Trump feeds fans diet of fear

Many people don’t understand how someone with anti-democratic tendencies, who is a proven liar, has been found liable for rape and guilty of 34 felonies, is fit to hold the highest office in the land. Psychology can provide us with some incite.

Donald Trump’s rallies are designed to instill anger and appeal to emotion. They are meant to get his followers to see the world from his point of view, where facts are irrelevant. They are also meant to instill fear — fear of a malicious enemy, societal decline, and invading criminals “poisoning” our blood.

These were the same tactics used by Hitler and Mussolini to create racial panic and cultural resentment, allowing them to get an iron grip on their supporters. Historian Ruth Ben Ghiat wrote, “The main goals of his campaign events are not to advance policy proposals but to prop up his personality cult, circulate his lies, and emotionally retrain Americans to see violence as positive and even patriotic.”

Psychologist Bob Altemeyer has written that a substantial number of Trump followers are “submissive, fearful and longing for a powerful leader that will protect them from life’s threats.” They tend to like people who look like them, talk big, and tell us our problems are simple and easy to solve, even when they are not.

They are hooked. And to paraphrase Carl Sagan, once you have been hoodwinked long enough, you tend to reject any evidence of being bamboozled. It’s too painful to acknowledge that we have been taken.