Everyone is entitled to my opinion.

Right now, Congress is our shield, as are our local leaders. The problem is collaboration. People will try to make sense of Trump, they will assume he operates within some form of logic and reason, and once that logic is understood, people can adapt to it, learn to work within or against it. So, in the immediate days, people will try to compromise: to give up something in order to save something. 

Along the way, people will be called upon to choose between the terrible and the horrible. 

Are these true choices? Trumpers will define the choices and the questions. They will set the parameters, will give people false choices—just like dictators all through history have always done. 

It is easy, for example, for thugs to tell the town elder, “Choose ten people among your village who will die today. If you do not choose, we will kill everyone.” 

The choice is horrible. An elder might think that making a choice will save most of the villagers, and the elder would choose ten people, only to discover that the thugs never intended to keep their promises. They intended to execute everyone. It was a game to show the vanquished how amoral the victors are—and to show the elder how easily he, too, a good person, can become an executioner. 

The first error is to believe them. People choosing to collaborate want to give Trumpers the benefit of the doubt, a chance to see what they will do. Collaborators think the Trumpers will keep their promises, that the bargains will unfold as everyone agreed. Collaboration implies an understanding and naive belief that the Trumpers will be ethical men for whom promises mean something, and thus, they will honor their agreements. 

Trumpers have no ethical compass. Their interest lies in amassing their own power which feeds and perpetuates itself. Do not be fooled by the cloaks of “common good,” or “national security,” they will drape over their naked greed. They are good at using people and ideas to get anything they want. They will trash through everything we hold sacred: the law, ethics, justice, claiming all must be suspended, curtailed, reduced or eliminated for “the good of the nation.” But most of all, they use OUR psychology against us. They use the assumptions of trust, honor, morality and civility to entice collaboration, and then to destroy anyone who opposes them.

No one will stop them. People want to believe that our public “servants” have altruistic, patriotic motives for their actions. People want to believe in saviors, that’s why they voted for this man. But most of all, people will not allow themselves to accept that they handed their precious nation to these thugs—and that these thugs will dismantle America.

Instead, they will believe—and the Trumpers will definitely tell them—that THEY are the only hope for our beleaguered nation.

A good strategist knows that you suck people into believing that you will “play” the deal game by making a compromise on a small insignificant issue. This tactic fools the opponents into believing that Trumpers are honorable, that they keep their word. It’s a form of conditioning. It teaches the opposition to trust the Trumpers, who initially might not appear to be so bad after all. In fact, they might even appear to be relatively harmless. Until the big issues hit. Then the opposition will fall into Trump traps. Having given up critical advantages for a lesser evil—opponents will find they have been used. They will have given away their most valuable weapons. In doing so, they will have lost all.

These traps are the norm for cutthroat business. It works because people want to believe in fairness, in honor, in moral or ethical behavior. But sharks know how to use these “ideas” to entrap their prey. 

As we know that Breitbart News, Alt-Right, White Supremacists, all supported Trump. They understand him. To paraphrase Richard Spencer (founder of Alt-Right) who speaks of a White Nationalist world after America, he does not value fairness. He values winning, dominance and greatness. (Interview taped the day after the election and aired on NPR, December 31, 2016, Center for Investigative Reporting.)

As do all the Trumpers. If in doubt, remember back during the election when some Republicans expressed outrage at certain statements their candidate made? His dismissive and honest retort said it all: “They don’t know how to win.”

The highest value for him and his minions is winning—at any cost. And in the days to come, we will all face the question of whether or collaborate or not. 

To Collaborate or Not:

That is the Question

January 2, 2017

Fascism exists because people allow it to exist. 

People will be frightened to act, because Trumpers, the prez and his minions, will move quickly and harshly to stomp out opposition. They will use violence, lies, or any other means to frighten people into silence and to make people chose to participate or face dire consequences.