Politics –
Chaos 101: Is America
Being Played By Trump?

Donald Trump has only been in office for 10 days, yet he has already created a level of chaos and controversy even his sharpest critics could have never imagined possible.  Could it be that Trump and his cronies are playing America?

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Conversations over the past 24 hours have begun to brew with a very important question: is Trump’s chaos really the haphazard performance of a crazed clown, who sits in the Oval Office randomly pushing buttons based on his every whim without ever fully considering the consequences? Or is Donald Trump being manipulated like a Marionette into creating chaos and diversion that has pulled our attention away from something much more sinister going on??

It’s an old military strategy that criminals have used for decades: create a huge fire on one side of town, so that all resources and attention are diverted from the robbing of a bank on the opposite side of town. For anyone unfamiliar with the strategy, their emotions will almost always pull them into the narrative of the blazing fire, without them ever realizing they are being robbed blind while they aren’t looking.

Are we being played, America?

It’s not as farfetched as some might think. The Republican presidential contenders underestimated Trump to their demise. The voting public underestimated Trump to their demise. Are we all simply falling once again into the same old habits?

Trump sits in the White House, sending out madman-like messages via Twitter, while SNL and various late-night comics make fun as the country sits back and laughs. Meanwhile, Trump removed the entire bipartisan staff of the US State Department (while leaving every position unfilled), demoted the director of national intelligence and each of the joint chiefs of staff (in favor of his totally unqualified and bigoted advisor, Steve Bannon, who can now advise/order the legal killing of ANYONE he believes to be an enemy of the state), then fired the acting US Attorney General (for reminding Trump that his denial of entry into the US to valid green card holders was unconstitutional). While women were out marching in pink-pussyhats and Americans were protesting at airports against Muslim hate, Donald Trump was safely secluded inside The White House with bigger fish to fry.

Social media has since taken to discussing the reported words of Heather Cox Richardson, professor of History at Boston College. Here are excerpts:

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“What [Steve] Bannon is doing, most dramatically with last night’s ban on immigration from seven predominantly Muslim countries– is creating what is known as a ‘shock event.’

Such an event is unexpected and confusing and throws a society into chaos. People scramble to react to the event, usually along some fault line that those responsible for the event can widen by claiming that they alone know how to restore order. When opponents speak out, the authors of the shock event call them enemies. As society reels and tempers run high, those responsible for the shock event perform a sleight of hand to achieve their real goal, a goal they know to be hugely unpopular, but from which everyone has been distracted as they fight over the initial event. There is no longer concerted opposition to the real goal; opposition divides along the partisan lines established by the shock event.

Last night’s Executive Order has all the hallmarks of a shock event. It was not reviewed by any governmental agencies or lawyers before it was released, and counterterrorism experts insist they did not ask for it. People charged with enforcing it got no instructions about how to do so. Courts immediately have declared parts of it unconstitutional, but border police in some airports are refusing to stop enforcing it. Predictably, chaos has followed and tempers are hot.

My point today is this: unless you are the person setting it up, it is in no one’s interest to play the shock event game. It is designed explicitly to divide people who might otherwise come together so they cannot stand against something its authors think they won’t like. I don’t know what Bannon is up to– although I have some guesses– but because I know Bannon’s ideas well, I am positive that there is not a single person whom I consider a friend on either side of the aisle– and my friends range pretty widely– who will benefit from whatever it is. If the shock event strategy works, though, many of you will blame each other, rather than Bannon, for the fallout. And the country will have been tricked into accepting their real goal. But because shock events destabilize a society, they can also be used positively. We do not have to respond along old fault lines. We could just as easily reorganize into a different pattern that threatens the people who sparked the event.

A successful shock event depends on speed and chaos because it requires knee-jerk reactions so that people divide along established lines. This, for example, is how Confederate leaders railroaded the initial southern states out of the Union.

If people realize they are being played, though, they can reach across old lines and reorganize to challenge the leaders who are pulling the strings. This was Lincoln’s strategy when he joined together Whigs, Democrats, Free-Soilers, anti-Nebraska voters, and nativists into the new Republican Party to stand against the Slave Power.

Confederate leaders and Lincoln both knew about the political potential of a shock event. As we are in the midst of one, it seems worth noting that Lincoln seemed to have the better idea about how to use it.”

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Is Donald Trump really a clown who should be mocked and made fun of? Or is he the face of a much more evil puppet master behind the scenes, who is — at least so far — successfully playing all of America?

OK WASSUP! discusses politics:
Is America being played by the Trump chaos?