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Donald Trump is transparently venal, corrupt, narcissistic, and one of the world's most obvious liars. Nobody lies more blatantly than he.
And yet, tens of millions of people loyally hang on his every absurd statement, ignoring the contradictions from one breath to the next, as if they're playing Simon Says with him and the object is to just follow along with every silly movement.
Even when Trump directly attacks their own self-interests, these people are benumbed to that fact by the narcotic effect Trump's outré personality has on them.
All he has to do is tweet some balderdash or bloviate some bullshit, and they remain loyal to him, even adoring.
Two examples of this phenomenon were evident on May 14th, 2019.
This morning on the U.S.-Government-created ratio network NPR, the morning "news" show, "Morning Edition, had on the Republican governor of Nebraska, who defended Trump's instigation of a trade war with China, even though it has badly damaged the economic interests of farmers in his state. He said "we" had to hang tough and see it through and he had total faith in Trump.
Now, he wouldn't be taking this position if the voters in his state had turned against Trump. This guy wants to keep getting elected to his cushy job with great medical insurance and pension benefits, which he can use as a springboard to run for the U.S. senate, or hop to a well-paid job as a lobbyist making sure state laws are written for the benefit of specific business interests.
Agriculture is the bread and butter of Nebraska. Apparently the majority of voters there are willing to suffer at Trump's hands, rather like sitting passively in the dentist's chair and enduring the pain.
These are the same people who hate Democrats for trying to give them social programs that would benefit them.
However it must be mentioned that Trump handed farmers affected by the trade war with China a government handout on top of the handouts they already get. (For some reason this isn't "welfare.") Soybean farmers were targeted for handouts.
Nebraska Governor Peter Ricketts, A Proud Trump Supporter
The second example today was the behavior of the speculators and traders to cause the daily gyrations of the stock market (they're mislabeled "investors" in the capitalist media, even though investing is not what they do).
Last week U.S. stock markets gyrated and couldn't seem to decide whether to take seriously the Trump threat to impose 25% tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese imports to the U.S., on top of the previous 10% duty on other goods. On some days stocks would plunge and then recoup the losses on the same day. When the tariffs were imposed as stated they would be, overnight Thursday-Friday, stocks fell on Friday but not too much. Apparently the speculators were waiting to see if Trump would pull a rabbit out of his hat or if a trade deal would magically materialize over the weekend despite the impasse over fundamental issues dividing China and the U.S. that clearly won't be resolved quickly. (Especially since the reason for the new tariffs was the U.S. claim that China had backtracked on already agreed to measures.)
The new week started with China imposing retaliatory tariffs, throwing the speculators into a tizzy.
So the stock traders went into a panic on Monday May 13, and market averages fell by 2.4% to 3.4%, their worst decline in four months.
Tuesday morning (May 14), Trump blasted out a flurry of tweets designed to turn around the psychology of the speculators. And he made this pronouncement: The trade war with China was a mere bagatelle, just "we're having a little squabble with China because we've been treated very unfairly" and "we're winning it." (Of course. Trump always wins, remember? The four time bankrupt who's lost billions and had to settle suits over his fraudulent "university" for $25 million is always a winner.)
Well that did the trick. U.S. stocks zoomed up on the open and closed with significant gains of about 1%, although they didn't hold the highs of the day which were up about 1.5%.
So all Trump had to do was call a trade war between the world's two largest economies "a little squabble" and that was enough to reignite giddy optimism.
You see what I mean by "cretins"?
Wednesday May 15 stock markets in Europe and the U.S. weren't sure which way to go so they went both ways, down AND up during trading hours.
Given the manic-depressive nature of those who create the daily swings in stocks, there's no predicting what their collective mood will be tomorrow.
The Irresistible Pied-Piper!
And yet, tens of millions of people loyally hang on his every absurd statement, ignoring the contradictions from one breath to the next, as if they're playing Simon Says with him and the object is to just follow along with every silly movement.
Even when Trump directly attacks their own self-interests, these people are benumbed to that fact by the narcotic effect Trump's outré personality has on them.
All he has to do is tweet some balderdash or bloviate some bullshit, and they remain loyal to him, even adoring.
Two examples of this phenomenon were evident on May 14th, 2019.
This morning on the U.S.-Government-created ratio network NPR, the morning "news" show, "Morning Edition, had on the Republican governor of Nebraska, who defended Trump's instigation of a trade war with China, even though it has badly damaged the economic interests of farmers in his state. He said "we" had to hang tough and see it through and he had total faith in Trump.
Now, he wouldn't be taking this position if the voters in his state had turned against Trump. This guy wants to keep getting elected to his cushy job with great medical insurance and pension benefits, which he can use as a springboard to run for the U.S. senate, or hop to a well-paid job as a lobbyist making sure state laws are written for the benefit of specific business interests.
Agriculture is the bread and butter of Nebraska. Apparently the majority of voters there are willing to suffer at Trump's hands, rather like sitting passively in the dentist's chair and enduring the pain.
These are the same people who hate Democrats for trying to give them social programs that would benefit them.
However it must be mentioned that Trump handed farmers affected by the trade war with China a government handout on top of the handouts they already get. (For some reason this isn't "welfare.") Soybean farmers were targeted for handouts.
The second example today was the behavior of the speculators and traders to cause the daily gyrations of the stock market (they're mislabeled "investors" in the capitalist media, even though investing is not what they do).
Last week U.S. stock markets gyrated and couldn't seem to decide whether to take seriously the Trump threat to impose 25% tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese imports to the U.S., on top of the previous 10% duty on other goods. On some days stocks would plunge and then recoup the losses on the same day. When the tariffs were imposed as stated they would be, overnight Thursday-Friday, stocks fell on Friday but not too much. Apparently the speculators were waiting to see if Trump would pull a rabbit out of his hat or if a trade deal would magically materialize over the weekend despite the impasse over fundamental issues dividing China and the U.S. that clearly won't be resolved quickly. (Especially since the reason for the new tariffs was the U.S. claim that China had backtracked on already agreed to measures.)
The new week started with China imposing retaliatory tariffs, throwing the speculators into a tizzy.
So the stock traders went into a panic on Monday May 13, and market averages fell by 2.4% to 3.4%, their worst decline in four months.
Tuesday morning (May 14), Trump blasted out a flurry of tweets designed to turn around the psychology of the speculators. And he made this pronouncement: The trade war with China was a mere bagatelle, just "we're having a little squabble with China because we've been treated very unfairly" and "we're winning it." (Of course. Trump always wins, remember? The four time bankrupt who's lost billions and had to settle suits over his fraudulent "university" for $25 million is always a winner.)
Well that did the trick. U.S. stocks zoomed up on the open and closed with significant gains of about 1%, although they didn't hold the highs of the day which were up about 1.5%.
So all Trump had to do was call a trade war between the world's two largest economies "a little squabble" and that was enough to reignite giddy optimism.
You see what I mean by "cretins"?
Wednesday May 15 stock markets in Europe and the U.S. weren't sure which way to go so they went both ways, down AND up during trading hours.
Given the manic-depressive nature of those who create the daily swings in stocks, there's no predicting what their collective mood will be tomorrow.
The Irresistible Pied-Piper!
He who knows how to manipulate cretins, knows how to rule.
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