Scott Adams (Dilbert): "Her new scare tactics are solid-gold persuasion"

[HereSince1628]

15. Trump isn't nuclear threat to anything but American politics.

For people who make a living in politics that's deadly, but using nukes? I don't think that's going to happen despite what John Yoo thinks about the undeniable power of a vice presidential led cabal of power behind the American presidency.

Trump is channeling his experience as a huckster and America's fascination with wild-cat politicians like Huey Long.

Marketers sell sizzle, not steak. It's all words, the best words, beautiful words, or for that matter sound effects. The sizzle isn't a steak on a grill, it's the amplified sound of water splashed on an old hot plate by Foley men.

And in this Trump is actually providing Americans a tremendous service. He's exposing how vulnerable we are to the empty promises of political marketeers. It's all so much 'nothing burger'. When the water evaporates, it's time to move on to the next splash. And it seems many Americans are attracted to the sound of that sizzle.

He has tremendous support. But he's not selling nuclear war. He's not even really selling walls and travel bans. He's selling the sound of cracking, evaporating water on a hot surface.

And this isn't new so much as it is just way over-the-top. The American electoral system is built on lying by politicians marketing sound-effect sizzling of things we want, but they have no intention of even trying to deliver.

Remember this one?? 'I'll walk on that picket line' if bargaining rights threatened'. Yes. Obama, the campaign of Hope, and Si Puede, it was all an empty promise about shoes he never intended to put on but those words sizzled on the hot dreams in our hearts.

It's the game of politics that Trump is spoiling. He's all lies all the time. Yes his appeal of Making America Great Again is similar in tone to Hitler's, there is even some reason to believe he's actually read and modeled his campaign rhetoric around a collection of Hitler's published speeches. But Trump isn't really going to try to make trains run on time, or push out for national "Living Room" in the manner of Dick Cheney modeled Hitlers invasion of the oil fields of eastern europe, or even threaten China for building artificial islands in the China Sea. None of that interests Trump

Trump wants Americans to spend money on dreams, on the hopes of enjoying a Trump luxury suite after hitting it big in a Trump casino. His interest is primarily his domestic need to put cash behind the debit and credit cards Americans use to send money his way.

Politicians selling empty promises so that politicians can get rich off their influence in building casinos and constructing rules that favor the house isn't new at all. Trump is just over the top brazen about showing how all politics has become almost all sham, and that he's perfectly willing to openly use marketing sizzle to further his personal riches as other politicians try to be dodgey about it.

Trump is threatening the political game not the world.