Thread by @doctorow

Trump lacks the attention-span to be a fascist. As @mtaibbi writes, "He might not have a moral problem with it, but two minutes into the plan he’d leave the room, phone in hand, to throw on a robe and watch himself on Fox and Friends."

taibbi.substack.com/p/the-trump-er…

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So what is Trump? A salesman. To understand him, don't read IT CAN HAPPEN HERE, read Cialdini's PRE-SUASION and learn how salesmen manipulate their marks.

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Taibbi: "Moreover he’s not just any salesman; he might be the greatest salesman ever, considering the quality of the product, i.e. himself."

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Here's a classic sales-tactic Trump deploys, as laid out in Brian Tracy's "The Psychology of Selling": promise incredible change to hook the customer, then, once they're on the hook, dial back the deliverables to something that you can actually deliver.

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Think of how Trump reels in "nativist loons and rage cases with his opening rants about walls and mass deportations, then slowly clawed his numbers up with the rest of the party with his 'softening' routine. "

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"Each demographic probably came away convinced he was lying to the other, while the truth was probably more that he was lying to all of them."

The lies aren't inconsequential, but they're also not reflective of any kind of ideology - rather, they're immoral sales-gabble.

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Trump-the-seller has much more explanatory power than Trump-the-fascist - and it also explains how salesmanship without any ethics or morals turns into fascism.

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The problem is, we're buying what he's selling (himself), by turning every distracting, incoherent action into an existential threat and a major news cycle (some of what he does qualifies, but not all of it).

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"His schtick is to provoke rivals to the point where they drop what they’re doing and spend their time screaming at him, which from the jump validates the primary tenet of his worldview, i.e. that everything is about him."

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"Life under Trump has been like an endless Twitter war: infuriating, depressing, filling us all with self-loathing, but also addictive. He is selling an experience that everyone is buying, even the people who think they oppose him the most."

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Taibbi isn't asking us to stop addressing Trump, but he wants us to focus on substance (which is something I'd also welcome from Biden - I know what he's against, but there's a bunch of things I'd like him to be FOR).

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"Trump has made us all crazy, and it’s time for the show to be over. We deserve slow news days again." -Taibbi

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Kpahor (modified)
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