The second category is more ideological. Trump at his core is a nationalist, and nationalists are especially likely to embrace Enemy Outside stories. In these tales, the conspirators are based outside the community’s gates; if they’re not out to conquer your country, they at least aim to subvert and outwit it. Listen to any Trump speech, and you’re likely to hear some version of this. China is plotting against us. Mexico is deliberately dumping its criminals on our side of the border. Syria’s refugees are a jihadist Trojan horse.
Such stories are central to Trump’s worldview — and to his sales pitch. “I have great respect for China, but their leaders are too smart for our leaders,” he tells us. “Our leaders don’t have a clue.” That quote comes from his Super Tuesday victory speech, but he has said the same thing in countless ways on countless days: We’re being led by weaklings and naifs; I’ll be the tough, smart commander the nation needs. Vote for Trump!
There is a tension here. Those weaklings and naifs, after all, are the same leaders who are supposed to be conniving Machiavellis when it comes to domestic politics — creating false-flag protests, stealing elections, rigging the game. Now, there are ways to resolve that tension without contradiction. Given his string of political victories, Trump can always shrug and say the conspiracy arrayed against him is simply inept. But the tension is there, and it bubbles up most obviously in Trump’s rhetoric about Obama.
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