The people who’ve been conned aren’t the enemy. The con man is.
Let’s say there’s a fair and open election in four years, which is actually a real question. But say it happens.
Here’s a handy theme that will work as part of larger campaign full-throated progressive campaign: Trump betrayed you.
The campaign we just witnessed centered on a theme that has become the running joke for much of our existence: “Make America Great Again.” But as ridiculous and regressive as it might have seemed to you, it was a real promise the opiate-ravaged rural counties of Ohio and the hollowed out hills of West Virginia.
Trump promised to bring coal jobs back, though that’s likely an impossibility. What he’s far more likely to do is repeal Obamacare along with the black lung benefits miners and their families need.
The Obamacare repeal will happen. It will happen because it’s been a promise that has united the GOP for most of a decade and it will happen because will give a nice tax break to the super rich.
But you gotta remember this: Trump also promised to replace Obamacare with “Something terrific.”
What he’s going to get is complete ownership of the entire American health care system, regardless of what elements of the law he leaves in place.
Every Trump voter who ends up uninsured, rejected from a hospital or buried under medical debt needs to be reminded that this is not the “something terrific” Trump promised you. He betrayed you.
The betrayal will be worse for parents who assumed Trump was serious when his tax plan promised, “”The largest tax reductions are for the middle class.” But the AP reports that “nearly 8 million families — including a majority of single-parent households” would actually see a tax hike. He betrayed you.
And then there are seniors, who Trump promised “I’m not going to cut Medicare or Medicaid.” Paul Ryan has other plans. He’d like to see Medicare turned into a privatized voucher program. So does Tom Price, who has been mentioned as Trump’s pick for Secretary of Health and Human Services. Their “reforms” will probably target those of us 55 and under, but they still break Trump’s pledge. And any change to the system that shifts the cost burden to seniors will eventually begin to weigh down the program for current beneficiaries. He betrayed all of you.
Of course, there are the diehards who will never be swayed. But tens of millions of people who backed him thought he was racist and knew he was unqualified. He just did a better job of disqualifying his opponent. We can’t let that happen again.
Here are 232 promises Trump made. Reminding his voters of every vow he breaks and getting their response to Trump’s failures on record will be the Lord’s work.
Betrayal is a key concept because it attacks Trump’s carefully image as a leader and a winner that plays into the “Strict Father” mindset that helped him win over workers in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan.
“There are certain things that strict fathers cannot be: A Loser, Corrupt, and especially not a Betrayer of Trust,” George Lakoff — a brain scientist who has studied how framing shapes our politics — writes.
Lakoff also warns Democrats from fixating on the things they see as terrible about Trump — especially his nasty, domineering and vicious comments. These traits, as we learned in the last election, not only appeal to some potential Democratic voters but actually encourage their brains to become more conservative. (Obviously I’m putting this complicated cognitive functioning into simplistic terms because I’m a big dummy.)
So if you’re going to focus on Trump, Lakoff recommends focusing on how he lost the popular vote by millions, his unprecedentedly corrupt mingling of personal and state business and his betrayals of his supporters.
I know some people have a reflexive urge to say, “Let them suffer. They voted for the leech.” But the way our system works is we can’t punish them without punishing ourselves and our loved ones. Sadistic revenge fantasies only feed demagogues like Trump. Empathy is his — and all super villains’ — Kryptonite.
The people who’ve been conned aren’t the enemy. The con man is.
And they could be our greatest asset.
[Image by Evan Guest via Flickr]
