The reality of having no power: Trump’s many enemies and waning base

Ambition creates opportunities for power and power provide ample adulation and animosity from the people.

Power, image, charisma , wealth together with great exposure are the ingredients that a demagog needs to succeed. These all have to play their hand in a sequence and in combination where timing and luck are critical.

With sufficient power a demagog can easily sustain his followers while holding off his enemies and detractors.

The true power of an American President is the office itself. Americans have turned the office of the Presidency into a king like position. The Commander and Chief of the greatest armed force in the world. A position that through executive action can direct and command the many branches of government. There are literally thousands of officials who serve at his pleasure.

With the office comes the media who sit on every word and every appearance of the President and report on the most minuscule act and event like what their dog did or what they ate. This exposure feeds the followers as well as the enemies who both look for anything that supports their point of view regarding the leader.

History is replete with leaders who all but disappeared as soon as they lost their position to this kind of leadership power.

Donald Trump experienced the fringe of this power when we played the media as an outlier and billionaire buffoon. He learned that the media needed anything sensational and he learned how to be controversial. That earned him name recognition. He practiced and became accustomed to the idea that almost all media exposure is good media and that creating sensational news even if it is controversial, cruel or antisocial helps that goal.

The Republican party and Fox News was the perfect medium. They had already built up the kind of prime time opinion pieces that were sensational in nature, negative and fear mongering. It was this track that many political parties had taken in the past and was ideal for the kind of person Donald Trump was.

The internet’s social media platforms were a way to reach millions of people at any time from anywhere, armed with just a mobile. The trick was to get followers and feed into their fears and prejudices. It helped that Donald already had a following. His leading role on the apprentice and help from tabloids helped a great deal in name recognition and created his persona as a successful billionaire who would take on the establishment.

He also learned though his life experience how people adulate the wealthy and that this only happened through visual queues or published reports. He fed this image by gaudy display’s of wealth and through guile got the media to spread this fantasy.

Like the Roman general Pompey and many others like him discovered, once out of power your followers leave you in droves and your enemies look to exact revenge.

Vladimir Putin probably didn’t like Trump but thought to a certain degree he could easily be manipulated based on his history and dealings with Russian money. Authoritarian regimes have long and short term plans and Donald was probably part of a long term asset as far back as the Moscow pageant. He could have been just one of the many pieces of evidence that they collect on a regular basis. One day it might come in handy. The cheapest recipe in this game is blackmail for which the Russians have been know to play for the long term. Who knows how many politicians have fallen for the ploys?

In their hearts Americans want to make peace with their enemies. Both Germany and Japan are our amongst greatest allies. Americans in general are quite forgiving. Trump could feel this and to be more controversial played the, “let’s make friends”, card with America’s biggest enemies. Russia, China and North Korea. Since Trump believed in his charm, he though he could pull off this feat and that a good proportion of the American public would hold him up as a hero if he was successful. He was convinced that he was a deal maker and could make a deal with anybody. He loved to take chances especially if in his mind it was with somebody else’s money.

Needless to say, those in the know understood the reality and they were against any deal making that would diminish and embarrass American might, strength and dignity. These people were people in the intelligence community who would be publicly humiliated and told that Donald knew better than they did. Donald and his ever present gut instinct against their many years of intelligence work and training. It hurt and cut deep. He made enemies for sure.

This is what Donald Trump is facing. He has create the largest base of powerful enemies imaginable all who are just waiting for chance to exact their revenge. And it wont be hard.

His real ardent true followers for the most part are poor and uneducated and mainly powerless. They likened Trump to a king of sorts. Somebody they could personality worship like a sports or movie star and feel akin to. Now that they cannot easily hear news about their king left right and centre from the media they begin to have doubts and will start looking for a new king and a new cause.

The other class are not followers but benefactors. They are educated, ambitious, have namesakes and are somewhat wealthy. They are there because they could benefit from his persona and somehow elevate themselves and benefit from his base.

Over a shorter period of time, they will all but disappear or worse try their hand had the same demagoguery. However, without the ingredients that propelled Donald Trump they will have little chance, even remotely, to attain the same level of followers. For the most part they feel this reality coming on and for this want desperately to advance and keep alive the persona of Donald Trump as much as they can. They can’t be Donald Trump, he is unique.

While Donald Trump was an aspiring presidential candidate and more so after he became President he became drunk with this new found power. His dream was fulfilled and he alone was the big focus of the media. He stole the limelight from any other person or event. He inserted himself when ever and where ever he could. He was at the high point of his life.

He went on a rampage patronising, pandering and elevating his followers and belittling, insulting and smearing his adversaries. It propelled him even further in their eyes.

The idea of evil big government and the deep state have been fodder for Hollywood films and the media. Trump knew how people loved the idea of hating the ever present meddling government and represented to the people that he would dismantle and decimate it. Civil servants had little respect, now they had none.

He did this through besmirching civil servants, politicians and humiliating them in public forums. These acts got plenty of attention from the media, thus feeding into his persona as a wrecking ball of norms. It also created a big cadre of civil servants and political professionals who would later have their knives out for him. This group of people would be the source for countless embarrassing leaks of critical information that would expose more and more Donald Trump’s incompetence. His persona was bigger and the snitches were blamed for being un-loyal.

Both sides grew in numbers and the media industry secretly loved it each benefiting from the adulation and animosity that drove ratings up.

The one thing that brings down a leader more than anything else is the lack of competence.

What Donald Trump did not have and was his greatest downfall was competence. He was totally inept when it came to management. His style of management was based on an instant self-serving gut feeling. He was fortunate to have inherited plenty of wealth from his family. Although he squandered much of it, he did manage to spend other people’s money on failed projects and not risk his own capital. His history was proof he was an incompetent in all things basic except for the media.

Again, this created more enemies who would wait their moment to exact revenge. His meddling in all things outside of his expertise, which was almost everything, would earn him even more disdain.

Donald understood that his biggest and only competitor for the presidency would come from Joe Biden and only because Joe Biden had the biggest name recognition factor being the former Vice President of his nemesis President Barak Obama. He knew enough about the media and understood the narrow mindedness of how most people make choices based more on name recognition than competence — that is how he became president.

Donald soon discovered that like every venture he started things would start to unravel and his method of management would present his greatest challenges.

Donald could read media trends. He watched all kinds of news incessantly to get an idea of what other people were seeing. He would do so understanding that the media for the most part reflects what the general American audience wants to see or believes in — the media doesn’t always get it right. Advisors are nothing against what he saw on TV and over the internet.

He knew media was a double edged sword. With his new found power and ability to reach people directly through social media he sought to tame the media by calling it fake news. He humiliated and belittled journalists and the organisations they worked for with the intention to silence them. This only grew his enemy base and fed their need for vengeance to dig deep to find damaging information that they knew was there that could help bring him down. He bit the hand the fed him.

He knew that many poor white Americans felt marginalised as immigrants started to populate their neighbourhoods. This is not new, the average American has always viewed new immigrants in a negative light. It was then and now easy to get people riled up about invading immigrants. Economists and politicians new that theoretically a regular influx of immigrants was good for America. It created economic growth and more tax money. The alternative was stagnation and a complacent population.

Trump noted how the American people generally were against immigrants, hated the idea of lockdown and were prone to be poor victims of their circumstance. He would put all of his energy in going against both.

He would try to exacerbate or create a wedge between white Americans and the others, and it worked. In so doing he gained many white Americans to his side but also lost many. He would loose and energise many non-whites into voting for the first time that he would soon come to regret. The race card was a dangerous one he failed to fully grasp.

A demagog doesn’t have to solve things, he needs to just loudly point them out and associate them with a rival.

It was Donald’s incompetence and controversial nature that led many of his previous voters to jump ship. It is a rare thing for an incumbent President to loose an election, after all they have the media’s around the clock attention. An incumbent president need only act normal and avoid big controversies in order to be reelected.

Donald made a big miscalculation on the Pandemic. Americans wanted something they would come to regret and blame him for. They wanted to be free from the restrictions placed on them due to the Pandemic. Donald saw this and guessed that it would pass, as he said, like the ordinary flu. He was not alone. The Ebola and SARS scare didn’t have any impact and he surmised the same would be true about Covid. Most Americans were never alive during such a crisis and believed it could not possible affect them. America was too great to fail.

Alas, his bet was misplaced and backfired in a big way. His incompetence was being exposed almost on a daily basis. His main stream media enemies finally had a way to get back at him. They had a new story and took charge pouncing on every small detail. He began to look more and more inept and unqualified.

He made even more enemies within the medical and scientific community, again belittling and degrading their many years of experience and training against his gut instinct. He must have been terrified to see a needle go in his arm thinking — do they hate me?

As the number of dead people due to covid was piling up Trump thought to downplay the severity. He did so because to acknowledging the existence through empathy would implicate him in their demise. By ignoring the facts and creating controversies he hoped the media would refocus their attention and that the American people would not be so much aware of this catastrophe. It seemed to work in the past, but failed this time.

The news of bodies piling up was too sensational for the media to pass up. Even the right wing media got in on the act too, landing blame on the democrats. What this actually did, however, was to expose Donald Trump. For the American people the buck is supposed to stop at the President and there is no way to avoid this traditional held responsibility.

The only thing that Joe Biden had to do for his campaign was to appear competent, show empathy and avoid a scandal. The pandemic helped because he was free from creating too many opportunities to create controversies from his public appearances. In the mean time Trump piled up gaff after gaff and Biden could only be blamed for being too prudent in following scientific advise.

Trump’s main and only challenge was to find a scandal against Biden, since that formula worked well with Hillary. This would only land him in more trouble as his growing base of enemies worked to bring him down.

With an impeachment and the surfacing grifting and incompetence, the more calculating of the Republican community began to fade away and many become the leading opposition.

Still with the power of the Presidency, Donald could see that his greatest fear was loosing the power of the Presidency and he would go on to do everything in and out of his power to hold on to that vestige of power.

It would be his ever growing number of enemies working in plain sight and in the background that would cause his ultimate reelection demise.

His enemies were much more powerful than his friends. Fox news alone could not match the reach of all of the other networks and the investigative journalists combined who were clearly now against him looking to bring him down. Media has mainly tried to be neutral, but Donald on his fake news campaign completely alienated them causing them to take sides and overtly go against him.

Even people in his own Republican party were secretly looking for ways to bring him down without affecting the party. The exercise was futile since Donald had firm control over the base elements of the whole organisation. Many developed the opinion to sink the ship for now and come back and fight another day. Only if the Republican party would not go the way of the Wigs would this be possible.

He knew from the outset that he would not win the election if it were to be fair. He said so himself on many occasions. He knew his time was up unless he could pull a rabbit out of the hat. That rabbit would either be hoping to fix the election on his behalf and failing that claim election fraud against Joe Biden and somehow stay in power.

It was not to be. Not because it was not possible. It was quite possible. It wasn’t possible for the mere fact that Donald Trump had created so many enemies that had eyes and ears everywhere that he was exposed to the better half of the American people. People of all ethnicities, social standings and professions were on the lookout to squeal foul, to go against Donald directly or indirectly exposing him and his entourage for political crimes.

The insurrection was the big gasp for changing the political outcome of a lost election. It would never have succeeded in installing Donald Trump, but it would have resulted in a bloody conflict of Americans against Americans. Those who were against Donald Trump would soon take up arms and those for him would fight back. Most likely there would have been a terrible fight that would ultimately result in fewer electoral votes for Biden, but with the same outcome.

As fate would have it Trump’s enemies were too numerous and increasing in numbers. The wealthy and powerful saw in Biden a safer choice and had become weary and fearful of Donald Trumps’s dictatorial style. They were betting on the side of safety even if it mean higher taxes and a more restrictive government. This is evident in the fact they promoted Republicans who won more seats in congress, yet Donald Trump lost substantially.

Now that Biden is president most everybody can see the difference between a competent, unassuming politician and a demagog. This fact is eroding Trump’s appeal very fast.

The most damaging is that Trump has been exposed. The media now is fearful of elevating him but happy to report on his failures. With his social media accounts blocked his relevance is dissipating. Other smaller controversies are filling his time slots. He is less heard, less seen and more despised.

Eventually even Fox news will move on and will stop entertaining his call-ins. They are looking for new sensationalism which they are finding on fringe elements. Donald only has old news election fraud to tout and no other plans. The other media outlets are on to him and will avoid being used this time by not giving him air to his senseless conspiracy theories.

With q-anon, white nationalist movements gaining traction much attention is being paid by the media as to how these will be eliminated and marginalised and are blaming Donald Trump’s presidency for their emergence.

Social media sites benefitted under Donald Trump as they saw political money pour in from every corner of America, and adversaries too, to help sway the average American political thought. These social media companies are now the focus of mainstream traditional media, political pundits and politicians who are landing the blamed on these sites for pushing American democracy to the brink.

As a result association with Donald Trump has become very toxic for business and Twitter and Facebook have opted out. Media is what the wind is for a sailboat and social media is a steady trade wind. Without this exposure it’s out of sight out of mind.

It’s all about the power. Donald Trump is receding from power faster than he went into it. There are fewer searches for Donald Trump and the majority of media is making sure he is getting all bad press. Journalists are busy digging a treasure trove of dirt. There is still an appetite for all things bad about Donald Trump. Many people want, and are looking forward to retribution.

On other fronts his enemies are coming out of the woodwork to assail him from every conceivable angle. Civil suits and media breaking stories of his grifting and incompetence are becoming daily fodder for the media.

Really bad for Trump is he has almost no way to reach the masses to make the controversies work for his benefit or to counter their negative effects.

He is no longer the outsider, outlier that by chance can accidentally change the world for better. President Biden is proving to be the kind of President that American’s feel safer with.

The new generation is happy that they have a progressive looking President that looks to be multi-generational. They set a very low bar that Biden has out paced by leaps and bounds.

Corporates and Businesses are slowly being optimistic as they come to realise that the economy will not jump start itself and that government intervention might not be all that bad.

His experience in political offices shows that he knows how to work the leavers of government. Civil servants feel they have their man in the White House and will probably do all they can to keep him there. They were previously working to undermine Trump with every chance they got. Now that has all changed.

The intelligence community will all of the sudden work to be more serious about outside interference and will no longer be afraid to intervene making it harder for third party global players. They will exact vengeance against Trump the first chance they get, which will come in time. The idea of complacency and political safety has an all new and dangerous meaning and implication for America’s and their future.

Minorities will be fearful of Trump coming back and reversing the small gains. The media will help push this narrative forward that he will come back to scare them back to the polls.

The fact that Republicans are making great but obvious overtures to make elections harder will backfire and reduce the Republican party’s influence even more with local elections promoting fewer Republicans and more of the electoral leaving the party. In the minds of many Republicans this will be like putting money in a bad investment. It will help in a big way when they see the economy under Biden going big and general happiness amongst most Americans.

Even more ex trump officials will come out and start writing their own books to cash in on their experience during Trump’s presidency and it wont be flattering. There are already 4,500 books about him and most all are not favourable. People are hungry for blood and any bad thing that he did will have an audience to want to enjoy his downfall.

Trump’s brand has become toxic for most Americans and those who still associate with him don’t have the kind of money Trump needs. His businesses require the middle class somewhat wealthy to survive and his most ardent followers are relatively not the kind of people that would patronise trump properties or buy is merchandise, except for hats. This was most apparent during the January 6th insurrection. His followers stayed in low class cheap hotels with only a few staying in his flagship DC hotel. They would, however visit it like a shrine, but not put down the kind of cash that Donald was used to getting when he had power.

His only change to remain relevant is to keep in the spotlight with a new message, yet he cannot. He is drumming the same beat of being a victim and voter fraud that is becoming a tired sound even to his followers ears.

So many demagogs have suffered the same fate. They marvel at how quickly they are abandoned and how quickly their fortunes reverse. Who they thought to be close, turn on them when things get nasty. When they go back to call in favours, they are forgotten and shunned.

Yes Donald Trump still has a way to go before total collapse, but it is coming like a freight train that can’t be stopped.

When any leader makes so many enemies and no longer has power and is increasing shunned by their very base, beware. These enemies will come with vigour and exact their revenge and they and everybody else who felt insulted and marginalised will revel in the nasty demise with no thought of sympathy.

Biden is clever not to go on the direct attack and bask in his victory at the expense of his competitors. He is focusing on the people’s business and the job and is steering way clear of the type of rhetoric that Donald Trump revelled in. He knows he does not need to seek retribution against Donald Trump.

Unlike anybody else, Biden, as a long time Senator and eight year Vice President knows what will become of Donald Trump. It will be at the hands of countless number of enemies that Donald has created over his lifetime.

Most people that have felt helpless for the past four years need only sit back and watch and not be feel guilty or ashamed of their delight.