Trumpublican Chaos Theory

Definition: Trumpublican. A republican in the age of Trump and typically a Trump supporter. (No offense intended. It just makes a nice portmanteau).

Politics may be defined in a number of ways. I have heard “the art of the possible” for one but it also should be “the art of persuasion”. Persuade me with your argument. Whatever our political leanings we should be aware and beware of tricks. Just in the first week of the 115^th congress we have seen middle of the night sessions to push through unpopular measures. Also tomorrow, January 11, the Trumpublicans have scheduled a flurry of confirmation hearings. Coincidentally, Donald Trump has scheduled his first news conference since his election. Is this like a shell game: move things around real fast so we lose track of events?

But the main thing I wanted to point out in this post is Mr. Trump’s habit of distracting the media (who are eager to follow ‘shiny objects’) with Tweets. Whenever a real Trump news nugget occurs, there seems to be some outrageous Tweets about something else that follow, dominate the news cycle and get the conversation off the more important story. Clever but let’s keep our eye on the important stuff.

I am reminded of a funny trick some guys played when I was a teenager. A guy would come toward me dancing like a boxer saying “Watch my right. Watch my right” and then he would whack me with his left.

Another trick we should be aware of is Mr. Trump’s habit of saying or doing provocative things and then denying it when called out on it. This also is coupled somewhat with the phenomenon of disbelieving the news. More on this in later posts. But the denial of obvious events brings to mind another old memory that has stayed with me over the years.

In the 1967 movie “A Guide for the Married Man”, the wife comes into the bedroom to find her husband in bed with some hot babe. The woman leaves quickly, he casually gets out of bed, gets dressed and goes into the living room and begins to read the newspaper. His wife screams, “Who was that woman?” He calmly replies incredulously, “What woman?”

{Update: I have heard a new term used to describe the attempt to confuse and disorient by means of distraction. "Gaslight" refers to a 1944 movie where a man tries to drive his wife insane by continually lowering the gas lights incrementally and saying there is nothing wrong when she asks about it.}

{Update: I forgot to include this video of a military aircraft throwing out "shiny objects" to distract any incoming heat-seeking missiles. A pretty fancy distraction trick}