By Bob Morshidi
Disclaimer: I am not an expert in US politics or politics of any kind. As a playwright, proofreader, and writer of rubbish stories, I am an expert in curating narration.
Donald Trump and the rioters who attacked the Capitol building last week are terrorists. It’s as simple as that.
Cool. We’re done here, yes? Great. Let’s move on to nicer things.
My beloved Man United’s been doing unexpectedly well. Luke Skywalker has returned to Star Wars. Doctor Who is back and better than ever.
What? Do you want to hear more about president orange? Very well then.
In the far distant past of 2015, about a year before Trump started hamming up his run for president, the world (aka. The internet) was split this way.
This is not fact, it is just an assumption, but my assumptions are facts because one day I’ll take over the world and adopt the beloved Kim Jong Un style of governance.
In 2021, based on how Americans voted in the general election (81,283,485 for Biden; 74,223,744 for Trump), this is how it looks like now.
Play On Biases
It seems so simple, but to play on ones bias is the best way to get them on your team.
See, people inherently have this bias against “The Other”. It’s a bias that if you look different, talk different, believe in different principles, and believe in different forms of faith, you are nowhere as good as they are. If you believe that abortion is murder, then people who have had an abortion are murderers (even if the pregnancy is due to terrible things such as rape).
So how do you get them to vote for you? Play to their sense of right and wrong.
Trump did that with abortions. In 1999 he was pro-choice. When running for president in 2016, he became pro-life with exceptions (choosing that the punishment will be on the doctor or practitioner and not the woman). Now, if you were biased against abortions, wouldn’t you want to support the man who wants to punish murderers?
Of course, any political parties will play on biases, but how Trump has gotten a mob of bloodthirsty terrorists on his side is that he uses the play on “The Other” to the extreme is genius in a Hitler kind of way.
He had people supporting putting children in cages, blocking people from “sh*thole” countries from flying into America and that COVID-19 is no big deal.
More than 374,000 people have died in America as of the time of writing.
How does he get away with it? He creates and plays narratives.
Create Loud Narratives
They say that the calmer voice makes sense than the one who shouts.
However, Trump’s radical supporters are deaf, and they never listen to reason. They can only listen to who shouts the loudest and what they like to hear. That’s why they view him as a stronger leader than Joe Biden, even though Biden uses plain, simple facts in his arguments (numbers and data from respected scientists and policy experts). Biden talks calmly. Trump shouts and under-enunciates.
Just watch Tomi Lahren, most of Fox News and Trump’s sperm. They create loud sensationalist stories that are then eaten up by those who can’t read between the lines because the American schooling system is now target practice for the National Rifle Association rather than a place to teach Pinter or Shakespeare or some goddamn common sense.
So now you have a story of how “The Other” can harm you, being shouted to you by good looking rich people who have more than you (by not paying taxes like you have to cause they have better lawyers and accountants). You believe this story cause it emboldens your checklist of beliefs because you’ve never talked to an Asian, try to understand women who have been raped or been a minority yourself.
When your storyteller tells you to then go to a government building where a democratic process is being played out and attack it via “Trial by combat”, you would, of course, gather up your Confederate flag, slowly march with your other sexually impotent friends and try to hang a vice-president and members of Congress who, despite their faults (and Mike Pence has A LOT of faults), are just human beings.
The narrative has called for the killing of people. You said yes.
(Side note: It took his President selling him out and his life being in danger, but I have a tiny bit of respect for Mike Pence for finally growing a backbone and calling out the President. That kind of politicizing only happens on Netflix political dramas).
In Conclusion
Look, we Malaysians are not perfect. We’ve had riots and demonstrations. Somehow we have idiot politicians wanting a general election even though it’s a pandemic and thousands of people are getting infected daily just because they have an erection for power. We have political backstabbing and voters don’t know who to trust anymore. However, I do not recall a Malaysian mob killing a policeman who was trying to protect members of a government from illiterate rioters, and that’s something we need to be proud of.
Also, my middle finger to you, Donald Trump. – New Malaysia Herald
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