What is the appeal of Donald Trump?

People may ask, “Why is Donald Trump worshipped by so many people, given all his terrible traits?

Every time he is indicted for a crime, his followers seem to love him more. Why is that?

The answer is right in front of our noses.

First, the source of their bewilderment is the man himself. He is a psychopath — or, more correctly, a person with antisocial personality disorder (ASPD).

He meets all 20 criteria from the old  Robert Hare Checklist of Psychopathy Symptoms. Used by many psychiatrists to evaluate patients.

More recent (and quite similar) criteria are:

• behavior that conflicts with social norms
• disregarding or violating the rights of others
• inability to distinguish between right and wrong

• difficulty with showing remorse or empathy
• tendency to lie often
• manipulating and hurting others
• recurring problems with the law
• general disregard toward safety and responsibility
• expressing anger and arrogance regularly
• tendency to engage in reckless, impulsive behavior that may have harmful consequences.

Here is a politician who:

• is a draft dodger, lying about “heel spurs” to avoid military service while ostentatiously hugging the American flag
• said that soldiers who gave their lives for America were “suckers.”
• insulted the gold star family of one such soldier
• cheated on three wives and divorced two of them
• sexually attacked women and boasted about it
• cheated thousands of students at Trump “University” (that wasn’t a university)
• cheated on his income taxes with Trump Foundation.
• claimed that COVID was “like the common cold that would just go away” (costing hundreds of thousands of Americans their lives)
• promoted GOYA products in violation of federal law
• caused the Secret Service to stay at his hotels at inflated prices
• Cheated undocumented alien workers tearing down the Bonwit Teller building
• Repeatedly fined millions in total for misdeeds regarding his ownership of gambling casinos
• could have ended the coup attempt, but chose to let it continue, in hopes it would succeed.

• was a nepotist who hired inexperienced family members to do critical political jobs
• denied the election results that were verified in 50 court proceedings, many by judges he appointed
• is a traitor who fomented an attempted coup to overturn the election results and continues to broadcast the lie that the election was dishonest
• associated with, and gave pardons to, a vast number of criminals
• Lied more than 30,000 times during his Presidency — more than twenty-one times a day

And other scandals, any one of which would have derailed the political fortunes of most candidates.

Trump has no morals, no conscience, no feelings of guilt, and no care for anyone but himself — the perfect psychopath.

Psychopaths are difficult for ordinary people to understand. They say and do things at which an intelligent person only can shake his head in wonderment, not believing someone could be so alien.

Why, then, are so many enraptured with him? Why does he draw crowds to his speeches, the size of which he falsely but routinely inflates? The answer: He appeals to three groups of people

1. The rich and powerful who benefit from the laws he passed as President
2. The people who wish to emulate the rich, notably the men who admire Trump’s overbearing misogyny.
3. The bigots and haters, the largest group.

Contrary to our preferred self-portrait, America (and indeed most nations) long has been home to bigots and haters.

The Jews and blacks have been the scapegoats for all that is wrong at any given time. There have been periods when the Irish were demonized, the Italians, the Japanese, the Chinese, et al.

Trump recognized that the two most potent and lasting human emotions are hatred and fear, each being a function of the other.

Hatred comes from fear. Fear comes from hatred. Trump stokes both.

He feeds the fear and hatred of immigrants and Latins in particular, all people of color, gays, Muslims, Chinese, Hillary Clinton, the FBI, the “deep state” (whoever that may be), non-Christians, the media (except the pro-Trump media).

In short, Trump appeals to weak-minded bigots who believe he will protect them from the people they fear and despise. And Trump has made the entire spineless Republican Party complicit in his fear/hate agenda.

Today’s anti-“woke” efforts by such hate-mongers as Ron DeSantis and Tucker Carlson constitute efforts to instill fear in the minds of the uneducated or bigoted that, in some never explained way, gay people will convert your children into being gay — but Trump, DeSantis, et al. will protect you.

Similarly, Trump instills fear of Mexican “rapists,” Muslim “terrorists,” and the undefined “deep state” that helped “steal” the election.

He tells his followers the Chinese, blacks, and women take jobs and college spots from white men, and they “unfairly” receive benefits from the government.

By preying on the hatred and ignorance of the bigoted parts of the middle and lower classes, Trump builds a compliant following whose fears keep them loyal despite any wrong Trump commits.

Those fears also demand that they carry guns everywhere to protect themselves from blacks they despise, which is why the Republican party refuses to consider even the most minor, benign gun control laws.

It also is why the right-wing Supreme Court incorrectly omits the first 13 words of the 2nd Amendment as having no meaning whatsoever.

(Meanwhile, the conservative justices who portray themselves as originalists discount that the framers originally thought “arms” were muzzle-loaded muskets and flintlock pistols. If those original weapons still were the weapons of choice, we would have virtually no mass killings.)

Trump’s border wall entreaty is the pitch-perfect result of his warnings about menacing hordes of Mexican rapists and criminals invading our white land.

Three groups — the rich, admirers of the rich, and the ignorant, fearful bigots — form Trump’s base. It is a base not just immune to reason, but rejecting any facts that do not support what their savior tells them.

That concrete mindset is why ridiculous conspiracy theories emanating from such as QAnon, Tucker Carlson, the rest of the Fox News gang, Breitbart, Alex Jones, Glen Beck, along with the Holocaust deniers, the anti-vaxers, and others of that ilk can find welcome in Trump’s party.

That third group, the ignorant, fearful, hate-mongering bigots, comprise much of the uber-religious who follow the dogma of their religion, no matter how unfactual, unscientific, and unbelievable it may be.

In every sense, they are cult followers who cannot bring themselves to resist the siren song of the dictator. They are the fanatics, the true believers in Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, Jim Jones, Luc Jouret, Marshall Applewhite, David Koresh — and Donald Trump.

Nothing can change their minds. They react to any counter-evidence, not just with disbelief but with fury.

Go on any Trumpist website and mention any fact unfavorable to Trump, and you will be met with a vitriol usually reserved for the most despicable among us.

Yes, Trump indeed can shoot someone on 5th Ave. and not lose any followers. He was right about that.

We only can be thankful that Donald Trump is one of the less intelligent cult leaders, so he repeatedly talks his way into criminal prosecutions that may dull his image among those not wholly hypnotized.

Finally, in the unlikely event you are a Trump follower and have read this far in the article, which are you, a rich or admirer of the rich, or a hating, fearing bigot?

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell

Monetary Sovereignty

Twitter: @rodgermitchell Search #monetarysovereignty Facebook: Rodger Malcolm Mitchell

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The Sole Purpose of Government Is to Improve and Protect the Lives of the People.

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