While his performance at the White House is a chaotic mess that is destined to collapse, Trump knows a few things about group psychology.

Like the ‘summarised’ and generic nature of human emotion expressed in a crowd. Groups can’t express subtlety of feeling and only the evoking of the raw manifestation of euphoria, anger and fear at their extremes are accessible to the demagogue…

Trump’s instincts are to ‘change gears’ and ‘hit the road’ on a ‘rally’ to ‘campaign’ among Americans (as if the election never happened) who are confused and angry at their sense of economic loss and to promise them ‘unmitigated economic gain’ within an impossibly short timeframe…

And why? The obvious reason... It sends an impression to the political ‘resistance’ that ‘the people’ are on his side…

Trump knows there’s only one thing more dangerous than a frightened and angry crowd – An ‘armed’ frightened and angry crowd, in this case armed with an extreme sense of desperation and righteous indignation…

Because people, so motivated, will cling to anything that appears to offer hope, even a 'Big Lie' or a Presidential ‘sinking ship’.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/17/us/politics/trump-boeing-south-carolina-rally.html

Sadly, Trump has exposed that a great number of people are actually very, very stupid. Currently they are still the minority but a very large one. Trump has 38% support still which in political terms is astonishingly low and a massive repudiation of his presidency. But an more disturbing questionis how someone with such chaos and incompetence and who lies repeatedely and unahamedly can still garner 38%.

His polls should be 3%.

longweekend58 wrote on Feb 18^th, 2017 at 2:30pm:

Sadly, Trump has exposed that a great number of people are actually very, very stupid.

Entities like 'the crowd' are by necessity stupid as they can express only base emotions...

Charles Bukowski put it well

[olist]The Genius Of The Crowd

there is enough treachery, hatred violence absurdity in the average
human being to supply any given army on any given day

and the best at murder are those who preach against it
and the best at hate are those who preach love
and the best at war finally are those who preach peace

those who preach god, need god
those who preach peace do not have peace
those who preach love do not have love

beware the preachers
beware the knowers
beware those who are always reading books
beware those who either detest poverty
or are proud of it
beware those quick to praise
for they need praise in return
beware those who are quick to censor
they are afraid of what they do not know
beware those who seek constant crowds for
they are nothing alone
beware the average man the average woman
beware their love, their love is average
seeks average

but there is genius in their hatred
there is enough genius in their hatred to kill you
to kill anybody
not wanting solitude
not understanding solitude
they will attempt to destroy anything
that differs from their own
not being able to create art
they will not understand art
they will consider their failure as creators
only as a failure of the world
not being able to love fully
they will believe your love incomplete
and then they will hate you
and their hatred will be perfect

like a shining diamond
like a knife
like a mountain
like a tiger
like hemlock

their finest art
[/olist]

Two speeds, zero and full reverse.

Quote:

beware the preachers beware the knowers beware those who are always reading books

beware aquascoot!  ;D ;D ;D