re: #59 ObserverArt

Sasse’s remarks demonstrate exactly why Trump has been able to seize the electorate.

To ding Trump, Sasse has to create a fictive narrative of evil liberal abuse of power by Obama. For his audience to accept Sasse’s critique as useful and powerful, they have to not verify whether his allusion is grounded in reality. So the assessment actually reduces to—Obama bad! Be scared! Trump bad like Obama! Be scared!

This is how we ended up with such a nakedly deceptive, melodramatic candidate dominating the GOP. The audience is already used to heightened emotional performance and pre-established characterization tropes. They’ve already been taught that most sources of skepticism are poisoned wells, and “Truth” emanates from a small set of key figures…who do not have to actually prove their statements.