The Trump Administration has been framing its foreign policy like a blue light special.
Sean Spicer is stuck in a loop that says Puppet Trump “is doing everything he can to guarantee our safety”.
We hear it every day.
There’s a problem with the sales pitch, however: no one – not even gods* – can guarantee safety.
Guaranteeing safety is like believing in Santa Clause: it’s fun and profitable when your a child, but grown-ups know better.
Scared children – which is basically the mindset of Trump’s America – like to be told “everything is OK, sweetie” before they go to sleep. It keeps the monsters at bay long enough to catch some zees.
Steve Bannon knows that hyperbolizing threats followed by guaranteeing protection from those threats is and effective means to increase power of government strongmen. True to Bannon’s plan, all Trump’s administration has to do is repeat the process:
- Highlight (or fabricate) as many dangers as possible.
- Say, “President Trump will do anything to guarantee America’s safety”.
Americans will eventually believe it – we’re famous for our stubborn gullibility. Millions already do, and are thusly willing to bend morality if it’ll help achieve Trump’s Guarantee.
My guarantee to you is that die-hard Trump supporters are parroting Bannon’s language at bars and water coolers across the country: “The world is in chaos, and what Trump is doing is guaranteeing America’s safety.” The more his core supporters tell ghost stories**, the more scared they become. The more scared they become, the more they justify America’s need for Trump’s authoritarian tactics.
But Puppet Trump can’t guarantee anything (just ask his building subcontractors). The only legitimate promise Trump can make to America is that he will continue to be a small man with a fragile ego and a Twitter problem.
*Your god, my god; his and her gods – they’re all apparently at odds. Religious Americans no longer blame Beelzebub, demons, witches, loose women, or “God’s plan” to cope with unexpected pain – they blame “the other guy’s” god. I, for one, can’t figure out which god is supposed to be playing the roll of protecting and comforting anymore…. Deity Trump appears to be Steve Bannon’s answer to that dilemma. back
**e.g. “underreported” terrorist attack lists back
