Counterpoint: Trump is entertaining.

Yeah, there's no need to stroke your hypnosis beard to explain the Trump phenomenon. He just knows what to say and how to say it to regular people without sounding like he's talking down to them. He's much better at masking his insincerity than any other living politician, which is why he's going to win.

Even though he cites his own background in hypnosis, Adams doesn't actually attribute Trump's success to hypnosis, he attributes it to "persuasion" which in this context just means the arsenal of ethically shady (and sometimes dubiously effective) but well documented psychological techniques that marketers have been developing and using for the last century or so. And he's right.

It's pretty much how pro wrestling, reality TV and the sorts of business Trump has been involved with work, so it makes sense that he'd be pretty good at it.

This is purely anectodal, but someone I know through work who has been deeply involved in state government (he was the secretary of treasury at one point), civil rights advocacy and high level business consulting going back to the late 80s is friends with someone who has a long, close business relationship with Trump. We were talking the other day and he told me that last year, the week Trump announced his campaign, he called this person an told him "I'll be traveling a lot for the next three months, and ill only be available by phone about 10 days a month. I'm running for president. We're going to blow our brand THROUGH THE ROOF. I'll be back in 90s days."

Which supports the idea that this was all a well planned marketing scheme that got out of hand.

People back in the day used to blame sinister hypnotic techniques to explain why Hitler came to power; for some reason nobody feels the need to blame mind control when it's non-white dictators doing exactly the same thing.

It's almost like Americans have the same monstrous capability to be hateful creatures easily led to to horrible things as everyone else on the planet, but we need these excuses to let us sleep at night.

It's also a fave argument of conspiracy nuts when an opposing politician on the right side of history is believed, because clearly it's mind control when Obama talked about gay marriage being okay and people actually believing it.

Pretty much anything beyond salesman techniques are nothing more than wishful thinking to explain away when people hold views you can't believe they should have, nothing more.

Megan Kelly: "Mr. Trump, would you please describe how your health care system would differ from Obamacare."

Donald Trump: "SLEEEEEEPPP!!!!!!!"

By god, you may be on to something there...

Just the last part

too real.

The two aren't mutually exclusive.

As Adams discusses in this video, Trump being a highly competent Svengali, chose the very real issue of immigration BECAUSE it was a wise choice from a marketing perspective.

It's not just immigration. He has also taken a stronger position against the negative effects of free trade than anyone on the left, including the self-admitted socialist. Beltway Bowtie and his ilk are so isolated from these problems that they will never understand the appeal of someone who makes them the center of their campaign. They really believe their tired small-government bullshit and Constitutional fetishism plays to the masses.

I voted for Trump last night. I went in wearing red, white, and blue pajama pants and a Hard Rock Cafe (Paris) t-shirt.

AMA

Trumps base has a human mortality rate that outstrips the mortality rate globally, and it really sucks that no one, not even Trump, mentions it.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-34714842
http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/11/boomers-deat hs-pnas/413971/

I know these are people I would despise to know personally, because I already do, but damn, that sucks and I don't like it any more than everyone else dying for the oligarchy's profits. Too many American citizens have been put into a state of learned helplessness, intentionally, by our fucking society, so the Trumps, Clintons, bankers and bombers can harvest them like a voting crop for their global agendas and ideologies.

Right now the majority of white people are Republicans because they are taught the rich respect the white. No candidate of any party seems interested in bursting that bubble.

There is still the system that rides over the false dichotomy of party politics, and it still gives no fucks.

Hypnosis is unnecessary, standard words can make humans do your will as if their senses are deranged into a delusional state, but they're not. I think the human nervous system is just a few thousand years of evolution from total sentient collapse, and at any given time we are all one step from imploded non-awareness. Because we are neurologically disastrous, all words are mind control words, f'r'nstance... !

If Bernie isn't elected, I'm going full commie.

http://www.cpusa.org/

Join us and together we can not do anything, but get to call ourselves commies unironically!

You know that sounds cooler than saying you're a Demopublicratican.

you know why