You've got a good point, Emerson professor. Based on historical precedence and insight. But don't be afraid of Trump. He's a pussycat. He adapts with the popular sentiment and doesn't have an ulterior motive. Trump is about ego, nothing more. Ego requires popular support.
Demagogues are people too and they serve a purpose. Demagogues provide an outlet to vent feelings. Everyone knows a demagogue can't get too powerful but until that point of no return, they make an impact or at least provide an outlet for many and validate their fears/concerns.
A demagogue fills the void created by leaders who ignore the sacrifice of time and energy required to settle the citizenry discomfort of dynamic cultural change.
It takes a disproportionate amount of time and energy to settle discomfort because it is natural to blame others for our perceived inequity that are believe to be: we are owed.
Glaucon wrote:
Why Donald Trump Is Dangerous
02/07/2016 10:35 am ET | Updated Feb 07, 2016
Jerry Lanson Journalism professor, Emerson College
Some of my liberal friends are secretly rooting for Donald Trump to win the Republican nomination.
If he wins, they argue, Republicans will be crushed in the general e******n. Trump, they insist, has a ceiling on his support. They say Latinos, African-Americans, Muslims and more will turn out to oppose him in record numbers. That women will reject him as a sexist pig. And so forth.
Perhaps. But ultimately, I find this foolish and dangerous reasoning. It conveniently forgets that past dictators initially came to power by being elected. It can happen here, too.
No, I'm not suggesting Donald Trump is Hitler. But he is a demagogue, who in Saturday night's debate said he would bring back "a hell of a lot worse than waterboarding," the simulated drowning technique condemned as torture and banned after it was used as an "enhanced" interrogation tool by the George W. Bush administration.
Trump is a bully. He's a r****t. And he's a loose cannon, a man so enamored of his own greatness that he likely could be manipulated to do almost anything by those who flatter him. Set up internment camps for American Muslims, for example. Start his own version of the brown shirts. Cozy up to Vladimir Putin. Perhaps even trigger World War III.
So if he's nominated, could Donald Trump win this November's p**********l e******n? Absolutely. It might take no more than a recession. Or a timely October terrorist attack or two. Fear and panic are strong motivators for really bad political choices. Look at the rise of far right parties today in Europe.
I wish I lived in New Hampshire. If I did, and I were a registered Independent, I would v**e Republican Tuesday. I would cast my b****t for the mainstream conservative who looks most likely to stop Trump. The problem, of course, is this: After Saturday night's free-for-all GOP debate, just who is that?
Let's hope New Hampshire v**ers can agree on an answer, can rally around someone who at least cuts significantly into Trump's huge lead in the polls.
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