Jan 6 hearing: Episode 2 — The Long Con
If you gave money to the election defense fund, you got robbed
This is the 2nd episode in a several part series. Please read the first episode here Jan 6 hearing: Episode 1 — America’s domestic terrorism problem; White “Christian” Nationalism continues to be the most dangerous threat to our Republic
A long con happens over time. According to Wikipedia’s definition, “it is a scam that unfolds over several days or weeks; it may involve a team of swindlers, and even props, sets, extras, costumes, and scripted lines. It aims to rob the victim of huge sums of money or valuables, often by getting them to empty out banking accounts and borrow from family members.” A long con is a crescendo of loyalty and deception that eventually intersect when the confidence man cashes in on the allegiance of his followers using a desperate plea for help. This stage is known as the “Hurrah” — “A sudden manufactured crisis [Pence is going to certify Joe Biden President] or change of events forces the victim [Trump’s supporters who had an election stolen from them] to act or make a decision immediately [help stop the steal]. This is the point at which the con succeeds or fails. With a financial scam, the con artist may tell the victim that the “window of opportunity” to make a large investment in the scheme is about to suddenly close forever.” Jan 6th was Donald Trump’s “Hurrah.”
What I learned from the second Jan 6 hearing is that Donald Trump had a premeditated plan, a long con, well before the election, to defraud his own supporters of hundreds of millions of dollars and he did it. He took over $250M from his supporters in the name of an election defense fund against a fraud he manufactured, and he did not use the fund on election defense. The only real fraud was him making up a fraud and persisting that there was a fraud when there was no fraud, so that he could raise money. How do I know? He told us. Knowing he would likely lose, he signaled there would be election fraud well before the election. He wanted to discredit the process itself ahead of time. He knew that Democrats preferred absentee and mail-in ballots more so than Republicans. He knew that the race was going to be closest on election night and that as all the mail-in ballots were counted, he would likely lose. He exploited the fact that we were voting in the middle of a pandemic with a higher mail-in preference. He questioned the integrity of one of our most secure presidential elections of all time before, during, and after it occurred and even to this day. He did all that clearly knowing he was lying. It was a long con. Watch this short 5-minute video clip on it:
I feel awful for everyone Trump swindled. We may sit here wondering how people could be so gullible, but I don’t think they were gullible. We may sit here wondering how people could trust someone who clearly lies all the time, but I think they had a reason for that. I am grieving for my fellow Americans who were robbed of their hard-earned wages because they deeply believed they were somehow helping to save America from an election their President told them was stolen and corrupt.
To help us better understand what happened, there is something more appealing than honesty if you are feeling disenfranchised or marginalized and that is authenticity. Trump has what is called, “The Authentic Appeal of the Lying Demagogue.” “When a political system is suffering from a ‘crisis of legitimacy’ with respect to at least one political constituency, members of that constituency will be motivated to see a flagrant violator of established norms as an authentic champion of its interests.” In other words, Trump created a crisis of legitimacy by undermining the validity of our electoral process, which then disenfranchised his own supporters and turned them (even further) against their own government. People literally stormed our Capitol and threatened to hang our Vice President because they believed the lies of our President. Many of them have or will spend time in prison and will suffer other consequences. Trump, I do not know what will happen to him. However, I do know that his motive clearly was to enrich himself and those around him to the tune of $250M. If I were you, I would get my money back.