Trump’s Assault on Reality
- At December 01, 2016
- By drynick
- In Reflections
0
Steve Jobs was able to make Apple into a creative, technological and commercial juggernaut because of his capacity to create a ‘reality distortion field’ around him. All leaders do this to some degree—they present a vision of how things could be and inspire their followers to join in to bring this vision into being.
But with our President-elect, we have a different and darker kind of ‘reality distortion field.’ As Ned Resnikoff writes in his brilliant essay “Trump’s lies have a purpose. They are an assault on democracy,”* Trump’s intention is a reality disruption field. Resnikoff describes Trump’s technique like this:
“He says or tweets things on the record and then denies having ever said them. He contradicts documented fact and then disregards anyone who points out the inaccuracies. He even lies when he has no discernible reason to do so — and then turns around and tells another lie that flies in the face of the previous one.”
The cumulative effect is that we become disoriented. Like a slight-of-hand magician who picks your pocket by directing your attention elsewhere, Trumps outbursts on Twitter divert our attention from what he does not want us to see. His tweets about the Hamilton cast overshadowed the real newsworthy action of his settling of the class action suit against the troubled and duplicitous Trump University.
Resnikoff says that whether Trump is doing this consciously or not, his campaign certainly knows what it’s doing. He offers a chilling quote from Steve Bannon, now our Chief White House Strategist: “Darkness is good. Dick Cheney. Darth Vader. Satan. That’s power,” he said.“It only helps us when they get it wrong. When they’re blind to who we are and what we’re doing.”
In the end, whether Trump’s strategy is merely the confluence of unbridled narcissism and overwhelming libido or the product of a brilliant and dark mind, we need to take him very seriously. As Resnikoff points out, the threat is not just in the realm of policies and actions, but the very process of democratic governance itself.
Follow David!