Did We Just Witness A Colossal Mindfsck?
Posted on | November 10, 2016 | 1 Comment
by Smitty
Called the Ol’ Man as I was on the way home. I had seen a tweet somewhere expanding on the point that Trump crushed two political dynasties:
Were CNN other than a Commie Nematode Nest, they’d have the self-awareness to realize that, in addition to the Bush & Clinton dynasties, he’s also delivered smack-downs to all the cable “news” networks, the consultants, and, to some extent, our Progressive 1.1-party system.
He appeared to do this by appearing to run an anti-campaign. The same pundits who are eating crow by the murder are busy trying to come up with this or that Trumpological theory could be overlooking something that I’d put in this tweet:
Shorter 2016–
Hillary Clinton: “I read Alinsky.”
Donald Trump: “I read Sun Tzu.”— IGotOverMachoGrande (@smitty_one_each) November 9, 2016
I’ve never been a Trump proponent. Here I am back in March tweeting something that demonstrates how locked into the old worldview I was:
@NateSilver538 Also, Donald Trump.is Her Majesty’s Secret Servant. He takes the nom, and she cackles ’til her canckles collapse.
— IGotOverMachoGrande (@smitty_one_each) March 7, 2016
What I think we’ve witnessed here is a classic mindfrack. Sure, big data plays a part. But there is something as old as The Art of War at work, methinks.
Right up until Election Day, it seemed unclear whether he was actually campaigning, or just pulling off a troll for the ages:
- There was talk of his lack of a ground game.
- He blew off fundraising.
- He got feudal with Republicans.
- The RNC ingored the usual advertising for him.
- His campaign staff at times looked unstable.
- Earlier, Mitt Romney had denounced him stridently, and the National Review seemed perhaps a wee bit exercised about the fellow.
When your commitment to un-orthodoxy sees the ideological blashemy line and blows by it full tilt boogie, you either
- totally know what you’re doing, or
- have really got to quit snorting Dran-O.
Tuesday argues the former case, which brings me back to Sun Tzu.
“Appear weak when you are strong, and strong when you are weak.”
In the political case, Trump’s apparent weakness, character flaws, silver spoon upbringing, &c, in the context of 8 years of the down-is-the-new-up Obama Administration, made it all too easy to believe that the system is rigged (of course it is–it’s a system), and that we may as well start prepping our survival plans for Her Majesty’s regime.
Scott Adams has been writing wonderful blog posts, but 2012 taught us to dismiss the polls at our peril. I wanted Adams to be correct, but just wasn’t going to invest much hope, given that I live in the state of Governor Clown-tard.
But the chief result of all this was to make Her Majesty seem inevitable. There was also the drumbeat of Wikileaks, the FBI investigation, and the roar of social media. When going after a target the size of the Red Dragon of Chappaqua, Trump seemed to know just exactly how much fight to put into the moment, without giving Her he opportunity to get into victim mode. Thus “nasty woman”, a framing that gets maximal mileage without equipping the foe with ammunition.
But it was always asymmetric. There was no way he was going to out-fundraise Hillary. Trumps frugality was at once practical, while also raising the question of his seriousness.
Had Trump’s plan leaked, the wily Podesta likely could’ve cooked up some countermeasures.
Possibly I’m over-reading all this, but I think that a lot of the Trumpology in circulation is still mis-underestimating something. Part of my early disdain for Trump was rooted in the fact that, when the Tea Party uprising occurred in 2009/10, he was not marching with the Tea Party. It seemed a crass appropriation of sincere patriotism to have this Yankee with a Tribble on his head demand my support.
Looking over the 2015/16 sequence of events, one wonders if he had not been, rather, taking notes. Plotting. Biding his time. Seeing Romney’s high-mindedness amount to a fart in a thunderstorm in 2012. Possibly even having a verbal agreement with Clinton to throw the match though Bill denies it. Whatever.
As time pulls these details into focus, and heals the wounds, it seems clear that Tribble-head’s whole loose-cannon thing is substantially disinformatzya. This Administration promises not to be boring.
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One Response to “Did We Just Witness A Colossal Mindfsck?”
November 12th, 2016 @ 10:52 pm
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