition increases belief in both true and false statements.

In particular, the repetition effect was strongest among participants who predominantly watched Fox News, especially among Republicans. In addition, claims repeated mostly through X, the company formerly named Twitter, were more likely to increase belief for both Republicans and Democrats, “possibly because such claims gained broad coverage through, for instance, cable news,” the authors write.

https://news.vanderbilt.edu/2023/09/18/new-study-reveals-correlation-between-trumps-repeated-falsehoods-and-public-misperceptions/

Cult expert Steven Hassan:

I agreed to write "The Cult of Trump" with the knowledge that Trump was a malignant narcissist. He fits the stereotypical profile of a cult leader. I viewed him as the leader of a cult of personality. His business is also part of his cult. As I began to do the research for my book, it became very clear to me that he would not have been elected president if not for the thousands of new apostolic reformation ministers supporting him and then telling their millions of followers to believe in Trump as someone doing the work of God. They represent a right-wing Christian religious movement that does not believe in equality under the law, or in civil rights for women and those not of their faith. These right-wing Christian leaders want to destroy any type of organized effort to advance liberty and freedom and knowledge. Trump as a cult leader and authoritarian is a perfect fit for their beliefs.

Today's Republican Party is part of an authoritarian cult movement that hates democracy and freedom. They want blind obedience. They want people to distrust science and reason and critical thinking. Another example of how cults work is the belief that a person can create their own reality, where if a person truly believes something then it must be true. Of course that is ridiculous.

Republicans and other right-wing authoritarians have wanted to destroy public education for decades. Why? Because an educated citizen is what a democracy needs. To have a theocracy, for example, or some other type of authoritarian regime, you need uneducated citizens, especially young people. That is one of the main reasons why the right wing pushes for homeschooling and charter schools. The dumbing down of Americans is a hugely important part of their anti-democracy project.

https://www.salon.com/2022/06/13/expert-steven-hassan-sees-95-chance-of-worsening-pro-violence/

Lastly, the Joseph Goebbels’ Playbook, which Republicans are following:

"A lie told once remains a lie but a lie told a thousand times becomes the truth."

"Propaganda works best when those who are being manipulated are confident they are acting on their own free will."

"This is the secret of propaganda: Those who are to be persuaded by it should be completely immersed in the ideas of the propaganda, without ever noticing that they are being immersed in it."

"There was no point in seeking to convert the intellectuals. For intellectuals would never be converted and would anyway always yield to the stronger, and this will always be "the man in the street." Arguments must therefore be crude, clear and forcible, and appeal to emotions and instincts, not the intellect. Truth was unimportant and entirely subordinate to tactics and psychology."

"Propaganda must facilitate the displacement of aggression by specifying the targets for hatred."

"It would not be impossible to prove with   sufficient repetition and a psychological understanding of the people concerned that a square is in fact a circle. They are mere words, and words can be molded until they clothe ideas and disguise."

"It is not propaganda’s task to be intelligent, its task is to lead to success."

Republicans are engaged in psychological warfare. They are manufacturing fear with lies to push voters into the lower levels of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. There, fearing for safety and living in a perpetual state of victimhood, individual critical thinking is suppressed and tribalism flourishes.

This is not an accident. It is purposeful.

Democrats are not fighting a psychologiocal war.

And that means we can all lose everything in 279 days.

What could we have done differently? ENGAGE IN COUNTER PSYOPS

May 2024: Assume Biden is behind - and it could get worse

Assume Biden is behind.

Assume the polls are not as far off as we had hoped — that is irrational exuberance. The same irrational exuberance we experienced here in 2022 when many said we would flip the House and have 52 or more in the Senate.

And the current polls — even if off by a few points — do not account for anything going wrong with economy or world events between now and the election.

1) Full-time jobs down 1M due to layoffs. It was 2M last month and 1M jobs were not created in April, so the April survey may be too high.

fred.stlouisfed.org/...

2) People believe that 4 years ago under Trump — with the economy shut down, 25 million jobs lost, 12,000 store closures, supply chain a mess, and you couldn’t find toilet paper — were the better times.

3) Oil companies have cut 100+ drilling rig crews, setting the stage for rising gas prices into the election — they want higher profits and see Trump as the one who will deliver for them

www.eia.gov/...

4) Corporations are keeping prices higher, keeping inflation high. Why? They want to keep their tax cuts and the prospect for more if Trump wins. Corporate profits are up 60% from 2019 — due to their greed.

fred.stlouisfed.org/...

5) Wall Street is buying houses and taking them off the market and turning into rentals — exacerbating affordable housing and pushing prices higher with fewer options for those looking to buy.

6) Prices are higher, savings is down, and they blame Biden (or think Trump would do better) while ignoring the role oil companies, corporations, and Wall Street have in making them poorer.

7) Insurance rates are pushing inflation higher. How many blame climate change?

www.msn.com/...

8) Most people are clueless about Trump 2.0 and project 2025.

9) The border is a problem and they believe Trump managed it better. They don’t blame Trump or Republicans for squashing the deal and believe we have open borders — but Trump never closed the border.

www.cbsnews.com/...

10) Many voters will not buy the ‘hype’ warnings about Trump. In their view things were better under Trump. When you are living paycheck to paycheck, you generally lack altruistic views to worry about the future of the country.

The same thing happened in 1930s Germany. Many Jews supported the Nazis because they too were anti-communist. They viewed the warnings about Nazis’ antisemitism as overblown.

11) The majority of polls show > 60% believe we are on the wrong track

12) Some of the pro-Palestinian sentiment was pushed by antisemitic groups. The young voters believe Biden should have done more to protect life in Gaza.

13) Abortion and democracy are not the top voter concern.

d3nkl3psvxxpe9.cloudfront.net/…

14) In the most recent Quinnipiac poll (one of the few that have Biden up over Trump), Trump beat Biden in 4 of 6 top issues, winning only abortion and preserving democracy:

BIDEN VS. TRUMP: THE ISSUES

Voters were asked who they think would do a better job handling six issues...

• the response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine: 49 percent say Trump, while 46 percent say Biden;
• preserving democracy in the United States: 50 percent say Biden, while 43 percent say Trump;
• the response to the Israel - Hamas war in Gaza: 50 percent say Trump, while 40 percent say Biden;
• immigration: 52 percent say Trump, while 41 percent say Biden;
• the economy: 54 percent say Trump, while 42 percent say Biden;
• abortion: 53 percent say Biden, while 37 percent say Trump.

poll.qu.edu/...

15) In the same Q poll, Kennedy had 14% of the vote. If not Kennedy, 37% would vote Biden and 51% Trump.

16) The inflation cuts everyone was hoping for may not materialize

www.msn.com/...

17) There is a significant increase in talk of a recession.

www.businessinsider.com/...

The deck is stacked against Biden and a lot could go wrong before the election, especially if there is no rate cut.

Psyops is flooding social media, and it will ramp up and get worse from here.

But Democrats are not engaged in this psychological war, and repeated lies work to manipulate opinion and beliefs. Democrats are not telling the story and showing voters who is really causing their pain.

Hopefully that will change — soon.

WHAT ELSE COULD WE HAVE DONE? ATTACK TRUMP!!

Trump's goal is to lie to fool as many people as he can that he cares about them and will solve the grievances that Trump and Republicans have manufactured.

It worked.

But Trump's actual record reveals the opposite.

For example, when gas was $2, did he work to keep prices low to help middle class families? Nope he worked to boost oil company profits by getting Russia and Saudi Arabia to cut production. That raised gas prices every week.

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/02/oil-rallies-10percent-after-trump-says-he-expects-saudi-arabia-russia-feud-to-end-soon.html

What about "Drill baby drill"? A complete scam. In 2019, oil companies laid off 25% of their drilling rig crews.

https://www.rigzone.com/news/us_rig_count_continues_its_decline-08-nov-2019-160285-article/

Did Trump make the middle class tax cuts permanent? Nope. He made them expire in 2025. Only corporate taxes were permanently cut.

How did those 2017 tax cuts turn out? His 2017 tax cuts failed every promise: no surge in jobs, no surge in wages, no surge in business investment, no surge in tax revenues - didn't pay for itself.

What about Trump's wall - he promised it would be impenetrable? Another scam. CBP evaluated all proposed wall designs and warned that Trump that his wall could be easily breached with $100 in tools available at any home improvement store. Trump ignored them. Why? It was cheaper and he could brag about more miles. It is breached daily, leaving holes in the wall and costing millions to repair. Trump's wall isn't protecting anyone.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/mar/03/trump-border-wall-breached-smugglers

And Trump and House Republicans stopped the bipartisan border bill — the most comprehensive immigration legislation in decades. Trump and Republicans sided with terrorists and gave them an extra 12 months to enter our country. They chose political points over our national security — and paid no price for it.

But Trump reduced illegal immigration, right? Nope. Trump reduced LEGAL immigration.

https://www.cato.org/blog/president-trump-reduced-legal-immigration-he-did-not-reduce-illegal-immigration

And Trump let in an MS13 gang member after he was detained at the border in 2017. He later murdered an American.

https://local21news.com/news/nation-world/man-who-entered-the-us-illegally-william-pavon-mancock-arrested-in-connection-to-maryland-murder-first-degree-homeless-camp-ms-13-gang-member-contrachita-uzi-machine-gun-ice-immigrations-and-customs-border-patrol-prince-georges-county

Trump even employed illegals at his clubs for years, to avoid having to pay more to American workers.

https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/report-reveals-pipeline-of-undocumented-costa-rican-immigrants-at-trump-club-a-very-open-secret/

Trump promised to fix our crumbling infrastructure. He never did.

Trump's 2018 tariffs raised prices on working families and reduced jobs.

https://thehill.com/policy/finance/476100-fed-study-trump-tariffs-backfired-caused-job-losses-and-higher-prices/

Now Trump is promising new 20-200% tariffs. But he claims foreign countries will pay it. That is another lie. Working families pay for it. Trump's tariffs will raise prices, cause inflation to skyrocket, cause thousands of stores and businesses to close and cost tens of thousands of jobs. A right-wing economist from a right-wing think tank on Fox 'News' explained it:

https://www.foxnews.com/video/6361969962112

Trump and Republicans used lies to convince voters that 2020 — 25 million jobs lost, recession, record 12,000+ stores closed, supply chains a mess, and you could not find toilet paper — were the best of times.

Trump and Republicans convinced everyone that DEMOCRATS shutdown the economy. Lies create false memories. Trump shutdown the US economy on March 16, 2020. He says he is smarter than generals. His plan. His choice. Here he is announcing HIS plan.

https://www.c-span.org/video/?470396-1/president-trump-coronavirus-task-force-briefing

By 2019, the economy was slowing - due to failed tax cuts and tariffs - and the Fed had to lower interest rates 3 times to prop it up.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/30/economy/federal-reserve-rate-decision-october/index.html

What was the primary driver of inflation today? Corporate profits - up 60% since 4th quarter 2019. How? Simple - they raised prices far beyond actual cost increases.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/other/the-biggest-study-of-greedflation-yet-looked-at-1-300-corporations-to-find-many-of-them-were-lying-to-you-about-inflation/ar-AA1lcmku?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=DCTS&cvid=bfdc550b03964e43bf1d528925b0ce6d&ei=34

https://www.vox.com/money/23641875/food-grocery-inflation-prices-billionaires

And now home and auto insurance is going up. The main reason? Climate change causing more disasters - and insurance losses.

https://www.npr.org/2024/03/03/1233963377/auto-home-insurance-premiums-costs-natural-disasters-inflation

Trump is a lifelong liar, con man, fraud, and criminal who only cares about himself. But he won. How? LIES.

We most certainly DID NOT do what we needed to do.