Carbonized Trumpism: Repudiation Denied

With an administration responsible for a track record of ineptitude including over 240 thousand Americans dead, Democrats had reason to believe a repudiation day was nye. Though some state politics did run in their favor, House numbers fell, and an overwhelming flip to a unified Democratic Government clearly did not happen. Why? Because Trumpism is now carbonized.

Political pundits explained that some House districts reverted to their deep red origins, that state offices made great Dem progress, and that voters resist giving all three branches of government to one party, so they often split their votes. I call “Horse Hockey”!

In 2016, the Republican information sphere was called a bubble, but Trumpism has now carbonized it into a shield against logic and facts, creating its own deadly world view as virulent as the Covid-19 virus itself. How do we know this?

The fact that 50% of all voters in the Midwest know someone who has either died or helped fill their rural hospitals to the breaking point, SHOULD have led to a clear repudiation. The horrific and preventable mortality of Covid-19, mishandled by Trump and his enablers, SHOULD have easily pushed the electorate toward the Democrats up and down the ticket. Period. So, how did Trump get more, not less votes, than in 2016? The Cabonizing.

The explanation didn’t come from Ph.D’s in psychology, public pundits, or pen pocketed prognosticators. It came from my financial advisor. He explained how this cocoon of ignorance, hardened and swelled so potently as to accuse our most trusted, dedicated professionals, the heroic, weary doctors and nurses of this country, of fraud.

Our frontline medical workers are tired and frustrated by this impenetrable shield of ignorance. Life-time epidemiologists, some working on the vaccine, have grimly called this winter’s projected Covid-19’s casualties as “a slaughter”. Like in New York, we are seeing the freezer trucks pulling up to hospitals in the Midwest.

All Americans deserve better, but 40% are “under the influence”. If this was an armed conflict, they would have been declared deserters. They have left their post in our democracy.

Here’s how he explained the carbonizing. Five companies on the Nasdaq/QQQ stock exchange now dominate global investment and customer loyalty by a large margin over all others. Can you name them? Hint: the multinational oil companies are gone. The younger you are the more likely you are to name all five. Facebook, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and Apple dominate safe investment and global popularity, by a large margin, over all other companies. This is not a healthy financial environment.

More importantly, with the exception of China, the first two control the majority of political information absorbed in the world. Unfortunately, that information is dedicated to creating fear of others which can only be satisfied with more clicks and more reading, which brings more ad dollars per eyeball minute.

2016 US election results awarded and streamlined the strategy for these Facebook and Google ad programs. Intelligence sources say these ad dollars, with the help of Trump loyalists, were finely tuned to vulnerable counties in the rust belt. Under the protection of free speech, the fascination of political innuendo and fear became a mainstay of online profit, much of that content controlled by Russian troll farms or GRU operatives.

Algorithms responsible for selling regular products proved enormously profitable when converted to the political arena, and required no fact checking, despite frequent intelligence agency warnings. It is now crystal clear this Carbonized Trumpism, through disinformation internet sales, served Republican interests in the 2020 general election. An election that should have been a landslide of repudiation had that part of the voting electorate been paying attention. But they were otherwise occupied.

Clicks that begin in harmless curiosity, take the user farther down a rabbit hole toward unfounded political accusation, hate speech, and paranoia driven by fear. Soon every session brings more temptation to explore baseless conspiracy theories that are contrary to our Constitutional beliefs and injurious to our collective mental AND physical health as a nation.

This cocktail of fear-based political fantasy helped elect the first outspoken Q-Anon member to congress this cycle. Yes, misinformation users also show signs of dependency such as damage to their responsibilities, career, and lifestyle. Is there a simple intervention?

Like a slot machine player who becomes “stuck” to the chair of their favorite machine, threads of political ads and links to hate groups and widely debunked stories become addictive and believed as fact over time. One victim of this deepening misinformation led a follower to visit an alleged child slavery ring in the basement of a popular family pizza shop in Washington D.C., with an assault rifle. Not a coupon for a deep dish.

We now know that 40% of the voting electorate, is being held hostage by these subtle, sinister, and mathematically precise inculcations. We now know that 40% of the voting population is lost to them with little hope of coming back, no matter what their surrounding circumstances may be.

Neither a dying relative nor trusted family doctor can break the strangle hold of these political algorithyms, these foul formulas. Only those in the depths of opioid addiction compare more poorly to this “Carbonized Trumpism”.

Is there an antidote? Thankfully, yes! Independent, real-time, third-party, fact checkers can monitor all political content on air and online with posted warnings. Just like the first cigarette warning labels gave the new user a fighting chance against the suave Marlboro Man on television, it’s time to monitor these new, seductive, and dangerously addictive, browser profit centers. Real time debunking is not difficult to execute.

Reversing this cultural addiction will require the people’s political will and public outcry. Google and Facebook should be held accountable for violating the robust nature of traditional and healthy American skepticism, for their own profit. A new and modern caveat to free speech protections must be forged to stand beside shouting “Fire” in a crowded building when there is none. Dangerous misinformation threatens our health as a nation, and requires guard rails, to stop the “Carbonizing of Trumpism”. Hans Solo got out. We can too!

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