How Trump Uses Lies To Win

"By requiring subordinates to speak untruths, a leader can undercut their independent standing, including their standing with the public, with the media and with other members of the administration. That makes those individuals grow more dependent on the leader and less likely to mount independent rebellions against the structure of command. Promoting such chains of lies is a classic tactic when a leader distrusts his subordinates and expects to continue to distrust them in the future.”

(In Hitler’s Germany this was called “working toward the fuhrer.”)

Read the whole story at Bloomberg

"Our brains are particularly ill-equipped to deal with lies when they come not singly but in a constant stream, and Trump, we know, lies constantly, about matters as serious as the election results and as trivial as the tiles at Mar-a-Lago. (According to his butler, Anthony Senecal, Trump once said the tiles in a nursery at the West Palm Beach club had been made by Walt Disney himself; when Senecal protested, Trump had a single response: “Who cares?”) When we are overwhelmed with false, or potentially false, statements, our brains pretty quickly become so overworked that we stop trying to sift through everything. It’s called cognitive load—our limited cognitive resources are overburdened. It doesn’t matter how implausible the statements are; throw out enough of them, and people will inevitably absorb some. Eventually, without quite realizing it, our brains just give up trying to figure out what is true."

Read the entire story at Politico

“Yes, Donald Trump’s politics are incoherent. But those who surround him know just what they want, and his lack of clarity enhances their power. To understand what is coming, we need to understand who they are. I know all too well, because I have spent the past 15 years fighting them.

"Over this time, I have watched as tobacco, coal, oil, chemicals and biotech companies have poured billions of dollars into an international misinformation machine composed of thinktanks, bloggers and fake citizens’ groups. Its purpose is to portray the interests of billionaires as the interests of the common people, to wage war against trade unions and beat down attempts to regulate business and tax the very rich. Now the people who helped run this machine are shaping the government."

Read George Monbiot's essay in The Guardian

"Trump’s rise to power has followed a similar trajectory to that of quacks who peddle panaceas to the desperate—a bizarre and heartbreaking world I’ve long studied. Just like them, Trump will fail to deliver. But his supporters will find a way to exonerate him."

Read about Trump's psychological game at SLATE

“...the worst thing he could do -- and I see this as a real danger -- would be to politicize the agencies that produce government economic data, to put people in place that will skew the numbers in his favor. If that happens, the data will be useless, and we’ll essentially be flying blind when it comes to the true state of the economy."

Read at CBS about how Trump plans to corrupt our information stream

"Newt Gingrich wants to fire federal employees who voted for Clinton "There won’t be any real cooperation until we change federal law so we can fire them”"

At Salon

“Trump says he will pick which journalists will cover him."

From ReutersTV

"Anyone - citizen or journalist - who is surprised by false claims from the new inhabitant of the Oval Office hasn't been paying attention. That was reinforced when Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway told "Meet the Press" Sunday that Spicer had been providing "alternative facts" to what the media had reported, making it clear we've gone full Orwell."

From the Chicago Tribune

"This is how he’s going to chip away at our understanding of what’s right and what’s wrong, what’s real and what’s not. This is even stronger, more powerful gas lighting — making us question our own instincts and even start doing things because we want to fit in with “everyone else” who from what we know, seem to think this is all fine. Trump wants a cheering section at all his press conferences and if you don’t realize that those are not the reporters clapping, it will seriously fuck with you."

Read the entire piece at MEDIUM

"How did Dylann Roof go from being someone who was not raised in a racist home to someone so steeped in white supremacist propaganda that he murdered nine African Americans during a Bible study? The answer lies, at least in part, in the way that fragile minds can be shaped by the algorithm that powers Google Search."

How Dylann Roof was brainwashed by right wing media into a person who'd kill nine churchgoers he had prayed with

"I’m not bragging, it’s a fact, you the audience deserve to know this. Infowars is the main operating system of the rebirth of the American republic, and is a key blueprint worldwide in nation-states launching a new renaissance. I’ve been told that by the president, I’ve been told that by Nigel Farage, on and off air, I have been told that by the top generals, you name it.” ~Alex Jones, the voice of the paranoid Right, host of InfoWars

MediaMatters has the video

"Years of fear mongering, paranoia, and conspiracy theories on Fox News and talk radio paved the way for a Trump presidency. It’s up to journalists to stop that fear from continuing to hijack American politics.” ~MediaMatters

“When you’re a right wing media outlet and you want people to pay attention, what do you do? You scare the shit out of them.” ~MediaMatters

A useful video explains how the right wing has gaslit half of America from MediaMatters

"While no one knows what the new leaders will actually do, there are signs that are disturbing. We have seen the bald assertion of "alternative facts." We have heard the blatant attacks on science. Familiar signposts of our democracy –truth, civility, working together – have been obscured or swept aside.” ~Gov. Jerry Brown of California

MotherJones on Jerry Brown's promise to fight lies with the truth

Donald Trump: How Am I Disgusted? Let Me Count The Ways.

I began reading this New York Times story this morning.

You really should read it now.

It's about Donald Trump and his behaviors around women. He is repellant in so many other ways but this article had me repeatedly washing my hands and stepping outside for air. I had to put the article down. (If you go read the Times story now you can come back to this blog when you have to stop and catch your breath.)

We are not unfamiliar with men in power behaving badly. Trump takes it to a new level. He views women like a judge at a livestock show. There is a sinister eugenic aspect to his creepiness. I might say it's almost Nazi-like but Hitler was so asexual. Trump is more like a buyer in a Roman slave market. A deviant trolling in a black sedan.

Donald Trump is a creep of monumental proportions. We thought he was a weird rich insecure narcissistic bully but there are so many stories that have not been told about him. Why has the news media waited until now? Why have they focused on the laughable, stupid things he says? The funny statements, the funny hair, the funny orange tan, the silly bravado of a phony Romeo on a street corner in Queens. What about his mob connections? What about his multiple bankruptcies? His many shady business deals? What about his behavior toward women, which seems like something out of Saudi Arabia or Hustler magazine?

If reporters ask him a question he can’t answer why don’t they keep asking it? Why do they cave? Why do they cater to his weirdness? Why do they cover up his weirdness and pretend that it is normal? They act as if they need him more than he needs them, which is untrue. Trump craves attention. Journalists should give it to him but if he lies report that he is lying. If he denies the ugly truth report the ugly truth repeatedly until he has to admit it. If Trump runs away and hides report that. Instead the media obeys this man. Which is one reason we have a loathsome human being at the top of a major party ticket. The other reason he is there is the Republican Party has become the party of voters who want a loathsome, weird, rich, insecure, narcissistic bully as president.

Here is a Mother Jones article about how Trump plays the news media.

Another weird thing emerged recently.

Trump is always willing to brag about himself, about his sexual conquests, about his alleged penis size, about his fabulous possessions (material and female), about his money, about the famous people he is pals with, about the important people who “love him” ("The Queen is wonderful! She loves hanging around with me!”) He brags endlessly and unsupportedly about the huge fabulous things he will do, the promises he will get out of the moment he pockets the money. He is a carnival barker. He is the guy bragging about the strippers on the sidewalk outside a topless bar. He is the guy who lies you into buying a junk car. He is the slimy investment shill who calls you uninvited from a call room in Costa Rica. But mostly he is a braggart. His favorite topic is him. Sometimes he prefers to brag about himself in the third person. Maybe he is practicing to be Queen. Accounts have emerged, and recordings, where Trump has pretended to be his own publicist so he can brag about himself without seeming conceited.

Here is the New Yorker article about it. Instead of electing him president maybe we should start discussing which kind of mental ward we should confine him to.