Why Trump Happens? Part 3

When Truth is suppressed, rumors take over. Rumors are much more destructive to government's credibility and legitimacy.

This is continuation of analysis of previous articles on Trump phenomenon. In first article, i focused on structural problems of our economic and political system; the plutocratic takeover of institutions, the crisis of Democracy, uncertainty of election lottery and populist madness & irrationality of masses. In second article, i examined Fascism of past to Trump phenomenon of today and discussed the parallels of economic breakdown crisis of two periods; the great depression of past century and slow brewing crisis of Neoliberalism and its eventual breakdown in 2008. I explained the changing socio-political-economic discourse of past decades and intellectual decline of American electorate.  

While all the above mentioned factors contributed to Trump phenomenon and enabled the rise of Trump, there is still another crucial factor. This factor is the deep distrust of sizable section of American public for the government, institutions and media. Why people have lost their trust in politicians, government, institutions, media etc in last several decades? This distrust is outside of realm of any rational thinking and has reached a dangerous level. Like people rejecting government vaccines and masks, putting their own lives at risk. People believing things like elections were stolen, secret societies and cabals ruling America. 

There are several reasons for this distrust. Some of the reasons i already covered. With decaying political and economic system which doesn't perform for society, people started losing faith in it. The political class and institutions becomes discredited and despised. The piling economic failures of government since last several decades and then the great recession eroded trust of people in the system. People saw their social status decline while the wealth of very few explode. People saw their incomes stagnate and rising debts while the rich got richer and more powerful. 

While these experiences eroded people's faith in the system, an additional ingredient made possible the weaponization and channeling of people's anger. When there is demand for something, supply appears to make profits. With rising sentiments of desperation and discontent among masses, the fanatic leaders, far-right media, conspiracy theorists and various adventurers came to cash in their returns. The more extremist breed of politicians like Tea Party & freedom caucus, the mind bending media like Fox & NewsMax, the conspiracy theorists like Alex Jones and Rush Limbaugh, and ultimately Trump himself cashed in on sentiments & populist anger of masses. 

Together, they exploited and amplified people's anger to a gargantuan level. While Trump knew how to exploit the populist sentiments of masses, he himself didn't fully anticipate the tremendous power of 'Trump contagion'. Trump himself was surprised of his victory in 2016 as he didn't expect to win. But before discussing the actors who amplified and exploited populist sentiments, let's look at some factors that created the fertile ground for public distrust.

The institutionalized lies in American sociopolitical discourse 

In part 1, i explained how political institutions have been taken over by plutocrats, the billionaires, the giant corporations. The lobbies of these plutocrats dictate policy making and government decisions. Since the policies dictated by these special interest groups are usually detrimental to interest of public and average citizens, the policies are implemented through deception and propaganda.

The public doesn't really know the real reasons for Trillions of bailouts given to Wall Street and financial institutions. The public doesn't know the real reasons for long wars (Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam, Syria, Libya etc) that cost trillions of dollars of public money. The public doesn't know the reasons for mega subsidies, tax cuts to special interest groups and privatization of national assets. The public doesn't know why a certain foreign country is ally of America and why certain other is its foe. 

To create public opinion, to condition the public to accept government policy - the government, with help of media, creates an 'official narrative'. It can be half truth or complete fiction, whatever is easily sellable to the public. US system in last several decades is based on institutionalized lies and cover ups. The lies are instruments of policy making. The institutionalized lies are everywhere, they're not just an intellectual property of Donald Trump.  Like the narrative of 911 attacks and Weapons of mass destruction were the big lies that mobilized American public opinion to support long wars in middle east. Similarly, there's a big lie about 'American exceptionalism' and the authority of America to export its values all over the world. 

The pinnacle of gaslighting was the Neocon era and narrative of 911 attacks that started the global War on terror. The wars (Iraq, Afghanistan etc) cost over $3 Trillion with thousands of troops dead and a tens of thousands physically/psychologically scarred over the years. To mobilize public opinion, a fable was constructed for American public about Islamic Jihad and attack on American freedom. Then it was modified into mission for exporting Democracy in middle east and neutralizing weapons of mass destruction. Wars are often built on lies. Few decades ago, the 'Gulf of Tonkin' incident was manufactured to mobilize for Vietnam war and exporting Democracy there. 

Notice that no so called scholars on American politics (Ruth Ben Ghiat, Timothy Snyder etc) have challenged the conventional opinion on 911 attacks. Doing this will threaten their scholarly status and throw them into the discredited pack of 'conspiracy theorists'. They will not be invited into news studios for interviews, they will not get their private grants and university endowments etc. But understanding the significance of institutionalized lies of government is critical to comprehending the public distrust of government. When truth is suppressed, rumors take over. Rumors are much more destructive to government credibility and legitimacy. It's this very distrust that politicians like Trump exploit and amplify. Trump is basically a collection of conspiracy theories - Deep state, QAnon, Satanic cults etc which are founded on anti-government sentiments. 

The coverups go into many areas. For example, Jeffery Epstein's scandal which involved big politicians and businessmen like Bill Gates, Prince Andrew, Larry Summers, Bill Clinton and even Donald Trump himself. No credible investigation was done to unveil the true extent of crimes and perpetrators. Epstein himself mysteriously died in prison by suicide. The stench of corruption and coverups go into the highest echelons of US court system like the appointment of justice Clarence Thomas and Brett Kavanaugh. Donald Trump himself is a major beneficiary of coverups who is given immunity by the courts and investigations that are designed to fail. 

Institutionalized lies go across the political parties. Another such lie is false dichotomy between America vs rest of the world. Kamala Harris states that US shall win the competition of 21st century in cutting edge technology (Space, AI etc). Biden administration had a similar attitude on economic policy with China. A sound policy, especially to deal with 21st century challenges (Climate Change, Nuclear proliferation, conflict resolution etc), requires cooperation among superpowers even when their interests diverge. But irrational policies are adopted under the camouflage of US national security and declaring certain nations as illiberal foes of America. It's no secret that US industrial policy is really about safeguarding American corporate interests in era of changing global dynamics. And who's reaping the rewards of US industrial policy? - Elon Musk & tech brothers, defense industry & wall street corporations especially the 'Cloud capitalists'. 

The term 'conventional wisdom' was coined by a New Dealer economist John Kenneth Galbraith. Galbraith used it to describe the fallacies of mainstream political and economic thinking that plague sociopolitical discourse and academics. The mainstream political and economic thinking that mischaracterizes our social-political-economic system is itself a 'big lie'. The trickle down economics, blob foreign policy, Washington consensus etc - all are but big lies. 

What about 'American exceptionalism' which American politicians tout everyday?  America was an exceptional country, a privilege it earned by New Deal reforms, defeating Fascism, rebuilding Europe, sending a man to the moon. But that period was the past. Today, American government apparatus has been taken over by plutocracy. National policy is dictated by plutocratic lobbies, the wall street, the military industrial complex, the tech brothers, the AIPAC & countless foreign lobbies etc. US has no political independence anymore. American exceptionalism is now just a term to legitimize military aggression and exporting Washington consensus to defenseless nations.

There is a giant blind spot in conventional wisdom of authors and scholars on Trump phenomenon. In Trump era, the term 'Gaslighting' became popular in regard to big lies and mass manipulation of Trump. The lies so big and mind bending that even defies the basic tenets of objective reality. Various commentators attribute the Pathocratic character of Trump to his gaslighting. But big lies and mind bending propaganda is not an invention of Trump. It existed long before and it's an endemic feature of American system. Recall that i emphasized that we need a holistic view of system, not just individual leaders.

When truth is covered up by institutionalized lies, the political elites get the impression that they control the reality. But the people who are victims of the system know some of the truth, even if not the full extent of it. To fight long wars, thousands of average Americans are sent overseas. Some do not return, some return scarred both physically & psychologically. Many of them start to question the validity of those wars. When people lose job & couldn't find it for long time while their homes are foreclosed and their savings wipe out, they wonder why government is not providing economic security. And when government rescues Wall Street by Trillions of bailouts while average people get bankrupted, people start to realize the real masters of political system. All this creates conscious and subconscious populist anger which is ready to be exploited.

In comes Trump with mystical slogans - "American dream is dead", "Make America great again", "Deep state" and immediately strikes a chord with public because he unlocks the conscious and subconscious populist anger and desperation of masses. Here, Dr Bandy Lee's thesis covers the ground how Trump phenomenon capitalizes on populist discontent, anger and desperation.

The rise of 'Alternate facts', conspiracy theorists and cultic social groups

When there is demand, the supply appears. The mainstream media had been peddling conventional wisdom on politics, wars, financial crisis, bailouts, foreign policy etc all these years. While many people are hooked onto mainstream media, a sizable section of public started diverging from it because it made lesser and lesser sense to them. To meet the demand of public filled with discontent, anger and anti-government sentiments, the 'conspiracy theorists' entered the market. These conspiracy theorists themselves were half deranged people who presented themselves as 'truthers'. 

The mainstream media would not give platform to these 'truthers' in early days. But thanks to emergence of internet and social media, the 'truthers' can reach their audience bypassing the mainstream media. The 'truthers' came in all variety with theories on 911 attacks, Vaccines, Fluoride, QAnon, Secret societies, mass shootings, birthers etc. Building large cult like groups of followers, the 'truthers' spread their disinformation, actually mental illness to whole group. Here again, thesis of Dr Bandy Lee is helpful to understand mass psychosis and contagion of mental illness symptoms among people. Outrageous lies, irrational thoughts travel much faster in vulnerable population than objective truth and logical reasoning. Here it is important to note that the institutionalized lies built by the government created the fertile ground for 'Alternate facts', a situation which 'truthers' exploited masterfully. 

The cults of conspiracy theorists began to assemble on internet and social media platforms. The social media platforms are owned by tech brothers who enabled these cults because of two reasons. First it was profitable for their cloud capital as more & more people flocked on their platforms. Second, the tech brothers were themselves half deranged people - Anarcho-capitalists, Libertarians and anti-government by nature (think of Elon Musk). All these truthers and their cult following grew larger and once again, when there is demand, the supply appears. The mainstream politicians didn't attract the populist appeal of these discontent, extremist and anti-government voters. So new breed of politicians emerged to capitalize on these truthers and building it into their fiefs. The Libertarians, the tea party caucus and later the freedom caucus etc emerged to capture the populist appeal of truthers and their cults. With these new breeds of politicians in Congress & Senate, there however was missing of a central figure to consolidate everything.

Thus the stage was set for Trump even before he arrived in politics. The voters with populist discontent and anger, the truthers, the anti-government sentiments were still a disoriented force until Trump arrived on the scene and collectivized this populist anger into MAGA movement. The MAGA was not a new voter set but actually the collection of previous disgruntled electorate that came from both left and right. Trump's political theme is nothing new but collection of old themes (southern strategy, rube bait issues, anti-establishment movements) reinvigorated by strongman chauvinism and Fascistic mysticism.