Keeping the Republican base in line

The political correctness diversion

The political correctness diversion is a technique that Trump uses to manage the news cycle for his own benefit. It is a spectacle, rooted in contempt. It’s one of the ways the republican party is able to play its base and get them to vote against their own interests, but republican voters are not the only ones being played. The spectacle only works if media and liberals participate. If we understand it, we can avoid getting sucked into the conversation that republican leadership wants.

The most successful use of this trick occurred in May of 2016, when Trump attacked Judge Gonzolo Curiel, saying “He’s a hater”, because he “happens to be, we believe, Mexican”.

Judge Curiel

Judge Curiel was presiding over two lawsuits in which Trump was accused of defrauding people who had enrolled in his “university”. The university (not accredited) was selling seminars on how to make money in real estate. The cost ranged from $1,500 to $35,000. The lawsuits alleged deceptive practices, misrepresentation and racketeering. Trump eventually settled, paying out $25 million.

The people he was defrauding come from square in the middle of his base. Some of them paid $35,000 to meet him, and he didn’t show up. He treated them with predatory contempt, the way he treats everyone, but the story of all this died for lack of oxygen. For weeks, the media churned over whether or not he’s a racist. The diversion was successful. The fraud story got buried and played no role in the election.

This works because it’s so easy to make the case that he’s racist. To talk about fraud, we have to read articles, marshal facts, and get the witnesses to show up. Racism, well he’s mashing that in our faces. Easy to see and easy to get outraged, because we all know racism is bad, right?

But the anti-racism message doesn’t get traction with his supporters. Their media have been preparing them for years with rants about “political correctness”. They think liberals consider them deplorable and they are OK with baiting the people who look down on them. Trump has a very keen sense of what he can say, that will trigger media and liberals, while being acceptable to his base. In fact, our outrage causes his base to circle the wagons. Lily Loofbourow in Slate writes

“The racist turn doesn’t activate his base in a vacuum; it requires liberal outrage to produce a feedback cycle that keeps his supporters riled up and convinced that there is a war to fight.”

Four years later we’re still falling for it. In March,2020, the political correctness diversion appears as “Chinese virus”. This racist talking point is being created deliberately — we can see it being done in real time. He yells at reporters, to trigger them, and feeds racism to trigger liberals. It’s hard not to respond to this in some way, so we get articles that say things like,

“Trump is correct that the virus is believed to come from China. But using the phrase goes against modern best practices to avoid location-based names for diseases.”

Wow. Don’t you want to go into an election with that as your message?

When you find yourself triggered by boorish or racist behavior from this man, you should immediately ask why he wants to divert the conversation. In the case of “chinese virus” it’s easy to see:

1. The pandemic response team was disbanded “to save money”.
2. When Americans were evacuated from China, the government workers who processed them were not given training or protective gear. They were housed in area motels, and told to shut up when they complained about it.
3. The
4. CDC completely failed to do its job providing tests.
5. The administration was briefed on January 3, but nothing was done about the need for masks and ventilators until March 18.
6. Public statements have been consistently false, misleading the public on topic after topic.
7. While he was still downplaying the crisis in public, rump met with the head of a german vaccine company that was working on coronavirus. There’s a lot of back and forth about whether or not he tried to buy the company, but the guy he talked to was thrown out as its president.

This is how he hurts his supporters. If you want to erode his support, keep the focus on reality. As the pandemic accelerates in the coming weeks, he and his minions will be trying to ramp up the spectacle. There’s going to be a lot of drum beating about China. Don’t fall for the diversion. Choose for yourself what you are going to talk about.