By Lafe Tolliver, Esq
Guest Column
Remember the early days of TV programming in which the star of the show was a hypnotist who professed that he could lull your brain into a state of stupor by his suggestions and you would obey?
As a TV watcher, to see such a display of mastery over a person’s intellect or will power was a Wow! factor and when the person came out of the hypnotic state, he professed not to have known what he did or said during that time of the induced manipulation.
The hypnotist would, as part of his scheme, use a watch on a chain or another object which he would swing in the face of the gullible subject until the eyes of the subject went “heavy” and then slump or go brain neutral for a period of time.
The watching audience would have laughs at the antics that the hypnotized subject would do or say under the commands of the hypnotist. When the subject snapped out of it, he professed that he had no idea what happened during that lull.
Well, in a shorthanded way of speaking, gullible America is under the hypnotic spell and commands of Donald Trump when he lulls distraught voters with his chain watch of a dystopian America in which “others” are invading us and even “imported” Haitians are eating dogs and cats and stealing geese from the local ponds in Springfield, Ohio!
Donald Trump has harnessed the grievances and gripes of a large segment of the American society that believe, right or wrong, they are being cheated out of their fair share of the goodies that they believe that they are entitled to.
Those disaffected Americans rant and rail at those Washington elites and other governmental officials whom they blame for their misery and lack of upward mobility.
They are malleable to suggestions that a strong and vigorous personality type (like Trump) will be their savior by leading them out of the wilderness of denied opportunities and to new vistas that they are clamoring to experience.
In their opinion, traditional politicos have failed to deliver them the goods and services that they believe are being enjoyed by everyone else but them.
To many of them, those “others” are hoarding the feed trough thus making no room for them. It is at such times that their resentments and injuries, both real and imagined, cause them to recalibrate their opinions and impressions of what it means to “wait and take your time” and your turn will come.
No more.
While under the induced spell of the hypnotist, Donald Trump, they are told that they have been abandoned by the current in-place institutions and that they are repeatedly told to fight for their space in the sun.
Images of “others” receiving ill-gotten governmental benefits and being recipients of affirmative action; and with right-wing venues of information feeding them an unrelenting diet of grievances and half-truths, which, left unchecked, leads to pent up anger and hostilities.
Enter stage right: Donald Trump and his bombastic and shrill offerings that only he can right the ship and only he can return “their” America to a past in which they were sitting at the main dining table and not at the kiddies’ table.
Enter stage right: Donald Trump and his fire hose of lies and distortions that are eerily manufactured to seem as if his audience’s grievances are his grievances; and as if their fight is his fight, even though he is a billionaire who has never once identified with their plight.
But, when you are under a spell of hypnosis, truth and facts are malleable and, when necessary, can be dispensed with altogether as being too much of a bother to verify.
Under the spell of the hypnotist, you are given permission to act out your anger and frustrations because the hypnotist encourages you to Make America Great Again and to follow him to your economic and political nirvana.
Under the delusional power of Donald Trump, up is down and down is up.
Truths are negotiable. Right is wrong and wrong is right. All that is needed is for you to believe and act according to your Svengali’s instructions.
And don’t worry. Your strongman will pardon your indiscretions with pardons if you are convicted and with jobs if he is elected. What could go wrong!
The presumed power of the hypnotist is so wonderful and powerful that men and women who are not directly under his spell, voluntarily place themselves under his sway because it just seems so right to be a part of such a wonderful and glorious movement of making America great again!
And if, perchance, you are questioned as to what makes this movement so alluring, you simply mouth the platitudes and blather provided to you while under his spell.
Such is the abysmal state of the political landscape in America in which one political party has jettisoned any semblance of being moored to values and safety checks that would in any other time, throw out such a charlatan and consummate con as this hypnotist.
But until the hypnotized wake up and regroup and come to their senses and sheepishly recognize that they been fooled and hoodwinked, Donald Trump will spout his unending political lies and gibberish until the voters end his amazing but dangerous American carnage.
Contact Lafe Tolliver at lafe.tolliver@juno.com
Comments to: tolliver@juno.com