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Nonviolent Sensationalism
Donald Trump is Hitler.
This phrase has been repeated over and over again without end, a truthless drone to which we have all been subjected.
Figureheads who purport to speak for supposedly monolithic groups of the American public chant nonsensical refrains, dressing them up as level-headed analysis.
Isn’t it obvious? Donald Trump is Hitler. To say otherwise may, in fact, mean that you are Hitler.
Earlier today, an attempt was made on the life of Donald Trump at a rally in Pennsylvania.[1] The gunman missed by an inch, piercing the former President’s ear before being shot by Secret Service.
Condemnations of the political violence and relief that he is largely unharmed have been rolling in from all sides (with varying degrees of speed and begrudging reluctance).
I thought that Donald Trump was Hitler?
The hyperbolic idiocy of the rhetoric surrounding American politics is made plain by these sorts of “unity posts.” You don’t really think that Donald Trump is Hitler. (42% of people reported that they would kill baby Hitler, so I imagine that killing adult Hitler would have measurably more support).[2] No—it is in your interest, whether personal or professional, to use such ridiculous turns of phrase in your quest for self-enrichment.
The problem is, and this is not aisle-dependent, that most people don’t know you’re joking. Joking is not exactly the right word for it, but it is a kind of peacocking performance. Those participating in the performance, and many of those watching it, understand the reality of what is happening. We disingenuously hurl unspeakably stupid things at one another for sport. It is some kind of demented four-dimensional chess game that the majority of people gain nothing from. It is a strutting around of how “right” you are, as opposed to all of the people who are very truly “wrong” about everything. Racists, Nazis, Luddites, Communists, Traitors, and other such names of choice.
It is a performance of ideological position. Debate fueled not by reason, but by emotion. But even in this emotion, there is awareness that there is a game being played. That at the end of the day, we all go home and drink our juice boxes together and celebrate being so God-blessed filthy fucking rich as a country.
For every observer that is aware of this game, however, there are ten who are not. For these folks, this is not some masturbatory intellectual back-and-forth in which the game-players get rich and nobody loses.
You are telling them that their country is being invaded. They are hearing that the democracy of their country is being corrupted and taken away from them. You are telling them that, unless you get your way, there is no hope for the future. That they will lose freedoms that they view as fundamentally God-given. They are hearing that their children are going to grow up in a violent and regressive world, afraid of every person who may disagree with their point of view and react violently to it. You are telling them that this is the most pivotal moment in all of history, and that this battle in particular is for all the marbles.
Yet you do not celebrate the attempted assassination of a man compared without end to one of the most destructively evil leaders of all time?
You may believe that you are engaged in nonviolent sensationalism, but you are not. There is no such thing as nonviolent sensationalism, because the modern world is equipped with exponential methods of distribution. When you speak, you are speaking to everyone. You are speaking to the mentally infirm, the angry and traumatized, the oppressed and invisible. These are very dangerous people to inflame with rhetoric.
This is why you must speak the truth. You must speak as precisely as you possibly can. In this way, you can stand behind your words. Words are symbolic representations of reality, and their meanings are imperfect. You cannot avoid misinterpretation, but you can minimize it.
Do not blame the imperfect nature of language for your failures. The progenitors of the idea were not making honest mistakes when comparing Donald Trump to Adolf Hitler. They were trading in their intellectual integrity for something greater: emotional conviction, powerful rhetoric, and the mental eroticism of speaking with maximal recklessness.
Critique political leaders, but do it honestly. I assure you that there is no shortage of material for those who have eyes and ears.
The farcical idea of cyclical history rages on. Everything bad today is some cadaverous version of what was bad eighty years ago, and everything good today is fodder for the inevitable rot of tomorrow. Nothing is new, the timeline is a circle, and you are simultaneously the most important thing on earth to yourself and the least important thing on earth to everyone else.
This is untrue. Every single day is new. Today did not exist yesterday, and it will not exist tomorrow. Do not fall prey to reductionist arguments that dismiss the complexity of life. This does not mean that patterns are not recursive, or that there is no wisdom in the happenings of the past—it simply means that you must be wary of those who mine signal from noise. Be skeptical in matters of importance and remain open-minded in order to avoid becoming foolish.
Trust those who stand next to you, not above you. Understand the incentives of those who are providing you information and analysis. Never underestimate the willingness of powerful people to lie for their own gain, and do not be fooled by the size of the lie. Bolder lies are easier to get away with; this is how Victor Lustig’s Eiffel Tower scam worked. He, who of course was not at all involved with the government or of any affiliation to the tower, sold it to a gaggle of magnates and vanished. Pleased with the success of his scam, he did it again.
Victor Lustig sold the Eiffel Tower twice not because Donald Trump is a self-interested and largely under-qualified pseudo-statesman, but because Donald Trump is Hitler. Otherwise, he would have sold something more like the St. Louis Arch or the World’s Largest Pistachio statue.