Watching A Trump Rally Is To Witness The Prey Wildly Cheering On The Predator

All his adult life Donald J. Trump has been a ruthless con man / predator, a back stabbing son of a bitch who sooner or later shafts those who come into his orbit. So what is it with these seemingly mindless fanatic supporters who see Trump not as their predator but rather as a force of their salvation?

Of course there is absolutely no logic to any of it. Yet, these folks in general aren’t stupid. They know Trump is a chronic liar and consummate bad guy. So what gives here?

I will try to explain this strange human phenomenon with an extensive quote from the late Eric Hoffer as stated in his little gem of a book, The True Believer. In the following, Hoffer is taking about folks who somehow see their lives as spoiled beyond redemption, and thus they have a desperate need to submerge their existence in a cause, any cause. But mostly a cause built upon hatred.

“It is chiefly the unreasonable hatreds that drives us to merge with those who hate as we do, and it is this kind of hatred that serves as one of the most effective cementing agents….

“That the relationship between grievance and hatred is not simple and direct is also seen from the fact that the released hatred is not always directed against those who wronged us. Often, when we are wronged by one person, we turn our hatred on a wholly unrelated person or group. Russians, bullied by Stalin’s secret police, are easily inflamed against ‘capitalist warmongers’; Germans, aggrieved by the Versailles treaty, avenged themselves by exterminating Jews; Zulus, oppressed by Boers, butcher Hindus; white trash, exploited by Dixiecrats, lynch Negros.

“Self-contempt produces in man ‘the most unjust and criminal passions imaginable, for he conceives a mortal hatred against that truth which blames him and convinces him of his faults.’”

And so when Trump addresses the faithful, he both tells them in one way or the other that they are the salt of the earth, absolving them of their feelings of guilt, while at once directing blame for their failings toward others, like Democrats, Obama, Hilary or Mexicans (got to build that wall folks) and even phantom devils like the “Deep State,” as well as those institutions like the FBI that work hard to protect us night and day from threats foreign and domestic.

That all of this makes no sense to the rest of us is immaterial to Trump’s fanatic followers. His words, if not his deeds, insulate them from their shortcomings, and for them that is all that really matters.

Indeed, Trump is free to prey upon his followers simply because he has numbed them, and also because at heart these are the folks who pray not so much for their daily bread as the do their daily deception, perhaps the only way they can feel good about themselves. Fortunately for charlatans like Trump, between 30 and 40 percent of every nation’s population fits the true believer mindset. It’s why Trump and others like Freedom Caucus members are able to con their way through life in the first place.