1) At every “campaign rally” Trump conditions his base to accept evermore egregious boundaries broken, enemies given cover, allies derided, institutions torn down. And conditions them to become more crassly accepting of violence toward the “other.”

2) Trump does this through several methods, all falling from the persuasion/hypnosis playbook. Scott Adams discussed the methodology with @SamHarrisOrg on a podcast. Trump speaks to irrationally aggrieved, uses repetition, floats new concepts dozens of times until they agree.

3) Their agreement is steeped in the fragility of their egos. Once this far in, it is almost impossible to admit they were wrong. Sunk costs include the relationships they’ve torn asunder with Trump fandom).

4) Generally the people in his fan base are less likely to pursue enlightened self-reflection so this is just the water they’re all swimming in. This tendency can exist in any group, but he stokes this ignorance in his base with his own brutish ignorance.

5) They are PROUD of their ignorance, deride intellectual “elites,” science and experts.

6) He floats “President for Life” as a “joke” and then he’ll repeat it as a “joke” until his frenzied mass starts chanting for it.

He’ll lie outright and repeat it so often, the “Colosseum” now cheers for heinous things, systematically stripped of their empathy.

7) That the white supremacists adopted a frog as their representative during the election is appropriate, the water temp is gradually increasing whenever he speaks.

This is the water everyone is swimming in now.

When people make comparisons to Hitler, this is what they mean.

8) He says increasingly troubling things every time he speaks and his followers accommodate a new level of crassness, lying, cruelty. And they claim his voice speaks for them.

And we are discouraged to be surrounded by so many trained sociopaths.

9) We are steeped in selfishness and he is the king of zero sacrifice and supreme entitlement/harm. He has grifted people and companies and govts his entire life.

Now he is kompromat and going to keep stoking the mob to do as much damage as he can as the world closes in on him.

10) For decades it has baffled me that people don’t see through his bullshit.

Lately I’m attributing it to a lack of evolved emotional intelligence.

And it makes me want to get back to my @herominded project even more.

11) We universally admire heroes - those that put the interests of others ahead of themselves - because heroes have protected us and been a huge part of the evolution of civilized society.

But occasionally a villain attains the admiration of the populace...

12) The brutish selfishness of the villain can be attractive to some. It seems strong. It seems to give us permission to be selfish. It harkens back to the most primitive of our survival instincts.

13) But, unexamined, we don’t consider a world where EVERYONE is trying to “get away with” something. If we’re all stealing and conniving and raping and fighting–there is little joy to be found anywhere. It isn’t a life worth living.

This is why we don’t celebrate the villains.

14) So, when you’re insecure or afraid or aggrieved, make sure a selfish, lying, entitled, persuasive, hypnotic grifter doesn’t manipulate those feelings into cruelty toward your fellow humans.

15) Case in point, he’s floating this concept again for the mob. I HATE being right about this. https://twitter.com/thehill/status/994760778967379969