It’s wrong.
In Germany in the 1930s and 1920s, the Nationalist party was blaming everything they could on the Jews (and Romani and gays, but stay with me).
None of it was true, obviously. Everyone knew it wasn’t true. Even the Nationalists knew it wasn’t true.
But it was what they needed to get out there as a narrative, because they needed to use that narrative to do what came after.
When Trump talks about 3 to 5 million illegal voters, he doesn’t actually believe there are 3 to 5 million illegal voters. No one he’s talking to believes it either – there’s no evidence for it at all. I think the total illegal voting attempts for 2016 is something like… 14. Fourteen people. A football team, plus placekicker, water boy, and coach.
He’s not saying it because he believes it, and we shouldn’t THINK “he’s saying it because he believes it.”
He’s saying it because he needs to get that narrative out there to justify what comes next.
And that particular narrative is the one you need to take the right to vote away from millions of Americans who, in general, won’t vote for him or the GOP.
AND HEY GUESS WHAT? Immigration and deportation is on his agenda tomorrow. WHAT A CRAZY COINCIDENCE.
People really need to stop saying crap like “This looks like it could be some kind of diabolical plan, but seriously does Donald look like he’s a planner?”
He. Is. WINNING. Over and Over Again. Against people who do not make a habit of losing.
That’s not an accident, and everything he does is on purpose.
President Donald Trump believes millions of votes were cast illegally in last year’s election, White House press secretary Sean Spicer said on Tuesday, but he wouldn’t provide any concrete evidence for the claim, which has long been debunked.
Maybe it's too scary to think that an actual fascist racist autocrat has managed to get into the White House. And we're not even talking about Richard Nixon.
Maybe it's the "Don't attribute to malice what can be attributed to incompetence" idea.
No, it's definitely the too scary part.
(Alternately, Trump's just an idiotic patsy to Steve Bannon et al. See, both can be true! Though … no less scary.)
Here's the thing: I don't think Trump has actually planned out every single move. I think, for example, he was left just as flat-footed by winning the presidency as everybody else. However, I think that in order to deal with him, people need to approach things as though he is a diabolical Mastermind, because so far everyone is treating him like a loudmouth braggart who tripped into the presidency, and that isn't sufficient. They are always swinging behind the pitch, to use a sports analogy I don't fully understand.
So rather than consistently underestimate him, which is what we've been doing, we need to overestimate him so that we can get in the ballpark of the appropriate amount of resistance.
+Doyce Testerman The problem with over estimating him is that it really fragments the credibility of opposition. "Jeez, those anti-Trump folk are SOOOOO hyperbolic."
The problem with under estimating him is, well, 1936-1945.