Mob Rule

Ever since the First Presidential Debate, little more than a week ago, I've been flabbergasted at the continued passionate support of Donald Trump by people who proudly considered themselves Republicans.  These aren't the crazy folks who embody the Tea Party movement, or militia types who've been welcomed to leave their compounds and enter the modern Republican party.  These are people who, although I disagreed with them on some issues, seemed sane.  Their continued following of Trump has left me asking how they can still be so in love with Donald.  Then, I witnessed the GOP Vice Presidential nominee, Governor Mike Pence, and his debate performance.  Now things are starting to make more sense.

During the first Presidential Debate, Trump was insultive, combative, childishly interruptive and obsessed with personal vendettas and issues (has ANYONE called Sean Hannity?).  He followed up the worst debate performance I've ever witnessed with A WEEK of him, and his entire staff, body shaming a former pageant contestant, culminating in a series of bizarre text messages early on the morning of September 30th, with one encouraging all Americans, including kids, to watch a non existent sex tape of said pageant contestant.  Over the weekend, he insisted his opponent, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, was guilty of sleeping around on her husband, former President Bill Clinton, even though he has absolutely zero evidence of any affairs.  He then started mocking her health.  Then came the bombshell revelation from the New York Times; he personally, not professionally, lost ONE BILLION DOLLARS in a single year, a devastating annual loss for a self proclaimed wildly successful business man, a loss which was so staggering, he was able to qualify for the IRS pity party program, allowing him to not pay ANY taxes for years.  Finally, a mere week after his horrendous debate performance, he decided to put a cherry on top of his crap sundae by indirectly criticizing soldiers returning from combat suffering from PTSD, implying only weak people have an issue with PTSD.  WOW!

Going back and reading that last paragraph, I'm stunned Trump has any pull within the old elements of the GOP.  Reagan era Moderate Republicans, Reagan Republicans themselves, Fiscal Conservatives and even the Christian Conservatives should all be abandoning him, not necessarily for Hillary, but at least not supporting something they've never been.  Instead, large portions of those four groups still LOVE Trump, and still think of him as their savior.  I couldn't figure it out.

Then came the Vice Presidential candidate debate Tuesday night; Mike Pence for the GOP, and Tim Kaine for the Democrats.  Although Pence did a better job than Trump (not exactly the highest hurdle to clear) he was desperately denying he or Trump ever said all the nasty things he and Trump have said, all the stuff we have them on tape actually saying, undeniable lies which Pence knows he can't get away with.  Why would he even say they never said them?  By 6 AM yesterday morning Hillary had already taken Pence's denials and placed them in a commercial, juxtaposing him next to himself saying the things he denies having said.  Pretty good stuff.

Then it hit me.  He's saying they never said this things because the people who support Trump need the validation to keep marching in anger.  If Trump and Pence ever acknowledged the things they've said, their rational supporters would start to question why they're supporting them, so they create a validation; "they insisted they never said it, so good enough for me!  Now I'm off to the next Trump rally to hear more!"  We are looking at a Republican Party far less like the political party of the past, and far more like an unruly mob; angry, seething and looking to take out their enemies any way possible.

It's not necessarily their fault.  They've been brainwashed by 20 years of far right media fueling their hatred of all things Democrat.  For awhile, it was Barack Obama taking the primary thrust of their combined hatred, but he was always the warm up act.  The pure hatred the modern Republican embraces has always been micro focused on Hillary Clinton, and now's the time to let it all out.  Their internal insanity, which is usually confined, has been unleashed, and much like a mob marching to the jail, wanting to dish out mob rule justice, they're marching in unison to their goal.  Funny thing, I don't think their real goal is a Trump victory, rather their main goal is stopping Hillary from winning without thinking about the consequences.

Historically, when mobs have formed and done heinous acts (lynchings, arson, running a certain ethnic group out of town, going after a politician they don't like, open rebellion in the streets), there are two separate mindsets in place:  the mindset of the mob combined, and the mindset of the individuals within the mob.  We've all seen the photos of lynch mobs of the past proudly smiling as they point to the lifeless hung body, while their kids play at the corpses feet. Unforgivable.  But when people who were part of the lynch mob are confronted individually, there's a whitewashing to their actions.  "Sure I was there, and maybe there were one or two people doing bad things, but the most of us had nothing to do with the dead body," says the person in the photo smiling as they point to the victim.  They convince themselves of a reality which doesn't exist to validate the bad behavior they might've participated in.

By the way, this is why Allied Commanding Officers insisted on marching the German citizens past the barely alive living and the piles of the dead from the concentration camps.  They wanted the German people to own their shame, never being able to push it off onto others.  It was their fault, as a nation, no exceptions.

The Trump mob isn't to the point of heinous acts, like lynching, but they're already dabbling in violence.  At their rallies, people scream white power, cheering on the harsh language geared at minorities, women, Muslims, gays and Latinos.  They gleefully applaud when the crowd starts attacking a protester; punching, slapping and kicking, convinced their violence is justified.  When they come out of their rallies, they immediately rewrite history:  "I wasn't the guy punching the woman with the kid.  I would never encourage anything like that!"  Yes you were, or at least you were cheering it on like it was a winning touchdown!

Trump figured out the modern GOP id better than the rest of the GOP field.  There's a shocking amount of Republicans who want to call African Americans the N word, want to throw all Latinos out of the country, regardless of where they were born.  They want to smack their female coworker on the caboose, demanding sex when they want it, and if the wife at home gets out of line, they want to be able to smack her around to 'teach her a lesson.'  They not only want to scream "Jesus Hates You" in gay people's faces, but they actually want to make gay existence a crime.  They want to torture a Muslim, any Muslim, even people who look slightly Muslim, feeling as if it's some sort of payback for all terrorism.  They want to take the wealth from those who disagree with them, making them pay for the world they think they should be able to enjoy for free.  Trump saw this internal sickness, and corralled it like a master rancher.

Not ALL Republicans have these traits, but you all see them being displayed as the bellwether of your party.  Instead of calling out the bad behavior, you either rationalize it away as a much smaller percentage than it really is, act like you can't hear anything, or insist Hillary is far worse so you tolerate it.  You're the problem.  If the four GOP elements I mentioned earlier, the Reagan era Moderates, Reagan Republicans, Fiscal Conservatives and the Christian Right all woke up, realized this is not how you want to be identified, by a candidate and his mob of supporters who represent pretty much everything you've fought against, then the mob wouldn't have the power anymore.  The mob gets dispersed.

Instead, you all clap along with the hatred, keeping your mouth shut even when you hear your party embrace the worst of humanity, as you all angrily march towards November.