Thread by @JYSexton

All right.

Today, we need to talk about Trump's "New Tone," his refusal to deal with the pandemic, and how his history with a strange philosophy called "Positive Thinking" led to unbelievable suffering.

Here's what I learned writing AMERICAN RULE.

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penguinrandomhouse.com/books/611439/a…

For those who haven't seen it, the Washington Post featured a story that Trump only took the coronavirus seriously once he heard his voters were dying.

We need to talk about his bizarre worldview and how it has exacerbated the pandemic.

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themuckrake.com/main/ourpeople

Let's get something very clear. Trump is an authoritarian, and it's his nature to make crises worse and then scapegoat others for his failures.

This warped mindset, in Trump's case, can be traced back to his following the philosophy of a man named Vincent Norman Peale.

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Though Trump is not religious, he spent much of his life learning from a prosperity gospel guru named Norman Vincent Peale, a member of what I've come to call The Cult of the Shining City.

Trump even had Peale officiate his wedding.

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Peale's "gospel" was sanctimonious, and claimed that success and wealth were markers of "God's will," meaning the almighty handed down riches and power as blessings.

It was self-help/capitalist propaganda masquerading as religious dogma.

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The Power of Positive Thinking was his bestselling tome and urged followers to never give in to negative thoughts. Those thoughts would displease God and possibly cost you fortunes and vast power.

Trump believed in this idea and shaped his entire life around it.

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Guided by Peale's teachings, Trump hid his most shameful parts, denied them, and insisted he was a self-made man despite starting with his father's financial support and squandering those fortunes with reckless abandon.

He was a total failure, but refused to believe it.

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Trump relentlessly presented himself to the world as a financial success, a golden god of American exceptionalism. He surrounded himself with gold, with the markers of conspicuous consumption, all to project an image of infallibility and power.

But he failed. At everything.

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In one venture after another, Trump simply could not succeed, even in casinos, where it was almost impossible to fail.

After one failure after another, he was held up by banks who used his illusion of celebrity, meaning he became rich and famous for SEEMING rich and famous.

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Trump's denial of reality in favor of "Positive Thinking" was on full-display with the stupid inauguration fights.

He could not believe the reality that his crowd was smaller, that he wasn't the most popular figure ever. Peale's philosophy demanded it.

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Tragically, Trump's obsession with "positive thinking" has led to so many preventable deaths, economic ruin, and untold suffering.

He has been incapable of grasping exactly what's happening as he is lost in his own narcissistic reality.

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It began with the idea that coronavirus was a "hysteria," or a "hoax," an idea Trump passed onto the Right Wing media.

It simply couldn't be THAT bad. It couldn't affect America THAT MUCH. It was all something to hurt Trump, this drummed up panic.

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Keeping with Peale's idea that God helped those who believed in themselves, Trump tried to sell the idea of a "miracle" end to the disease.

That it might just...disappear. As if he was being helped from above, because the universe was always, always, ALWAYS on his side.

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Of course, there was hydroxychloroquine, another miracle that might take down the pandemic simply because Trump wanted it to.

It distracted from the problem of the pandemic while also providing a miracle that might help Trump.

Again, the universe smiling upon him.

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Meanwhile, wealthy and powerful people like Betsy DeVos paid for fake "protests and movements" to change the conversation, to push Americans back to work.

Trump looked at this and saw his "people" with him, even as it was obviously a complete forgery.

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The Trump Administration has continually lied about the pandemic, giving briefings and writing op-eds that there would be no "second wave" and that everything was under control, even as it ravaged the country.

There's no telling how many lives could've been saved.

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While Americans suffered, Trump pushed and pushed and pushed for the economy to reopen.

The idea was that if the numbers went up he'd possibly win reelection. And in his warped view, because of his past, Trump believed what was good for him was good for the country.

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But it took a toll. Even as Trump believed he was up in every poll, that he was almost universally popular, that he'd done everything possible to protect the country, the numbers kept dropping, the rally was empty, the walls were closing in.

Like always. He had failed.

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This "new tone" is an act. Another illusion by a broken man willing to do anything, say anything, and sacrifice anyone if it means getting what he wants.

At this point, faced with an electoral loss and public humiliation, and possible prosecution, it's just another gamble.

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Again. For those who don't understand yet.

The Trump Administration has no intention to save lives. They're not patriotic, nor do they feel duty.

They're there to dismantle government as an organ of public good and expedite profit, power, and corruption.

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The things Trump has sold his followers aren't real.

He never intended to build a wall.

It was a product he would never roll out, an article of faith, something to conjure support while continuing to build his own power and his own empire.

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Trump has no intention of "draining the swamp."

Who do you think filled it in the first place? People like Trump obsessed with personal profit and power.

It was a metaphor, a product, an illusion, a lie.

It's always been about him. That's it. That's all.

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The only thing Trump has tried to do is dismantle government as a public good. He's slashed regulations, made the air poisonous, the water worse, our future disposable and commodifiable.

This is a long con and our lives have never factored into it. Not once.

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What we're watching is a narcissist infected with magical thinking realize he has, ONCE AGAIN, failed spectacularly.

He's not interested in saving lives, only in continuing to worship himself. He'll sell a product in the meantime, but it's not real.

It's never been real.

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