Trump masters 'horror politics' after hiring spree of 'human psychology' experts: analyst
Former President Donald Trump is trying to figure out how to motivate his supporters to the polls this fall, wrote Chauncey DeVega for Salon on Friday — and to do that he is trying to horrify them.
"The consultants and strategists who are using fear and horror to mobilize and engage Donald Trump’s followers (and to demobilize and exhaust those Americans who oppose the corrupt ex-president and the fascist MAGA movement) appear to possess an expert understanding of human psychology," wrote DeVega.
Specifically, they are trying to terrify Trump voters by telling them everything is at stake — without making them feel hopeless and powerless. But more than that, they want Trump's supporters radicalized and capable of violence, DeVega wrote.
One example of the "horror politics" is a new Trump email to supporters invoking his criminal hush money trial in Manhattan.
"GIVE ME LIBERTY OR GIVE ME DEATH!" it was headed, quoting Founding Father Patrick Henry. "I’ve been stripped of my constitutional rights. I’ve been forced to sit fully gagged while Biden’s cronies spread vicious lies. I’ve even been threatened with JAIL if I don’t bow down to the AMERICA-HATING leftists." It concludes by calling for supporters to "send the radical left Democrats a powerful message that WE WILL NEVER SURRENDER!"
"The purpose of Trump’s emails and other incendiary language is to further radicalize his MAGA people into committing violence because they have been told that they are supposedly facing an existential threat from their imagined 'enemies' in the Democratic Party," DeVega wrote.
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"Moreover, Trump’s lies that he is being 'ripped to shreds' and basically held hostage as he is 'gagged' and that the 'left' and 'The Democrats' are 'depraved savages' is a type of projection and promise of what he and his forces will do to his and their perceived enemies if wins the 2024 election.
His use of 'depraved savages' is thinly veiled code for the Black prosecutors, like Fulton County DA Fani Willis and Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg, who are trying to hold Trump accountable."
Trump and his strategists "know that frightened and terrified people are capable of doing very horrible things – and they are willing to do everything in their power to encourage such an outcome here," DeVega concluded darkly.