Trump as Mother Hen
Has anyone else noted how maternal the Trump message has become?
I cannot remember which particular rally it was (it literally doesn’t even matter) but the tone and thrust is almost identical from any other moment in which his mouth opened and throngs of credulous human beings inexplicably applauded.
1. Suggest vague problem. Eg. Unemployment, general societal malaise, immigration, dearth of hairspray.
2. Attack current administration. No specifics. Add ‘facts’. No one pays attention to fact-checkers anyway. Appeal to general feelings of torpor that come with being the minority party.
3. Suggest a solution that even Luntz focus-groups suppress because it comes out all ‘Nazi-y’.
4. Receive applause.
5. Suggest that things will become even worse due to the current PC climate, which ignores your inherently backward-ass worldview.
6. Repeat a well-worn phrase which uses fear as a multiplier and will solve the issue, and all issues, once and for all while using reassuring language which resembles in force the words that encourage using potty.
i.e. ‘They are overrunning us right now, but Mummy will build a Wall, okay baby, and don’t you doubt it for a second, honey. It’ll be so tall, you shouldn’t even worry about it. Just keep loving me and it’ll be alright.’
It’s interesting that the Wall is something Trump returns to after he goes off on a tangent and loses the crowd. It tends to wake them up. It brings them right back (even as the curious but undedicated seem to drift away mid-speech).
The tone is always bombastic, but at base it is weirdly maternal : ‘I won’t ever let them hurt you’ while ramping up the threat of whatever doesn’t smell like Mummy-Dearest.
This is a case of a strangely damaged but highly successful individual using public notoriety to advance his own personal goal of not feeling, for once, like the low-stamina loser he is.