Alternative Facts: Randy Rainbow Interviews Kellyann Conway

In light of my post yesterday, inspired by the alternative facts of the Trump Administration. Perhaps we need the pleasant yet pointed intervention of the fabulous and brilliant Randy Rainbow, to put them into their context as ridiculous statements made in defense of the indefensible.

And about those tweets of Trump:

The Horror of Kellyanne Conway and Why Her Tactics Put America At Risk.

The problem that I had when I wrote Is Kellyanne Conway Trump’s Goebbels? More Big Lies From Trump’s Team of Liars was that though I was well aware of the rhetorical tricks and lies Conway was using in all of her media interviews, explaining them seemed too complex for my talents.  The problem with Conway is simply that in almost every sentence of hers (and indeed often many times within an individual sentence) the manipulative lies and obfuscations were too overwhelming in numbers for me to quantify.  The problem was not my lack of understanding, but my admitted tendency towards the verbosity of a non-professional writer in explaining the technique.  Here is a professional writer  Carlos Maza at VOX.com, using media to explain the Conway deceptions, followed up by some examples.

Is Kellyanne Conway Trump’s Goebbels? More Big Lies From Trump’s Team of Liars

At the Golden Globe Awards Sunday night, Meryl Streep made an impassioned speech about Trump’s videotaped mockery of a New York Times reporter.  With his characteristic narcissistic denial, Trump tweeted that he never mocked the reporter.  This was a difficult position since the tape shows him clearly and crudely mocking the reporter.  While being interviewed by CNN’s Chris Cuomo yesterday,  Trump spokesperson Kellyanne Conway at first denied Trump’s mockery but confronted with the videotape then replied:

“That is not what he did and he has said that 1,000 times.  Why can’t you give him the benefit of the doubt?”

Cuomo countered:

“He can say it a million times but look at the video… he’s making a disgusting gesture on video.”

And Conway answered:

“Why is everything taken at face value? You can’t give him the benefit of the doubt on this and he’s telling you what was in his heart, you always want to go with what’s come out of his mouth rather than look at what’s in his heart.”

This is a technique that Conway has used on multiple occasions, as has the entire Trump team,  I think it perfectly illustrates the “Hitlerian Big Lie Technique as practiced by his henchman Joseph Goebbels“.  Hitler wrote of this “Big Lie“ technique in his autobiography Mein Kampf and I think it’s instructive to look at what Hitler wrote to compare it to Conway and her management of the Trump campaign:

“All this was inspired by the principle—which is quite true within itself—that in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods. It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously. Even though the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and waver and will continue to think that there may be some other explanation. For the grossly impudent lie always leaves traces behind it, even after it has been nailed down, a fact which is known to all expert liars in this world and to all who conspire together in the art of lying.” Adolph Hitler,  1924

To my mind Hitler’s words perfectly sum up the techniques used by the Trump Campaign in its’ successful bid for the Presidency.  Kellyanne Conway, a lawyer turned Republican pollster, turned campaign professional,  masterminded that campaign and served as its’ major spokesperson.  Conway is now part of the White House staff of the Trump administration and is no doubt performing the same role as chief spokesperson. Let’s parse the exchange with Cuomo above to see how it is a perfect example of the “Big Lie“ technique in action.

A major part of the effectiveness of the “Big Lie“ is repetition.  Above Conway says regarding the taped demeaning of the reporter: “That is not what he did and he has said that 1,000 times.  Why can’t you give him the benefit of the doubt?”  Even though Trump clearly and mockingly demeaned this disabled reporter right there on the video tape,  Trump and his campaign has repeatedly denied that he did it.  This is what Hitler in the passage above described as the masses reaction to a “Big Lie“: “It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously. Even though the facts which prove this to be so  may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and waver and will continue to think that there may be some other explanation.“  Conway’s “benefit of the doubt“ indeed!

And finally, as if insulting the people’s intelligence by denying what they can plainly see isn’t enough Conway states:  “he’s telling you what was in his heart, you always want to go with what’s come out of his mouth rather than look at what’s in his heart.”  Conway’s clear meaning is that one shouldn’t rely on Trump’s words, nor his actions,  but should believe whatever positive interpretation of his behavior that his minions describe in their aftermath.

It is no mere coincidence that among Trump’s more rabid followers are American Fascists of many stripes. The Trump technique,  is Hitler’s game-plan updated to our time and so far it is working like a charm.  In Kellyanne Conway,  Trump even has a henchman in the mold of Joseph Goebbels.  One can only hope that Conway and Trump meet similar fates, but weep for the destruction that will ensue before that day of reckoning.

 

Nobody Asked Me……But: As My Trump Depression Continues

Nobody Asked Me………But:

Is there a significance that almost all Republican spokespeople of the female variety are peroxide Blondes?

How many Trump voters are still enraged over the media’s ignoring the terrible carnage of the horrific “Bowling Green Massacre“?

What does the conservative Australian Prime Minister think of our illegitimate President now?

Why were all of Trump’s phone calls to Heads of State taped, except for the one to Putin?

Isn’t it annoying that the broadcast media still takes Kellyann Conway’s lies seriously?

The supposed Christians who supported Trump are most likely hypocrites and too dense to know it.

The Right Wing Jews who supported Trump either have forgotten, or never fully learned the lessons of the 1930’s and the 1940’s,  that the friend of my enemy, IS MY Enemy.

Any American Muslim who voted for Trump is simply an idiot.

Isn’t it curious that born wealthy Paul Ryan, who is so enamored of corporations and laissez faire capitalism, has always worked for the Government, except for two school break summers when he worked in McDonald’s and then drove the Oscar Meyer Wienermobile?   Isn’t it also curious that Paul Ryan, used Social Security Survivors Benefits to pay for college and now wants to cut Social Security benefits?

Would you be surprised to know that Mitch McConnell, that champion of small government and free enterprise, has never worked outside of government or politics?

Why is it that so many Republican conservatives that have spent their lives living off of government and politics, appear to be anti-government?

Wouldn’t you know that Sean Spicer’s wife is: “the top communications officer at the “National Beer Wholesalers Association.” ?

Am I the only one who thinks Jared Fogle from Subway and Sean Spicer look alike?   What conclusions can we draw from that alternative fact?    

 

 

 

Is anyone but me alarmed that Neil Gorsuch formed and was President of a Fascist Club in College?

Why do all the heroes and heroines of Ayn Rand novels seem like NAZI archetypes?

The only good thing about Atlas Shrugged is that it was far too long a novel for Donald Trump to read,  even though Steve Bannon probably explained it to him.

This was the last book that Trump read and it took him two weeks to do it, because he needed to bone up on what he was now supposed to believe in to carry off the role of being President:  Here.

This biggest problem of the Trump Puppet Presidency will be the battle between Steve Bannon and Vladimir Putin as to which one gets to pull the strings.

The truth is that besides being a better executive Government leader, Arnold Schwarzenegger also has been a far better businessman than Trump and Arnold did it on his own.

Maybe the reason so many retailers are dropping Ivanka Trump’s products is because they only sold when people believed the Trump name stood for something of quality?  Do those people who are upset that people are criticizing Trump’s kids and wife Melania remember that in the 70’s some Republicans called Amy Carter unattractive and in the 90’s  Mitch McConnell called the teen-aged Chelsea Clinton ugly,  or other Republican Congressmen recently called the beautiful Michelle Obama apelike? Finally, while I think almost all politicians are hypocrites, it seems to me that our Republican and Conservative stalwarts have elevated hypocrisy to an art form and to that extent they have killed irony.

 

 

The Damned: The Republican Establishment, the Conservative Movement and the Angry Trump Voters

While I am not a religious type, I do hope the concept of Karma describes the ultimate fate of the awful human beings among us.  Presently,  perhaps the most awful human being on this planet is Donald Trump, an authoritarian Narcissist puppet of Steve Bannon.  The Trump/Bannon partnership boils down to a dimwitted bully who is addicted to adulation and a sharp-witted “dealer” controlling him by supplying Trump the constant glorification “fixes” that he craves.  Adulation is the only thing that animates Trump’s superficial and diseased soul.  Ugly Steve, is a person whose demeanor proves the theory that ones’ Affect exposes the ugly rot inside some human beings. In his puppet Donnie, Bannon discovered a kindred, yet manipulable soul.

From the early incident of punching his second grade teacher, Donnie has shown himself to be an angry, petulant man child, for whom bullying and bluster compensates for an inability to empathize with anyone but himself. By listening to Trump speak, it is clear that this is someone who in his gut knows his own worthlessness and so tries to portray the opposite to those gullible people who would believe him. Trump’s father’s wealth gave him his start and the ability to hire competent people to guide him through peccadillo after peccadillo caused by his incompetence.  Kellyann Conway, a Joseph Goebbels  clone with bottled Aryan blond hair, providing enough Sturm und Drang to make this fool an appealing candidate to a minority of American voters, unfortunately located in key Electoral College States.  Thus the Presidency has become a sad tale told by idiots, though the guilt resides with many more enablers besides Bannon and Conway.  In the end, though by then it may be of little balm to the rest of us,  Trump, Bannon and Conway are Damned to be doomed by their own degenerate personalities.

For too many years to count, the Republican Party,  under the rubric of a seeming conservative philosophy, has acted as the agent for the oligarchy of wealth, which has ruled our country off and on since its inception. Their task has always been a  difficult one because it entails convincing the overwhelming majority of the public to put its faith in a series of policies that are really harmful to them,  while beneficial to the top one percent.  Because convincing a large majority of people that their best interests are best served by catering to the best interests of perhaps one percent of the population is a cause bereft of logic,  Republican’s have always be forced to rely on more visceral appeals.  Thus their appeals to fear (communism/socialism);  their appeals to hatred (Blacks, Jews, native Americans, Latinos, Muslims);  their appeals to greed (lower taxes, shredded safety net); their appeals to ignorance (Capitalistic Christianity, teaching Creationism, destroying public education); and so on and so forth.  The Republican Party has thus attained and maintained power, by selling its wares through a chicanery, steeped in a lack of integrity.  Now the establishment Republicans like Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell fall all over themselves to legitimize,  normalize and perform analingus upon their new Fascist Master,  In the end, though by then it may be of little balm to the rest of us,  these leaders of the Republican Party are Damned to be doomed by their own greed, cupidity and will to power.

The Conservative Movement in the United States has always been a Potemkin Village constructed by our Oligarchic elite.

Trump and Hitler: Another Example of Fascist Techniques In Action

Using the model of Adolph Hitler and Germany,  Trump and his Republican enablers are working to create an alternate reality. Spouting lies and confabulations into what his ’Goebbels“  Kellyann Conway terms  “Alternate Facts“, Donald Trump is weaving an alternative reality for his mesmerized supporters.  Beyond his slavish authoritarian followers, Trump’s alternative reality has been accepted by his Republican followers in the Congress, who are being herded like dumb animals following a carrot on a stick.  Now somewhat immersed in the alternative reality, we see the corporate, mainstream news media,  responding like lemmings to the musings of our new President.  The press and media are caught between their mostly weak ethical constructs and the fear of reprisal from their corporate bosses, if they are seen as not being respectful enough to Presidential authority.  As for the rest of us, the majority of the American people, our perceptions run the gamut from outrage to fear to stunned disbelief that this is our President.  Yet the Big Lies crafting the Trumpian alternative reality, will ultimately fracture the common sense distrust of many Americans, unless these lies are constantly debunked.  The effectiveness of the Big Lie technique is based upon a constant repetition and a refusal by those lying to ever admit the truth.  Let’s look at the mechanics in NAZI Germany, as compared to the current schemes of Trump and his amoral cohort to achieve the same destructive results.