Now isn’t the time to ignore Donald Trump.

Especially the rising rhetoric at his hate-filled rallies as we head to the midterms.

Of course, we’d rather turn away. We’d rather mock Trump and his followers as ignorant and stupid. But mockery and laughter won’t save us from the fresh hell unleashed if Trump’s Republican-fascist movement wins the midterms, and quite possibly the presidential election two years after that.

Trump’s rallies are increasingly amplifying his white supremacist race-war fantasies and fears that white people somehow face extinction at the hands of Black or brown invaders. The lie that he’s still the real president of the United States is now fused with white identity politics and grievance baiting.

Psychological warfare

His rallies are a master class in cult behavior, mind control, right-wing propaganda, treacherous disinformation, and psychological warfare. We should be consistently warning everyone about the grave danger this represents.

Trump keeps his followers in thrall by creating fantastical threats from evil forces in the outside world. In this type of psychological conditioning, he becomes the one and only savior figure for the followers who must never challenge or question his word.

Trump is also using Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels’ technique of the big lie by accusing the Democrats and all others who disagree with him of the crimes against society and democracy that he and his movement have actually committed. Humane values, reason and truth are rejected or inverted, to be replaced by their opposites.

Waiting for a sign

Many of Trump’s followers and the other members of the neofascist right are ready to kill, and perhaps to die, for their cause and their leader. They’re waiting and praying for a sign.

Research commissioned by The New Republic shows the extent of the danger. More than fifty percent of Republicans now believe that the January 6 insurrection and attack on the Capitol was an ‘act of patriotism’.

The majority of Republicans now believe the lie.

References

“Trump's latest hate rally: A master class in cult mind control” Salon (2022)

“TNR Poll: Americans agree democracy is doomed” The New Republic (2022)