How Did Trump Succeed? He Understood the Passions of the Mob

The Mob Determined the Theme, no, not the Mafia

There has been much discussion of how Trump came out victorious in the election, most have dealt with what people believed Biden, Harris and Democratic Party leaders did wrong. There is nothing wrong with that. Democrats need to take a look at what they did wrong, and not just in the presidential race. However, in most cases, races were close, and even the presidential race was not a blowout in the popular vote, and the electoral college margin, while sizable was not a landslide by any margin. What Democrats need to explore is why millions of people who previously voted for Biden in 2020 and Clinton in 2016 ended up either flipping to Trump or not voting?

The fact is that Democrats as early as 2023 did not understand the unpopularity of Biden, the effect of the nonstop negative corporate media coverage of Biden, and the sane washing of Trump no matter hat he said, did, or babbled. The other thing they did not get was just how well Trump knew to play to the anger, resentment, and sometimes even darker emotions of his original MAGA base, but also former Biden voters, Democrats and others.

What Trump succeeded in doing was in playing to the base emotions of the mob, and I don’t mean organized crime, but the mob of people who are easily persuaded by emotional appeals to how they feel when they feel the government is not working for them or a gap between them and government leaders. Thom Hartmann writes about how beginning with Bill Clinton the Democrats gradually neglected and weakened the support that they traditionally has among working classes, and especially how they cooperated in undermining unions, and things like public health and education.

While Harris campaigned on democracy and freedom, which tend to be somewhat esoteric to people until they lose them, Trump and his propaganda machine, including the right wing media, both television and AM talk-radio, as well as the machinery of the Religious Right campaigned on the price of eggs, and a recovery that did not seem to reach much of the middle class or working poor. In addition they effectively attacked Democratic support of things the Religious Right fears and demonizes; LGBTQ+ people and rights, especially support for Trans people (remember the anti-trans ad directed at Harris?)

They campaigned against abortion rights, even though it enjoys more popular support than ever following the Dobbs decision, and the rollback of abortion rights in many states.

Likewise, Trump, buttressed by Christian Nationalists continued to lock down his support among Evangelical Christians, and traditionalist Roman Catholics by campaigning against the rights of women in general.

Trump understood what Hitler and other authoritarians who had to gain power through democratic institutions did in times of real or perceived social and economic crisis did; he understood how to appeal to mob. I saw this even before Trump won his first primary, and I wrote this on my legacy blog on 10 December, 2015. It was called, The Mob Determined the Theme.

I had readers who did not understand the title and thought I was talking about organized crime, but I was talking about a political mob, as in mob of people not driven by reason but purely motivated by primal hatreds and passions. Think about the Nazi thugs of the 1920s and early 1930s. Back in 2015 I realized what the GOP had become, a den or racist thugs in the thrall of uneducated ideologues like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, pseudo-intellectuals, and unscrupulous young bloggers and propagandists. Meanwhile, the formerly reputable, even if you disagreed with them, bastions of conservative journalism, papers, magazines and journals were now controlled by ruthless ideologues masquerading as journalists. Of course there were the powerful Evangelical Christian Preachers especially those commanding mega-churches, most of which became MAGA-Churches overnight. In 2016 and this year they were a majority of Trump’s support.

We have seen what transpired between when I wrote this article and what we are witnessing today. I first saw this coming in 2008 when I left the GOP, during the rise of the Tea Party, and the actions of the GOP between the election of President Obama and the election of Donald Trump. During that time, but with roots going back to the 1960s, the GOP was transformed into the ghoulish party that it is today. It is the cradle of a Fascist and Racist Mass Movement, whose true believers are committed to overthrowing our system of government to establish a dictatorship.

When Albert Speer discussed the ability of Adolf Hitler to captivate the German people he noted something important. He discussed how Hitler and his minions played to them set by the disgruntled and angry German population. Speer wrote:

“The mob determined the theme. To compensate for misery, insecurity, unemployment, and hopelessness, this anonymous assemblage wallowed for hours at a time in obsessions, savagery and license. The personal unhappiness caused by the breakdown of the economy was replaced by a frenzy that demanded victims. By lashing out at their opponents and vilifying the Jews, they gave expression and direction to fierce primal passions.”

Hitler played to that misery, insecurity and the obsessions of the politically and economically disaffected “conservative base” that no longer trusted the party establishments of the old-line conservative parties. He also played to the deep-rooted racism and anti-Semitism of those people. Hitler was an outsider, he was not indebted to any traditional party hierarchy and as such was able to throw away convention and play to the fear and anger of many Germans.

Donald Trump is doing today and he is running circles around the traditional politicians of the Republican Party. Every time trump says something that would have gotten himself blown out of the race twenty years ago had he said such things, today his poll numbers keep going up. He is now trending around 35% in most polls of GOP voters and my guess is that those numbers are low, as some supporters may not be willing to tell a pollster that they are for Trump, at least yet. My guess is that Trump’s support in the GOP is probably higher than 40% and won’t go down much. The party hierarchy and most of Trump’s primary rivals consistently criticize Trump, but most say that they will back him if he is the nominee. I cannot imagine that being the case twenty years ago when both the party establishment and the voters would have dumped him in a New York minute.

Trump understands the mood of much of the traditionally conservative public better than his Republican establishment competitors. Trump is not stupid, unlike Hitler who actually believed in his message, Trump is not a radical, he cannot be, he has too much invested in the system. Instead, he is a street smart and pragmatic businessman who is exploiting the situation on the ground to his advantage. His opponents and the GOP establishment are frightened, but like the hidebound conservatives of the Weimar Republic who either dismissed or Hitler or thought that they could contain him are not willing to make a stand. As a result, Trump is able to play to the mood of the base and to coin a phrase, to “trump the establishment” by channeling the deepest anger, fear, hatred, xenophobia, and racism that the GOP establishment refuses to acknowledge. When there is a push back by the establishment it further angers the base, and Trump, quite adroitly threatens to leave the party; something which would doom the GOP in the 2016 general election, and possibly shatter the party.

Trump’s GOP opponents should not underestimate him and neither should establishment Democrats. Trump is using his celebrity bombast and the democratic process to take control of a major political party, and he is a lot smarter than most political analysts give him credit. As such, as a non-establishment outsider, Trump has a chance at taking over a major political party, something that has never before happened in the United States.

If he succeeds in his takeover bid, it will forever change American politics, especially if he is able to ride the fear, hatred, and fear to the White House. I don’t think the latter will happen, but I would not exclude it from the realm of the possible. To paraphrase Speer’s words about Hitler and Goebbels: By lashing out at their opponents and vilifying the Muslims and immigrants, Trump gave expression and direction to fierce primal passions of a disaffected GOP base.

That was in December, 2015. Tell me if I was wrong.