Why chaos and scapegoating work for Trump

By Angelo Lynn

Editor’s note: Angelo Lynn is the publisher of the Addison Independent, a sister paper of the Mountain Times.

As the nation’s increasingly discredited president continues to sow chaos at every level — domestic and international — it helps to understand what we can of his tactics. A recent piece by Jess Bidgood, a New York Times correspondent, explains how Trump uses “the blame game” so successfully. She notes that Trump has used the value of a simple story “whether one told in a 1990s tabloid, or a 2000s reality show (‘The Apprentice’) or at the White House briefing room” to win over supporters. 

A central premise in his storytelling is to create a villain.

When a U.S. military Black Hawk helicopter and passenger plane collided, Trump immediately blamed DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) hiring as the culprit — without any evidence or common sense.

When a man killed 10 people in New Orleans, Bidgood continued, Trump suggested the attacker was an illegal immigrant — just to further inflame his supporters against his catch-all enemy (illegal immigration). It turned out the attacker was a U.S.-born American. No matter, Trump never issued a correction or apology. He scored a headline and scoffs at honest statements.

He blames climate change policies for undermining the nation’s ability to meet our energy needs, even though the nation produces more energy than ever and has increased its energy production through adding renewable sources — a false enemy if there ever was one.

It’s important the public understands that’s who Trump is and how he operates. We know he uses lies and outlandish fiction to keep opponents off balance and to misdirect their attention. And he either doesn’t understand, or doesn’t care, that his lack of credibility — and the nation’s lack of consistency and rational policy — will create negative consequences. This is particularly true of Trump’s chaotic and outrageous statements on foreign affairs.

Stupid suggestions that we take over the Panama Canal, buy Greenland, make Canada a 51st state or, most recently, take over Gaza and kick out all the Palestinians do not just discredit Trump as a serious thinker, but they also set the stage for authoritarian governments, such as Russia and China, to take over Ukraine (and other former Soviet bloc countries) and Taiwan.

And then there are Trump’s tariffs, which if eventually fully imposed could start a damaging trade war. They are supposedly intended to stop the flow of illegal drugs into the country, but are really primarily being imposed to bring in revenue to pay for his promised tax cuts to the wealthy. The tariffs will not only cause prices to rise domestically (inflation), but will also prompt nations worldwide to seek out other trade partners and will in the end greatly diminish America’s strength in international trade. That, of course, hurts jobs at home. The Trump tariffs are, in the words of the conservative Wall Street Journal, the “dumbest trade war in history.”

In another prime use of misdirection, Trump’s absurd suggestion that America would take over Gaza and kick all Palestinians out of the country drew the headlines. But the real story of his meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu went unreported: That is America’s continued support of Israel’s war against Hamas and invasion of Gaza with no reported U.S. restraints on Israel’s aggression. (Where are all those American protesters who criticized President Biden prior to the election for being too pro-Israel and threw their support behind Trump?)

And Black and Latino Americans and women who supported Trump must now certainly be disillusioned by the president’s increased attacks on DEI practices, which were put in place in the 1960s to ensure employers gave everyone an equal opportunity to be hired based on merit. Unfortunately, many Americans were sucked into believing Trump’s and the GOP’s conservative diatribe that DEI hirings gave preferential treatment to nonwhites and the LBTGQ community. The truth is that it was a mere extension of laws that sought to prevent employers from discriminating against people based on race, religion, age or gender — a principle almost all Americans embrace.

What’s shocking is that they have been telegraphing these messages for the past year and yet MAGA supporters across the country, and many Republicans in Congress, continue to deny that’s the undercurrent of their actions.

But Bidgood asks a deeper question: Why does Trump’s scapegoating of America’s troubles work? Or more pointedly, why do MAGA supporters fall for such flimsy excuses?

Charles Zug, an assistant professor at the Truman School of Public and Government Affairs at the University of Missouri and the author of a book about demagoguery in politics, provides a simple answer.

“Part of what demagoguery is, is the personalization of what are, in fact, highly impersonal, systemic problems,” Zug told Bidgood. “Part of [Trump’s] success is the sort of creation of an entire fictive, rhetorical world of enemies — you know, villains and heroes — that his supporters can buy into.”

Those who believe Trump, Zug continued, “end up authorizing the actions of people like Trump who end up wielding the state’s power to vindicate these people’s hopes and expectations.”

Bidgood also reached out to Jason Stanley, a Yale philosophy professor and the author of “How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them.” Stanley points out a finer point on the tactic: “Trump is building coalitions with scapegoats,” adding that scapegoating “is a way of bonding people together against a common enemy and thereby creating unity between people who otherwise would be in conflict.”

In short, it’s Trump’s “us-vs-them” worldview that attracts supporters because many Americans want to blame a perceived enemy rather than seek remedies to complex problems. But until Trump’s supporters, and the Republican Party, see through the obvious faults in his “blame game,” the nation will see a sharp decline in international prestige (including the value of soft power gained by helping other countries with foreign aid) and could lose the nation’s immense benefits from the foreign trade agreements that have benefited the national economy since World War II.

Trump is the wrecking ball he promised to be, and we can appreciate that Trump supporters say they like that Trump “gets s#!t done.” But doing the right things matter — otherwise we’ll be left with a big pile of it on our doorsteps, while Trump and his cronies will leave office with trillions in misbegotten benefits after forcing middleclass taxpayers to pick up the tab.