Colonel Ralph Peters joined Ari Melber on The Beat on Friday evening to discuss the Trump and Trump supporters, and it was a really interesting interview. Peters really nails Trump supporters - why they blindly follow, what Trump gives to them that they so desperately need and why they will never abandon him. It was an excellent, and concise, interview.
MELBER: So, Colonel, when you look at everything that's just been said, one of the takeaways here is, according to a lot of experts, this is a bad thing. But it's also a bad thing that's being done very effectively, which makes it worse than incompetence in pursuing a bad thing. Some people are so against Donald Trump they forget to see how effective he is. Instead of creating a environment, are being misperceived as a part of a "deep state" when, in fact, the agenda seems to be to change the leadership of the FBI because he's under investigation in the Russia probe. He got Comey out, McCabe is out, and Peter Strzok is fired. He's going after peter -- security clearance. And then you go to Clapper and Hayden.
What if he pulls Mueller's?
MELBER: That goes to the Mueller question, which we'll put up on the screen you're saying, Jeremy Bash who was CIA counsel who says my concern "is that trump will strip the clearances of the Bob Mueller investigative team." Give us your analysis on how effective this is, and how Donald Trump seems to be good at doing this bad thing.
PETERS: Well, I think a fundamental problem we have, Ari, is we try to analyze him as a politician. He's not a politician. He's a masterful entertainer. Indeed, he may be the most successful entertainer in history. I mean, back in the '60s John Lennon got in trouble for saying the Beatles are more popular than Jesus. Trump is a lot more popular than the Beatles, and he's commanding headlines daily around the world. What other entertainer can do that? But for me the fundamental problem -- everything else is a symptom.
But this is a president who doesn't like our system of government, who does not understand our system of government, despises the idea of a separation of powers, of sharing power as was said here, and when it comes to the Constitution, he and many of his core supporters think it's a menu. Think can pick what they like. Like the second amendment, but not the first so much. I see them as fundamentally un-American, not always intentionally so, but to just wrap up Trump.
This part, to me, is the most perfect description of Trump's supporters, the core base that will never leave and will follow him into the abyss, and the masterful way he has conned them into the Cult of 45. Read this paragraph. Then read it again. It is the most succinct description.
Trump's genius, and it's been done before by many a dictator, many a -- his genius with his core supporters is that he's offering them absolution. nothing is their fault it's the fault of minorities. It's a fault of the left. It's a fault of the traditional Republicans. It's a fault of immigrants. And his message to them is you're not responsible, whatever failures you've had in your life, whatever bad choices you were, somebody else's fault. He gives them somebody to blame. And at heart his core supporters aren't builders, they're couch potato anarchists who are thrilled to tear things down. He is a potent, destructive force who as you observed.
His core supporters. his supporters come in a lot of different flavors. The core has been told so many times they're entitled to more, that despite their red hats saying America great again, they're not really wild about America. In fact, that's something I charge, I would lay at the feet of the left and the right, We're an ungrateful nation. We're spoiled, And we're crying out that we deserve more. No, we don't. We've lost that fundamental american value, the sense of responsibility, Trump is ultimately the theological anti-Christ of our political scene arguing that "nothing is your fault, I can save you."
This is Trumpism: Nothing is your fault, [Trump] can save you"
And the Cult of 45 believes it.
