re: #326 Citizen K

I think my main problem is that Trump, whether you see him as dumb or a very skilled conman, wouldn’t have gotten as far as he had without a structure that rewarded him for his bullshit even when it was clear that it was bullshit. The difference in coverage between Trump’s chicken eating habits and Gillenbrand’s is key: Trump has been inoculated by enablers all his life. And now he’s stumbled into the biggest enablist structure in the history of the country: the Republican Party.

This is true. I don’t see any particular ability that Trump has to misdirect or exploit weakness. His lies are blindingly obvious, his repetitions banal, and his ability to exploit weakness is hardly Machiavellian - it’s nothing more than blunt threats that he lacks the courage to follow through on. None of this reflects any particular ability on his part. He is where he is because he is enabled and protected - by Republicans, by the entirety of the US media, by foreign agents, and most of all by the hordes of white people who desperately want someone to say all the evil things they think out loud.

Underestimating him will not lead to his second term. What will lead to his second term is the US media and cultural ecosystem that wants the worst possible white man to do the worst possible things.