Jacob Wohl and Jack Burkman, the jarvanka of Roger Stones tried a new scam to suppress votes with a robocall in major cities to misinform Black voters. The Trumpian bamboozle is strong with them.
Trump had an average audience of 21.6 million viewers Thursday.
Biden’s final total was 24.6 million viewers.
One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.
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“Tunnel vision” is what the police chief called letting the Kenosha killer go
1. Cult of the Personality. This show was all about Trump. ( 3 years after the death of Stalin, Khrushchev's gave his secret speech in 1956, titled "On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences." I wonder if a future GOP leader will give a similar speech someday?)
2. Administrative resources. Autocrats and semi-autocrats frequently use government resources for personal electoral gain. We have
#HatchAct to prevent such behavior in the U.S. It's obviously not working.
3. Blatant disregard for the law. That Trump's team dared anyone to charge them with violating the
#HatchAct is exactly what Putin and others autocrats do all the time. Laws don't apply to the king & his court, only to the subjects.
4. Blatant disregard for facts. As U.S. ambassador to Russia, I found this Putin regime trait most frustrating. We - the U.S. government- were constrained by facts. They were not. Trump obviously was not constrained by facts last night. He usually isn't:
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5. Us versus Them populism. "Elites" versus "the people" nationalism. Autocratic populists use polarizing identity politics to divide societies all the time. Many populist leaders actually have little in common with the "masses." (Putin is very rich.)
6. The opposition is the "enemy of the people." Putin & other autocratic populists cast their opponents as radicals & revolutionaries. They don't focus on their own records - often there is little to celebrate - but the horrors that will happen if they lose power. Sound familiar?
6b. There is one difference between Putin and Trump so far. Putin also claims falsely that his political opponents are supported by foreign enemies, the U.S. & the West. Trump has not gone there full-throated yet. But my guess it's coming. "Beijing Biden" is a hint.
7. Law and Order. Autocratic populists all shout about it, even when the opposite is happening on their watch.
8. The good tsar versus the bad boyars. Kings and tsars always blamed bad provincial leaders for national ills. Putin blames the governors all the time... just like Trump.
9. Individual acts of royal kindness. Putin, like the tsars he emulates, does this all the time. Trump offering a pardon or "granting" citizenship (which of course he didnt & doesn't have the power to do) are typical, faux gestures of royal kindness toward his subjects.
10. Homage and fealty. Vassals must signal their complete loyalty and absolute devotion to kings and autocrats. Those that don't are banished from the royal court or the party. (Where were the Bushes last night?)
11. The royal family. In this dimension, Trump acts more like a monarch than even Putin. (but watch Lukashenko and his gun-toting teenage son in Belarus)The many Trump family members who performed this week - even a girlfriend got a slot - went beyond even what Putin does.
12. There's still one big difference. We still don't know who will win the November election. That uncertainty is a crucial difference between electoral democracies & electoral autocracies. Its also a difference that has no guarantee of lasting, depending on the outcome this year
Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson has posted audio of the robocalls using falsehoods to scare Blacks from voting by mail:. Hi, this is Tamika Taylor from Project 1599, a civil rights organization founded by Jack Burkman and Jacob Wohl….
