SELECTED STORIES ON ILLUMINATION-CURATED

The Rebellion of the Displeased

Selected stories by Øivind H. Solheim hosted on ILLUMINATION-Curated

Distributed to #Election 2020 #Politics

In this article, I address current issues related to democratic processes in America today. We can witness a revenge of the losers, large masses of electors who look upon themselves as losers because they feel they have lost something valuable that they are entitled to be granted. They have found their voice in a man who is an expert in manipulating others.

President Donald Trump seems to work along principles like:

What works is good.

Lies work. — Lies are good.

Manipulation works. — Manipulation is good.

Now it is dangerous to underestimate people, especially if the man you underestimate is the President. He has understood a few things about politics, and one of them is this: “The best part of being a hypocrite is that you can still denounce hypocricy.” (from a tweet by @AliCamus1)

I do not live in America, but I have a certain impression of what is happening in the country. I have to verify if my impression is close to the truth about the United States today:

Trump’s success is being created by masses of angry people who feel forgotten and neglected.

What is happening in the United States today is a revolt, and this revolt is approaching a revolution of politics, customs, behavior and thinking. Political thinking among President Trump’s supporters is not primarily rational. The revolt is emotionally based, mainly on negative emotions such as deception, delusion, feelings of failure, and anger.

This is something that characterizes the popular support the man receives.

In the Republican Party, the profile of people who have influence there is qualitatively different from the profile of typical Trump supporters. Both inside and outside the Republican Party, there are a large number of players who feed on and exploit the popular frustration, and who act in pure self-interest, just like Trump.

Donald Trump is the prototype of these, at the same time as he himself is also the exception. He is a genius at an important part of the political scene, namely where you gather supporters by playing on the negative emotions. The preferred remedies are apparently stubborn quarrels and bigotry, widespread use of lies, random whims and the most unreasonable allegations against dissenters.

Denial of of truth, honesty and integrity

It is difficult to face these waves of dishonesty, lies and accusations of fake news with truth, honesty and integrity. The reason it is difficult and ineffective to face them is that so many Trump supporters are furious and demand revenge and change — in short, there’s a strong demand for an upheaval.

The widespread dissatisfaction in society is a kind of vague pain that stings and never stops. Large numbers of people in the USA are discontent with the situation. They feel surpassed in their lives and they feel the country is not any longer what it was. Many of these people have maybe never felt they have been given the place and the rights they feel or mean they are entitled to in society. Many among these people blame others for taking resources from them.

The revenge of the losers

What we can observe here, is the revenge of the losers. Yes, we may call them losers because it is a central part of their self-image. They experience themselves as losers because they feel they have lost something valuable that they are entitled to be granted.

They have found their voice in this man who is an expert in manipulating others.

In Trump’s USA, it is about the fact that there are many people who feel forgotten, who live with a feeling of being left behind, or outside — a feeling of not being seen by the authorities and society. When enough people in the country experience reality in this way, a reaction has been created and nurtured, a rebellion. Basically, it is about the desire for a revolution.

It is about them wanting to more clearly mark the general betrayal. For the Trump supporters, the traitors are the established politicians, first and foremost the Democrats, those who have had the power for the two preceding electoral periods, and who are held responsible for the state as it is today.

The power elite is wrong, and because they are wrong, the frustrated and angry masses react by going to the man who seems to be a good spokesman for them. The fact that he serves more than 20 lies per day and speaks with several tongues is unproblematic.

The message he is hammering in is change, and America first, that is, you and I, we first. He speaks simply, directly and manipulatively, and many times uses lies instead of truth. When he is contradicted, he stands regardless of the counter-argument and counter-evidence that he is the right one. He is the only one, and he is right.

We have long believed that we can we can fight Trump’s lies with truth, with credibility, with empathy and through behaving honestly and saying things properly.

It has worked poorly. Reason-based, factual arguments have long seemed to bounce off like water on a goose.

The explanation is simple. The fact that there are so many supporters who feel neglected, overlooked and little taken into account makes it very challenging to move on in a normal way, with normal values ​​at the bottom. It is simply a popular uprising and a state of emergency that we are witnessing in the United States with Trump. This can be difficult to understand, but it still happens. And it is making the world insecure for many of us.

His strategy: taking advantage of the elite and winning thinking

Trump’s success is the result of a condition that has lasted a very long time and an ideology that disadvantages the opportunities of the majority of individuals to achieve success.

The paradox is precise that Trump can play on and take advantage of the elite ideology and winning thinking that is so strongly ingrained in American society, and that in this work he receives support from millions of supporters who are themselves victims of the capitalist, American ideology.

Millions of people support Trump because he for them embodies the winner, the one who achieves success. It’s a bit like gambling. People buy tickets in the big lottery because they think that they then are buying a chance to win the big prize. What they do not see is that there is very little chance of winning the big win — yes, on the whole very little chance of winning other than small money!

The cultivation of Trump and his success can be seen as a sign of illness in American society, a sign that ideology and elite cultivation are in their ultimate consequence harmful to a society and can lead to the country ending up in a swamp of enmity and wars between different groups in the society.

For many in America, Trump himself is probably the crowning example of the American dream. He has managed to build an economic empire and through aggressive demagoguery he has managed to convince millions of supporters that he is the savior.

Thus, we have a man who now aspires to his second term as president of the country that gave us the American dream. But the American dream can unfortunately seem out of date today. Now the Americans instead must struggle with the consequences, ie the remnants of what was the American dream. The American dream under Trump brings with it many negative consequences for the American people, and not least ruthless behavior towards minority groups that Americans in Trump’s universe will not identify with.

Key to his success: frustration, disappointment and anger

What has been difficult to understand is not that Trump is using lies and emotional, nationalist manipulation to gain power. It is normal, and part of human character.

What was a little surprising at first, was to understand this that he has had success with this strategy. But that’s not so illogical. This can easily be explained by the frustration, disappointment and anger that exist in American society and that has undermined and weakened the position that truth, justice and empathy have and should have in a society.

What is happening in America means that we get a test of how democracy stands when such a threat arises that denies central values ​​in what democracy stands for.

Some may choose to see it cynically:

We get what we deserve.

It is not surprising that people suffer and react this way in the United States. Capitalist American ideology says that it is in the soul of every member of society that everyone must create and take care of their own happiness. The social structures, and the way society is organized, obviously lead to such attitudes: frustration, anger, ridicule, polarization, envy, enmity, etc.

This in turn leads many in protest to turn away from politicians they have traditionally supported.

The elected 46th President of the USA will face a huge challenge when he the coming four years will have to try to heal the wounds and re-unify a divided nation.

All rights reserved. © Øivind H. Solheim, author of novels, poetry, articles, essays, short fiction and experimental writings. Contact: [email protected].